Astronomy Archives

July 20, 2022July 20, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

We Finally Know Where the Highest Energy Cosmic Rays are Coming From: Blazars

Way out there in space is a class of objects called blazars. Think of them as extreme particle accelerators, able to marshall energies a million times stronger than the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. It turns out they’re the culprits in one of the great astrophysical mysteries: what creates and propels neutrinos across the universe at blazingly fast speeds? It turns out that the answer’s been there all along: blazars pump out neutrinos and cosmic rays. That’s the conclusion a group of astronomers led by Dr. Sara Buson of Universität Wurzburg in Germany came to as they studied data from a very unique facility here on Earth: the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica.

July 19, 2022July 17, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

The Gravitational Constant is Tricky to pin Down Accurately. Here’s a new way to Measure it

The central parts of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, as observed in the near-infrared with the NACO instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope. The position of Sgr A*,with a mass 4 million times that of the Sun, is marked by the orange cross. The star S2 made a close pass to the region of the black hole in 2018. Courtesy ESO.

A team of physicists have used a pair of vibrating rods to measure the gravitational constant to incredibly fine precision. While the new technique has relatively high uncertainty, they hope that future improvements will provide a new pathway to nailing down this elusive constant.

July 18, 2022July 20, 2022 by Scott Alan Johnston

Betelgeuse and Antares Have Been Observed for Over 2,000 Years. Astronomers can use This to Figure out how old They are

Stars don’t usually evolve fast enough for humans to notice them change within one lifetime. Even a hundred lifetimes won’t do – astronomical processes are just too slow. But not always. There are some phases of stellar evolution that happen quickly, and when they do, they can be tracked. A new paper posted to ArXiv last week uses astronomical observations found in ancient Roman texts, medieval astronomical logs, and manuscripts from China’s Han Dynasty to trace the recent evolution of several bright stars, including red supergiant Antares, and Betelgeuse: one of the most dynamic stars in our sky. With observations from across the historical record, the paper suggests that Betelgeuse may have just recently passed through the ‘Hertzsprung gap,’ the transitional phase between a main sequence star and its current classification as a red supergiant.

July 15, 2022July 15, 2022 by Anton Pozdnyakov

Booster 7’s BOOM, Nuclear Mission to Neptune, More JWST Images

Even more pictures from James Webb Space Telescope, China’s planning a mission to Neptune, SpaceX’s Booster 7 suffers from an explosion, black holes are messy eaters, going under Europa’s ice crust and more.

July 14, 2022July 14, 2022 by Matt Williams

Here are the Locations in the sky for the First JWST Images

On the morning of Tuesday, July 12th, the world was treated to the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope – the most detailed images of the cosmos taken by the most powerful telescope ever! These featured familiar features from our galaxy, including updated images of the Carina Nebula, a nebula surrounding a stellar remnant (the Southern Ring), a collection of merging galaxies (Stephans Quintet), an exoplanet (WASP 96b), and a deep field image showing thousands of galaxies and gravitational lenses (SMACS 0723).

In anticipation of these images being released, a helpful space exploration ambassador shared a map that shows where these objects are located within (or in relation to) the Milky Way. The map was uploaded to the Reddit group Space on July 10th (two days before image release day) and is the work of data scientist Tony Rice (user name u/rtphokie). Rice is an information security engineer for a telecommunications company and a Solar System Ambassador with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

July 14, 2022July 14, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

A Star Came too Close to a Black Hole and was Torn Apart. Surprisingly Little Actually Went In

Close-up of star near a supermassive black hole (artist’s impression). Credit: ESA/Hubble, ESO, M. Kornmesser

What happens when a star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole? The obvious story is that it gets sucked in, never to be seen again. Some of its material gets superheated on the way in and that gives off huge amounts of radiation—usually X-rays. That’s not a wrong explanation, just incomplete. There’s more to the story, thanks to a team of astronomers at the University of California at Berkeley. They used a specialized spectrograph at Lick Observatory to study a tidal disruption event. That’s where a star encountered a black hole. What they found was surprising.

July 12, 2022July 12, 2022 by Matt Williams

They’re Here! Check out the First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope!

A mosaic of images released today from Webb. Image credit: NASA/ESA/STSCI

This is it! Today, people worldwide were treated to the first images acquired by James Webb! After years of delays, we are finally seeing the sharpest images of the Universe taken by the most powerful telescope ever deployed. The world was given a sneak peek yesterday when President Biden, VP Kamala Harris, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and other NASA officials released the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the Universe to date. But at 10:30 Eastern (07:30 Pacific), all the remaining first images were released!

July 11, 2022July 12, 2022 by Matt Williams

Behold, the James Webb Space Telescope’s First Image!

The first image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, featuring the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

On December 25th, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope launched on an Ariane 5 rocket bound for space. After many years of delays, retesting, and cost overruns, the next-generation observatory made it to orbit without any hiccups or complications. What followed was several weeks of deployment as Webb unfolded its arms, sunshield, primary mirror (consisting of eighteen gold-coated beryllium segments), and secondary mirror. By late January, the space telescope had flown to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange Point, where it will remain for the entirety of its mission.

For the past six months, Webb has been collecting its “first light,” which consisted of the deepest field images ever taken, galaxies, the Carina Nebula, and a nearby exoplanet and its atmosphere. The majority of these images will be released starting tomorrow morning (Tuesday, July 12th). To give us a taste of what we are in for, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and other officials revealed the first of these images today during a White House press conference. The entire event was live-streamed by NASA TV and (as promised) was mind-blowing!

July 11, 2022July 11, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

The Most Threatening Asteroid Just got Downgraded to “Harmless”. No Impact in 2052

It’s comforting to know that there are people who are literally paid to watch the night sky to ensure that at least we’ll be informed if an asteroid will hit the Earth. Technology and near-Earth surveys have become advanced enough that the likelihood of a planet-killer-sized asteroid coming out of nowhere, as is so prevalent in modern media depictions, is extremely unlikely. Even smaller ones, which would only wipe out a city or part of a continent, get enough attention to tell if they pose a threat or not. And in advance of Asteroid Day 2022, which happened on June 30th, ESA is proud to announce they were able to remove one of the most threatening asteroids from their potential impact list.

July 10, 2022July 10, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Good News! One JWST Picture Early!

For everybody waiting with bated breath for Tuesday’s release of the first James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images, NASA’s doing a bit of a tease. They’re releasing one image a day early on Monday afternoon. And, the announcer will be the President of the United States, Mr. Joseph R. Biden. Joining him will be NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who will conduct this one-of-a-kind White House astronomy briefing. It’s all part of the buildup to the big reveals on Tuesday.

What's JWST going to show us first? There's a sneak preview on Monday. Artist impression of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA. — What’s JWST going to show us first? There’s a sneak preview on Monday. Credit: ESA.