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Radio Telescope Confirms Free-Floating Binary Planets in the Orion Nebula Planets orbit stars. That’s axiomatic. Or at least it was until astronomers started finding rogue planets, also called free-floating planets (FFPs). Some of these planets were torn from their stars’ gravitational grip and now drift through the cosmos, untethered to any star. Others formed in isolation. Now, astronomers have discovered that some FFPs can orbit each other in binary relationships as if swapping their star for another rogue planet. In 2023, astronomers working with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) detected 42 JuMBOs in the inner Orion Nebula and the Trapezium Cluster. JuMBOs are differentRead More →

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Passing Stars Changed the Orbits of Planets in the Solar System The orbit of Earth around the Sun is always changing. It doesn’t change significantly from year to year, but over time the gravitational tugs of the Moon and other planets cause Earth’s orbit to vary. This migration affects Earth’s climate. For example, the gradual shift of Earth’s orbit and the changing tilt of Earth’s axis leads to the Milankovitch climate cycles. So if you want to understand paleoclimate or the shift of Earth’s climate across geologic time, it helps to know what Earth’s orbit was in the distant past. Fortunately, Newtonian mechanics and theRead More →

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Saturn’s “Death Star Moon” Mimas Probably has an Ocean Too A recent study published in Nature presents a groundbreaking discovery that Saturn’s moon, Mimas, commonly known as the “Death Star” moon due to its similarities with the iconic Star Wars space station, possesses an internal ocean underneath its rocky crust. This study was conducted by an international team of researchers and holds the potential to help planetary geologists better understand the conditions for a planetary body to possess an internal ocean, which could also possess the conditions for life as we know it. While Mimas was photographed on several occasions by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, includingRead More →

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Even Stars Like the Sun Can Unleash Savage Flares in Their Youth Why would a young Sun-like star suddenly belch out a hugely bright flare? That’s what astronomers at Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory want to know after they spotted such an outburst using a sensitive submillimeter-wave telescope. According to Joshua Bennett Lovell, leader of a team that observed the star’s activity, these kinds of flare events are rare in such young stars, particularly at millimeter wavelengths. So, what’s happening there? Lovell and his team targeted the star, called HD 283572, in a search for circumstellar dust. It’s fairly young—about the same age the Sun wasRead More →

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Ground-Based Lasers Could Accelerate Spacecraft to Other Stars The future of space exploration includes some rather ambitious plans to send missions farther from Earth than ever before. Beyond the current proposals for building infrastructure in cis-lunar space and sending regular crewed missions to the Moon and Mars, there are also plans to send robotic missions to the outer Solar System, to the focal length of our Sun’s gravitational lens, and even to the nearest stars to explore exoplanets. Accomplishing these goals requires next-generation propulsion that can enable high thrust and consistent acceleration. Focused arrays of lasers – or directed energy (DE) – and lightsails areRead More →

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Scientists find evidence of geothermal activity within icy dwarf planets A team co-led by Southwest Research Institute found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on their surfaces has the tell-tale signs of warm or even hot geochemistry in their rocky cores, which is markedly different than the signature of methane from a comet. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Astronomers investigate the atmosphere of a nearby cold brown dwarf Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have observed a nearby cold brown dwarf designated WISEPA J182831.08+265037.8 (or WISE 1828 for short). The observations delivered important insights into the composition of the object’s atmosphere. The new findings were published Feb. 8 on the preprint server arXiv. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Scientists map the largest magnetic fields in galaxy clusters using synchrotron intensity gradient In a new study, scientists have mapped magnetic fields in galaxy clusters, revealing the impact of galactic mergers on magnetic-field structures and challenging previous assumptions about the efficiency of turbulent dynamo processes in the amplification of these fields. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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New NASA mission will study ultraviolet sky, stars, stellar explosions As NASA explores the unknown in air and space, a new mission to survey ultraviolet light across the entire sky will provide the agency with more insight into how galaxies and stars evolve. The space telescope, called UVEX (UltraViolet EXplorer), is targeted to launch in 2030 as NASA’s next Astrophysics Medium-Class Explorer mission. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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‘Beyond what’s possible’: New JWST observations unearth mysterious ancient galaxy Our understanding of how galaxies form and the nature of dark matter could be completely upended after new observations of a stellar population bigger than the Milky Way from more than 11 billion years ago that should not exist. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Image: Hubble captures globular cluster NGC 2298 This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope view shows the globular cluster NGC 2298, a sparkling collection of thousands of stars held together by their mutual gravitational attraction. Globular clusters are typically home to older populations of stars, and they mostly reside in the dusty outskirts of galaxies. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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NASA telescopes find new clues about mysterious deep space signals What’s causing mysterious bursts of radio waves from deep space? Astronomers may be a step closer to providing one answer to that question. Two NASA X-ray telescopes recently observed one of such events—known as a fast radio burst—mere minutes before and after it occurred. This unprecedented view sets scientists on a path to understand these extreme radio events better. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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eROSITA X-ray sky survey measurements show consistency with the cosmic microwave background The analysis of how galaxy clusters, the largest objects in the universe, evolve over cosmic time has yielded precise measurements of the total matter content and its clumpiness, report scientists of the German eROSITA consortium, led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and with participation of the University of Bonn. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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J0526+5934 is an ultra-short period double white dwarf, observations show Using ground-based telescopes, an international team of astronomers has observed a binary system containing at least one white dwarf, designated J0526+5934. The observational campaign has revealed that the binary is composed of two white dwarfs on an ultra-short period. The finding was reported in a paper published February 6 on the pre-print server arXiv. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Image: Spiral galaxy NGC 4254’s dazzling swirls NGC 4254, a spiral galaxy, is resplendent in orange and blue in this Jan. 29, 2024, image from the James Webb Space Telescope. This is one of 19 nearby spiral galaxies recently imaged by the telescope as part of the long-standing Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Discovery of unexpected ultramassive galaxies may not rewrite cosmology, but still leaves questions Ever since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured its first glimpse of the early universe, astronomers have been surprised by the presence of what appear to be more “ultramassive” galaxies than expected. Based on the most widely accepted cosmological model, they should not have been able to evolve until much later in the history of the universe, spurring claims that the model needs to be changed. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Vera Rubin’s keen eye on our solar system will inspire future missions When the interstellar object (ISO) ‘Oumuamua appeared in our solar system in 2017, it generated a ton of interest. The urge to learn more about it was fierce, but unfortunately, there was no way to really do so. It came and went, and we were left to ponder what it was made of and where it came from. Then, in 2019, the ISO comet Borisov came for a brief visit, and again, we were left to wonder about it. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Hiding in the crowd: The search for missing young stars Hundreds of thousands of stars are contained in this picture, an infrared image of Sagittarius C, a region near the center of the Milky Way. Taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Chilean Atacama Desert, this image is helping astronomers unlock a stellar puzzle. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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The SETI Ellipse Tells Us Where to Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations Of all the questions that remain unanswered, the question of life in the Universe is surely the one that captures our attention the most. In a Universe whose observable edge is 46 billion light years away, is it even conceivable that we are alone, the sole planet among the millions and perhaps billions that are out there, where life has evolved, an oasis of life in the cosmic ocean. In the search for alien civilisations, researchers have proposed that it may be possible to use bright galactic events like supernovae to act as aRead More →