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Tag: Astronomy

  • Starlink Satellites Ruin Astronomy Photos

    Starlink Satellites Ruin Astronomy Photos

    A Space X Starlink satellite is being blamed for ruining photos of the NEOWISE comet.

    Space X, Amazon and a number of other companies are racing to deploy networks of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites to provide high-speed internet access. Unfortunately, however, they may have a significant downside.

    Astronomers have warned that tens of thousands of objects orbiting the planet could have a disastrous impact on efforts to observe the universe. Many of the satellites are highly reflective, possibly creating light interference. Even ones designed not to be reflective, can still physically interfere with line-of-sight if their orbit takes them between an observer and the object being observed. It appears those concerns are not without merit.

    According to The International Business Times, astrophotographer Daniel Lopez was recording pictures of NEOWISE when Starlink comments passed in from of the comet. The end result was photos with light streaks from the satellites, effectively blocking a good shot of NEOWISE.

    As more and more companies gain permission to launch satellites, this issue will need to be addressed. Otherwise, astronomers may find their profession exponentially more difficult.

  • Musk Promises No Starlink Impact on Astronomy

    Musk Promises No Starlink Impact on Astronomy

    Elon Musk has promised that Starlink will have “zero” impact on astronomy amid growing concerns the satellites could impede researchers.

    Starlink is the satellite constellation that Musk’s other company, SpaceX, is sending into orbit. SpaceX is launching batches of dozens of satellites at a time. The company has initial permission to launch 12,000 satellites, with the goal being to eventually launch as many as 42,000 satellites, far more than the 2,000 active satellites currently in orbit. The company’s goal is to use the satellites to provide high-speed internet access to under-served communities around the world.

    Astronomers, however, have raised concerns that having that many satellites in orbit could severely impede research of the cosmos by preventing instruments from getting a clear view of the sky. As Digital Trends points out, this is especially a problem for long-exposure images, where the satellites show up as streaks. There are also concerns they could interfere with the radio waves astronomers rely on.

    According to Forbes, at the 2020 Satellite Conference, Elon Must insisted that Starlink will not cause problems and the company will be aggressive in addressing any issues.

    “I am confident that we will not cause any effect whatsoever in astronomical discoveries,” Musk said. “Zero. That’s my prediction. We’ll take corrective action if it’s above zero.”

    Musk highlighted the company’s work on using a darkening treatment to minimize reflections, and raised the possibility of a “sunshade.”

    “We’re launching a sunshade, changing the color of the satellite… aesthetically this should not be an impact.”

    It remains to be seen if SpaceX can deliver on Musk’s promise, although the future of the company’s planned expansion likely rides on the outcome.

  • Halley’s Comet To Leave Orionids Meteor Shower Today

    Halley’s Comet is one of the most popular meteors that pass near the Earth, and it has been doing so for centuries. However, because it is only visible every 75 years, do not expect to get a glimpse of it more than twice in an entire lifetime.

    However, a report says that aside from the arrival of the actual meteor, another awaited phenomenon is the Orionids shower. These smaller meteors come from Halley’s comet, and pass through the Earth’s atmosphere, forming a meteor shower that lasts for hours.

    Usually, the meteor shower consists of about 20 “shooting stars” per hour, although that may not be the case this year. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said that the number of shooting stars might be fewer, and the Orionids would show “weaker activity” than usual. “Bits of comet dust hitting the atmosphere will probably give us about a dozen meteors per hour,” said Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office. Orionids are reportedly very quick, with speeds reaching up to 150,000mph, and as a result, they may burn up even before they hit the lower parts of the atmosphere, or the ground.

    In these cases, the shooting stars are said to leave smoke-like marks across the sky.

    Unlike the actual meteors shooting from the sky, meteor smoke is much easier to spot because it lasts a bit longer.

    The Orionids meteor shower from the Halley’s Comet will reportedly begin Wednesday night and last until early Thursday morning. Interested stargazers can check the constellations of Orion and Gemini because this is the region from where the Orionids usually fall.

