Soup Posted at 2022-12-27 04:54:50(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Please feel free to keep this thread going as some of you have done before, thank you Planet spiralling into star may offer glimpse into Earth's end  An artist's concept of the Kepler-1658 system. Kepler-1658b, orbiting with a period of just 3.8 days, was the first exoplanet candidate discovered by Kepler. Credit: Gabriel Perez Diaz/Instituto de AstrofĂsica de Canarias For the first time astronomers have identified a planet that is spiralling towards a cataclysmic collision with its ageing sun, potentially offering a glimpse into how Earth could end one day. In a new study published on Monday, a team of mostly US-based researchers said they hope the doomed exoplanet Kepler-1658b can help shed light on how worlds die as their stars get older. Kepler-1658b, which is 2,600 light years from Earth, is known as a "hot Jupiter" planet. While similar in size to Jupiter, the planet orbits its host star an eighth of the distance between our Sun and Mercury, making it far hotter than the gas giant in our own Solar System. Kepler-1658b's orbit around its host star takes less than three daysâand it is getting shorter by around 131 milliseconds a year, according to the study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "If it continues spiralling towards its star at the observed rate, the planet will collide with its star in less than three million years," said Shreyas Vissapragada, a postdoc at the HarvardâSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the study's lead author. "This is the first time we've observed direct evidence for a planet spiralling towards its evolved star," he told AFP. An evolved star has entered the "subgiant" phase of the stellar life cycle, when it starts expanding and becoming brighter. Kepler-1658b's orbit is being shortened by the tides, in a similar process to how Earth's oceans rise and fall every day. This gravitational push-and-pull can work both waysâfor example the Moon is very slowly spiralling away from Earth. Earth's 'ultimate adios'? So could Earth be heading towards a similar doom? "Death-by-star is a fate thought to await many worlds and could be the Earth's ultimate adios billions of years from now as our Sun grows older," the Center for Astrophysics said in a statement. Vissapragada said that "in five billion years or so, the Sun will evolve into a red giant star". While the tidally-driven processes seen on Kepler-1658b "will drive the decay of the Earth's orbit towards the Sun," that effect could be counter-balanced by the Sun losing mass, he said. "The ultimate fate of the Earth is somewhat unclear," he added. Kepler-1658b was the first exoplanet ever observed by the Kepler space telescope, which launched in 2009. However it took nearly a decade of work before the planet's existence was confirmed in 2019, the Center for Astrophysics said. Over 13 years, astronomers were able to observe the slow but steady change in the planet's orbit as it crossed the face of its host star. One "big surprise" was that the planet itself is quite bright, Vissapragada said. Previously it had been thought this was because it is a particularly reflective planet, he said. But now the researchers believe the planet itself is far hotter than anticipated, possibly due to the same forces that are driving it towards its star. Last edited by Soup on 2023-02-27 23:53:50 | |
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| MafketelPosted at 2022-12-27 08:26:33(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Lightsaber found on mars PERSEVERANCE ROVER DROPPED A âLIGHTSABERâ ON MARS by Melissa T. Miller Dec 22 2022 ⢠1:51 PM The Perseverance rover on Mars dropped off a tube of rock samples and it looks like it came straight from a galaxy far, far away. Thereâs (probably) no kyber crystals inside, but it bears a strong resemblance to a lightsaber. Somehow we doubt that the design similarities are an accident. Thereâs probably a bunch of Star Wars-loving nerds at NASA geeking out over this moment as well. If youâve seen Apollo 13, youâll know that NASA is also capable of the same kit-bashing skills that led to the iconic lightsaber hilts.  A sample tube dropped on Mars by the Perseverance rover looks just like a lightsaber NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Whether or not the sample holder is meant to look like a lightsaber, the task of returning them to Earth is a big deal. Each hilt (or sample tube) is filled with a sample collected by Perseverance. NASA shares information about each one, including pictures from the rover of the drill site. Not counting the pet rock it picked up in its wheel while roving around Mars, Perseverance has collected 18 samples. The rover dropped the first one at a potential pickup spot near its original landing site. Next, it took the picture above to make sure the sample hadnât rolled under the roverâs wheels. It will drop more lightsabers/tubes over the course of the next two months. But it also holds onto duplicates of each sample in case anything goes wrong. (twitter) Returning the samples to Earth is a long term goal. NASA is aiming to put a lander on Mars in 2028 and the samples may not make it back to Earth until 2033. Even then, scientists would preserve some of the the rocks for decades. That way, they can be analyzed with technology that doesnât even exist yet. Researchers did the same with lunar samples collected by the Apollo program, some of which they are just now studying 50 years later. https://youtube.com/t9G36CDLzIg If you want your own lightsaber/Perseverance sample tube, you can try kit-bashing your own build. Or put one together on your next trip to Saviâs Workshop at Galaxyâs Edge in the Disney theme parks. That way, youâll get to choose what color your lightsaber is. We assume all those coming back from Mars will be red. https://nerdist.com/article/perseverance-rover-dropped-object-looks-like-lightsaber-rock-sample-tube-on-mars/. | |
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| avianaPosted at 2022-12-27 10:16:58(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  As the New Year approaches, bright Mars sits north of the Hyades open cluster, 8° north of mag. +0.8 Aldebaran (Alpha (ι) Tauri). It is also located 9° east of the Pleiades. | |
