Astronomy
- ESO telescope captures the most detailed infrared map ever of our Milky Waywww.eso.org ESO telescope captures the most detailed infrared map ever of our Milky Way
Astronomers have published a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects ― the most detailed one ever made. Using the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope, the team monitored the central regions of our Galaxy over more than 13 years. At 500 terabytes of...
- Betelgeuse has a tiny companion star hidden in plain sightwww.sciencenews.org Betelgeuse has a tiny companion star hidden in plain sight
Betelgeuse has a sequel — in the form of a companion star that's about the same mass as the sun, orbiting it about once every 2,100 days.
- One year into mission, XRISM reveals movements of cosmic material around supernova remnant and black hole - NASASpaceFlight.comwww.nasaspaceflight.com One year into mission, XRISM reveals movements of cosmic material around supernova remnant and black hole - NASASpaceFlight.com
In September 2023, the joint Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), European Space Agency (ESA), and…
- Jets From Black Holes Cause Stars to Explode, Hubble Revealsgizmodo.com Jets From Black Holes Cause Stars to Explode, Hubble Reveals
The jets of material that spew from black holes catalyze stellar eruptions, surprising astronomers and raising questions about the jets' role in the universe.
cross-posted from: https://dubvee.org/post/1964912
> Black hole jets, which spew near-light-speed particle beams, can trigger nearby white dwarf stars to explode by igniting hydrogen layers on their surfaces. "We don't know what's going on, but it's just a very exciting finding," said Alec Lessing, an astrophysicist at Stanford University and lead author of a new study describing the phenomenon, in an ESA release. Gizmodo reports: > > In the recent work -- set to publish in The Astrophysical Journal and is currently hosted on the preprint server arXiv -- the team studied 135 novae in the galaxy M87, which hosts a supermassive black hole of the same name at its core. M87 is 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun and was the first black hole to be directly imaged, in work done in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. The team found twice as many novae erupting near M87's 3,000 light-year-long plasma jet than elsewhere in the galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope also directly imaged M87's jet, which you can see below in luminous blue detail. Though it looks fairly calm in the image, the distance deceives you: this is a long tendril of superheated, near-light speed particles, somehow triggering stars to erupt. > > Though previous researchers had suggested there was more activity in the jet's vicinity, new observations with Hubble's wider-view cameras revealed more of the novae brightening -- indicating they were blowing hydrogen up off their surface layers. "There's something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood. Maybe the jet somehow snowplows hydrogen fuel onto the white dwarfs, causing them to erupt more frequently," Lessing said in the release. "But it's not clear that it's a physical pushing. It could be the effect of the pressure of the light emanating from the jet. When you deliver hydrogen faster, you get eruptions faster." The new Hubble images of M87 are also the deepest yet taken, thanks to the newer cameras on Hubble. Though the team wrote in the paper that there's between a 0.1% to 1% chance that their observations can be chalked up to randomness, most signs point to the jet somehow catalyzing the stellar eruptions.
- Dark Matter Black Holes Could Fly through the Solar System Once a Decadewww.scientificamerican.com Dark Matter Black Holes Could Fly through the Solar System Once a Decade
The universe’s hidden mass may be made of black holes, which could wobble the planets of the solar system when they pass by
> Black holes the size of an atom that contain the mass of an asteroid may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade, scientists say. Theoretically created just after the big bang, these examples of so-called primordial black holes could explain the missing dark matter thought to dominate our universe. And if they sneak by the moon or Mars, scientists should be able to detect them, a new study shows.
- Astronomers discover biggest ever seen black hole jets, which blast hot plasma well beyond their own host galaxyphys.org Astronomers discover biggest ever seen black hole jets, which blast hot plasma well beyond their own host galaxy
Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen, spanning 23 million light-years in total length. That's equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back to back.
- Starlink is increasingly interfering with astronomy, scientists saywww.semafor.com Starlink is increasingly interfering with astronomy, scientists say | Semafor
Astronomers have long criticized the satellites for being too bright, making it harder to see the universe.
- Elon Musk destroys astronomy
> Observations with the LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) radio telescope last year showed that first generation Starlink satellites emit unintended radio waves that can hinder astronomical observations. New observations with the LOFAR radio telescope, the biggest radio telescope on Earth observing at low frequencies, have shown that the second generation ’V2-mini’ Starlink satellites emit up to 32 times brighter unintended radio waves than satellites from the previous generation, potentially blinding radio telescopes and crippling vital research of the Universe.
