As it does every month, NOAA today posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. This latest graph, covering the month of September, is posted below the fold.
Not only is the Sun’s sunspot production continuing to fizzle, it is fizzling even more than before.
» Read more
Want to buy a telescope? The world’s second largest infrared telescope on Mauna Kea is for sale.
The price is relatively cheap, $1.24 million. All that is needed is a private corporation eager to get some good publicity while contributing to the science of astronomy.
A star has gone supernova and astronomers get to see it from the very beginning, and even earlier!
The star had erupted several times before but had not produced a real supernova explosion. On September 26 it finally did so. Moreover, astronomers have images of the star prior to any eruption, information that until recently was not available for any supernovae.
Dizzy: Astronomers have discovered a star that circles the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way in only 11.5 years.
This newly discovered star joins another that is 15 times brighter and has a 16 year orbit. The combined orbital data from both will allow astronomers to measure precisely the size of the black hole while also measuring the distortion of space caused by its intense gravitational field.
Astronomers have identified the same kind of minerals found in comets in our solar system in the dusty disk surrounding the nearby star Beta Pictoris.
The uncertainty of science: Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope astronomers have narrowed the universe’s rate of expansion to about 74.3 kilometers per second per megaparsec.
The importance of this number, also called the Hubble Constant, is that it allows astronomers to extrapolate more precisely backward to when they believe the Big Bang occurred, about 13.7 billion years ago. It also is a crucial data point in their effort to understand dark energy, in which this expansion rate is actually accelerating on vast scales.
Back in 1995 a team led by Wendy Freedman, the same scientist leading the work above, announced that they had used the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the expansion rate as 80 kilometers per second per megaparsec. Then, the margin of error was plus or minus 17 kilometers. Now the margin of error has been narrowed to plus or minus 2.1 kilometers.
Do I believe these new numbers? No, not really. Science has nothing to do with belief. I do think this is good science, however, and that this new estimate of the Hubble constant is probably the best yet. I would also not be surprised if in the future new data eventually proves this estimate wrong.
This is a wonderful article, outlining (with video!) the present state of knowledge about the past, present, and future of our home galaxy.
The solar maximum has already occurred in the Sun’s northern hemisphere, according to one scientist’s research.
Moreover, the data also suggests that the maximum in the Sun’s southern hemisphere will not occur until early in 2014. This asymmetry between the hemispheres also suggests the strong possibility of a Grand Minimum to follow.
The sharpest ever ground-based image of Pluto and its moon Charon.
It is a great image of Pluto, but not quite as good as Hubble’s best, proving once again the value of either getting up above the atmosphere with a telescope, or even better, going there.
The Hubble Space Telescope has taken its deepest image yet.
This long exposure picture of a tiny patch of sky in the constellation Fornax spotted about 5,500 galaxies from the very beginning of the universe. Take a close look, because you will see that these early galaxies are often strange looking. I have cropped out one just example to the left to give you an idea.
Amateur astronomer Jason Lewis sent me an email today describing how the amateur astronomy community is abuzz with the discovery of a new comet, presently dubbed C/2012 S1, that is due to make its dive around the Sun in late November 2013 and pass closest to the Earth in January 2014 at a distance of about 37 million miles. Based on the preliminary numbers, this comet might be one of the brightest in years, almost certainly a naked eye object and visible to everyone from both the northern and southern hemispheres.
To quote the comments from one astronomy forum:
» Read more
The uncertainty of science: Astronomers using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory have found that the Milky Way is surrounded by a halo of hot gas.
This is the key quote:
The estimated mass of the halo is comparable to the mass of all the stars in the galaxy. If the size and mass of this gas halo is confirmed, it also could be an explanation for what is known as the “missing baryon” problem for the galaxy.
“Missing baryon” is another way to say “dark matter.” In other words, this discovery might prove that it isn’t necessary to invent exotic unknown particles of physics, such as the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) to explain the missing matter. The missing matter might simply be this hot gas, previously undetected.
Planets without end: Astronomers have discovered the first exoplanets to be found inside an open star cluster that are orbiting sun-like stars.
A new astronomical constant: 149,597,870,700 meters.
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.
» Read more
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.
