Space and astronomy news
The birth of a star is a spectacular event that plays out behind a veil of gas and dust. It’s a detailed process that takes millions of years to play out. Once a star leaves its protostar stage behind and begins its life of fusion, the star’s powerful radiative output blows the veil away.
But before then, astrophysicists are at a disadvantage.
Continue reading “This Dark Nebula Hides an Enormous Star”
Cosmic rays are a fascinating and potentially hazardous phenomenon. These high-energy particles typically consist of protons that have been stripped of their electrons and accelerated to nearly the speed of light. When these rays collide with Earth’s atmosphere, an enormous amount of secondary particles known as an “air shower” results. Ordinarily, these showers are a source of frustration for astronomers since they leave “tracks” on telescope images that obscure the celestial objects (asteroids, stars, galaxies, exoplanets, etc.) being observed.
However, a research team from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and Osaka Metropolitan University has found a new application for these energetic particles. Using a novel method, they could observe these extensive cosmic-ray air showers with unprecedented precision. The key to their method is the Subaru Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) mounted on the Subaru Telescope atop the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. This method and the team’s findings could provide a new method for studying the Universe’s most energetic particles.
Continue reading “Air Showers Ruin Astrophotos, but They Could be a New Method for Studying the Universe”
In searching for life in the Universe, a field known as astrobiology, scientists rely on Earth as a template for biological and evolutionary processes. This includes searching for Earth analogs, rocky planets that orbit within their parent star’s habitable zone (HZ) and have atmospheres composed of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. However, Earth’s atmosphere has evolved considerably over time from a toxic plume of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and traces of volcanic gas. Over time, the emergence of photosynthetic organisms caused a transition, leading to the atmosphere we see today.
The last 500 million years, known as the Phanerozoic Eon, have been particularly significant for the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere and terrestrial species. This period saw a significant rise in oxygen content and the emergence of animals, dinosaurs, and embryophyta (land plants). Unfortunately, the resulting transmission spectra are missing in our search for signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres. To address this gap, a team of Cornell researchers created a simulation of the atmosphere during the Phanerozoic Eon, which could have significant implications in the search for life on extrasolar planets.
Continue reading “The Combination of Oxygen and Methane Could Reveal the Presence of Life on Another World”
A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters used data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to identify the presence of quartz nanocrystals in the upper atmosphere of WASP-17 b, an exoplanet whose mass and radius are approximately 0.78 and 1.87 that of Jupiter, respectively, and is located approximately 1,324 light-years from Earth. WASP-17 b is classified as a “puffy” hot Jupiter due to its 3.7-day orbital period, meaning the extreme temperatures could cause unique chemical processes to occur within its atmosphere, but the astronomers were still surprised by the findings.
Continue reading “An Exoplanet so Hot it has Clouds Made of Quartz”
Humans can’t seem to interact with the environment at all without fouling it in some way. From plastic bags in the ocean’s deepest regions to soot on Himalayan glaciers, our waste is finding its way into Earth’s most difficult-to-reach places.
Now, we can add metals in the stratosphere to this ignominious list.
Continue reading “Spaceflight is Polluting the Atmosphere with Metal”
It might be oxymoronic to say that the more we find out about something, the more mysterious it becomes. But if that’s true of anything in our Solar System, it might be true about Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt.
Continue reading “A Hypervelocity Experiment Mimics the Surface Conditions of Ceres”
Plenty of recent mainstream news articles have touted AI’s ability to assist in the process of scientific discovery. But most of them predicted that it could take years or even decades to see the full effect. Astronomy seems ahead of the curve, though, with the announcement of a new AI system developed by researchers at Northwestern University and elsewhere that can now autonomously detect and classify supernovae.
Continue reading “A Machine Learning Algorithm Finds its First Supernova”
Will Comet 2/P Encke and the Taurid meteors ‘trick’ or ‘treat’ observers this year?
October and November are always great months to watch for meteors, and 2023 is no exception. This year provides a special reason to be vigilant, as the source of the infamous November Taurid Fireballs Comet 2P Encke reaches perihelion for 2023 on October 22nd, at 0.34 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun.
Continue reading “Comet Encke and the Halloween Fireballs of 2023”
One of the reasons that asteroid mining is such a popular idea among industrialists is that they holds large quantities of heavy elements. NASA’s Psyche spacecraft just launched this week, headed for an asteroid that holds ten to thirty quintillion U.S dollars worth of rare-earth elements and other heavy metals. During our planet’s formation, the heavier of these elements tended to sink deep into the Earth, making them hard to find. But even in small asteroids, these heavy elements might be much more common and accessible. Since we rely on these rare-earth elements for our modern society, metal-rich asteroids such as Psyche are worth checking out.
Continue reading “Can We Find the Heaviest Elements in Asteroids?”
Astronauts will face a host of obstacles when they visit the Moon again. There’s powerful radiation, wild temperature swings, and challenging gravity to deal with. There’s also dust and lots of it. Moondust was a hazard for the Apollo astronauts, and future lunar astronauts will have to contend with it, too.
What if they turn some of that dust into solid surfaces to drive on?
Continue reading “Building Roads Out of Moon Dust”