- Astronomers detect black hole 'starving' its host galaxy to deathphys.org Astronomers detect black hole 'starving' its host galaxy to death
Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new stars. The results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.
- Earth to have new mini-moon for two monthsphys.org Earth to have new mini-moon for two months
A pair of asteroid dynamics researchers from Universidad Complutense de Madrid Ciudad Universitaria have found that a small asteroid will make one orbit around the Earth starting this month before departing back into other parts of the solar system.
- European Satellite Burns Up for Sciencespectrum.ieee.org European Satellite Burns Up for Science
ESA researchers pioneering re-entry science chase real-world data to the edge of space
- Tiny glass beads suggest the moon had active volcanoes when dinosaurs roamed Earthapnews.com Tiny glass beads suggest the moon had active volcanoes when dinosaurs roamed Earth
New research suggests that volcanoes were still erupting on the moon when dinosaurs roamed Earth. Researchers based their conclusion on an analysis of tiny glass beads brought back from the moon by a Chinese spacecraft.
- NASA's solar sail successfully spreads its wings in spacewww.space.com NASA's solar sail successfully spreads its wings in space
Spacecraft data has confirmed successful deployment of the futuristic technology.
- Highest-resolution black hole images ever taken usher in a new erawww.earth.com Highest-resolution black hole images ever taken usher in a new era
The Event Horizon Telescope team achieves unprecedented resolution and opens new windows to supermassive black hole studies.
- Researchers identify effective materials for protecting astronauts from harmful cosmic radiation on Marsphys.org Researchers identify effective materials for protecting astronauts from harmful cosmic radiation on Mars
Researchers have identified specific materials, including certain plastics, rubber, and synthetic fibers, as well as Martian soil (regolith), which would effectively protect astronauts by blocking harmful space radiation on Mars. These findings could inform the design of protective habitats and spac...
cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/16484
- Scientist performs the first nonlinear study of black hole mimickersphys.org Scientist performs the first nonlinear study of black hole mimickers
In recent research, a scientist from Princeton University has performed the first nonlinear study of the merger of a black hole mimicker, aiming to understand the nature of gravitational wave signals emitted by these objects, which could potentially help to identify black holes more accurately.
- Senate bill would create center to study satellite interference with astronomyspacenews.com Senate bill would create center to study satellite interference with astronomy
Legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate would create a new center devoted to protecting astronomy from interference caused by satellite constellations.
- Using small black holes to detect big black holesphys.org Using small black holes to detect big black holes
An international team of astrophysicists with the participation of the University of Zurich proposes a novel method to detect pairs of the biggest black holes found at the centers of galaxies by analyzing gravitational waves generated by binaries of nearby small stellar black holes. The research is ...
- From a Million Miles Away, NASA Camera Shows Moon Crossing Face of Earth - NASAwww.nasa.gov From a Million Miles Away, NASA Camera Shows Moon Crossing Face of Earth - NASA
A NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a unique view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth
- 25 Images for Chandra's 25thchandra.harvard.edu Chandra :: Photo Album :: 25 Images for Chandra's 25th :: July 22, 2024
Information about the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched on July 23, 1999, its mission and goals, and the people who built it.
- Perseverance rover find intriguing Mars rock
As always with these news it is still too early to draw conclusions: more analysis and tests are necessary.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-perseverance-rover-scientists-find-intriguing-mars-rock/
- Another intermediate-mass black hole discovered at the centre of our galaxyportal.uni-koeln.de Another intermediate-mass black hole discovered at the centre of our galaxy
So far, only about ten intermediate-mass black holes have been discovered in the entire universe / The newly identified black hole causes surrounding stars in a cluster to move in an unexpectedly orderly way
- Suprising obvious fact: The Sun is a Star
I was about 30 years old when I talked to my mother about some program on TV about astronomy when she mentioned that our sun is a star. It's like all the other stars we see during the night, it's just closer to us so it appears bigger. My mind was blown. I didn't understand how I could have lived for 30 years and never thought this thought.
Yesterday me and our 10 years old were talking about the universe and things in it, and I mentioned to her that our sun is just a star like all the other ones we see during the night. I saw that her mind was as blown as mine was back when my mom told me this fact.
