Chinese astronomers find radio pulsar in a supernova remnant Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), astronomers from the Nanjing University in China and elsewhere, have detected a radio pulsar in a supernova remnant known as CTB 87. The finding is reported in a paper published February 1 on the arXiv pre-print server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Researchers discover cosmic dust storms from Type 1a supernova Cosmic dust—like dust on Earth—comprises groupings of molecules that have condensed and stuck together in a grain. But the exact nature of dust creation in the universe has long been a mystery. Now, however, an international team of astronomers from China, the United States, Chile, the United Kingdom, Spain, etc., has made a significant discovery by identifying a previously unknown source of dust in the universe: a Type 1a supernova interacting with gas from its surroundings. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Fragments From That Asteroid That Exploded Above Berlin Have Been Recovered and They’re Really Special On January 21st, 2024, a meter-sized asteroid (2024 BX1) entered Earth’s atmosphere and exploded over Berlin at 12:33 am UTC (07:45 pm EST; 04:33 pm PST). Before it reached Earth, 2024 BX1 was a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) with an orbit that suggests it was part of the Apollo group. The fragments have since been located by a team of scientists from the Freie Universität Berlin, the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Technische Universität Berlin, and the SETI Institute and identified as a rare type ofRead More →
The Early Universe Had Small Galaxies with Oversized Black Holes When doing the marketing for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), NASA and the other telescope contributors liked to point out how it would open up the early universe to scrutiny. They weren’t exaggerating, and now scientific studies are starting to proliferate that show why. A new study published by authors from Harvard, the University of Arizona, and the University of Cambridge used three surveys produced by the JWST to analyze the supermassive black holes at the center of early galaxies. And they found they were much different than the one at the center ofRead More →
Hubble Sees a Bridge of Stars Connecting Two Galaxies The poetic-minded among us like to point out how Nature is a dance. If they’re right, then galaxies sometimes form unwieldy pairs. With the Hubble Space Telescope, we can spot some of these galactic pairs as they approach one another. Part of galactic evolution involves galactic interactions and mergers. When galaxies interact gravitationally, it can create streams of gas and dust that stretch for light-years. ARP 271 is one of the interacting pairs of galaxies imaged by Hubble. ARP 271 contains NGC 5427 and NGC 5426. The pair is about 130 million light-years distant and aboutRead More →
Results from South Pole Telescope’s new camera emerge For more than five years, scientists at the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica have been observing the sky with an upgraded camera. The extended gaze toward the cosmos is picking up remnant light from the universe’s early formation. Now researchers have analyzed an initial batch of data, publishing details in the journal Physical Review D. The results from this limited dataset hint at even more powerful future insights about the nature of our universe. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
NASA’s JPL Lays Off Hundreds of Workers In a disheartening turn of events, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has announced that it’s laying off about 8% of its workforce. That means that about 530 JPL employees will be let go, along with about 40 employees of the Lab’s contractors. That sucks for the people being let go, but the bigger concern for the rest of us is what will happen to upcoming missions like Mars Sample Return (MSR)? These layoffs have nothing to do with the individuals affected or with JPL’s activities. It’s all budget wrangling, something that is a near-constant in a democracy. There’s onlyRead More →
Hubble traces ‘string of pearls’ star clusters in galaxy collisions Contrary to what you might think, galaxy collisions do not destroy stars. In fact, the rough-and-tumble dynamics trigger new generations of stars and presumably accompanying planets. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Did the Galileo Mission Find Life on Earth? In the Fall of 1989, the Galileo spacecraft was launched into space, bound for Jupiter and its family of moons. Given the great distance to the king of planets, Galileo had to take a roundabout tour through the inner solar system, making a flyby of Venus in 1990 and Earth in 1990 and 1992 just to gain enough speed to reach Jupiter. During the flybys of Earth Galileo took several images of our planet, which astronomers have used to discover life on Earth. The idea of “discovering” life on Earth in the 21st century might seem aRead More →
