★•Astronomy, Physics, and Aerospace•★ Original and Reblogged Content curated by a NASA Solar System Ambassador
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Latest Posts by ad-astra-affecte-spe - Page 5
Venus makes Oxygen During the Day
Ok, it's little more than an excuse to show a beautiful image of a fascinating planet, but in a recent scientific study, it was discovered in the upper atmosphere of Venus, during the day (which lasts a little longer than our day, at 243 Earth Days !!) Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide is broken down by sunlight into it's Carbon and Oxygen. The oxygen then moves around the planet, and over to the night side too, where it plays an important role in the upper atmosphere of the planet.
Amusingly, a full year on Venus is only 225 Earth days, making a day on Venus longer than a year on Venus.
I guess the upshot of this is, every day is your Birthday on Venus, so Happy Venusian Birthday to you all !
NASA’s Webb, Hubble Combine to Create Most Colorful View of Universe by James Webb Space Telescope
Lunar Occultation of Venus l Roger Hyman
NGC 1365, Heart of the Universe
Did Betelgeuse Swallow a Binary Partner ?
The star hit the news back in late 2019 when it suddenly dimmed in an event known as the great dimming, and since there's been a lot of papers and theories to what really happened.
At the time, there was talk of supernova from a minority, while most astronomers reserved judgement on this, which turned out to be the right call, although even they had to admit bafflement at why this star suddenly become so dim.
Since, then the prevailing and mostly accepted theory is that the star ejected a huge amount of material which included carbon and thus concealed parts of the star, causing the dimming.
A new paper from Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University has looked at another idea, that at some point in the recent past the star had consumed a binary partner.
While the study can only make suggestions at this point, some of the observed facts about Betelgeuse certainly fit the bill. The star spins very quickly for an old supersized red giant, even faster than our own sun, and the team believe a past consumption may have transferred energy to the star, accounting for this spin rate.
The next thing was that the super giant star didn't just dim, it rebounded and actually brightened considerably too. These events of material coming to the surface and briefly causing a brightening effect are predicted through models of this occurrence.
The star is not likely to go supernova anytime soon, but I would put bets on the likelihood of the star surprising us once again in the coming decades.
The first simulated image of a black hole was calculated with an IBM 7040 computer using 1960 punch cards and hand-plotted by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1978.
The close-up of the Andromeda Galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope shows how many stars there really are.
source
Boo! Did we get you? 🎃
This solar jack-o-lantern, captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in October 2014, gets its ghoulish grin from active regions on the Sun, which emit more light and energy than the surrounding dark areas. Active regions are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere.
The SDO has kept an unblinking eye on the Sun since 2010, recording phenomena like solar flares and coronal loops. It measures the Sun’s interior, atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output, helping us understand our nearest star.
Grab the high-resolution version here.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
2023 October 23
Moon Io from Spacecraft Juno Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS; Processing & Copyright: Ted Stryk & Fernando García Navarro
Explanation: There goes another one! Volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io keep erupting. To investigate, NASA’s robotic Juno spacecraft has begun a series of visits to this very strange moon. Io is about the size of Earth’s moon, but because of gravitational flexing by Jupiter and other moons, Io’s interior gets heated and its surface has become covered with volcanoes. The featured image is from last week’s flyby, passing within 12,000 kilometers above the dangerously active world. The surface of Io is covered with sulfur and frozen sulfur dioxide, making it appear yellow, orange and brown. As hoped, Juno flew by just as a volcano was erupting – with its faint plume visible near the top of the featured image. Studying Io’s volcanoes and plumes helps humanity better understand how Jupiter’s complex system of moons, rings, and auroras interact. Juno is scheduled to make two flybys of Io during the coming months that are almost 10 times closer: one in December and another in February 2024.
∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231023.html
2023 September 28
The Deep Lagoon Image Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis, Christian Sasse
Explanation: Ridges of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inhabit the turbulent, cosmic depths of the Lagoon Nebula. Also known as M8, The bright star forming region is about 5,000 light-years distant. It makes for a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Dominated by the telltale red emission of ionized hydrogen atoms recombining with stripped electrons, this deep telescopic view of the Lagoon’s central reaches is about 40 light-years across. The bright hourglass shape near the center of the frame is gas ionized and sculpted by energetic radiation and extreme stellar winds from a massive young star.
∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230928.html
HOW DO ASTRONOMERS DETECT EXOPLANETS AND DETERMINE IF THEY COULD SUPPORT LIFE??
Blog#335
Wednesday, September 27th, 2023
Welcome back,
On March 21, NASA announced the confirmation of the 5,000th planet outside our Solar System. From scorching-hot gas giants nestled near their parent star to rocky worlds that may host water on their surface, there’s a variety for scientists to study.
But finding these strange new worlds is a science in itself.
We’ve only been able to definitively detect planets of any kind for a few decades, and even at that, there are challenges in detecting such a small object at that distance in even the most powerful telescopes.
Inverse spoke with Marie-Eve Naud, an exoplanet researcher and outreach coordinator for the University of Montreal’s Institute for Research on Exoplanets, to tell us more about how astronomers find these worlds and the considerations for each method.
While there are numerous methods, the ones cited below are the most common.
THE TRANSIT METHOD
Astronomers have discovered most exoplanets using the transit method, notably with NASA's Kepler telescope launched in 2009. This method observes planets as they pass in front of their stars, causing a slight dimming of starlight, which photometers can detect. This approach works best in space due to minimal atmospheric interference, favored by missions like ESA's Cheops and NASA's TESS.
To confirm exoplanets, multiple transits are necessary to rule out sunspots or dust as causes of light fluctuations. Typically, two or three transits are required to gather substantial data.
Once a planet is detected, astronomers can estimate its radius, while mass is often determined through the radial velocity method. The combination of mass and radius helps classify a planet as rocky or gaseous, impacting its potential habitability.
Factors like proximity to an active star and radiation levels also affect habitability assessments, as seen with TRAPPIST-1's uncertain habitability despite hosting seven Earth-sized planets in its habitable zone.
RADIAL-VELOCITY METHOD
The radial velocity method is commonly used to discover planets, particularly with instruments like HARPS at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla 3.6m telescope in Chile.
Planets and stars both orbit around their center of mass. A star with a planet exhibits a slight motion. Multiple planets can lead to complex motions.
This method involves analyzing the star's spectrum. When the star approaches, its light shifts towards red due to compression. When it moves away, the light shifts towards blue.
The planet's motion slightly affects the star's spectrum, creating a "barcode" of the star.
The first detection of a planet around a Sun-like star using this method was in 1995 when Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor found 51 Pegasi b. Prior to that, in 1992, planets were detected around pulsar PSR B1257+12, using changes in the pulsar's radio signal. This showcases the diverse scientific approaches to discovering distant worlds.
Originally published on www.inverse.com
COMING UP!!
(Saturday, September 30th, 2023)
"WHAT IS THE BLOCK THEORY??"
Cosmic Delights and Distant Discoveries Unfold in ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15’
Nu Scorpii
One of the most interesting areas of the night sky, Scorpius holds a myriad of nebula and beautifully contrasting coloured stars.
Moving towards the tail, you'll find Nu Scorpii a binary star system 7 stars.
If that alone isn't enough to get your mind wondering how all these stars are orbiting each other, the star system itself is the eye of a horses head ! Albeit a nebulous head.
IC 4592 is a reflective nebula, with the blue light reflected from fine dust, that blue light is coming from the Nu Scorpii system above.
Pull out and you'll see the whole region contains many star forming areas with reflective features.