Actually even in the song "Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are." it encourages us to think about this fact, but it took me 30 years to do so.
- NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers a Surprise in a Martian Rockwww.jpl.nasa.gov NASA’s Curiosity Rover Discovers a Surprise in a Martian Rock
Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulfur — a first on the Red Planet.
- Pluto's not coming back, but astronomers want to redefine planets again
A group of astronomers want to change the definition of a planet. Their new proposed definition wouldn't bring Pluto back into the planetary fold, but it could reclassify thousands of celestial bodies across the universe. From a report:
> The International Astronomical Union's (IAU) current definition of a planet, established in 2006, includes only celestial bodies that are nearly round, are gravitationally dominant and orbit our Sun. This Sun-centric definition excludes all of the bodies we've discovered outside our solar system, even if they may fit all other parameters. They are instead considered exoplanets. Those behind the new proposal critiqued the IAU's definition in an upcoming paper in the Planetary Science Journal, arguing it's vague, not quantitative and unnecessarily exclusionary.
Their new proposal would instead classify planets based on their mass, considering a planet to be any celestial body that:
- orbits one or more stars, brown dwarfs or stellar remnants and,
- is more massive than 10ÂÂ kilograms (kg) and,
- is less massive than 13 Jupiter masses (2.5 X 10^28Âkg).
- Hubble finds strong evidence for intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauriesahubble.org Hubble finds strong evidence for intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauri
An international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spanning two decades to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. These stars provide compelling new evid...
- Jump Into A Black Hole With NASA’s Incredible New Visualizationwww.iflscience.com Jump Into A Black Hole With NASA’s Incredible New Visualization
You can also just fly around it, if you prefer not to visualize oblivion.
- Astronomers discover two new Milky Way satellite galaxy candidatesphys.org Astronomers discover two new Milky Way satellite galaxy candidates
For years, astronomers have worried about how to explain why the Milky Way has fewer satellite galaxies than the standard dark matter model predicts. This is called the "missing satellites problem."
- Astronomers think they’ve figured out how and when Jupiter’s Red Spot formedarstechnica.com Astronomers think they’ve figured out how and when Jupiter’s Red Spot formed
Astronomers concluded it is not the same and that Cassini's spot disappeared in 1708.
The planet Jupiter is particularly known for its so-called Great Red Spot, a swirling vortex in the gas giant's atmosphere that has been around since at least 1831. But how it formed and how old it is remain matters of debate. Astronomers in the 1600s, including Giovanni Cassini, also reported a similar spot in their observations of Jupiter that they dubbed the "Permanent Spot." This prompted scientists to question whether the spot Cassini observed is the same one we see today. We now have an answer to that question: The spots are not the same, according to a new paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
- 7 bizarre facts about the Solar System to stump any scientistbigthink.com 7 bizarre facts about the Solar System to stump any scientist
From the coldest planets to spacecraft that have exited the Solar System, these little-known facts stump even many professional astronomers.
- New Type Ia supernova discoveredphys.org New Type Ia supernova discovered
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) have discovered a new supernova. Designated SN 2023adsy, the newfound stellar explosion is the most distant Type Ia supernova so far detected. The finding was detailed in a research paper publ...
- [Scott Manley] How Failed Gyros Are Making Hubble's Life Harder
YouTube Video
Click to view this content.
Another interesting video from Scott Manley.
- Webb identifies surprising carbon-rich ingredients around young star - NASASpaceFlight.comwww.nasaspaceflight.com Webb identifies surprising carbon-rich ingredients around young star - NASASpaceFlight.com
Using the joint NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) James Webb…
- "How I Found A 55 Year Old Bug In The First Lunar Lander Game" by Martin C. Martinmartincmartin.com How I Found A 55 Year Old Bug In The First Lunar Lander Game
Just months after Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk, Jim Storer, a Lexington High School student in Massachusetts, wrote the first Lunar Landing game. By 1973, it had become “by far an…
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/18298626
> "I recently explored the optimal fuel burn schedule to land as gently as possible and with maximum remaining fuel. Surprisingly, the theoretical best strategy didn’t work. The game falsely thinks the lander doesn’t touch down on the surface when in fact it does. Digging in, I was amazed by the sophisticated physics and numerical computing in the game. Eventually I found a bug: a missing “divide by two” that had seemingly gone unnoticed for nearly 55 years."