Universe Today

October 19, 2021October 19, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

With no Solid Surface, the Atmosphere of Jupiter Behaves Quite Differently Than Earth

Jupiter’s atmosphere has plenty of distinct features, including lightning and the Great Red Spot. But the underlying processes that drive these features are less well understood, as the physics of the gases that make up Jupiter’s atmosphere is complicated. A team of scientists from all over the globe has found a familiar process in all the chaos, though. They think a process that happens here on Earth might be happening on a grander scale at Jupiter.

October 19, 2021October 19, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Astronomers see a Moon-Forming Disk Around a Super-Jupiter

Recently, astronomers have been finding protoplanetary discs around certain stars. Their discovery has helped kick off a new work in planetary formation theory. But planets aren’t the objects that form from discs of material in space. Moons do too. Now, scientists led by Dr. Tomas Stolker of Leiden University and his team have delved deeper into the characteristics of a “protolunar” disc surrounding a “super Jupiter” exoplanet about 500 light-years away.

October 19, 2021October 19, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Gravitational Waves Reveal Surprising Secrets About Neutron Stars

The confirmation of gravitational waves back in 2017 continues to unlock whole new worlds of physics but also continues to elicit further questions. The detection of each gravitational wave brings a new challenge – how to find out what caused the event. Sometimes that is harder than it sounds. Now a team led by Alejandro Vigna-Gomez of the University of Copenhagen thinks they found a model of star death that helps to explain some previously inexplicable findings – and points to a galaxy with many more massive neutron stars than previously thought.

October 18, 2021October 18, 2021 by Evan Gough

What’s Causing the Mysterious Radio Waves Coming From the Center of the Milky Way?

An artist's impression of ASKAP J173608.2-321635, the mysterious radio source at the center of the Milky Way. Image Credit: Sebastian Zentilomo.

The center of the Milky Way is a mysterious place. Astronomers think there’s a supermassive black hole there, though it could be dark matter instead. The region is densely packed with stars, dominated by red giants. And because of all the dust between Earth and the galactic center, we can’t see anything with visible light, ultraviolet light, or low-energy x-rays.

But we can detect radio waves, and there are some unexplained ones coming from the center of the galaxy, and adding to the mystery.

October 18, 2021October 18, 2021 by Matt Williams

Europa has Water in its Atmosphere

Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope recently revealed water vapour in the atmosphere of Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons. A new analysis of archival images and spectra has now revealed that water vapour is also present in the atmosphere of Jupter’s icy moon Europa. The analysis found that a water vapour atmosphere is present only on one hemisphere of the moon. This result advances our understanding of the atmospheric structure of icy moons, and helps lay the groundwork for upcoming science missions which will explore Jupiter’s icy moons.

Since the Voyager probes passed through the Jupiter system in 1979, scientists have been intrigued and mystified by its moon Europa. Once the images these probes acquired of the moon’s icy surface returned to Earth, scientists began to speculate about the possibility of a subsurface ocean. Since then, the detection of plume activity and other lines of evidence have bolstered this theory and fed speculation that there could be life beneath Europa’s icy surface.

According to new research, another critical piece of evidence of Europa’s watery nature has at least been confirmed. Using a similar technique that confirmed the presence of atmospheric water vapor in Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, Lorenz Roth of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology confirmed that Europa has water vapor in its atmosphere. This discovery could lead to a greater understanding of Europa’s atmosphere and surface environment, informing missions headed there in the near future.

October 18, 2021October 18, 2021 by Evan Gough

A Magnetic Tunnel Surrounds the Earth

The sky as it would appear in radio polarized waves. The Van-Gogh-like lines show magnetic field orientation. Image Credit: Pixabay/wal_172619, with edits by J. West.

What if our eyes could see radio waves?

If we could, we might be able to look up into the sky and see a tunnel of rope-like filaments made of radio waves. The structure would be about 1,000 light-years long and would be about 350 light-years away.

This tunnel explains two of the brightest radio features in the sky.

October 18, 2021October 18, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Here’s the View From Sweden During the Recent Solar Storm

Aurora seen in Sweden, October 12, 2021. Credit: All-sky camera, Kiruna Atmospheric and Geophysical Observatory (KAGO) within the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF).

Vivid green and purple aurora swirled and danced across the entire night sky in Sweden recently. The nighttime light show was captured by an all-sky camera in Kiruna, Sweden, which is part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Space Weather Service Network.

October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 by Matt Williams

Volcanism on the Moon Ended About 2 Billion Years ago

According to the most widely accepted theories, the Moon formed about 4.5 billion years ago after a Mars-sized object (Theia) collided with Earth. After the resulting debris accreted to create the Earth-Moon system, the Moon spent many eons cooling down. This meant that a few billion years ago, lakes of lava were flowing across the surface of the Moon, which eventually hardened to form the vast dark patches (lunar maria) that are still there today.

Thanks to the samples of lunar rock brought back to Earth by China’s Chang’e 5 mission, scientists are learning more about how the Moon formed and evolved. According to a recent study led by the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences (CGAS), an international team examined these samples to investigate when volcanism on the Moon ended. Their results are not only filling in the gaps of the Moon’s geological history but also of other bodies in the Solar System.

October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Why do Uranus and Neptune Have Magnetic Fields? Hot ice

The outer “ice giant” planets, Neptune and Uranus, have plenty of mysteries. One of the biggest is where exactly they got their magnetic fields. They are strong at that, with Neptune’s being twenty-seven times more powerful than Earth’s, while Uranus’ varies between ? and four times Earth’s strength. Chaos rules in these electromagnetic environments, making them exceptionally hard to both understand and model. Now a team of researchers led by Dr. Vitali Prakpenka of the University of Chicago thinks they might have found the underlying cause of both the field’s strength and its randomness – “hot ice.”

October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

This’ll be us… in 5 Billion Years

Scientists have long known the fate of our solar system – and likely the fate of Earth itself. In a few billion years, the Sun will run out of fusion fuel and expand to a “red giant” phase, likely swallowing everything in the solar system up to the orbit of Mars. But, some of the planets past that point could survive, like Jupiter and Saturn. Now, scientists have used the Keck Observatory to see a system that looks like what ours will after the Sun’s red giant phase for the very first time.