    Meanwhile, the Perseids already fell in August and just in time for the new moon, while the Geminids meteor shower is expected to arrive in December.

    For astronomy enthusiasts who await Halley’s Comet, which last appeared in 1986, they will have to wait until 2061 to see it.

  • Annie Jump Cannon Gets Google Doodle On 151st Birthday

    Annie Jump Cannon is the subject of a doodle today on Google’s homepage, as the search giant celebrates her 151st birthday.

    Cannon was an astronomer whose work was considered instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. She, along with Edward C. Pickering, is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme. This is said to be the first “serious attempt” to organize and classify stars based on temperature.

    Cannon’s astronomy career spanned 40 years, and during that time, helped women gain respect within the scientific community. She died in 1941, the year after she retired. The American Astronomical Society presents an award in her name to female astronomers each year.

    Space has been of particular interest lately when it comes to Google doodles. The company recently ran one to celebrate the Philae probe, which soft-landed on a comet.

    Image via Google

  • Hubble Space Telescope: Deep Field Image Brightened With Ultraviolet Light

    The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) is one of the most iconic and impressive images ever taken of deep space. The image, taken of a tiny section of the southern sky, shows thousands of galaxies, putting the vastness of space into perspective for humans. Now astronomers have improved upon this classic image, adding a wider range of colors to the mix.

    Astronomers working with NASA and the ESA this week revealed an updated image of the HUDF. The new image combines older images of the field with a new one layering on ultraviolet light seen in the field. Previously the HUDF image was composed of visible light and near-infrared light images taken of the field in 2003 and 2012.

    Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014

    The 2014 image will now allow astronomers to study even younger galaxies located in the HUDF. By looking at the ultraviolet spectrum, astronomers will be able to identify which galaxies have hotter, larger, younger stars and therefore the galaxies that are in the midst of greater star formation.

    “The lack of information from ultraviolet light made studying galaxies in the HUDF like trying to understand the history of families without knowing about the grade-school children,” said Harry Teplitz, principal investigator for the Hubble Space Telescope and an astronomer at Caltech. “The addition of the ultraviolet fills in this missing range.”

    The Hubble Space Telescope has been the workhorse of visible-light astronomy for over two decades. Along with the decade-old Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have surveyed much of the sky in visible and infrared light. Astronomers are currently waiting on the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018, which will be more powerful than both the Hubble and the Spitzer telescopes.

    “Ultraviolet surveys like this one using the unique capability of Hubble are incredibly important in planning for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope,” said Rogier Windhorst, a Hubble team member and an astronomer at Arizona State University. “Hubble provides an invaluable ultraviolet light dataset that researchers will need to combine with infrared data from Webb. This is the first really deep ultraviolet image to show the power of that combination.”

    Image via NASA, ESA, H. Teplitz and M. Rafelski (IPAC/Caltech), A. Koekemoer (STScI), R. Windhorst (Arizona State University), and Z. Levay (STScI)

  • Ganymede Sea Could Be Layered and Harbor Life

    Ganymede Sea Could Be Layered and Harbor Life

    For decades now Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has been one of the more interesting objects in our solar system. The moon is one of the few that is known to have a large ocean beneath an icy layer, leading to speculation that primitive life may have evolved somewhere inside.

    This week astronomers have announced a discovery that increases the likelihood that Ganymede harbors life. A new study published in the journal Planetary and Space Science has developed a model of Ganymede’s seas that is layered between sheets of ice.

    “Ganymede’s ocean might be organized like a Dagwood sandwich,” said Steve Vance, lead author of the study and a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “This is good news for Ganymede. Its ocean is huge, with enormous pressures, so it was thought that dense ice had to form at the bottom of the ocean. When we added salts to our models, we came up with liquids dense enough to sink to the sea floor.”

    Vance and his colleagues looked at how dense saltwater ice might behave in the deep high-pressure oceans on Ganymede. Using a new computer model of the moon they showed that the crystal structure of such ice can make it more dense than water, causing the ice to sink. The phenomenon is strange enough that lighter ice formed at the bottom of the sea might actually “snow” upward through the sea.

