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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #300 on: June 04, 2020, 04:14:09 PM »
Earth Twin: A Mirror Image of Earth and Sun
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-mirror-image-earth-sun.html



Among the more than 4,000 known exoplanets, KOI-456.04 is something special: less than twice the size of Earth, it orbits a sun-like star. And it does so with a star-planet distance that could permit planetary surface temperatures conducive to life.

In their new research article, the team of scientists from MPS, the Sonneberg Observatory, the University of Göttingen, the University of California in Santa Cruz, and from NASA now reports the discovery of a planet candidate less than twice the size of the Earth and with moderate illumination from a sun-like star. At a distance of just over 3000 lightyears from the solar system, the star Kepler-160 was located in the field of view of the Kepler primary mission and was continuously observed from 2009 to 2013. Its radius of 1.1 solar radii, its surface temperature of 5200 degrees Celsius (300 degrees less than the sun), and its very sun-like stellar luminosity make it an astrophysical portrayal of our own parent star.

Their new search algorithm was crucial for the discovery of the new transiting planet candidate KOI-456.04. "Our analysis suggests that Kepler-160 is orbited not by two but by a total of four planets," Heller summarizes the new study. One of the two planets that Heller and his colleagues found is Kepler-160d, the previously suspected planet responsible for the distorted orbit of Kepler-160c. Kepler-160d does not show any transits in the light curve of the star and so it has been confirmed indirectly.

The other planet, formally a planet candidate, is KOI-456.04, probably a transiting planet with a radius of 1.9 Earth radii and an orbital period of 378 days. Given its sun-like host star, the very Earth-like orbital period results in a very Earth-like insolation from the star—both in terms of the amount of the light received and in terms of the light color. Light from Kepler-160 is visible light very much like sunlight. All things considered, KOI-456.04 sits in a region of the stellar habitable zone—the distance range around a star admitting liquid surface water on an Earth-like planet—that is comparable to the Earth's position around the sun.

"KOI-456.01 is relatively large compared to many other planets that are considered potentially habitable. But it's the combination of this less-than-double the size of the Earth planet and its solar type host star that make it so special and familiar," Heller clarifies. As a consequence, the surface conditions on KOI-456.04 could be similar to those known on Earth, provided its atmosphere is not too massive and non-Earth-like. The amount of light received from its host star is about 93 percent of the sunlight received on Earth. If KOI-456.04 has a mostly inert atmosphere with a mild Earth-like greenhouse effect, then its surface temperature would be +5 degrees Celsius on average, which is about ten degrees lower than the Earth's mean global temperature.
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kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #301 on: June 12, 2020, 08:56:54 AM »
Scientists In Antarctica Didn’t Find A ‘Parallel Universe.’ Here’s What They Did Find

...

A cacophony of articles on the possibility of the discovery of a parallel Universe were published last month in the wake of a New Scientist article that contained some “out there” claims about some scientific research in Antarctica.

Now a new research paper provides a much more down-to-earth explanation for the two recent strange events that occurred in Antarctica—it was compacted snow and, possibly, underground lakes, that caused some unexpected radio pulses to be misinterpreted.

First, let’s examine the event that caused the “panic” about a parallel Universe in the first place. In both 2016 and 2018, high-energy neutrinos appeared to come up out of the Earth of their own accord and head skyward.

...

Cue the possibility of a parallel Universe because maybe, just maybe, something “exotic” is going on. Since the high-energy neutrinos were detected coming “up” from the Earth instead of “down” from space they may be traveling back in time and, therefore, could from a—you guessed it—parallel Universe. The Big Bang occurred, it formed two Universes; one that flows forward, the other in reverse.

A theory with zero evidence.

The new paper—published today in the journal Annals of Glaciology—thinks that the pulses were:

reflections
Specifically, unflipped reflections of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays that arrive from space, miss the top layer of ice, then enter the ground to strike deep, compacted snow.

In short, the culprit could be firn under the surface of the ice. “Firn is something between snow and glacial ice,” said lead author Ian Shoemaker, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and the Center for Neutrino Physics, both part of the Virginia Tech College of Science. “It’s compacted snow that's not quite dense enough to be ice.” Classified as crystalline or granular snow, it’s often found on the upper part of a glacier.

