Jun 25, 2021 07:47 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 25, 2021 10:09 PM by C C.)
Never-before-seen colossal comet on a trek toward the sun
https://www.space.com/huge-new-comet-orbit-toward-earth
EXCERPT: . . . The comet, which may be an impressive 62 miles (100 kilometers) wide, is 20 times the distance from Earth to the sun away, heading toward our blue dot. It will reach its closest point to the sun in its orbit on Jan. 23, 2031, when it will be just beyond the orbit of Saturn, or about 10.95 times the distance between Earth and the sun.
"We will have practically 20 years to study it," said Peter Vereš, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian and at the Minor Planet Center, which identifies and computes orbits for new comets, minor planets and other far-flung rocky bodies. That's an exciting opportunity, he said, because the comet is likely a near-pristine object from the Oort Cloud, a field of icy, rocky debris that likely surrounds the solar system like a crunchy shell... (MORE - details)
If aliens exist in these 1,700 solar systems, they can probably see Earth
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180978060/
INTRO: Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger of Cornell University, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature, posed the question: “Which stars could see us as the aliens, as the transiting planet where the Earth blocks out light from the star?”
By analyzing the shifting cosmic lines of sight for more than 300,000 stars within about 300 light years of our sun, Kaltenegger and her co-author identified more than 2,000 stars with the right vantage to have detected Earth sometime in the last 5,000 years—or in the next 5,000 years to come.
For example, a mere 12 lightyears away from us there are two planets roughly the size of Earth winding their way around Teegarden’s star, reports Nell Greenfieldboyce for NPR. By astronomers’ reckoning, these worlds could be hospitable enough to potentially support life.
"If they have the same technique as we do, and if there is a 'they,' then they wouldn't know yet that we exist," Kaltenegger tells NPR. "In 29 years, they would be able to see us." (MORE)
Pluto’s red patches are mystifying scientists
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180978057/
EXCERPT: . . . The dwarf planet's atmosphere comprises a hazy, thin layer of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. One of Pluto's prominent features is the heart-shaped glacier towards the right side of the dwarf planet, also known as the Sputnik Planitia. The region is vaporized during the day, freezes over each night, and may play an essential role in Pluto's weather patterns. To the left of Pluto's heart-shaped plain is the mud red Cthulhu Macula.
To further understand what gives the Cthulhu Macula it's signature red color, scientists at the Delft University in the Netherlands created tholins in their laboratory. The team recreated Pluto's atmosphere in a chamber and then blasted it with plasma to mimic radiation in space, reports Victor Tangermann for Futurism. The low-density cloud of atmospheric gases reacted with the plasma by condensing into dust-like particles, eports Leah Crane for New Scientist.
The researchers then shined a light on the artificial tholins and compared them on how Pluto's surface reflects and absorbs light based on readings the New Horizons spacecraft took, reports Science Alert. The lab-created tholins did not match the observed conditions on Pluto. The artificial tholins absorbed some light that the red regions on the dwarf planet did not. However, this discrepancy does not mean that Pluto's red patches do not contain tholin, but instead suggests another factor contributes to the differences in light absorption in addition to tholin, reports Science Alert.
The study authors have hypothesized several potential causes to investigate in future research... (MORE - details)
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/g1fPhhTT2Oo
Cosmic dawn occurred 250 to 350 million years after Big Bang
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/jun/cosm...r-big-bang
RELEASE: Cosmic dawn, when stars formed for the first time, occurred 250 million to 350 million years after the beginning of the universe, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL and the University of Cambridge. The study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggests that the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled to launch in November, will be sensitive enough to observe the birth of galaxies directly.
Analysing images from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the researchers calculated the age of these galaxies as ranging from 200 to 300 million years, allowing an estimate of when their stars first formed. The UK-led research team examined six of the most distant galaxies currently known, whose light has taken most of the universe’s lifetime to reach us. They found that the distance of these galaxies away from Earth corresponded to a “look back” time of more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only 550 million years old.
Lead author Dr Nicolas Laporte (University of Cambridge), who started the project while at UCL, said: “Theorists speculate that the universe was a dark place for the first few hundred million years, before the first stars and galaxies formed.“Witnessing the moment when the universe was first bathed in starlight is a major quest in astronomy. Our observations indicate that cosmic dawn occurred between 250 and 350 million years after the beginning of the universe, and, at the time of their formation, galaxies such as the ones we studied would have been sufficiently luminous to be seen with the James Webb Space Telescope.”
The researchers analysed starlight from the galaxies as recorded by the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, examining a marker in their energy distribution indicative of the presence of atomic hydrogen* in their stellar atmospheres. This provides an estimate of the age of the stars they contain.