    The new findings do not count out possible life in Ganymede’s seas, and could in fact support such ideas. According to the new study the water nearest to Ganymede’s core could be salt water, making the possibility of life more likely than if this layer were simply ice.

    The study’s authors also believe these findings could apply to many of the “super-Earth” exoplanets that have been discovered in recent years. A few of these planets have been found orbiting in their star’s habitable zone, meaning liquid water could be maintained on or within them.

    Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech

  • Mars, Earth, And Sun All Set To Form Cosmic Alignment Called An ‘Opposition’

    Mars, Earth, And Sun All Set To Form Cosmic Alignment Called An ‘Opposition’

    A rare astronomical event that takes place about every 26 months is set to happen on Tuesday, April 8th.

    Dubbed an “Opposition of Mars”, this spacial phenomenon involves the alignment of Mars with the Earth every 778 days. On this day, Mars, Earth, and the sun form a straight line. Since the Earth is closer than Mars is to the sun, it completes its orbit in just 365 days, compared to Mars’ 687. This fact makes the occurrence of an Opposition rare, which is why it happens only once every couple of years.

    Six days after the Opposition, Mars and Earth will have slightly moved along their respective orbits; however, due to the eccentric nature of Mars’ orbit, it will be relatively closer to Earth than it usually is.

    It was German astronomer Johannes Kepler who discovered that some planets have slightly elliptical orbits around the sun. At perihelion, a planet is at its closest point to the sun, while at aphelion, a planet is farthest from the sun. Planets such as Venus and Earth follow circular paths, while others like Mars and Mercury have more elliptical orbits.

    Another rare spacial event known as the “Blood Moon” is also due to take place on April 15th. This total lunar eclipse will project the moon as a deep red object that is completely buried in the Earth’s shadow.

    The unique appearance of the moon during this event has made the “blood moon” phenomenon quite popular in certain religious faiths. Since the early ages, the “blood moon” has served as a sign of ominous events, like the apocalypse. In Christianity, numerous biblical verses in the Book of Revelations depict the “blood moon” as the onset of the world’s end and the second coming of Jesus Christ.

    In Judaism, the “blood moon” coincides with a few major feast days including the Jewish Passover and the Feast of the Tabernacle.

    Image via YouTube

  • Moon Water May Not Be As Abundant As First Thought

    In the latest twist surrounding the composition of the moon, scientists have discovered the possibility of the Earth and moon sharing the same source of water. A scientific paper entitled The Lunar Apatite Paradox contains findings of a new study that a common method for approximating the water content in lunar rocks could be flawed.

    Apatite is a type of calcium phosphate mineral that can be found in terrestrial rocks, as well as the bones and teeth of humans. According to Allah H. Treiman of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in NASA, apatite is formed through the crystallization of lunar magma.

    Several rock samples were retrieved by various Apollo missions, and these samples were examined to determine the moon’s environment. Numerous scientists had initially predicted that the moon was bone dry, but that notion changed in 2010, when scientists analyzed hydrogen-abundant apatite found within pieces of lunar rocks. After this examination, some scientists claimed that the moon could have a moist environment.

    However, there is a possibility that this method is inaccurate as the amount of hydrogen found within apatite crystals is a result of an unconventional crystallization process. UCLA geochemist and Paradox lead author Dr. Jeremy Boyce added that apatite is a “funny” mineral in that it follows a specific order in incorporating chlorine, fluorine, and hydrogen – fluorine first, then chlorine, then last is hydrogen.

    Apatite only gets large amounts of hydrogen when the other two elements have been exhausted.

    Apatite in its early stages of formation is so rich with fluorine that it empties the magma of all the fluorine. In the later stages of formation, apatite does not contain any fluorine or chlorine, and therefore becomes rich with hydrogen.

    As a result, the lack of chlorine and fluorine causes the formation of hydrogen-rich apatite, although that does not automatically translate to a moist moon.

