Posted on by Matt Williams

Astronomers are Searching for a Galaxy-Wide Transmitter Beacon at the Center of the Milky Way

Researchers from the SETI Institute have conducted the first in-depth search for a beacon at the center of our galaxy. Credit: Breakthrough Listen / Danielle Futselaar

It has been over sixty years since the first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) survey occurred. This was Project Ozma, a survey led by Dr. Frank Drake (who devised the Drake Equation) that used the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia, to listen for radio transmissions from Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti. While the search revealed nothing of interest, it paved the way for decades of research, theory, and attempts to find evidence of technological activity (aka. “technosignatures”).

The search continues today, with researchers using next-generation instruments and analytical methods to find the “needle in the cosmic haystack.” This is the purpose behind Breakthrough Listen Investigation for Periodic Spectral Signals (BLIPSS), a collaborative SETI project led by Cornell graduate student Akshay Suresh to look for technosignatures at the center of the Milky Way. In a recent paper, Suresh and his team shared their initial findings, which were made possible thanks to data obtained by the Greenbank Observatory and a proprietary algorithm they developed.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

Betelgeuse is Almost 50% Brighter Than Normal. What’s Going On?

The red supergiant Betelgeuse. Its activity can be confounding, and the current brightening isn't helping. Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/E. O’Gorman/P. Kervella

Whenever something happens with Betelgeuse, speculations about it exploding as a supernova proliferate. It would be cool if it did. We’re far enough away to suffer no consequences, so it’s fun to imagine the sky lighting up like that for months.

Now the red supergiant star has brightened by almost 50%, and that has the speculation ramping up again.

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Posted on by Matt Williams

Three New Astronauts Arrive at the Chinese Space Station, Including the Country's First Civilian

Artist's rendering of the completed Tiangong space station. Credit: Shujianyang/Wikimedia

China continues to establish new milestones in space. In recent years, the China National Space Agency (CNSA) has begun assembling the Long March-9 (CZ-9), the country’s first reusable super-heavy launch vehicle; the Tianwen-1 mission became the first Chinese orbiter, lander, and rover combination to reach Mars, and their super-secret spaceplane completed its second flight (after spending 276 days in space). China has also made significant progress in terms of human spaceflight, especially where the Tiangong space station is concerned.

Earlier this week (Tues. May 30th), the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) took another major step when it launched the country’s sixteenth mission (Shenzou-16) to Tiangong atop a Long March-2F (CZ-2F) rocket. This mission delivered three taikonauts to the space station and performed the most complicated docking maneuver ever attempted. The mission highlights included successfully testing the Shenzou’s upgraded instruments and systems, which allowed the spacecraft to autonomously rendezvous with the station under less-than-ideal conditions.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

These New Computer Simulations of the Sun are Hypnotic

Computer simulation of magnetic structures in solar-like conditions. Image: Jörn Warnecke

It’s almost impossible to over-emphasize the primal, raging, natural power of a star. Our Sun may appear benign in simple observations, but with the advanced scientific instruments at our disposal in modern times, we know differently. In observations outside the narrow band of light our eyes can see, the Sun appears as an enraged, infuriated sphere, occasionally hurling huge jets of plasma into space, some of which slam into Earth.

Jets of plasma slamming into Earth isn’t something to be celebrated (unless you’re in a weird cult); it can cause all kinds of problems.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

JWST Scans an Ultra-Hot Jupiter’s Atmosphere

This artist's illustration shows WASP 18 b, a hot Super-Jupiter that orbits its star in less than one day. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI).

When astronomers discovered WASP-18b in 2009, they uncovered one of the most unusual planets ever found. It’s ten times as massive as Jupiter is, it’s tidally locked to its Sun-like star, and it completes an orbit in less than one Earth day, about 23 hours.

Now astronomers have pointed the JWST and its powerful NIRSS instrument at the ultra-Hot Jupiter and mapped its extraordinary atmosphere.

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Posted on by Carolyn Collins Petersen

You Can Detect Tsunamis as They Push the Atmosphere Around

The Tonga Hunga volcanic eruption sent a tsunami across the Pacific. Air pressure disturbances from the tsunami distorted GPS signals. GOES imagery courtesy NOAA,NESDIS.
The Tonga Hunga volcanic eruption sent a tsunami across the Pacific. Air pressure disturbances from the tsunami distorted GPS signals. GOES imagery courtesy NOAA,NESDIS.

Anyone who’s ever lived along a coastline or been at sea knows the effects of tsunamis. And, they appreciate all the early warning they can get if one’s on the way. Now, NASA’s GNSS Upper Atmospheric Real-time Disaster and Alert Network (GUARDIAN) is using global navigation systems to measure the effect these ocean disturbances have on our atmosphere. The system’s measurements could provide a very effective early warning tool for people to get to higher ground in the path of a tsunami.

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Posted on by Laurence Tognetti

If You’re Going to Visit Venus, Why Not Include an Asteroid Flyby Too?

Radar image of Venus created by the Solar System Visualization project and the Magellan science team at the JPL Multimission Image Processing Laboratory. This is a single frame from a video released at the October 29, 1991, JPL news conference. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

A recent study submitted to Acta Astronautica examines the prospect of designing a Venus mission flight plan that would involve visiting a nearby asteroid after performing a gravity assist maneuver at Venus but prior to final contact with the planet. The study was conducted by Vladislav Zubko, who is a researcher and PhD Candidate at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) and has experience studying potential flight plans to various planetary bodies throughout the solar system.

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Posted on by Carolyn Collins Petersen

ESA is Testing How Iron Burns in Weightlessness

ESA tested a process called discrete burning, using iron powder mixed with oxygen while in microgravity. The result is a possible way to create sustainable fuels on Earth and in space. Courtesy ESA.
ESA tested a process called discrete burning, using iron powder mixed with oxygen while in microgravity. The result is a possible way to create sustainable fuels on Earth and in space. Courtesy ESA and photo by TU/e, Bart van Overbeeke

What happens when you burn iron in space? The European Space Agency is torching iron powder in microgravity, to find out. They aren’t doing it for the fun of it, but to understand something called “discrete burning.” It turns out that this process might enable more efficient iron-burning furnaces right here on Earth. It could eventually join other renewable energy sources as a way to combat the release of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

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Posted on by Matt Williams

Here's How You Could Get Impossibly Large Galaxies in the Early Universe

The galaxy cluster SMACS0723, with the five galaxies selected for closer study. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI / Giménez-Arteaga et al. (2023), Peter Laursen (Cosmic Dawn Center).

One of the most interesting (and confounding) discoveries made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the existence of “impossibly large galaxies.” As noted in a previous article, these galaxies existed during the “Cosmic Dawn,” the period that coincided with the end of the “Cosmic Dark Age” (roughly 1 billion years after the Big Bang). This period is believed to hold the answers to many cosmological mysteries, not the least of which is what the earliest galaxies in the Universe looked like. But after Webb obtained images of these primordial galaxies, astronomers noticed something perplexing.

The galaxies were much larger than what the most widely accepted cosmological model predicts! Since then, astronomers and astrophysicists have been racking their brains to explain how these galaxies could have formed. Recently, a team of astrophysicists from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem published a theoretical model that addresses the mystery of these massive galaxies. According to their findings, the prevalence of special conditions in these galaxies (at the time) allowed highly-efficient rates of star formation without interference from other stars.

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