Scientists from MIT and other institutions, working closely with amateur astronomers, have spotted the dusty tails of six exocomets—comets outside our solar system—orbiting a faint star 800 light years from Earth. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
Galaxy clusters are the largest known structures in the Universe, containing thousands of galaxies and hot gas. But more importantly, they contain the mysterious dark matter, which accounts for 27 percent of all matter and energy. Current models of dark matter predict that galaxy clusters have very dense cores, and those cores contain a very massive galaxy that never moves from the cluster’s center. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
Project Blue: Building a Space Telescope that Could Directly Observe Planets Around Alpha Centauri In the past few decades, thousands of exoplanets have been discovered in neighboring star systems. In fact, as of October 1st, 2017, some 3,671 exoplanets have been confirmed in 2,751 systems, with 616 systems having more than one planet. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these have been detected using indirect means, ranging from Gravitational Microlensing to Transit Photometry and the Radial Velocity Method. What’s more, we have been unable to study these planets up close because the necessary instruments do not yet exist. Project Blue, a consortium of scientists, universities andRead More →
Has the First Interstellar Comet Been Discovered? Astronomers from the Minor Planet Center sent out an announcement today, hoping for astronomers to do followup observations on the comet C/2017 U1 PANSTARRS. That’s because this strange comet seems to be on a trajectory that originated outside our Solar System. Not just from the Oort Cloud, but from another star. Is this the first interplanetary comet ever found? Orbital path of C 2017/U1 PANSTARRS Comets are broken up into two broad categories. There are the short-period comets, the ones that started out in the Kuiper Belt and follow a regular, predictable orbit that brings them close toRead More →
Neptune-Sized Exomoon Found Orbiting a Jupiter-Sized Planet? Finding planets beyond our Solar System is already tough, laborious work. But when it comes to confirmed exoplanets, an even more challenging task is determining whether or not these worlds have their own satellites – aka. “exomoons”. Nevertheless, much like the study of exoplanets themselves, the study of exomoons presents some incredible opportunities to learn more about our Universe. Of all possible candidates, the most recent (and arguably, most likely) one was announced back in July 2017. This moon, known as Kepler-1625 b-i, orbits a gas giant roughly 4,000 light years from Earth. But according to a newRead More →
Water Worlds Don’t Stay Wet for Very Long When hunting for potentially habitable exoplanets, one of the most important things astronomers look for is whether or not exoplanet candidates orbit within their star’s habitable zone. This is necessary for liquid water to exist on a planet’s surface, which in turn is a prerequisite for life as we know it. However, in the course of discovering new exoplanets, scientists have become aware of an extreme case known as “water worlds“. Water worlds are essentially planets that are up to 50% water in mass, resulting in surface oceans that could be hundreds of kilometers deep. According toRead More →
René Heller, a space scientist with the Maxx Planck Institute for Solar System Research has uploaded a paper to the arXiv preprint server offering possible attributes for the still-unconfirmed exomoon Kepler 1625 b-i. He suggests that if the exomoon does truly exist, it is probably unlike any of the moons in our solar system, which suggests that theories about the origins of moons might have to be expanded. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
Countless galaxies vie for attention in this monster image of the Fornax Galaxy Cluster, some appearing only as pinpricks of light while others dominate the foreground. One of these is the lenticular galaxy NGC 1316. The turbulent past of this much-studied galaxy has left it with a delicate structure of loops, arcs and rings that astronomers have now imaged in greater detail than ever before with the VLT Survey Telescope. This astonishingly deep image also reveals a myriad of dim objects along with faint intracluster light. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
Revealing Galactic Secrets Countless galaxies vie for attention in this monster image of the Fornax Galaxy Cluster, some appearing only as pinpricks of light while others dominate the foreground. One of these is the lenticular galaxy NGC 1316. The turbulent past of this much-studied galaxy has left it with a delicate structure of loops, arcs and rings that astronomers have now imaged in greater detail than ever before with the VLT Survey Telescope. This astonishingly deep image also reveals a myriad of dim objects along with faint intracluster light. ESO News Feed Go to Source Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
A new study in Physical Review Letters reveals that the series of infrared (IR) band peaks, collectively known as the cosmic unidentified IR emission, arises as a consequence of the wavelike behavior of delocalized electrons in hydrocarbon compounds. An essential aspect of these compounds is that they undergo structural transformations triggered by starlight absorption. These transformations described as defects affect the wave motion of delocalized electrons, that is, electrons that move freely across multiple carbon-carbon bonds in aromatic type hydrocarbons. The study suggests that the spectral characteristics of the cosmic emission are explained integrally by describing the motion of delocalized electrons around structural defects. ThisRead More →
