Amateurs astronomers have once again captured images of a major impact of something on Jupiter.
Astronomers have measured the most powerful magnetic field ever found around a star.
The star’s magnetic field is 20,000 times stronger than the Sun’s, and almost 10 times stronger than that detected around any other high-mass star. At about 35 times the Sun’s mass, the O-type star NGC 1624-2 lies in the open star cluster NGC 1624, about 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Perseus.
An evening pause: A song by a band called There’s a Light, from their 2012 album Khartoum, expressing nicely in words, music, and images the human insistence on doing great things.
New computer models now suggest that the the habitable zone for life is far larger than previously estimated.
Planets without end: Another planet has been found in the habitable zone.
Gliese 163c could have a size between 1.8 to 2.4 Earth radii, depending if it is composed mostly of rock or water, respectively. It receives on average 40% more light from its parent star than Earth from the Sun, making it hotter. In comparison, Venus receives 90% more light from the Sun than Earth. We do not know the properties of the atmosphere of Gliese 163c but, if we assume that it is a scaled up version of Earth’s atmosphere, then its surface temperature might be around 60°C [140°F]. Most complex life on Earth (plants, animals, and even humans) are not able to survive at temperatures above 50°C [122°F], however, plenty of extremophilic microbial life forms can thrive at those temperatures or higher.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an incredible video of an August 31 eruption on the Sun. Video below the fold.
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New Horizons — on its way to Pluto — will take a look at a different Kuiper Belt object in January 2015.
The encounter will take place at a range of about 75 million km, a distance somewhat subject to change depending on how the probe makes its course correction. At such a great distance, New Horizons will not be able to discern features on the surface of the KBO, nor will it be able to make spectroscopic observations to try to determine the composition of the surface material.
However, New Horizons will be in an excellent position to look for small, close-in moons around the object. It will also be in a position to observe the object’s phase curve, which is a measure of how the reflectivity of the surface changes as a function of viewing angle. This will reveal a great deal about the fluffiness of the surface material (note – fluffiness is a technical term meaning, roughly, “the opposite of dense”). These two observations cannot be made from Earth, even with the most powerful telescopes available.
Sweet! Astronomers have detected molecules of sugar in the gas cloud surrounding a young binary star about 400 light years away.
An analysis of the survey data produced by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has uncovered literally millions of black hole candidates as well as a thousand of the brightest galaxies yet found.
Planets without end: A solar system with two suns.
Kepler had previously found two planets orbiting two different binary stars. Here, the space telescope has found a binary star which has its own solar system of two planets.
The uncertainty of science: In a paper published today in Science, astronomers show that Type 1a supernovae, the kind used to measure the expansion rate of the universe, can be caused in more than one way, something not previously expected.
Andy Howell, second author on the study, said: “It is a total surprise to find that thermonuclear supernovae, which all seem so similar, come from different kinds of stars. It is like discovering that some humans evolved from ape-like ancestors, and others came from giraffes. How could they look so similar if they had such different origins?” Howell is the leader of the supernova group at LCOGT, and is an adjunct faculty member in physics at UCSB.
Recently, some studies have found that Type Ia supernovae are not perfect standard candles –– their brightness depends on the type of galaxy in which they were discovered. The reason is a mystery, but the finding that some Type Ia supernovae come from different progenitors would seem to suggest that the supernova’s ultimate brightness may be affected by whether or not it comes from a nova or a white dwarf merger.
“We don’t think this calls the presence of dark energy into question,” said Dilday. “But it does show that if we want to make progress understanding it, we need to understand supernovae better.”
Astronomers have found what they believe is the first evidence of a planet consumed by its star as the star expanded and aged.
Sadly, for those of you out there who like the idea of watching planets getting destroyed, the event happened a long time ago, and all the astronomers have is circumstantial evidence that is most likely explained by such an event.
Astronomers have now confirmed 41 new exoplanets, first pinpointed by the Kepler space telescope.