    Origins Of Moon’s Water Explored

    Image via YouTube

  • Ring System Spotted Around Asteroid

    Ring System Spotted Around Asteroid

    Astronomers today revealed that an asteroid in the outer solar system has been confirmed to have its own Saturn-like ring system. The new findings have been published today in the journal Nature.

    The asteroid, named Chariklo, is a minor planet that orbits the sun between Saturn and Uranus. The object is also classified as a “centaur,” one of the many small objects that orbit between Jupiter and Neptune, many of which were recently discovered to be comets. Chariklo is the largest of these Centaurs.

    The discovery marks just the fifth object in our solar system to have a confirmed ring system. Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus are the only other objects known to have rings. Astronomers had previously searched for rings around minor planets and asteroids, but found none.

    “We weren’t looking for a ring and didn’t think small bodies like Chariklo had them at all, so the discovery – and the amazing amount of detail we saw in the system – came as a complete surprise,” said Felipe Braga-Ribas, lead author on the paper and an astronomer at the Observatório Nacional in Rio de Janeiro.

    Chariklo’s rings system was observed by telescopes in South American while passing in front of a distant star on June 3, 2013. Astronomers were able to observe that the asteroid has two distinct, thin rings that are from three to seven kilometers wide and separate by only nine kilometers.

    In addition to the rings discovery, astronomers were able to measure the size and shape of Chariklo itself. The asteroid is 250 kilometers in diameter.

    The paper’s authors were not able to determine why Chariklo’s rings exist, but they did speculate that the rings could be made up of debris left over after a collision that affected the asteroid. The astronomers went on to speculate that the gap between the rings may hold one or many small moons and that the rings may eventually form a moon.

    “For me, it was quite amazing to realize that we were able not only to detect a ring system, but also pinpoint that it consists of two clearly distinct rings,” said Uffe Gråe Jørgensen, a member of the research team an an astronomer at the Niels Bohr Institute. “I try to imagine how it would be to stand on the surface of this icy object – small enough that a fast sports car could reach escape velocity and drive off into space – and stare up at a 20-kilometer wide ring system 1000 times closer than the Moon.”

    Image via ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser/Nick Risinger

  • Moon Craters Mapped by Amateurs as Well as the Pros

    Moon Craters Mapped by Amateurs as Well as the Pros

    CosmoQuest, a collective of amateur astronomers that identify and map craters on various space objects, including the moon, has gotten so adept in their studies that their data has been used in scientific research and at times published.

    Stuart Robbins, a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics who led a comparative study between amateur and professional astronomy research stated, “What we can say is that a very large group of volunteers was able to chart these features on the moon just as well as professional researchers. More importantly, we now have evidence that we can use the power of crowdsourcing to gather more reliable data from the moon than we ever thought was possible before.”

    CosmoQuest’s mission is to “create a community of people bent on together advancing our understanding of the universe; a community of people who are participating in doing science, who can explain why what they do matters, and what questions they are helping to answer. We want to create a community, and here is where we invite all of you to be a part of what we’re doing.”

    The collective also offers online classes via its CosmoAcademy portal, and has submitted various stargazing tutorials via social media:

    Robbins and his team gauged the findings of thousands of CosmoQuest members against that of eight scientists, using pictures taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. While amateur volunteers and scientists saw vastly different numbers of craters in the study area, averages for the two groups were statistically aligned. Robbins’ team called the results “reassuring” for CosmoQuest, which has crater-mapping projects for the moon, Mercury and the protoplanet Vesta.

    Pamela Gay, who runs CosmoQuest out of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville said, “Put simply, the sky is large, and astronomers need all the help the public can offer.”

    The study was published on March 4th in the online science journal Icarus.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Largest Yellow Star Yet Seen Spotted in Binary System

    Astronomers this week revealed that they have spotted the largest yellow star ever seen. The object is more than 1300 times the diameter of our Sun and is also one million times brighter. It is also one of the ten largest stars ever discovered. The new observations are to be published in the journal Astronomy & Physics.

