Carolyn Collins Petersen, Author at Universe Today

October 30, 2022October 30, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Too Many Supernovae Can Slow Star Formation in a Galaxy

star formation regions in M33 are disrupted by cosmic-ray driven winds — Artist's illustration of cosmic ray-driven winds (blue and green) superimposed on a visible-light image of the Triangulum galaxy M33 (red and white) observed with VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. Credit: Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences- IPM & European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Interstellar winds are powerful agents of change. For one thing, they can interrupt or shut down the process of star birth completely. That’s what a team of astronomers using the Karl Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico found when they studied the galaxy M33. They also learned that speedy cosmic rays play a huge role in pushing those winds across interstellar space.

October 29, 2022October 29, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

InSight Felt the Ground Shake From a Meteorite Impact on Mars

Insight detected earthquake caused by impact that crated this crater. — Boulder-sized blocks of water ice lie around an crater blasted out by a meteoroid on December 24, 2021. NASA's InSight lander measured the earthquake the impact caused. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.

The Mars InSight lander might be nearing the end of its life on the Red Planet, but its scientific data are still shaking up the planetary science community. That’s because it detected another Marsquake on December 24, 2021. It was a major shaker and generated surface waves that rippled across the crust of the planet. The data from that quake allowed science team members to get a better idea of the Martian crust’s structure.

October 29, 2022October 29, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Another Version of the Pillars of Creation from Webb

The hits just keep on streaming back to Earth from James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This time, arriving to help celebrate Hallowe’en, data from the MIRI mid-infrared instrument onboard JWST shows another view of the Pillars of Creation. Thousands of stars are embedded in those pillars, but many are “invisible” to MIRI.

October 27, 2022October 27, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

NASA is Mapping Giant Clouds of Methane Released by “Super-Emitters” Across the World

Methane super-emitters — This image shows a methane plume 2 miles (3 kilometers) long that NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation mission detected southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is much more effective at trapping hea... Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Everybody’s heard of methane. It’s a major part of the atmosphere in places like Uranus and Neptune. On Earth, it’s also part of our atmosphere, where it works to warm things up. Some of it gets there from natural causes. But, a lot of it comes from industrial super-emitters and other human-caused processes. That’s not good because too much methane works, along with other greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide, or CO₂) to “over warm” our atmosphere.

October 25, 2022October 25, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Hubble Looks at Newly Forming Stars in a Stellar Nursery

stellar nurseries and jets — The lives of newborn stars are tempestuous, as this image of the Herbig–Haro objects HH 1 and HH 2 from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope depicts.

When we look at images of star birth regions, they look both placid and active at the same time. That’s nowhere more true than in a stellar nursery associated with a so-called “Herbig-Haro” object. A recent image from Hubble Space Telescope zeroed in on two called “HH 1” and “HH 2”. It looked at the turbulence associated with a nearby newborn star system.

October 22, 2022October 22, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

A Nearby Star Has Completely Blasted Away the Atmosphere From its Planet

m dwarf stars destroy atmospheres. — Stellar flares could threaten life on red dwarf planets. Credit: NASA, ESA and D. Player (STScI)

What if you placed an Earth-sized planet in a close orbit around an M-dwarf star? It’s more than an academic question since M dwarfs are the most numerous stars we know. A group of astronomers studying the planet GJ 1252b found an answer and it’s not pretty.

October 21, 2022October 21, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Astronomers Find a “Marshmallow World”: the Lowest Density Gas Giant Ever Discovered

a gas giant orbiting a red dwarf star — A gas giant exoplanet [right] with the density of a marshmallow has been detected in orbit around a cool red dwarf star [left] by the NASA-funded NEID radial-velocity instrument on the 3.5-meter WIYN Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. The planet, named TOI-3757 b, is the fluffiest gas giant planet ever discovered around this type of star.

Exoplanet discovery space hosts all kinds of interesting “super” worlds. There are super-Earths, super-Neptunes, and, of course, Super-Jupiters. Recently, the WIYN telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona did a follow-up observation of a gas giant discovered by TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The world is fluffy and weird and it’s orbiting a red giant star. Oddly enough, it shouldn’t even exist. Yet, there it is happily orbiting a star some 580 light-years from Earth.

October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Why NASA Is Trying to Crash Land on Mars

Mars crash lander — An artist's concept for SHIELD, a Mars lander that would enable lower-cost missions to crash safely onto the surface. Credit: California Academy of Sciences.

You know, sometimes the old ways are the best. At least, when it comes to landing on Mars and other planets, it’s worth looking at past successes—and failures. That’s the case with an idea that engineers at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory are testing: crashing spacecraft onto surfaces.

October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Webb Sees a Cluster of Galaxies Feeding a Quasar

an artistic concept of a quasar — Concept image of a galactic quasar. Astronomers used the Event Horizon Telescope to study details at the heart of one like this called NRAO 530. Credit: ParallelVision, Pixabay

There’s a galaxy protocluster out there in the distant universe that’s waving some tantalizing clues about cosmic history at astronomers. First of all, it’s got an active galactic nucleus—a quasar—at its heart. That’s a black hole emitting huge amounts of radiation. But now, they’ve found at least three young galaxies sending massive amounts of cosmic food (gas and dust) into the maw of that black hole-powered engine. Those infant galaxies are massive and moving fast around each other. And, just to make things interesting, dark matter is probably involved in the action.

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Satellite View of Stromboli’s New Eruption in Italy. You Can See a River of Lava Flowing to the Ocean

Mount Stromboli is one of the busiest volcanoes on the planet. It’s been erupting off and on for thousands of years, and almost continuously since the early 1930s. So, it’s no surprise that ESA’s orbiting Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission caught its latest eruption in the act. It used infrared-sensitive instruments to chart the flow and follow its course to the sea.