This hydrogen signature increases in strength as the stellar population ages but diminishes when the galaxy is older than a billion years. The age-dependence arises because the more massive stars that contribute to this signal burn their nuclear fuel more rapidly and therefore die first.
Co-author Dr Romain Meyer (UCL Physics & Astronomy and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany) said: “This age indicator is used to date stars in our own neighbourhood in the Milky Way but it can also be used to date extremely remote galaxies, seen at a very early period of the universe. “Using this indicator we can infer that, even at these early times, our galaxies are between 200 and 300 million years old.”
In analysing the data from Hubble and Spitzer, the researchers needed to estimate the “redshift” of each galaxy which indicates their cosmological distance and hence the look-back time at which they are being observed. To achieve this, they undertook spectroscopic measurements using the full armoury of powerful ground-based telescopes – the Chilean Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA), the European Very Large Telescope, the twin Keck telescopes in Hawaii, and Gemini-South telescope.
These measurements enabled the team to confirm that looking at these galaxies corresponded to looking back to a time when the universe was 550 million years old.
Co-author Professor Richard Ellis (UCL Physics & Astronomy), who has tracked ever more distant galaxies over his career, said: “Over the last decade, astronomers have pushed back the frontiers of what we can observe to a time when the universe was only 4% of its present age. However, due to the limited transparency of Earth’s atmosphere and the capabilities of the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, we have reached our limit.
“We now eagerly await the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which we believe has the capability to directly witness cosmic dawn. The quest to see this important moment in the universe’s history has been a holy grail in astronomy for decades. Since we are made of material processed in stars, this is in some sense the search for our own origins.”**
The new study involved astronomers at the University of California-Santa Cruz, the University of California, and the University of Texas. The researchers received support from the Kavli Foundation, the European Research Council, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States.
The NASA-led James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble observatory, is scheduled to be launched into space in November. It will be the premier observatory over the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It consists of an infrared observatory, an immense mirror 6.5 metres wide, and a diamond-shaped sunshield. UCL scientists at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory have built and tested key hardware components for the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph), one of the telescope’s four instruments.
- - - footnotes - - -
*Atomic hydrogen is hydrogen that has not been split into protons and electrons.
**All the heavier elements in the universe – everything except for hydrogen, helium and lithium – are synthesised in stars and then seeded across the universe when the stars explode at the end of their lives. This includes the elements that make up humans – the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/QuVGCnkaEnY
https://www.space.com/huge-new-comet-orbit-toward-earth
EXCERPT: . . . The comet, which may be an impressive 62 miles (100 kilometers) wide, is 20 times the distance from Earth to the sun away, heading toward our blue dot. It will reach its closest point to the sun in its orbit on Jan. 23, 2031, when it will be just beyond the orbit of Saturn, or about 10.95 times the distance between Earth and the sun.
"We will have practically 20 years to study it," said Peter Vereš, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian and at the Minor Planet Center, which identifies and computes orbits for new comets, minor planets and other far-flung rocky bodies. That's an exciting opportunity, he said, because the comet is likely a near-pristine object from the Oort Cloud, a field of icy, rocky debris that likely surrounds the solar system like a crunchy shell... (MORE - details)
If aliens exist in these 1,700 solar systems, they can probably see Earth
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180978060/
INTRO: Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger of Cornell University, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature, posed the question: “Which stars could see us as the aliens, as the transiting planet where the Earth blocks out light from the star?”
By analyzing the shifting cosmic lines of sight for more than 300,000 stars within about 300 light years of our sun, Kaltenegger and her co-author identified more than 2,000 stars with the right vantage to have detected Earth sometime in the last 5,000 years—or in the next 5,000 years to come.
For example, a mere 12 lightyears away from us there are two planets roughly the size of Earth winding their way around Teegarden’s star, reports Nell Greenfieldboyce for NPR. By astronomers’ reckoning, these worlds could be hospitable enough to potentially support life.
"If they have the same technique as we do, and if there is a 'they,' then they wouldn't know yet that we exist," Kaltenegger tells NPR. "In 29 years, they would be able to see us." (MORE)
Pluto’s red patches are mystifying scientists
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180978057/
EXCERPT: . . . The dwarf planet's atmosphere comprises a hazy, thin layer of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. One of Pluto's prominent features is the heart-shaped glacier towards the right side of the dwarf planet, also known as the Sputnik Planitia. The region is vaporized during the day, freezes over each night, and may play an essential role in Pluto's weather patterns. To the left of Pluto's heart-shaped plain is the mud red Cthulhu Macula.