    The star is located around 12,000 light-years from our solar system and has been designated HR 5171 A. The discovery was made using the Very Large Telescope array in Chile.

    HR 5171 A is even more unique due to being part of a binary star system. The new observations show that the star is so large that it and its partner star are actually touching.

    “The new observations also showed that this star has a very close binary partner, which was a real surprise,” said Olivier Chesneau, lead author of the paper and an Astronomer at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur. “The two stars are so close that they touch and the whole system resembles a gigantic peanut.”

    HR 5171 A is one of a very rare group of stars that astronomers refer to as yellow “hypergiants.” The largest of stars are more commonly red or blue in color. According to researchers,the yellow hypergiants are rare because they represent a quickly-passing phase in the life of some stars that are both unstable and undergoing rapid changes. In this case, HR 5171 A is cooling as its companion star strips off the star’s outer layers.

    “The companion we have found is very significant as it can have an influence on the fate of HR 5171 A, for example, stripping off its outer layers and modifying its evolution,” said Chesneau.

    Image via ESO

  • No “Planet X” Found in WISE Data

    No “Planet X” Found in WISE Data

    For decades before Pluto, Eris, and other distant objects in our solar system were discovered, astronomers had posited that there must be another planet beyond Neptune that would make observed orbital calculations for Neptune and Uranus add up. This planet was dubbed “Planet X” and was searched for extensively during the late 19th century. The search was largely abandoned when better measurements were obtained and the icy dwarf planets beyond Neptune were discovered.

    NASA today confirmed that astronomers have seen no evidence of a hidden Planet X in new data from its Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) sky survey. The survey extensively observed the sky above Earth in infrared light but found no evidence of such an object. More specifically, new research published in the Astrophysical Journal confirms that no objects larger than Saturn exists within 10,000au of Earth and no objects larger than Jupiter have been found within 26,000au of Earth.

    This doesn’t mean that the entire survey was a waste of time, though. Researchers have been using the WISE data to uncover thousands of new nearby celestial objects that had, until now, been overlooked. So far 3,525 new stars and brown dwarfs have been pinpointed using recent WISE data, all of them within 500 light years of our sun. A binary system of two brown dwarfs has been discovered to be just 6.5 light-years from our solar system. Also, a star only 20 light-years away was located in the constellation Norma.

    “Neighboring star systems that have been hiding in plain sight just jump out in the WISE data,” said Ned Wright, principal investigator for the WISE survey and an astronomer at UCLA.

    Astronomers were able to discover the new nearby objects by comparing the new WISE data to a previous WISE survey. The shift in position that objects show between the data can reveal just how close they are to the Earth.

    Image via DSS/NASA/JPL-Caltech

  • Distant Black Hole Spin Measured by Astronomers

    Astronomers this week revealed that the spin of a very distant black hole has been directly measured. The new measurement is part of a new report published this week in the journal Nature and should help cosmologists further investigate the characteristics and evolution of black holes.

    The spin of black hole/quasar RX J1131-1231 was measured by University of Michigan astronomer Rubens Reis and his colleagues. The object resides around six billion light years from our solar system, making the measurement more difficult. Previously only black holes up to 4.7 billion light years away had had their spin measured.

    The researchers were able to measure the spin of this specific black hole due to its specific location. The line-of-sight to the black hole from Earth passes through a giant galaxy that acts as a gravitational lens. This allowed the astronomers to study RX J1131-1231 as if it were much closer than it is.

    “Because of this gravitational lens, we were able to get very detailed information on the X-ray spectrum – that is, the amount of X-rays seen at different energies – from RX J1131,” said Mark Reynolds, a co-author of the study and an astronomer at Michigan. “This in turn allowed us to get a very accurate value for how fast the black hole is spinning.”

    According to NASA, the spin of a black hole can help astronomers determine how a black hole has grown in the past and how it may evolve into the future. RX J1131-1231 was measured as spinning very rapidly at over half the speed of light.