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| SoupPosted at 2022-12-27 23:41:34(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Is the Milky Way normal? by Scott Alan Johnston, Universe Today  Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi (Wikimedia Commons) Studying the large-scale structure of our galaxy isn't easy. We don't have a clear view of the Milky Way's shape and features like we do of other galaxies, largely because we live within it. But we do have some advantages. From within, we're able to carry out close-up surveys of the Milky Way's stellar population and its chemical compositions. That gives researchers the tools they need to compare our own galaxy to the many millions of others in the universe. This week, an international team of researchers from the U.S., UK, and Chile released a paper that does just that. They dug through a catalog of ten thousand galaxies produced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, searching for galaxies with similar attributes to our own. They discovered that the Milky Way has twinsâmany of themâbut just as many that are only superficially similar, with fundamental differences buried in the data. What they discovered has implications for the future evolution of our own galaxy. Digging through the data To begin their search, the researchers narrowed their sample size by selecting only those galaxies that matched what we know about the Milky Way in three broad categories. First, they filtered for galaxies with a similar total mass to that of the Milky Way. Second, they ruled out galaxies with a vastly different 'bulge-to-total ratio' (the size of the galaxy compared to its bright central core). Finally, they only picked galaxies with a similar Hubble type, a classification system that groups galaxies based on their shape. Some galaxies, like our own, are spiral-shaped, while others, usually older ones, are shaped more like fuzzy blobs, and are known as elliptical galaxies. There are other refinements possible within the Hubble classification system, including bar-shaped centers to some spirals, for example, but the idea was to use the classifications to find rough approximations of the Milky Way from which to begin the more detailed work. At the end of this process, the team was left with 138 galaxies superficially similar to our own. From there, they could dig into the details to see just how close our galactic cousins really are to ourselves. They plugged the data into a model that predicts star formation, taking into account how stellar winds blow excess gas away from star systems, which can be pulled in towards the center of galaxies. The model also accounted for the chemical composition and metallicity of materials within different regions of the galaxies. So what did they find? It turns out that there are indeed galaxies out there that look a lot like ours. 56 of the 138 galaxies in the sample ended up being a close match to home.  A simple representation of Hubble Classifications, with spiral galaxies on the right (barred galaxies on the lower branch) and elliptical galaxies on the left. Credit: Cosmogoblin (Wikimedia Commons) What characterizes these Milky Way-like galaxies is that they have a long timescale in which star formation occurs in their outer regions, steadily birthing new stars in a leisurely fashion. The inner region, on the other hand, experiences a dramatic period of intense star formation early in the galaxy's history, spurred on by a flow of gas being pulled inward towards the center from the outer region. Later, a much slower period of star formation in the core occurred, relying on recycled gas blown off of older stars in the outer region. These new stars, made of recycled material, have a higher level of metallicity, with heavier elements grafted into them that were lacking in the initial generation of stars. We see this pattern here at home in our own galaxy too. But this isn't true for all 138 galaxies studied. A significant fraction of the galaxies which at first glance appeared similar to the Milky Way ended up looking very different on closer inspection. These fall into two categories. The first category (consisting of 55 of the 138 galaxies) are galaxies that appear to have no differentiation at all between their inner and outer regions. These galaxies are experiencing star formation uniformly, in a long slow extended process without the wild burst in the core. In these galaxies, stars in both the inner and outer regions appear identical. The second category, meanwhile, consists of what are known as 'centrally-quenched' galaxies (27 of 138), and these are perhaps the strangest of the bunch. These outliers seem to lack any significant period of recent star formation from recycled material in their cores, meaning that the radial inflow of gas from the outer regions that we see in the Milky Way isn't occurring in these galaxies. One consistent feature of these centrally-quenched galaxies is that they appear, as a rule, to have completed most of their star formation in the past, hinting that perhaps they might be older than the Milky Way. If that's true, perhaps we are looking at the Milky Way's own future. Our galaxy may someday also end up with a quenched center, and these galaxies therefore represent a preview of the next stage of galactic evolution. "Perhaps these galaxies are the evolutionary successors of the Milky Way, which are further along in their lives," write the authors. They also pose some other possible explanations, such as an overly active galactic nucleus that might subdue star formation in the inner regions of the galaxies. There's still much to learn, but this study offers a lot of new possibilities to chew on when it comes to galactic evolution. Fundamentally, it shows that we are not entirely unique. There is an enormous variety of galaxy types in the universe, but at least some of them play by the same rules as the Milky Way, and many are at the same life stage. Studying these look-alikes can help us learn more about our own home, giving us the next best thing to holding our galaxy up to a mirror and showing us our reflection. The paper, "Are Milky-Way-like galaxies like the Milky Way? A view from SDSS-IV/MaNGA," is available in preprint format on arXiv. | |
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| DarkAngiePosted at 2022-12-27 23:47:18(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  Explanation: Star formation can be colorful. This chromatic cosmic portrait features glowing gas and dark dust near some recently formed stars of NGC 3572, a little-studied star cluster near the Carina Nebula. Stars from NGC 3572 are visible near the bottom of the image, while the expansive gas cloud above is likely what remains of their formation nebula. The image's striking hues were created by featuring specific colors emitted by hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, and blending them with images recorded through broadband filters in red, green, and blue. This nebula near NGC 3572 spans about 100 light years and lies about 9,000 light years away toward the southern constellation of the Ship's Keel (Carina). Within a few million years the pictured gas will likely disperse, while gravitational encounters will likely disperse the cluster stars over about a billion years. | |