One paper, by Jiwei Xie at the University of Toronto, confirms 24 new planets in 12 systems. Another study, by Steffen and his colleagues, confirms 27 planets in 13 systems. Five of the systems, and 10 of the planets, are the same in both papers. All in all, the new research adds 20 new planetary systems to the 47 that Kepler had previously confirmed, marking a more than 40 percent increase.
Among the Kepler candidates are five Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone, according to the vidoe at the link. However, this announcement does not tell us if any of those candidates were confirmed by these two papers.
The 1006 AD supernova, thought to be the brightest in recorded history, apparently left no star behind.
Facing tight budgets, a National Science Foundation panel has recommended the shuttering of five major ground-based telescopes.
Stay tuned for loud screams of outrage. However, some of these facilities have not been very useful for years. Consider the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Radio Telescope. It was only rebuilt after it collapsed in 1988 because of the political clout of Senator Robert Byrd. By the time that reconstruction was finished, a process that took more than 20 years, the telescope was completely obsolete. Though it has done some good science, it is far outmatched by other radio telescope arrays.
Many of the facilities are funded merely due to bureaucratic and political inertia. For the astronomical community to be willing to recognize this is a good thing, for which they should be lauded.
Pretty picture: The European Southern Observatory today released a spectacular image of the Pipe Nebula.
The Earth destroyed repeatedly, in the name of science.
Pick the target: In celebration of the European Southern Observatory’s fiftieth anniversary, they are holding two competitions, one of which allows the public to pick what the Very Large Telescope will look at. With awards!
R.I.P. Astronomer Bernard Lowell.
More signs that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is about to enter interstellar space.
For the last seven years, Voyager 1 has been exploring the outer layer of the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. In one day, on July 28, data from Voyager 1’s cosmic ray instrument showed the level of high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our solar system jumped by five percent. During the last half of that same day, the level of lower-energy particles originating from inside our solar system dropped by half. However, in three days, the levels had recovered to near their previous levels.
A third key sign is the direction of the magnetic field, and scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction. Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space. A preliminary analysis of the latest magnetic field data is expected to be available in the next month.
Based on this report, expect scientists to announce that Voyager 1 has left the solar system sometime before the end of the year.
A press release from the Carnegie Institute today described a recent paper by astronomers that might have identified a star in the Milky Way that might go supernova sometime in the future. The star QU Carinae, is a cataclysmic variable, a binary system in which material dumped from one star onto another periodically causes an outburst of X-rays.
I emailed Stella Kafka, the lead scientist of the research paper, to find out how far away QU Carinae is and how soon it might go supernova. She responded as follows:
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What one supernovae looks like after the boom.
A tranquil spiral galaxy, home to supernovae. And a beautiful image too!
Bad news: One of Kepler’s four reaction wheels — used to orient the space telescope — has failed.
Kepler only needs three wheels to function – one to control the probe’s motion along each axis – and the probe resumed its observations on 20 July. “Kepler is functioning very well on three reaction wheels,” says mission manager Roger Hunter of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. If the glitch can’t be fixed, though, Kepler will be left without a backup wheel. “This is reducing the odds of making the mission go as long as we can,” says Kepler chief scientist William Borucki of NASA Ames, who doubts that Kepler could point accurately enough to look for transiting planets if reduced to two reaction wheels. “It was a disappointing surprise to find this wheel stopped so early.”
Watching a big asteroid zip past the earth, live.
Some spectacular images of galaxies from the new Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT).
Funded privately by the Discovery channel, the DCT has a primary mirror 4.3 meters wide, or about 170 inches, almost as large as the Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain. This is a world class telescope which will do real research, and it was built the old-fashioned way, with private money donated to a private observatory in exchange for publicity and good will.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have found the most distant spiral galaxy ever seen.
Null result: Scientists have failed to detect one of the leading theoretical candidates for dark matter.