    Image courtesy NASA/CXC/Univ of Michigan/R.C.Reis et al/STSc

  • Huge Weather Explosions Observed on Venus

    Huge Weather Explosions Observed on Venus

    Researchers this week announced that they have uncovered a striking phenomenon on the planet Venus.

    Using the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express spacecraft, scientists have observed giant weather explosions coming from the top of Venus’ atmosphere. The explosions are called hot flow anomalies and the ones seen coming off Venus are frequent and often larger than the planet itself.

    “Not only are they gigantic,” said Glyn Collinson, lead author of a paper on the discovery published in the Journal of Geophysical Research and a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “But as Venus doesn’t have a magnetic field to protect itself, the hot flow anomalies happen right on top of the planet. They could swallow the planet whole.”

    Hot flow anomalies observed on Venus are so large that they were seen pulling up the outer layer of the planet’s atmosphere, called the ionosphere. The anomalies can cause events at a huge scale on Venus, sometimes even causing the ionosphere to pull away from the planet’s surface.

    Hot flow anomalies are also observed lifting out of the Earth’s atmosphere, but at a much smaller scale. According to NASA, Earth is largely protected from solar winds by its magnetosphere. Venus has no comparable atmospheric layer, meaning that pressure differences between the planet’s atmosphere and solar winds can easily be disrupted by hot flow anomalies, producing the spectacular weather events described in the new research.

    Image via NASA

  • New Research Reveals Supernova Secrets

    New Research Reveals Supernova Secrets

    Supernovae seem easy enough to understand. Stars age, using up all of their fusion fuel and burst in a fiery display that helps to create the wide variety of elements seen throughout the universe. The trouble is, astronomers don’t yet actually understand the fine details that well.

    Today astronomers got a bit closer to unravelling the mysteries of these stellar events, courtesy NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). The X-ray observatory has been used to create the first-ever map of radioactivity in a supernova remnant.

    Astronomers used NuSTAR to observe Cassiopeia A, an object formed from the remains of a huge star that went supernova. The event is still fairly young, with the light from the event having reached earth within just the past few hundred years.

    Using the observatory researchers were able to map the location of the radioactive element titanium-44 throughout the supernova remnant. What they found was that the titanium is primarily located in “clumps” near the objects center.

    “Stars are spherical balls of gas, and so you might think that when they end their lives and explode, that explosion would look like a uniform ball expanding out with great power,” said Fiona Harrison, co-author of a paper on the observations set to be published in Nature and a principal investigator for NuSTAR at the California Institute of Technology. “Our new results show how the explosion’s heart, or engine, is distorted, possibly because the inner regions literally slosh around before detonating.”

    This observation calls into question several proposed models of how supernovae occur and could help astronomers determine exactly how the star that caused Cassiopeia A went supernova. The research may also help fine-tune computer models of supernovae that have failed to recreate the supernova remnants observed in reality.

    “This is why we built NuSTAR,” said Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics at NASA. “To discover things we never knew – and did not expect – about the high-energy universe.”

    Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/CXC/SAO

  • Asteroid 2014: Cosmic Monster Missed Earth This Morning

    A couple million miles may not sound like much of a “close call” with an asteroid.

    But compare it to the vast and empty light years upon light years surrounding this oxygenated rock ball we ride around on in infinite space, and 1.6 million miles isn’t much wiggle room between us and a structure racing past at 27,000 miles per hour.

    At three football fields in diameter, this near-miss is exactly what the asteroid 2000 EM26 did when it whizzed by Earth during the witching hours Tuesday morning.

    Unfortunately, the Canary Islands based robotic telescope service that was meant to photograph the asteroid malfunctioned. At the climactic moment, the equipment froze over and couldn’t capture 2000 EM26 (which means that super cool above image isn’t the actual behemoth sky boulder – sorry ’bout it).

    “We continue to discover these potentially hazardous asteroids – sometimes only days before they make their close approaches to Earth,” said Paul Cox, technical and research director of Slooh – which tracks potentially hazardous objects in space.

    Cox went on to say, “Slooh’s asteroid research campaign is gathering momentum with Slooh members using the Slooh robotic telescopes to monitor this huge population of potentially hazardous space rocks.