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| SoupPosted at 2022-12-28 00:44:41(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Precise FAST observations reveal circular polarization in active repeating fast radio bursts by Li Yuan, Chinese Academy of Sciences  Artist's impression of FAST detecting the circular polarization from two active repeating FRBs with PRSs. Credit: Science Bulletin (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2022.11.014 A research team led by Prof. Li Di from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) has revealed circular polarization in active repeating fast radio bursts based on precise observations of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). Their findings were published in Science Bulletin. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are the most luminous radio flashes in the universe. The estimated equivalent energy of one FRB event can rival the energy output the sun over a whole day or even a month to a year. Since the first FRB was reported in 2007, more than 600 FRB sources have been discovered, the majority of which have only been detected once. Fewer than 5% of all FRBs have repeated bursts, among which fewer than 10 can be described as active. As one of the basic properties of electromagnetic waves, polarization carries critical information about FRBs' intrinsic properties and their environments. Many common light sources, including incandescent light bulbs and most stars such as our sun, emit unpolarized light. Linear polarization has been detected in almost all repeating FRBs. Circular polarization, however, remains relatively rare. Only one repeating FRB, namely FRB20201124A, has been reported with circular polarization. FRB20121102A is the first known repeater. FRB20190520B, discovered by the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey (CRAFTS), is the first persistently active repeater known. They are the only repeaters found to be associated with persistent radio sources (PRSs), which could be a sign of their youthfulness and related to their hyper-active nature. FAST managed to capture extremely active episodes for these two FRBs, which has allowed for precise characterization of their polarization. Through systematic data analysis, the researchers detected circular polarization in less than 5% of the bursts from both FRBs. The maximum degree of circular polarization was as much as 64%. The large degree of circular polarization disfavors multi-path propagation as the cause. The currently viable hypotheses include Faraday conversion and/or a radiation mechanism intrinsic to the source. As of now, circular polarization occurs apparently more often in non-repeaters than in repeaters. The conditions for generating circular polarization in repeating FRBs should thus be rarer. This work increases the number of repeating FRBs with circular polarization from one to three. The detection of circular polarization in FRB20121102A, 20190520B, and 20201124A may suggest that circular polarization is a common trait, although occurring sporadically, in repeating FRBs. Further systematic and precise characterization of polarization by FAST will shed new light on the emission mechanism of FRBs and eventually help reveal the origin of such mysterious events in our dynamic universe. | |
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| RatsoPosted at 2022-12-28 02:41:20(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Interesting, though I have no idea of what it all means! | |
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| SoupPosted at 2022-12-28 02:43:51(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Just join in the thread, add things that build the topic  | |
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| SoupPosted at 2022-12-28 02:50:18(101Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Hubble Views a Billowing Cosmic Cloud  A small, dense cloud of gas and dust called CB 130-3 blots out the center of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. CB 130-3 is an object known as a dense core, a compact agglomeration of gas and dust. This particular dense core is in the constellation Serpens and seems to billow across a field of background stars. Dense cores like CB 130-3 are the birthplaces of stars and are of particular interest to astronomers. During the collapse of these cores enough mass can accumulate in one place to reach the temperatures and densities required to ignite hydrogen fusion, marking the birth of a new star. While it may not be obvious from this image, a compact object teetering on the brink of becoming a star is embedded deep within CB 130-3. Astronomers used Hubbleâs Wide Field Camera 3 to better understand the environment surrounding this fledgling star. As this image shows, the density of CB 130-3 isnât constant; the outer edges of the cloud consist of only tenuous wisps, whereas at its core CB 130-3 blots out background light entirely. The gas and dust making up CB 130-3 affect not only the brightness but also the apparent color of background stars, with stars toward the cloudâs center appearing redder than their counterparts at the outskirts of this image. Astronomers used Hubble to measure this reddening effect and chart out the density of CB 130-3, providing insights into the inner structure of this stellar nursery. Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA) Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA & STScI, C. Britt, T. Huard, A. Pagan Last edited by Soup on 2022-12-28 02:51:15 | |
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| miokPosted at 2022-12-29 12:18:25(100Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  Credit: Bob Fugate | |
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| BeowulfPosted at 2022-12-29 14:07:18(100Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows Sh 2-106, or S106 for short. This is a compact star forming region in the constellation Cygnus (The Swan). A newly-formed star called S106 IR is shrouded in dust at the centre of the image, and is responsible for the surrounding gas cloudâs hourglass-like shape and the turbulence visible within. Light from glowing hydrogen is coloured blue in this image. Credit:NASA & ESA | |
