Posted on by Evan Gough

A Star Passed too Close and Tore Out a Chunk of a Protoplanetary Disk

Scientists have captured an intruder object disrupting the protoplanetary disk—birthplace of planets—in Z Canis Majors (Z CMa), a star in the Canis Majoris constellation. This artist’s impression shows the perturber leaving the star system, pulling a long stream of gas from the protoplanetary disk along with it. Observational data from the Subaru Telescope, Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array suggest the intruder object was responsible for the creation of these gaseous streams, and its “visit” may have other as yet unknown impacts on the growth and development of planets in the star system. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

When it comes to observing protoplanetary disks, the Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) is probably the champion. ALMA was the first telescope to peer inside the almost inscrutable protoplanetary disks surrounding young stars and watch planets forming. ALMA advanced our understanding of the planet-forming process, though our knowledge of the entire process is still in its infancy.

According to new observations, it looks like chaos and disorder are part of the process. Astronomers using ALMA have watched as a star got too close to one of these planet-forming disks, tearing a chunk away and distorting the disk’s shape.

What effect will it have on planetary formation?

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Posted on by David Dickinson

Look Up and Watch Asteroid 1994 PC1 Fly Past Earth This Week

This week’s apparition of asteroid 1994 PC1 offers observers a chance to see a space rock moving in real time.

In a slow moving universe, asteroids give us a rare chance to see things moving in real time. We have such a chance coming right up on the evening of Tuesday, January 18th, when 1.1-kilometer asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 passes 1.23 million miles (1.98 million kilometers) from the Earth. This is about five times the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and just a shade over the distance to the anti-sunward Earth-Sun Lagrange 2 point, soon to be the home of the James Webb Space Telescope.

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Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Messier 96 – the NGC 3368 Spiral Galaxy

This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows Messier 96, a spiral galaxy just over 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). It is of about the same mass and size as the Milky Way. It was first discovered by astronomer Pierre Méchain in 1781, and added to Charles Messier’s famous catalogue of astronomical objects just four days later. The galaxy resembles a giant maelstrom of glowing gas, rippled with dark dust that swirls inwards towards the nucleus. Messier 96 is a very asymmetric galaxy; its dust and gas is unevenly spread throughout its weak spiral arms, and its core is not exactly at the galactic centre. Its arms are also asymmetrical, thought to have been influenced by the gravitational pull of other galaxies within the same group as Messier 96. This group, named the M96 Group, also includes the bright galaxies Messier 105 and Messier 95, as well as a number of smaller and fainter galaxies. It is the nearest group containing both bright spirals and a bright elliptical galaxy (Messier 105).

Welcome back to Messier Monday! Today, we continue in our tribute to our dear friend, Tammy Plotner, by looking at the barred spiral galaxy known as Messier 95!

During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noticed the presence of several “nebulous objects” while surveying the night sky. Originally mistaking these objects for comets, he began to catalog them so that others would not make the same mistake. Today, the resulting list (known as the Messier Catalog) includes over 100 objects and is one of the most influential catalogs of Deep Space Objects.

One of these objects is Messier 96 (M96, NGC 3368), an intermediate double-sparred spiral galaxy located about 31 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. This galaxy is known for having a small inner bulge through the core, an outer bulge, and is comparable in size to the Milky Way. M96 is the brightest member of the Leo I group of galaxies (which includes M95, M105, and a number of fainter galaxies), hence why it’s also known as the M96 group.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

Nearby Supernovae Exploded Just a few Million Years Ago, Leading to a Wave of Star Formation Around the Sun

Artist's illustration of the Local Bubble with star formation occurring on the bubble's surface. Scientists have now shown how a chain of events beginning 14 million years ago with a set of powerful supernovae led to the creation of the vast bubble, responsible for the formation of all young stars within 500 light years of the Sun and Earth. Credit: Leah Hustak (STScI)

The Sun isn’t the only star in this galactic neighbourhood. Other stars also call this neighbourhood home. But what’s the neighbourhood’s history? What triggered the birth of all those stars?

A team of astronomers say they’ve pieced the history together and identified the trigger: a series of supernovae explosions that began about 14 million years ago.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Will do its Own, Wide-Angle Version of the Hubble Deep Field

This synthetic image visualizes what a Roman ultra-deep field could look like. The 18 squares at the top of this image outline the area Roman can see in a single observation, known as its footprint. The inset at the lower-right zooms into one of the squares of Roman's footprint, and the inset at the lower-left zooms in even further. The image, which contains more than 10 million galaxies, was constructed from a simulation that produced a realistic distribution of the galaxies in the universe. Image Credit: Nicole Drakos, Bruno Villasenor, Brant Robertson, Ryan Hausen, Mark Dickinson, Henry Ferguson, Steven Furlanetto, Jenny Greene, Piero Madau, Alice Shapley, Daniel Stark, Risa Wechsler

Remember the Hubble Space Telescope’s Deep Field and Ultra-Deep Field images?

Those images showed everyone that what appears to be a tiny, empty part of the sky contains thousands of galaxies, some dating back to the Universe’s early days. Each of those galaxies can have hundreds of billions of stars. These early galaxies formed only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The images inspired awe in the human minds that took the time to understand them. And they’re part of history now.

The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (NGRST) will capture its own version of those historical images but in wide-angle. To whet our appetites for the NGRST’s image, a group of astrophysicists have created a simulation to show us what it’ll look like.

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