    Bob Berman, a Slooh astronomer, added: “On a practical level, a previously unknown, undiscovered asteroid seems to hit our planet and cause damage or injury once a century or so, as we witnessed on June 20, 1908, and February 15, 2013.”

    The latter date Berman is referring to is, of course, Russia’s meteor encounter from roughly a year ago:

    Despite its smaller length of 65 feet, that rock still managed some damage. When it exploded over Chelyabink, it reportedly did so with the power of about 20 atomic bombs. The blast shattered glass, leaving more than 1,500 with injuries – and even more with concerns about our sitting-duck status against astral assailants.

    Although 2000 EM26 posed no planetary threat upon its passing, Cox stresses that the search for celestial threats is ongoing:

    “We need to find them before they find us!”

    Image via Youtube

  • Yet Another Early-Universe Galaxy Has Been Spotted

    Astronomers this week revealed that yet another galaxy from the very early universe has been spotted.

    The galaxy, dubbed Abell2744_Y1, is estimated to have existed just 650 million years after the big bang, which took place 13.8 billion years ago. The object was spotted during a survey of the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster using the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The new observations are set to be published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters.

    “We expected to find very distant galaxies close to the cluster core, where the light amplification is maximum,” said Nicolas Laporte, lead author on the paper and a post-doctoral student at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain. “However, this galaxy is very close to the edge of the Hubble image where the light is not strongly amplified. We are really lucky that we could find it in the small field of view of Hubble.”

    Like other ancient galaxies, Abell2744_Y1 is much smaller than modern galaxies. Astronomers estimate the galaxy’s size at around 30 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy. However, star formation within Abell2744_Y1 is much higher than in more established galaxies, with estimates of around 10 times the star production of the Milky Way.

    These new findings are some of the first to come out of the Hubble Frontier Fields project. The project is set to combine the powers of the Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra space telescope over five years as they survey galaxy clusters. Such clusters function as gravitational lenses that amplify light around them, allowing astronomers to observe even more distant objects.

    Image via NASA/ESA/J. Lotz/M. Mountain/A. Koekemoer/Nicolas Laporte et al./IAC

  • “Wobbly” Planet Spotted in Binary Star System

    “Wobbly” Planet Spotted in Binary Star System

    NASA this week revealed that the Kepler Space Telescope has spotted a planet with a very erratic orbit. The planet, named Kepler-413b, orbits around a pair of stars and performs what astronomers are describing as a wobble as its spins.

    The planet’s binary system is located 2,300 light-years from our system and contains two dwarf stars, one orange and one red. Kepler-413b orbits the stars at an angle slightly shifted (2.5 degrees) from the plane of its stars’ orbits. Viewed from the side-on it would appear that the planet moves up and down constantly while revolving around its stars every 66 days. Meanwhile, the planet is processing rapidly, with its spin axis tilting by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years.

    “Looking at the Kepler data over the course of 1,500 days, we saw three transits in the first 180 days — one transit every 66 days — then we had 800 days with no transits at all,” said Veselin Kostov, principal investigator of the phenomenon and an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University. “After that, we saw five more transits in a row.”

    The reason for Kepler-413b’s tilted orbit is still eluding astronomers. Hypotheses for the phenomenon include the interference of other planets in the system or a third star that is influencing its orbit.

    According to astronomers, Kepler-413b would be wholly unsuitable for life as we know it. The planet’s erratic orbit would mean rapid shifts in seasons. In addition, the planet is a gas giant 65 times the mass of Earth that orbits its stars so closely that liquid water cannot exist on it.

    “Presumably there are planets out there like this one that we’re not seeing because we’re in the unfavorable period,” said Peter McCullough, a colleague of Veselin’s at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “And that’s one of the things that Veselin is researching: Is there a silent majority of things that we’re not seeing?”

    Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech

  • NASA Crowdsources WISE Data Mining

    NASA Crowdsources WISE Data Mining

    NASA this week announced a new website, DiskDetective.org. The website allows visitors to help NASA researchers cull through data to help uncover young systems that could one day spawn planets.