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| GarthockPosted at 2022-12-29 20:23:57(100Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope The dawn of a new era in astronomy has begun as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of NASAâs James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). The telescopeâs first full-color images and spectroscopic data were released during a televised broadcast at 10:30 a.m. EDT (14:30 UTC) on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, from NASAâs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. These listed targets below represent the first wave of full-color scientific images and spectra the observatory has gathered, and the official beginning of Webbâs general science operations. They were selected by an international committee of representatives from NASA, ESA, CSA, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. These first images from the worldâs largest and most powerful space telescope demonstrate Webb at its full power, ready to begin its mission to unfold the infrared universe.      NASAâs James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webbâs First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies â including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared â have appeared in Webbâs view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at armâs length by someone on the ground. | |
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| BeowulfPosted at 2022-12-31 10:31:04(100Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  Using a ground-based telescope, an international team of astronomers has detected traces of an atmosphere around an exoplanet located 39 light-years away. This exoplanet is not much larger than our own, making it the most Earth-like planet known to harbor an atmosphere. Detecting atmospheres around distant exoplanets isnât anything special, particularly when the exoplanet in question is as big as Saturn or Jupiter. But as for smaller, Earth-sized planets, thatâs a different story. | |
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| avianaPosted at 2022-12-31 11:53:05(100Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| How to observe the lunar occultation of Uranus on 1 January 2023   Where the occultation is visible in the UK. The transition or graze line between near-miss and full occultation runs from Pembroke in south Wales, through the Midlands and East Anglia, leaving the east coast near Lowestoft. Anywhere south of this line sees a near-miss; those further north see a full occultation. The deepest occultation will be seen from northern Scotland, with disappearance at 22:13 UT and reappearance at 23:10 UT. For those in the middle of the UK, the event runs from 22:26 UT to 23:04 UT, but as you get closer to the transition zone the time difference between disappearance and reappearance narrows. | |
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| panosolPosted at 2023-01-02 12:11:01(100Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  On Feb. 12, 1984, astronaut Bruce McCandless, ventured further away from the confines and safety of his ship than any previous astronaut had ever been. This space first was made possible by a nitrogen jet propelled backpack, previously known at NASA as the Manned Manuevering Unit or MMU. After a series of test maneuvers inside and above Challenger's payload bay, McCandless went "free-flying" to a distance of 320 feet away from the Orbiter. This stunning orbital panorama view shows McCandless out there amongst the black and blue of Earth and space. Image Credit: NASA | |
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| BeowulfPosted at 2023-01-02 13:55:48(100Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  NASA's planet-finding Spitzer Telescope has picked up infrared light in a pattern that suggests a giant lump of material is forming in an otherwise smooth disk of debris around a star. Is somebody building an Orbital? Above you can see a gorgeous rendition of what Spitzer saw, by a NASA artist, showing what is happening. Often disks of debris form around stars, and over millions of years solidify into lumps that turn into planets. In the case of young star LRLL 31, astronomers observed the lump forming within weeks - extremely unusual behavior. They speculate that this unusual pattern is probably caused by a companion planet or star whose gravitational pull is distorting the disk. | |
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| BeowulfPosted at 2023-01-04 13:36:03(99Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| NASA Newly Released Photos of Galaxies From The James Webb Space Telescope With Details   NASA has released the first incredible and awe-inspiring photos from deep space that were shot by the James Webb Space Telescope. They show distant galaxies billions of light-years away. I canât even wrap my brain around this stunning detail. But, it certainly makes me feel like everything else in life is so little. | |
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| SoupPosted at 2023-01-05 00:28:35(99Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Hubble finds that ghost light among galaxies stretches far back in time by ESA/Hubble Information Centre  These are Hubble Space Telescope images of two massive clusters of galaxies named MOO J1014+0038 (left panel) and SPT-CL J2106-5844 (right panel). The artificially added blue color is translated from Hubble data that captured a phenomenon called intracluster light. This extremely faint glow traces a smooth distribution of light from wandering stars scattered across the cluster. Billions of years ago the stars were shed from their parent galaxies and now drift through intergalactic space. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, James Jee (Yonsei University) In giant clusters of hundreds or thousands of galaxies, innumerable stars wander among the galaxies like lost souls, emitting a ghostly haze of light. These stars are not gravitationally tied to any one galaxy in a cluster. The nagging question for astronomers has been: how did the stars get so scattered throughout the cluster in the first place? Several competing theories include the possibility that the stars were stripped out of a cluster's galaxies, or they were tossed around after mergers of galaxies, or they were present early in a cluster's formative years many billions of years ago. A recent infrared survey from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which looked for this so-called "intracluster light" sheds new light on the mystery. The new Hubble observations suggest that these stars have been wandering around for billions of years, and are not a product of more recent dynamical activity inside a galaxy cluster that would strip them out of normal galaxies. The survey included 10 galaxy clusters as far away as nearly 10 billion light-years. These measurements must be made from space because the faint intracluster light is 10,000 times dimmer than the night sky as seen from the ground. The survey reveals that the fraction of the intracluster light relative to the total light in the cluster remains constant, looking over billions of years back into time. "This means that these stars were already homeless in the early stages of the cluster's formation," said James Jee of Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. His results are being published in the January 5 issue of Nature magazine. Stars can be scattered outside of their galactic birthplace when a galaxy moves through gaseous material in the space between galaxies, as it orbits the center of the cluster. In the process, drag pushes gas and dust out of the galaxy. However, based on the new Hubble survey, Jee rules out this mechanism as the primary cause for the intracluster star production. That's because the intracluster light fraction would increase over time to the present if stripping is the main player. But that is not the case in the new Hubble data, which show a constant fraction over billions of years.  