A black hole has cleared out its neighborhood We can’t see them directly, but we know they’re there. Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) likely dwell at the center of every large galaxy. Their overwhelming gravity draws material toward them, where it collects in an accretion disk, waiting its turn to cross the event horizon into oblivion. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
NASA Gives Dreamchaser the Shakedown It’s been a while since NASA has had a spaceplane on the launchpad but this now feels closer than ever again. Their new prototype cargo spaceplane known as Dream Chaser is now undergoing vibration and vacuum testing at the Neil Armstrong test facility. The tests sound a little strange perhaps but on launch and during re-entry it will most definitely experience shaking during these phases of the flights. The Dream Chaser spaceplane has been designed to attach to the top of a conventional Vulcan Centaur rocket and land like a plane. Its propulsion is to be a cluster of propaneRead More →
Telescopes show the Milky Way’s black hole is ready for a kick The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is spinning so quickly it is warping the spacetime surrounding it into a shape that can look like a football, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
The Comet vs. the Eclipse: 12P/Pons-Brooks Heads Towards Perihelion in April Comet 12P Pons-Brooks takes center stage this Spring. Something is definitely up with the 12th periodic comet in the catalog. We’re talking about Comet 12P Pons-Brooks, set to reach the first of two perihelia for the 21st century this Spring. And the timing couldn’t be better, as the comet will also sit near the Sun just two weeks prior during the total solar eclipse of April 8th 2024, spanning the North American continent from the southwest to the northeast. If the comet over-performs—a long shot, but multiple outbursts in 2023 suggest it just might—weRead More →
Cosmic dark matter web detected in Coma cluster The Subaru Telescope has spotted the terminal ends of dark matter filaments in the Coma cluster stretching across millions of light years. This is the first time that strands of the cosmic web spanning the entire universe have been directly detected. This provides new evidence to test theories about the evolution of the universe. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
XMM-Newton spots a black hole throwing a tantrum Black holes are like temperamental toddlers. They spill food all the time, but ESA’s XMM-Newton has caught a black hole in the act of “flipping over the table” during an otherwise civilized meal. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Active galaxies as standard candles: Is dust the culprit behind discrepancies? When did the universe start? When and how did the first stars and galaxies form? What is the fate of the universe? phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Astronomers discover new supernova remnant Astronomers from Curtin University in Australia and elsewhere report the detection of a new supernova remnant (SNR) located some 3,300 light years away. The newfound SNR, designated G321.3-3.9, has an elliptical shape and is estimated to be a few thousand years old. The finding was detailed in a paper published Jan. 30 on the pre-print server arXiv. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Gravitationally Lensed Supernovae are Another Way to Measure the Expansion of the Universe Supernova are a fascinating phenomenon and have taught us much about the evolution of stars. The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman telescope will be hunting the elusive combination of supernovae in a gravitational lens system. With its observing field 200 times that of Hubble it stands a much greater chance of success. If sufficient lensed supernovae are found then they could be used to determine the expansion rate of the Universe. Supernova are stellar corpses, the remains of supermassive stars that have reached the end of their lives. The events mark one ofRead More →
Chickpeas Grown in Lunar Regolith Are Stressed but Reach Maturity A recent preprint investigates how chickpeas have been successfully grown in lunar regolith simulants (LRS), marking the first time such a guideline has been established not only for chickpeas, but also for growing food for long-term human space missions. This study was conducted by researchers from Texas A&M University and Brown University and holds the potential to develop more efficient methods in growing foods using extraterrestrial resources, specifically with NASA’s Artemis program slated to return humans to the lunar surface in the next few years. From Dust To Seed: A Lunar Chickpea Story https://t.co/qhCSMxheTe #astrobiologyRead More →
Perseverance Gives Us One Last Look at the Damaged Ingenuity Helicopter Well I consider that a success; the first aircraft on another world surpassed all expectations. Ingenuity, the helicopter that has been buzzing around on Mars has finally reached the end of its life after a total of 72 flights on the red planet. In a wonderful piece of computer imagery, Simeon Schmauß took a number of images of Ingeniuty from Perseverance and stiched them together into a mosaic and upscaled to provide a human eye view. The groundbreaking voyage of the Ingenuity helicopter commenced on February 18, 2021, upon its arrival on Mars. ThisRead More →