    “Through Disk Detective, volunteers will help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope,” said James Garvin, chief scientist for the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

    The images on the Disk Detective website come from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. From 2010 to 2011 the WISE spacecraft conducted a comprehensive survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths, imaging more than 745 million objects.

    Now, the Disk Detective website will allow everyone to help sort these objects by category. What astronomers are looking for are bright objects that appear to be planetary systems in-utero. With millions of candidates to sort through and computer techniques insufficient they are relying on the eyes of volunteers to crowdsource the research and find targets for future observations.

    “Planets form and grow within disks of gas, dust and icy grains that surround young stars, but many details about the process still elude us,” said Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist Goddard. “We need more examples of planet-forming habitats to better understand how planets grow and mature.”

    According to NASA, the Disk Detective project is another in a new commitment by the U.S. government to open data and crowdsourcing. NASA has used crowdsourcing to forward scientific research in the past. Most notably the agency set up a crowdsourcing effort to help with the classification of interstellar clouds.

    Image via NASA

  • Water Vapor Discovered on Dwarf Planet Ceres

    Astronomers today announced that water vapor has been detected around Ceres. Ceres is the largest object in our solar system’s asteroid belt and has been classified as a dwarf planet, like Pluto.

    The discovery is the first time water vapor has been detected around an object in the asteroid belt. The findings, published in the journal Nature, could provide significant data on how our solar system formed. The water vapor on Ceres was detected using the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel space observatory.

    “Herschel’s discovery of water vapour outgassing from Ceres gives us new information on how water is distributed in the Solar System,” said Göran Pilbratt, a Herschel project scientist at ESA. “Since Ceres constitutes about one fifth of the total mass of asteroid belt, this finding is important not only for the study of small Solar System bodies in general, but also for learning more about the origin of water on Earth.”

    Astronomers currently believe that Ceres has some ice on its surface, and these new observations show that nearly all of the water vapor detected on Ceres is coming from two locations on its surface. These regions are slightly darker than average for Ceres’ surface, indicating that they may absorb more sunlight, leading to water vapor through a process called sublimation. Another hypothesis holds that cryovolcanoes on Ceres’ surface may be spewing water vapor.

    “We estimate that approximately 6 kg of water vapour is being produced per second, requiring only a tiny fraction of Ceres to be covered by water ice, which links nicely to the two localised surface features we have observed,” said Laurence O’Rourke, co-author of the paper and a principal investigator for the Herschel program.

    Image via ESA/ATG medialab

  • New Planets Found Among Star Cluster

    Astronomers this week have announced the discovery of three planets found within the Messier 67 star cluster. The finding is significant because planets have rarely found orbiting stars that are part of star clusters. The new research shows that planets may actually be just as common within star clusters as they are throughout the rest of the galaxy.

    “These new results show that planets in open star clusters are about as common as they are around isolated stars – but they are not easy to detect,” said Luca Pasquini, co-author of a paper on the findings published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory. “The new results are in contrast to earlier work that failed to find cluster planets, but agrees with some other more recent observations. We are continuing to observe this cluster to find how stars with and without planets differ in mass and chemical makeup.”

    The Messier 67 star cluster is located around 2,500 light-years from our solar system and is made up of around 500 stars. Astronomers observed around 80 stars in the cluster for over six years while searching for exoplanets.

    Two of the newly-found planets are Jupiter-sized, though they orbit much closer to their stars than Jupiter does. The third planet was found orbiting a star named HIP 102152, which has previously been identified as being nearly identical to our sun. All three of the planets orbit more closely than the habitable zones of their stars, meaning that liquid water cannot exist on their surfaces.

    “In the Messier 67 star cluster the stars are all about the same age and composition as the Sun,” said Anna Brucalassi, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. “This makes it a perfect laboratory to study how many planets form in such a crowded environment, and whether they form mostly around more massive or less massive stars.”

    Image via ESO/L. Calçada