Universe Today

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Evan Gough

The Dark Energy Camera Captures the Remains of an Ancient Supernova

The US DOE's DECam captured this image of the tattered shell of the first-ever recorded supernova. A ring of glowing debris is all that remains of a white dwarf star that exploded more than 1800 years ago and was recorded by Chinese astronomers as a ‘guest star’. This special image, which covers an impressive 45 arcminutes on the sky, gives a rare view of the entirety of this supernova remnant. Image Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

The first written record of a supernova comes from Chinese astrologers in the year 185. Those records say a ‘guest star’ lit up the sky for about eight months. We now know that it was a supernova.

All that remains is a ring of debris named RCW 86, and astronomers working with the DECam (Dark Energy Camera) used it to examine the debris ring and the aftermath of the supernova.

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Matt Williams

A Mysterious Blob Near the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole Might Finally Have an Explanation

Orbits of stars near Sagittarius A*. Credit: ESO/M. Parsa/L. Calçada

At the center of the Milky Way, there is a massive persistent radio source known as Sagittarius A*. Since the 1970s, astronomers have known that this source is a supermassive black hole (SMBH) roughly 4 million times the mass of our Sun. Thanks to advancements in optics, spectrometers, and interferometry, astronomers have been able to peer into Galactic Center. In addition, thanks to the international consortium known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), the world got to see the first image of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) in May 2022.

These efforts have allowed astronomers and astrophysicists to characterize the environment at the center of our galaxy and see how the laws of physics work under the most extreme conditions. For instance, scientists have been observing a mysterious elongated object around the Sgr A* (named X7) and wondered what it was. In a new study based on two decades’ worth of data, an international team of astronomers with the UCLA Galactic Center Group (GCG) and the Keck Observatory have proposed that it could be a debris cloud created by a stellar collision.

March 2, 2023February 28, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomers Prepare for a Total View of Total Solar Eclipses

A team of astronomers have proposed a series of missions utilizing land, sea, and airborne observatories to continuously monitor as many total solar eclipses as possible in the coming decade. These missions will reveal aspects of the solar corona that cannot be studied by any other means.

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Blue Origin is Building Solar Cells out of (Simulated) Lunar Regolith

Power infrastructure will be critical for any long-term space colony, and one of the most critical pieces of that power infrastructure, at least in the inner solar system, is solar cells. So in-situ research experts were thrilled when Blue Origin, ostensibly a rocket company, recently announced that they had made functional solar cells entirely out of nothing other than lunar regolith simulant.

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Spectacular Night Launch Sends SpaceX Crew 6 to the Space Station

In this five-minute long exposure, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky.

The NASA/SpaceX Crew 6 members are now on their way to the International Space Stations after a spectacular nighttime liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.

At 12:34 am EST, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent a Dragon spacecraft named Endeavour into orbit. Onboard were NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, along with United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

JWST Sees the Same Supernova Three Times in an Epic Gravitational Lens

JWST image with three smaller insets displaying three lensed images comprised of a single background galaxy up close. Supernova candidate AT 2022riv (middle image with parallel lines) is the oldest image, followed by two subsequent images ~320 days after the first image (bottom) and ~1000 days after the first image (top). Neither of the two subsequent images have the supernova present. (Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Kelly)

The NASA/European Space Agency (ESA)/Canadian Space Agency (CSA) James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mission continues to dazzle and amaze with every image it beams back to Earth, and a recent observation depicting not one, not two, but three images of the same galaxy has been no different, as they proudly tweeted on February 28, 2023.

March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 by Evan Gough

Remember the DART impact? Hubble Made a Movie of the Debris

This Hubble image shows debris from Dimorphos about one day after NASA's DART spacecraft slammed into it. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Li (PSI)

When NASA crashed a 610 kg (1,340 lb) impactor into tiny Dimorphos, a moon of the asteroid Didymos, it was all part of an effort to defend Earth. The impact showed how asteroids respond to impacts, and the data is helping NASA prepare for the day when we have to redirect an asteroid away from an eventual impact with Earth.

NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) smashed into Dimorphos on the 26th of September, 2022, and ground telescopes watched the result.

March 1, 2023February 28, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

The James Webb Is Getting Closer to Finding What Ionized the Universe

An artist's representation of what the first stars to light up the universe might have looked like in the Cosmic Dawn -- when early stars and galaxies were coming together. Image Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

Astronomers have determined that so-called “leaky” galaxies may have responsible for triggering the last great transformational epoch in our universe, one which ionized the neutral interstellar gas.

March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 by Evan Gough

Hubble Sees an Epic Merger of Three Galaxies

A spectacular trio of merging galaxies in the constellation Boötes takes center stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These three galaxies are set on a collision course and will eventually merge into a single larger galaxy, distorting one another’s spiral structure through mutual gravitational interaction in the process. An unrelated foreground galaxy appears to float serenely near this scene, and the smudged shapes of much more distant galaxies are visible in the background. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun

When is 50,000 light-years only a small distance? When three galaxies are that close to one another. At that range, they’re fiercely interacting.

In the case of the three galaxies referred to as SDSSCGB 10189, they’re 50,000 light-years apart and growing closer as they merge into a single massive galaxy.

February 28, 2023February 28, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Humanity has Never Seen the sky in the Longest Wavelengths. That Could Change With a new Space Telescope

Technological revolutions can bring about dramatic changes in various fields, some of which are only tangentially related to the field being disrupted. Occasionally, a few technological revolutions happen simultaneously, enabling concepts that would have been impossible without any of them. Such revolutions are currently happening in the space industry. With rockets more massive than ever coming online, and mega-constellations of satellites roaming our skies, there is plenty of disruption going on. Now a team from MIT hopes to use those technologies to look at an area of astronomy that has never been seen before – low-frequency radio astronomy.