Astronomy Archives

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 by Matt Williams

An Extreme Simulation of the Universe’s First Stars

Early stars were made solely of hydrogen and helium. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

For astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists, the ability to spot the first stars that formed in our Universe has always been just beyond reach. On the one hand, there are the limits of our current telescopes and observatories, which can only see so far. The farthest object ever observed was MACS 1149-JD, a galaxy located 13.2 billion light-years from Earth that was spotted in the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) image.

On the other, up until about 1 billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was experiencing what cosmologists refer to as the “Dark Ages” when the Universe was filled with gas clouds that obscured visible and infrared light. Luckily, a team of researchers from Georgia Tech’s Center for Relativistic Astrophysics recently conducted simulations that show what the formation of the first stars looked like.

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

How Will Starlink’s Packet Routing Work?

Depiction of how Starlink's constellation pattern will cover the world.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite cluster has been receiving more and more headline space recently as it continues adding satellites at a breathtaking pace. Much of this news coverage has focused on how it’s impacting amateur skygazers and how it could benefit people in far-flung regions. But technical details do matter, and over on Casey Handmer’s blog there was a recent discussion of one of the most important aspects of how Starlink actually operates – what will it do with its data?

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 by Evan Gough

The Spherical Structure at the Core of the Milky Way Formed in a Single Burst of Star Formation

This artist’s impression shows how the Milky Way galaxy would look seen from almost edge on and from a very different perspective than we get from the Earth. The central bulge shows up as a peanut shaped glowing ball of stars and the spiral arms and their associated dust clouds form a narrow band. Image Credit: By ESO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Kornmesser/R. Hurt - http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1339a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28256788

Like other spiral galaxies, the Milky Way has a bulging sphere of stars in its center. It’s called “The Bulge,” and it’s roughly 10,000 light-years in radius. Astronomers have debated the bulge’s origins, with some research showing that multiple episodes of star formation created it.

But a new survey with the NOIRLab’s Dark Energy Camera suggests that one single epic burst of star formation created the bulge over 10 billion years ago.

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 by David Dickinson

Enter Comet S3 Erasmus: A Bright Comet For November

Comet C/2020 S3 Erasmus ‘may’ end out the cometary cavalcade for 2020.

Ready for one more comet for 2020? Thus far, this year has been a memorable one for comet watchers, with a steady stream of binocular fuzzball comets, crowned by the amazing sight of naked eye comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE this past summer. 2020 cometary alumni has also included comets F8 SWAN, P1 NEOWISE, and M3 ATLAS. Now, newly discovered Comet C/2020 S3 Erasmus takes center stage.

October 31, 2020November 2, 2020 by Matt Williams

Based on Kepler Data, There’s a 95% Chance of an Earth-Like Planet Within 20 Light-Years

In the past few decades, the study of exoplanets has grown by leaps and bounds, with 4296 confirmed discoveries in 3,188 systems and an additional 5,634 candidates awaiting confirmation. Because of this, scientists have been able to get a better idea about the number of potentially-habitable planets that could be out there. A popular target is stars like our own, which are known as G-type yellow dwarfs.

Recently, an international team of scientists (led by researchers from the NASA Ames Research Center) combined data from by the now-defunct Kepler Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia Observatory. What this revealed is that half of the Sun-like stars in our Universe could have rocky, potentially-habitable planets, the closest of which could be in our cosmic backyard!

October 31, 2020November 6, 2020 by Matthew Cimone

Are the Clouds of Jupiter Haunted?

Artist illustration shows what a sprite could look like in Jupiter's atmosphere. Named after a mischievous, quick-witted character in English folklore, sprites last for only a few milliseconds. They feature a central blob of light with long tendrils of light extending down toward the ground and upward. In Earth's upper atmosphere, their interaction with nitrogen give sprites a reddish hue. At Jupiter, where the predominance of hydrogen in the upper atmosphere would likely give them a blue hue. Image Description/Credit NASA

Are spirits amongst the clouds of Jupiter? The answer might be yes! A recent publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets has identified what appear to be “Sprites” in the Jovian Atmosphere.

In European Folklore, ‘Sprites’ (derived from Latin ‘spiritus’ or spirit) were elemental and ethereal beings visiting Earth. The term is fitting for “lightning sprites”, a natural meteorological phenomenon with many eye-witness testimonies but not captured on camera until 1989. Created by lightning discharges in Earth’s atmosphere, sprites are part of larger family of phenomena called TLE’s, or “Transient Luminous Events”, that last for only fractions of a second.

October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA Announces the Discovery of Water in the Sunlit Parts of the Moon

For decades, astronomers have speculated that there may be water on the Moon. In recent years, this speculation was confirmed one orbiting satellite after another detected water ice around the Moon’s southern polar region. Within this part of the lunar surface, known as the South-Pole Aitken Basin, water ice is able to persist because of the many permanently-shadowed craters that are located there.

But until now, scientists were operating under the assumption that lunar water was only to be found in permanently shadowed craters. But thanks to NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), water has been observed on the sunlit side of the Moon for the first time. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed all across the lunar surface, and not limited to the dark corners.

October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 by Evan Gough

Galaxies Grew Quickly and Early On in the Universe

Artist's illustration of a galaxy in the early universe that is very dusty and shows the first signs of a rotationally supported disk. In this image, the red color represents gas, and blue/brown represents dust as seen in radio waves with ALMA. Many other galaxies are visible in the background, based on optical data from VLT and Subaru. Credit: B. Saxton NRAO/AUI/NSF, ESO, NASA/STScI; NAOJ/Subaru

The behaviour of galaxies in the early Universe attracts a lot of attention from researchers. In fact, everything about the early Universe is under intense scientific scrutiny for obvious reasons. But unlike the Universe’s first stars, which have all died long ago, the galaxies we see around us—including our own—have been here since the early days.

Current scientific thinking says that in the early days of the Universe, the galaxies grew slowly, taking billions of years to become what they are now. But new observations show that might not be the case.

October 29, 2020October 29, 2020 by Ralph Crewe

NASA releases new spooky space-themed posters about extreme places in the Universe

*One of six new spooky posters from NASA’s Galaxy of Horrors. Credit NASA-JPL/Caltech*

While ghouls and goblins may provide the ghastly delights many of us associate with this time of year, NASA has just released a series of spooky space-themed posters that are more unearthly than any monsters or scary stories told around terrestrial campfires. This year for Halloween, the space agency has released a series of spine-tingling posters called Galaxy of Horrors. The terrifying destinations highlighted within are all based on real locations in the Universe.

October 29, 2020October 29, 2020 by Evan Gough

New Simulation Shows Exactly What’s Happening as Neutron Stars Merge

gamma-ray burst from neutron star merger — Artist rendering of colliding neutron stars. Credit: Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science

Neutron stars are the remnants of massive stars that explode as supernovae at the end of their fusion lives. They’re super-dense cores where all of the protons and electrons are crushed into neutrons by the overpowering gravity of the dead star. They’re the smallest and densest stellar objects, except for black holes, and possibly other arcane, hypothetical objects like quark stars.

When two neutron stars merge, we can detect the resulting gravitational waves. But some aspects of these mergers are poorly-understood. One question surrounds short-lived gamma-ray bursts from these mergers. Previous studies have shown that these bursts may come from the decay of heavy elements produced in a neutron star merger.

A new study strengthens our understanding of these complex mergers and introduces a model that explains the gamma rays.