Image of galaxy clusters MOO J1014+0038 (left panel) and SPT-CL J2106-5844 (right panel) captured by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, with color key, compass arrows, and scale bar for reference. This image shows near-infrared wavelengths of light. The color key shows which filters were used when collecting the light. The color of each filter name is the color used to represent the wavelength that passes through that filter. The compass graphic points to the object's orientation on the celestial sphere. North points to the north celestial pole which is not a fixed point in the sky, but it currently lies near the star Polaris, in the circumpolar constellation Ursa Minor. Celestial coordinates are analogous to a terrestrial map, though east and west are transposed because we are looking up rather than down. The scale bar is labeled in light-years (ly) and parsecs (pc). Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, James Jee (Yonsei University) "We don't exactly know what made them homeless. Current theories cannot explain our results, but somehow they were produced in large quantities in the early universe," said Jee. "In their early formative years, galaxies might have been pretty small and they bled stars pretty easily because of a weaker gravitational grasp." "If we figure out the origin of intracluster stars, it will help us understand the assembly history of an entire galaxy cluster, and they can serve as visible tracers of dark matter enveloping the cluster," said Hyungjin Joo of Yonsei University, the first author of the paper. Dark matter is the invisible scaffolding of the universe, which holds galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, together. If the wandering stars were produced through a comparatively recent pinball game among galaxies, they do not have enough time to scatter throughout the entire gravitational field of the cluster and therefore would not trace the distribution of the cluster's dark matter. But if the stars were born in the cluster's early years, they will have fully dispersed throughout the cluster. This would allow astronomers to use the wayward stars to map out the dark matter distribution across the cluster. This technique is new and complementary to the traditional method of dark matter mapping by measuring how the entire cluster warps light from background objects due to a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Intracluster light was first detected in the Coma cluster of galaxies in 1951 by Fritz Zwicky, who reported that one of his most interesting discoveries was observing luminous, faint intergalactic matter in the cluster. Because the Coma cluster, containing at least 1,000 galaxies, is one of the nearest clusters to Earth (330 million light-years), Zwicky was able to detect the ghost light even with a modest 18-inch telescope. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's near-infrared capability and sensitivity will greatly extend the search for intracluster stars deeper into the universe, and therefore should help solve the mystery. | |
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| SoupPosted at 2023-01-05 03:21:48(99Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Are black holes time machines? Yes, but there's a catch by Sam Baron, The Conversation  Credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center / Jeremy Schnittman Black holes form natural time machines that allow travel to both the past and the future. But don't expect to be heading back to visit the dinosaurs any time soon. At present, we don't have spacecraft that could get us anywhere near a black hole. But, even leaving that small detail aside, attempting to travel into the past using a black hole might be the last thing you ever do. What are black holes? A black hole is an extremely massive object that is typically formed when a dying star collapses in on itself. Like planets and stars, black holes have gravitational fields around them. A gravitational field is what keeps us stuck to Earth, and what keeps Earth revolving around the Sun. As a rule of thumb, the more massive an object is, the stronger its gravitational field. Earth's gravitational field makes it extremely difficult to get to space. That's why we build rockets: we have to travel very fast to break out of Earth's gravity. The gravitational field of a black hole is so strong that even light can't escape it. That's impressive, since light is the fastest thing known to science! Incidentally, that's why black holes are black: we can't bounce light off a black hole the way we might bounce a torch light off a tree in the dark. Stretching space Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity tells us matter and energy have a curious effect on the universe. Matter and energy bend and stretch space. The more massive an object is, the more space is stretched and bent around it. A massive object creates a kind of valley in space. When objects come near, they fall into the valley. That's why, when you get close enough to any massive object, including a black hole, you fall towards it. It's also why light can't escape a black hole: the sides of the valley are so steep that light isn't going fast enough to climb out. The valley created by a black hole gets steeper and steeper as you approach it from a distance. The point at which it gets so steep that light can't escape is called the event horizon. Event horizons aren't just interesting for would-be time travellers: they're also interesting for philosophers, because they have implications for how we understand the nature of time.  