Einstein’s theory of general relativity has withstood 100 years of experimental scrutiny. However, these tests do not constrain how well the very strong gravitational fields produced by merging neutron stars obey this theory. New, more sophisticated techniques can now search for deviations from general relativity with unprecedented sensitivity. Scientists at the Max Planck Institutes for Gravitational Physics and for Radio Astronomy studied two foremost tools for testing the strong-field regime of gravity – pulsar timing and gravitational-wave observations – and demonstrated how combining these methods can put alternative theories of general relativity to the test. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
What is an Electric Sail? Another Exotic Way to Explore the Solar System We’re all familiar with the idea of solar sails to explore the Solar System, using the light pressure from the Sun. But there’s another propulsion system that could harness the power of the Sun, electric sails, and it’s a pretty exciting idea. A few weeks ago, I tackled a question someone had about my favorite exotic propulsion systems, and I rattled off a few ideas that I find exciting: solar sails, nuclear rockets, ion engines, etc. But there’s another propulsion system that keeps coming up, and I totally forgot to mention, butRead More →
Weekly Space Hangout – Oct 25, 2017: Dr. John Charles of NASA’s Human Research Program Hosts: Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain) Dr. Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter) Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier ) Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg ChartYourWorld.org) Special Guest: John B. Charles, Ph.D., is the Chief Scientist of NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP), responsible for the scientific direction of human research and technology development enabling astronauts to go beyond low Earth orbit and eventually to Mars. Announcements: If you would like to join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew, visit their site here and sign up. They’re a great team whoRead More →
You Can Now Use Google Maps to Explore the Solar System Chances are, at one time or another, we’ve all used Google Maps to find the shortest route from point A to point B. But if you are like some people, you’ve used this mapping tool to have a look at geographical features or places you hope to visit someday. In an age where digital technology is allowing for telecommuting and even telepresence, it’s nice to take virtual tours of the places we may never get to see in person. But now, Google Maps is using its technology to enable the virtual exploration of somethingRead More →
Carnival of Space #532 It’s that time again! This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Pamela Hoffman at the Everyday Spacer blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #532. And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really wantRead More →
A Canadian-led international team of astronomers recently discovered that spots on the surface of a supergiant star are driving huge spiral structures in its stellar wind. Their results are published in a recent edition of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
The world’s collective imagination to answer the age-old question, “Are we alone,” has been reignited now that we understand exoplanets – planets in orbit around stars other than Earth’s Sun – are not uncommon. There’s an increased urgency to develop capabilities for directly photographing exoplanets around nearby stars and to characterize their surface conditions and, Alpha Centauri, being the nearest star system to our own, has understandably become a focal point of current scientific study. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
Induction heating can completely change the energy budget of an exoplanet and even melt its interior. In a study published by Nature Astronomy an international team led by the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences with participation of the University of Vienna explains how magma oceans can form under the surface of exoplanets as a result of induction heating. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
European astronomers have spotted an unusual outburst activity of a binary star system known as AG Draconis. New observations reveal that the recent changes of brightness of this star are slightly different than the changes that occurred during previous outbursts. The findings were presented October 13 in a paper published on arXiv.org. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
A group of astronomers from the universities of Groningen, Naples and Bonn has developed a method that finds gravitational lenses in enormous piles of observations. The method is based on the same artificial intelligence algorithm that Google, Facebook and Tesla have been using in the last years. The researchers published their method and 56 new gravitational lens candidates in the November issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Powered by WPeMaticoRead More →
