Science

Tags:

Science

Photo Release: Hubble Watches the “Flapping” of Cosmic Bat Shadow.

The young star HBC 672 is known by its nickname of Bat Shadow because of its wing-like shadow feature. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has now observed a curious “flapping” motion in the shadow of the star’s disc for the first time. The star resides in a stellar nursery called the Serpens Nebula, about 1300 light-years away.

Read more
273 reads

Tags:

Science

Press release: Super-Earths discovered orbiting nearby red dwarf

International researchers led by University of Göttingen find multiple planet system orbiting Gliese 887

Artist’s impression of the multiplanetary system of newly discovered super-Earths orbiting nearby red dwarf Gliese 887

Read more
238 reads

Tags:

Science

NASA's TESS, Spitzer Missions Discover a World Orbiting a Unique Young Star

The newly discovered planet's parent star is still encircled by the disk of material from which both objects formed, giving scientists a glimpse at early planet evolution.

This animated gif is an artist's concept of the planet AU Mic b and its young parent star. The faint band of light encircling the pair is a disk of gas and dust from which both the star and the planet formed.

Read more
251 reads

Tags:

Science

ESA listens in on black hole mission

European and Russian specialists recently worked together to catch signals from an astrophysical observatory mission, now mapping X-ray sources in our galaxy and beyond, discovering previously unknown supermassive black holes.

alt="Illustration_of_the_Spektr-RG_spacecraft_pillars.jpg" />
Illustration of the Spektr-RG spacecraft.

Read more
255 reads

Tags:

Science

X-ray scattering enables closer scrutiny of the interior of planets and stars

Recreating extreme conditions in the lab, like those in the interior of planets and stars, is very complex and can only be achieved for fractions of a second. An international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now presented a new, very precise method of evaluating the behavior of mixtures of different elements under high pressure with the help of X-ray scattering. The results hone previous measurements and reinforce the premise that the matter in planets like Neptune and Uranus can alter dramatically: the hot hydrocarbon mixture in the interior of the ice giants can produce a kind of diamond rain, as the researchers report in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16426-y).

By using a new measuring method – the so-called X-ray Thomson scattering – an international team of researchers was able to prove that the high pressure inside planets like Neptune or Uranus dissolves hydrocarbons into its individual parts and converts the released carbon atoms into diamond structures. Thanks to the new measuring method, such conditions, which experts call warm, dense matter and which do not occur naturally on Earth, can be examined more closely.

Read more
254 reads

Tags:

Science

Young Planets Bite the Dust

These orange swirls of dust are snapshots from the largest collection of sharp, detailed images of dusty debris disks around young stars — published this week by an international group of astronomers. The images — captured by the 8-meter Gemini South telescope using the Gemini Planet Imager — illustrate the variety of shapes and sizes that stellar systems can take during their infancy. Unexpectedly, the majority of these systems display evidence of planet formation.

Six circumstellar disks selected from the larger sample of 26 disks obtained with the Gemini South telescope in Chile using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). These images highlight the diversity of shapes and sizes that these disks can take and show the outer reaches of star systems in their formative years.

Read more
258 reads

Tags:

Science

LIGO-Virgo Finds Mystery Object in "Mass Gap"

In August of 2019, the LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave network witnessed the merger of a black hole with 23 times the mass of our sun and a mystery object 2.6 times the mass of the sun. Scientists do not know if the mystery object was a neutron star or black hole, but either way it set a record as being either the heaviest known neutron star or the lightest known black hole.

Read more
247 reads

Tags:

Science

To catch an interstellar visitor, use a solar-powered space slingshot

MIT research proposal for rendezvous missions with interstellar objects selected for NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.

To ensure the best coverage of our solar system, MIT Assistant Professor Richard Linares envisions a constellation of "statites" that communicate and work together, only activating the statite in the optimum position to fly by or rendezvous with an interstellar object successfully. Other statites in the constellation can continue to wait for the next ISO to appear.