Massive objects (like planets, stars and black holes) create âvalleysâ in space. Credit: Shutterstock When space is stretched, so is time. A clock that is near a massive object will tick slower than one that is near a much less massive object. A clock near a black hole will tick very slowly compared to one on Earth. One year near a black hole could mean 80 years on Earth, as you may have seen illustrated in the movie Interstellar. In this way, black holes can be used to travel to the future. If you want to jump into the future of Earth, simply fly near a black hole and then return to Earth. If you get close enough to the centre of the black hole, your clock will tick slower, but you should still be able to escape so long as you don't cross the event horizon. Loops in time What about the past? This is where things get truly interesting. A black hole bends time so much that it can wrap back on itself. Imagine taking a sheet of paper and joining the two ends to form a loop. That's what a black hole seems to do to time. This creates a natural time machine. If you could somehow get onto the loop, which physicists call a closed timelike curve, you would find yourself on a trajectory through space that starts in the future and ends in the past. Inside the loop, you would also find that cause and effect get hard to untangle. Things that are in the past cause things to happen in the future, which in turn cause things to happen in the past! The catch So, you've found a black hole and you want to use your trusty spaceship to go back and visit the dinosaurs. Good luck. There are three problems. First, you can only travel into the black hole's past. That means that if the black hole was created after the dinosaurs died out, then you won't be able to go back far enough. Second, you'd probably have to cross the event horizon to get into the loop. This means that to get out of the loop at a particular time in the past, you'd need to exit the event horizon. That means travelling faster than light, which we're pretty sure is impossible. Third, and probably worst of all, you and your ship would undergo "spaghettification". Sounds delicious, right? Sadly, it's not. As you crossed the event horizon you would be stretched flat, like a noodle. In fact, you'd probably be stretched so thin that you'd just be a string of atoms spiralling into the void. So, while it's fun to think about the time-warping properties of black holes, for the foreseeable future that visit to the dinosaurs will have to stay in the realm of fantasy. | |
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| avianaPosted at 2023-01-05 11:02:01(99Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| There is no brighter constellation in the night sky than Orion, the Hunter. And there is no better time to view Orion than an early evening in February, so bundle up!  The map is accurate for any location at a so-called âmid northernâ latitude. That includes anywhere in the 48 U.S.states, southern Canada, central and southern Europe, central Asia, and Japan. If you are located substantially north of these areas, objects on our map will appear lower in your sky, some objects near the horizon will not be visible at all. If you are substantially south of these areas, everything on our map will appear higher in your sky. | |
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| BeowulfPosted at 2023-01-08 07:47:37(99Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  The four Auxiliary Telescopes at ESOâs Paranal Observatory can be seen gazing up to the night sky in this Picture of the Week. With dark and pristine skies, Paranal is one of the best places on Earth to study the universe from. As seen in this spectacular image, the view is really full to the brim of exciting things to look at. For instance, take a closer look to the right of the Milky Way band, at the two clouds that look like galactic fireworks. These are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, dwarf galaxies that are trapped by the gravity of the Milky Way. In the Mapuche language in south-central Chile they are known as lafken, labken or kĂźnchalabken (âthe lagoonsâ), and also rĂźnanko (âthe water wellsâ). Peering closer to the horizon we see subtle shades of green and red, but what is it? This is called airglow and is faint light emitted atoms and molecules in the atmosphere. This can happen through various mechanisms, like interaction with solar radiation or chemical reactions between molecules. Green airglow comes from oxygen atoms, whereas the red one is due to both oxygen atoms and hydroxyl molecules. Check this ESO cast to learn more about how airglow is created and why Chile is a particularly good place to see it. | |
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| BeowulfPosted at 2023-01-14 10:39:59(98Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  In this Picture of the Week we peer closer into the galaxy UGC 4211, where astronomers have discovered two supermassive black holes on the verge of merging, separated by just 750 lightyears â the closest to have been found to date using multiple wavelengths and less than half of the previous record. They used ESOâs Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which ESO is a partner, and other telescopes to detect the bright light produced as the black holes engulf material in their vicinity. Both of the images shown here were made using data from the MUSE instrument on ESOâs VLT in Chile. The left image shows a classical view of this galaxy, with dust lanes obscuring starlight. The image on the right shows emission from oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen in blue, green and red respectively. Red indicates areas of star formation, and the bright white central region indicates the presence of two supermassive black holes swallowing material from their surroundings. Combining data from the VLT, ALMA and other telescopes, a team led by Michael Koss at Eureka Scientific in the US could identify these two black holes and study them in detail. These black holes likely found each other when their host galaxies collided and merged. Observing this system will help improve our understanding of how galaxies and their supermassive black holes grow as they merge. | |