To further understand what gives the Cthulhu Macula it's signature red color, scientists at the Delft University in the Netherlands created tholins in their laboratory. The team recreated Pluto's atmosphere in a chamber and then blasted it with plasma to mimic radiation in space, reports Victor Tangermann for Futurism. The low-density cloud of atmospheric gases reacted with the plasma by condensing into dust-like particles, eports Leah Crane for New Scientist.
The researchers then shined a light on the artificial tholins and compared them on how Pluto's surface reflects and absorbs light based on readings the New Horizons spacecraft took, reports Science Alert. The lab-created tholins did not match the observed conditions on Pluto. The artificial tholins absorbed some light that the red regions on the dwarf planet did not. However, this discrepancy does not mean that Pluto's red patches do not contain tholin, but instead suggests another factor contributes to the differences in light absorption in addition to tholin, reports Science Alert.
The study authors have hypothesized several potential causes to investigate in future research... (MORE - details)
Cosmic dawn occurred 250 to 350 million years after Big Bang
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/jun/cosm...r-big-bang
RELEASE: Cosmic dawn, when stars formed for the first time, occurred 250 million to 350 million years after the beginning of the universe, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL and the University of Cambridge. The study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggests that the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled to launch in November, will be sensitive enough to observe the birth of galaxies directly.
Analysing images from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the researchers calculated the age of these galaxies as ranging from 200 to 300 million years, allowing an estimate of when their stars first formed. The UK-led research team examined six of the most distant galaxies currently known, whose light has taken most of the universe’s lifetime to reach us. They found that the distance of these galaxies away from Earth corresponded to a “look back” time of more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only 550 million years old.
Lead author Dr Nicolas Laporte (University of Cambridge), who started the project while at UCL, said: “Theorists speculate that the universe was a dark place for the first few hundred million years, before the first stars and galaxies formed.“Witnessing the moment when the universe was first bathed in starlight is a major quest in astronomy. Our observations indicate that cosmic dawn occurred between 250 and 350 million years after the beginning of the universe, and, at the time of their formation, galaxies such as the ones we studied would have been sufficiently luminous to be seen with the James Webb Space Telescope.”
The researchers analysed starlight from the galaxies as recorded by the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, examining a marker in their energy distribution indicative of the presence of atomic hydrogen* in their stellar atmospheres. This provides an estimate of the age of the stars they contain.
This hydrogen signature increases in strength as the stellar population ages but diminishes when the galaxy is older than a billion years. The age-dependence arises because the more massive stars that contribute to this signal burn their nuclear fuel more rapidly and therefore die first.
Co-author Dr Romain Meyer (UCL Physics & Astronomy and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany) said: “This age indicator is used to date stars in our own neighbourhood in the Milky Way but it can also be used to date extremely remote galaxies, seen at a very early period of the universe. “Using this indicator we can infer that, even at these early times, our galaxies are between 200 and 300 million years old.”
In analysing the data from Hubble and Spitzer, the researchers needed to estimate the “redshift” of each galaxy which indicates their cosmological distance and hence the look-back time at which they are being observed. To achieve this, they undertook spectroscopic measurements using the full armoury of powerful ground-based telescopes – the Chilean Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA), the European Very Large Telescope, the twin Keck telescopes in Hawaii, and Gemini-South telescope.
These measurements enabled the team to confirm that looking at these galaxies corresponded to looking back to a time when the universe was 550 million years old.
Co-author Professor Richard Ellis (UCL Physics & Astronomy), who has tracked ever more distant galaxies over his career, said: “Over the last decade, astronomers have pushed back the frontiers of what we can observe to a time when the universe was only 4% of its present age. However, due to the limited transparency of Earth’s atmosphere and the capabilities of the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, we have reached our limit.
“We now eagerly await the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which we believe has the capability to directly witness cosmic dawn. The quest to see this important moment in the universe’s history has been a holy grail in astronomy for decades. Since we are made of material processed in stars, this is in some sense the search for our own origins.”**
The new study involved astronomers at the University of California-Santa Cruz, the University of California, and the University of Texas. The researchers received support from the Kavli Foundation, the European Research Council, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States.
The NASA-led James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble observatory, is scheduled to be launched into space in November. It will be the premier observatory over the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It consists of an infrared observatory, an immense mirror 6.5 metres wide, and a diamond-shaped sunshield. UCL scientists at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory have built and tested key hardware components for the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph), one of the telescope’s four instruments.
- - - footnotes - - -
*Atomic hydrogen is hydrogen that has not been split into protons and electrons.
**All the heavier elements in the universe – everything except for hydrogen, helium and lithium – are synthesised in stars and then seeded across the universe when the stars explode at the end of their lives. This includes the elements that make up humans – the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood.