If you want to pinpoint your place in the Universe, start with your cosmic address. You live on Earth->Solar System->Milky Way Galaxy->Local Cluster->Virgo Cluster->Virgo Supercluster->Laniakea. Thanks to new deep sky surveys, astronomers now think all those places are part of an even bigger cosmic structure in the “neighborhood” called The Shapley Concentration.
Continue reading “The Milky Way Might be Part of an Even Larger Structure than Laniakea”Webb Detects Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen Perodixe on Pluto’s moon Charon
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed magnificent things about the Universe. Using its sophisticated infrared optics, it has peered deeper into space (and farther back in time) than any observatory to date, gathering data on the first galaxies to form in our Universe. It has also obtained spectra from exoplanets, revealing things about the chemical composition of their atmospheres. In addition, Webb has provided some stunning views of objects within our Solar System, like Jupiter and its auroras, Saturn’s rings and moons, and Neptune and its satellites.
Recently, a team led by researchers from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) used Webb Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to closely examine the Pluto-Charon system. Their observations detected frozen carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide on the surface of Pluto’s largest moon for the first time. These discoveries add to what scientists learned about Charon’s chemical inventory from ground-based telescopes and the New Horizons mission. It also reveals more about the chemical composition of the many objects that make up the Kuiper Belt.
Continue reading “Webb Detects Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen Perodixe on Pluto’s moon Charon”The GALAH Fourth Data Release Provides Vital Data on One Million Stars in the Milky Way.
For the past ten years, Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) has been investigating star formation, chemical enrichment, migration, and mergers in the Milky Way with the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). Their work is part of the GALactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) project, an international collaboration of more than 100 scientists from institutes and universities worldwide. These observations have led to the highest spectral resolution multi-dimensional datasets for over a million stars in the Milky Way.
Previous GALAH data releases have led to many significant discoveries about the evolution of the Milky Way, the existence of exoplanets, hidden star clusters, and many more. In the fourth data release (DR4), the GALAH team released the chemical fingerprints (spectra) for almost 1 million stars. This data is the pinnacle of the 10-year project and was released during the 50th anniversary celebration of the AAT. According to the study that accompanied the release, the data will inform decades of research into the formation and evolution of our galaxy.
Continue reading “The GALAH Fourth Data Release Provides Vital Data on One Million Stars in the Milky Way.”The Sun Unleashes its Strongest Flare This Cycle
Yesterday the Sun released a huge solar flare, and it’s heading toward Earth! It’s nothing to worry about since it’s nowhere near as large as the Carrington Event of 1859, but it is large enough to give us some amazing aurora.
Continue reading “The Sun Unleashes its Strongest Flare This Cycle”What’s the Best Material for a Lunar Tower?
Physical infrastructure on the Moon will be critical to any long-term human presence there as both America and China gear up for a sustained human lunar presence. Increasingly, a self-deploying tower is one of the most essential parts of that physical infrastructure. These towers can hold numerous pieces of equipment, from solar panels to communications arrays, and the more weight they can hold in the lunar gravity, the more capable they become. So it’s essential to understand the best structural set-up for these towers, which is the purpose of a recent paper by researchers at North Carolina State University and NASA’s Langley Research Center.
Continue reading “What’s the Best Material for a Lunar Tower?”What Does a Trip to Mars Do to the Brain?
It’s not long before a conversation about space travel is likely to turn to the impact on the human body. Our bodies have evolved to exist on Earth with a constant force of 1G acting upon them but up in orbit, all of a sudden that force is apparently lacking. The impact of this is well known; muscle loss and reduction in bone density but there are effects of spaceflight. Cosmic radiation from the Galaxy has an impact on cognition too, an effect that has recently been studied in mice!
Continue reading “What Does a Trip to Mars Do to the Brain?”Could a New Sungrazer Comet Put on a Show at the End of October?
Could this be the next great comet? To be sure, these words have been said lots of times before. In a clockwork sky, how comets will perform is always the great wildcard. Comets from Kohoutek to ISON have failed to live up to expectations, while others like W3 Lovejoy took us all by surprise. But a discovery this past weekend has message boards abuzz, as an incoming sungrazer could put on a show right around Halloween.
Continue reading “Could a New Sungrazer Comet Put on a Show at the End of October?”Gravitational Lens Confirms the Hubble Tension
We’ve known the Universe is expanding for a long time. The first solid paper demonstrating cosmic expansion was published by Edwin Hubble in 1929, based on observations made by Vesto Slipher, Milton Humason, and Henrietta Leavitt. Because of this, the rate of cosmic expansion is known as the Hubble constant, or Hubble parameter, H0. From this parameter, you can calculate things such as the age of the Universe since the Big Bang, so knowing the value of H0 is central to our understanding of modern cosmology.
Continue reading “Gravitational Lens Confirms the Hubble Tension”Jets From Supermassive Black Holes Create New Stars Along Their Trajectory
Since the 1970s, astronomers have observed that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) reside at the centers of most massive galaxies. In some cases, these black holes accelerate gas and dust from their poles, forming relativistic jets that can extend for thousands of light-years. Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers observed the jet emanating from the center of M87, the supermassive galaxy located 53.5 million light-years away. To their surprise, the team observed nova erupting along the jet’s trajectory, twice as many as they observed in M87 itself.
Continue reading “Jets From Supermassive Black Holes Create New Stars Along Their Trajectory”NASA Turns Off One of Voyager 2's Science Instruments
The two Voyager spacecraft have been speeding through space since 1977, powered by decaying chunks of plutonium that produce less and less energy every year. With less electricity available, NASA has decided to shut down one experiment on Voyager 2, the plasma science instrument. This device measures the quantity and direction of ionized particles passing the spacecraft. While Voyager 2 still has enough electricity to support its four other operational instruments, it will likely be down to just one by the 2030s.
Continue reading “NASA Turns Off One of Voyager 2's Science Instruments”