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| SoupPosted at 2023-01-17 03:31:15(98Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Images capture 850-year-old aftermath of stellar collision by Morgan Kelly, Dartmouth College  The unusual fireworks-like structure of nebula Pa 30 may result from the merger of two dying stars. Credit: Robert Fesen A Dartmouth professor's images of the explosive aftermath from the collision of two dying stars could help scientists better understand this rare type of astronomical eventâand may finally confirm the identity of a brilliant but short-lived star observed nearly 850 years ago. Robert Fesen, a professor of physics and astronomy, captured telescopic images that show a fireworks-like burst of thin filaments radiating from a highly unusual star at the center of an object called Pa 30, according to findings he announced Jan. 12 at the 241st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Fesen is lead author of a paper reporting the findings that has been submitted to the The Astrophysical Journal Letters for publication. Pa 30 is a dense region of illuminated gas, dust and other matter known as a nebula. Fesen and his co-authors report that Pa 30 appears to contain little to no hydrogen and helium but is instead rich in the elements of sulfur and argon. The nebula's unusual structure and characteristics match the predicted result of a collision between end-stage stars known as white dwarfs, Fesen said. White dwarfs are faint, extremely dense stars about the size of Earth that contain the mass of the Sun. The merger of two white dwarfs is one proposed explanation for a subclass of supernovaeâor star explosionsâcalled Iax events, in which the star is not completely destroyed, Fesen said. "I have never seen any objectâand certainly no supernova remnant in the Milky Way galaxyâthat looks quite like this, and neither have any of my colleagues," Fesen said. "This remnant will allow astronomers to study a particularly interesting type of supernova that up to now they could only investigate from theoretical models and examples in distant galaxies." The size of Pa 30 and the speed at which it is expandingâabout 2.4 million miles per hourâsuggest the explosive collision occurred around the year 1181, the researchers report. That coincides with observations by Chinese and Japanese astronomers at the time of a very bright star that suddenly appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia and was visible for about six months as it slowly faded. These fleeting stars are known as "guest stars." The images Fesen captured of the nebula's structure and luminosity not only provide the most accurate estimate yet of its age, but also could allow astronomers to refine existing models of white dwarf mergers. Pa 30 was discovered in 2013 by co-author and amateur astronomer Dana Patchick, but up until now, images of the nebula had shown only an extremely faint and diffuse object, Fesen said. "Our deeper images show that Pa 30 is not only beautiful, but now that we can see the nebula's true structure, we can investigate its chemical makeup and how the central star generated its remarkable appearance, then compare these properties to predictions from specific models of rare white dwarf mergers," Fesen said. Fesen took the images of Pa 30 in late 2022 using the 2.4-meter Hiltner Telescope at the MDM Observatoryâwhich Dartmouth owns and operates with four other universitiesâadjacent to Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. Fesen equipped the telescope with an optical filter sensitive to a particular emission line of sulfur. He captured Pa 30 in three 2,000-second exposures under very clear skies and took additional data on the nebula's structure, size and velocity. The study by Fesen and his co-authors built upon work published in 2019 by Russian researchers who found an extremely unusual star nearly in the dead center of Pa 30. That star exhibited several properties suggesting the collision of two white dwarfs, and it had a surface temperature of nearly 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit with an astounding outflowing wind velocity of about 35 million miles per hour. In 2021, astronomers from the University of Hong Kong that had revisited the Russian team's results reported that Pa 30 was roughly 1,000 years old and in nearly the same sky location as the guest star recorded in 1181. These researchers proposed that Pa 30 is the aftermath of a white dwarf collision that lit up the night sky nearly a millennium ago, though their margin of error on its age was 300 years. "Our new observations put a much tighter constraint on the object as having an expansion age of around 850 years, which is perfect for it to be the remains of the 1181 guest star," Fesen said. To the ancient astronomers, the new star would have been nearly as bright as, or brighter than, Vega, the fifth-brightest star in the sky as seen from Earth. "The guest star was bright enough that three separate groups in China observed it within a couple of days of each other and it also was seen in Japan," Fesen said. "A new star as bright as Vega would've been quite noticeable. To the ancients, their TV set was the sky, so they would've easily noticed and certainly recorded the sudden appearance of a bright new star in the heavens." | |
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| BeowulfPosted at 2023-01-18 17:54:45(97Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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|  The constellation of Orion (The Hunter) is one of the most recognisable collections of stars in the night sky. We have noted Orionâs prominent stars for tens of thousands of years at least, and likely far longer. Chinese astronomers called it ĺ县 or ShÄn, literally âthree starsâ, for its three bright dots (which form the Hunterâs belt). The ancient Egyptians regarded it as the gods Sah and Sopdet, manifestations of Osiris and Isis, respectively, whereas Greek astronomers saw a brave hunter â the eponymous Orion â with his sword above his head, ready to strike. Mythology aside, Orion is a fascinating patch of sky. This image, from ESO's Very Large Telescope, shows a reflection nebula nestled at the heart of the constellation â NGC 2023. Located close to the well-known Horsehead and Flame Nebulae, NGC 2023 lurks about 1500 light-years away from Earth, and is one of the largest reflection nebulae in the sky. Reflection nebulae are clouds of interstellar dust that reflect the light from nearby or internal sources, like fog around a car headlight. NGC 2023 is illuminated by a massive young star named HD 37903. The star is extremely hot â several times hotter than the Sun â and its bright blue-white light causes NGC 2023âs milky glow. Such nebulae are often the birthplaces of stars, and contain a clumpy distribution of gas thatâs significantly denser than the surrounding medium. Under the influence of gravity, these clumps attract one another and merge, eventually creating a new star. In a few million years time, Orion's Belt may gain a new star! The image was taken with the VLTâs FORS (FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph) instrument as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme. This initiative produces images of interesting and visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESOâs science archive. Credit: ESO | |
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| SoupPosted at 2023-01-18 23:51:00(97Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Billions of celestial objects revealed in gargantuan survey of the Milky Way by Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)  This image, which is brimming with stars and dark dust clouds, is a small extractâa mere pinprickâof the full Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey (DECaPS2) of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objectsâarguably the largest such catalog so far. The data for this unprecedented survey were taken with the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NOIRLab. Credit: DECaPS2 / DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA. Image processing: M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF's NOIRLab) Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objectsâarguably the largest such catalog so far. The data for this unprecedented survey were taken with the Dark Energy Camera, built by the US Department of Energy, at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NOIRLab. The Milky Way Galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, glimmering star-forming regions, and towering dark clouds of dust and gas. Imaging and cataloging these objects for study is a herculean task, but a newly released astronomical dataset known as the second data release of the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey (DECaPS2) reveals a staggering number of these objects in unprecedented detail. The DECaPS2 survey, which took two years to complete and produced more than 10 terabytes of data from 21,400 individual exposures, identified approximately 3.32 billion objectsâarguably the largest such catalog compiled to date. Astronomers and the public can explore the dataset here. This unprecedented collection was captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) instrument on the VĂctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF's NOIRLab. CTIO is a constellation of international astronomical telescopes perched atop Cerro Tololo in Chile at an altitude of 2200 meters (7200 feet). CTIO's lofty vantage point gives astronomers an unrivaled view of the southern celestial hemisphere, which allowed DECam to capture the southern Galactic plane in such detail. DECaPS2 is a survey of the plane of the Milky Way as seen from the southern sky taken at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. The first trove of data from DECaPS was released in 2017, and with the addition of the new data release, the survey now covers 6.5% of the night sky and spans a staggering 130 degrees in length. While it might sound modest, this equates to 13,000 times the angular area of the full moon. The DECaPS2 dataset is available to the entire scientific community and is hosted by NOIRLab's Astro Data Lab, which is part of the Community Science and Data Center. Interactive access to the imaging with panning/zooming inside of a web-browser is available from the Legacy Survey Viewer, the World Wide Telescope and Aladin. Most of the stars and dust in the Milky Way are located in its diskâthe bright band stretching across this imageâin which the spiral arms lie. While this profusion of stars and dust makes for beautiful images, it also makes the Galactic plane challenging to observe. The dark tendrils of dust seen threading through this image absorb starlight and blot out fainter stars entirely, and the light from diffuse nebulae interferes with any attempts to measure the brightness of individual objects. Another challenge arises from the sheer number of stars, which can overlap in the image and make it difficult to disentangle individual stars from their neighbors. Despite the challenges, astronomers delved into the Galactic plane to gain a better understanding of our Milky Way. By observing at near-infrared wavelengths, they were able to peer past much of the light-absorbing dust. The researchers also used an innovative data-processing approach, which allowed them to better predict the background behind each star. This helped to mitigate the effects of nebulae and crowded star fields on such large astronomical images, ensuring that the final catalog of processed data is more accurate.  Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objectsâarguably the largest such catalog so far. The data for this unprecedented survey were taken with the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NOIRLab. For reference, a low-resolution image of the DECaPS2 data is overlaid on an image showing the full sky. The callout box is a full-resolution view of a small portion of the DECaPS2 data. Credit: Credit:DECaPS2 / DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / E. Slawik. Image processing: M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF's NOIRLab) "One of the main reasons for the success of DECaPS2 is that we simply pointed at a region with an extraordinarily high density of stars and were careful about identifying sources that appear nearly on top of each other," said Andrew Saydjari, a graduate student at Harvard University, researcher at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, and lead author of the paper. "Doing so allowed us to produce the largest such catalog ever from a single camera, in terms of the number of objects observed." "When combined with images from Pan-STARRS 1, DECaPS2 completes a 360-degree panoramic view of the Milky Way's disk and additionally reaches much fainter stars," said Edward Schlafly, a researcher at the AURA-managed Space Telescope Science Institute and a co-author of the paper describing DECaPS2 published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement. "With this new survey, we can map the three-dimensional structure of the Milky Way's stars and dust in unprecedented detail."  Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objectsâarguably the largest such catalog so far. The data for this unprecedented survey were taken with the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NOIRLab. The survey is here reproduced in 4000-pixels resolution to be accessible on smaller devices. Credit: DECaPS2 / DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab NSF / AURA Image processing: M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF's NOIRLab) "Since my work on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey two decades ago, I have been looking for a way to make better measurements on top of complex backgrounds," said Douglas Finkbeiner, a professor at the Center for Astrophysics, co-author of the paper, and principal investigator behind the project. "This work has achieved that and more." "This is quite a technical feat. Imagine a group photo of over three billion people and every single individual is recognizable," says Debra Fischer, division director of Astronomical Sciences at NSF. "Astronomers will be poring over this detailed portrait of more than three billion stars in the Milky Way for decades to come. This is a fantastic example of what partnerships across federal agencies can achieve." Last edited by Soup on 2023-01-18 23:55:03 | |
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