“When cosmic rays, or neutrinos, go through ice at very high energies, they scatter on materials inside the ice, on protons and electrons, and they can make a burst of radio, a big nice radio signal that scientists can see,” said Shoemaker. Cosmic rays are high-energy protons and atomic nuclei that move through space at nearly the speed of light. “The problem is that these signals have the radio pulse characteristic of a neutrino, but appear to be traversing vastly more than is possible given known physics.”

“Our idea is that part of the radio pulse from a cosmic ray can get deep into the ice before reflecting, so you can have the reflection without the phase flip. Without flipping the wave, in that case, it really looks like a neutrino.”

Ordinary neutrinos just don't do that, but cosmic rays at these energies are common. 

...

“Whatever ANITA has found, it is very interesting, but it may not be a Nobel Prize-winning particle physics discovery,” said Shoemaker, who thinks the scientists may nevertheless have found something interesting about glaciology. “It could be that ANITA discovered some unusual small glacial lakes,” he added.

It’s not known how many deep underground lakes there are under Antarctica; if, it turn out, there are lots, this discovery would be a big win for scientists.

So Shoemaker is proposing that instead of looking for high-energy neutrinos, his team will purposefully blast radio signals into the areas where the anomalies occurred to look for lakes.

It’s a plan that itself seems to have come straight from a parallel Universe, but that’s science for you.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/06/11/scientists-in-antarctica-didnt-find-a-parallel-universe-heres-what-they-did-find/#190fb9e4523a

So we can use ANITA for Antarctic science. Pretty cool.  :)
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blumenkraft

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #302 on: June 12, 2020, 09:18:28 AM »
Scientists In Antarctica Didn’t Find A ‘Parallel Universe.

How very disappointing is that, eh?  :-\

kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #303 on: June 12, 2020, 04:10:43 PM »
Like all the hidden aliens it is probably in the US.  8)

Meanwhile more space oriented cool stuff:

New test of dark energy and expansion from cosmic structures

A new paper has shown how large structures in the distribution of galaxies in the Universe provide the most precise tests of dark energy and cosmic expansion yet.

A new paper has shown how large structures in the distribution of galaxies in the Universe provide the most precise tests of dark energy and cosmic expansion yet.

The study uses a new method based on a combination of cosmic voids -- large expanding bubbles of space containing very few galaxies -- and the faint imprint of sound waves in the very early Universe, known as baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), that can be seen in the distribution of galaxies. This provides a precise ruler to measure the direct effects of dark energy driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

This new method gives much more precise results than the technique based on the observation of exploding massive stars, or supernovae, which has long been the standard method for measuring the direct effects of dark energy.

The research was led by the University of Portsmouth, and is published in Physical Review Letters.

...

The results confirm the model of a cosmological constant dark energy and spatially flat Universe to unprecedented accuracy, and strongly disfavour recent suggestions of positive spatial curvature inferred from measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by the Planck satellite.

...

Dr Florian Beutler, a senior research fellow at the ICG, who was also involved in the work, said that the study also reported a new precise measurement of the Hubble constant, the value of which has recently been the subject of intense debate among astronomers.

He said: "We see tentative evidence that data from relatively nearby voids and BAO favour the high Hubble rate seen from other low-redshift methods, but including data from more distant quasar absorption lines brings it in better agreement with the value inferred from Planck CMB data."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200603120551.htm
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #304 on: June 15, 2020, 02:08:55 AM »
New Horizons Conducts the First Interstellar Parallax Experiment
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/12/1952737/-NASA-s-New-Horizons-is-up-to-something-fun-again
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-conducts-the-first-interstellar-parallax-experiment

I’m sure you remember New Horizons’ encounters with Pluto in 2015 and the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth in 2019.

Now New Horizons spacecraft is sending us pictures from so far away (46.61 astronomical units, or 4,333,000,000 miles) that the nearest stars actually appear to be in different positions.  This is the first parallax experiment ever done from somewhere other than Earth.



... We sometimes imagine flying through space at “warp speed” and seeing stars go by.  Those of us who grew up with snow in the winter would pretend our car was a spaceship as snowflakes flew past the windshield.  Up to now that has been entirely imaginary, but this is the first glimpse we little humans have actually had of it for real.

The closest star to our Sun is Proxima Centauri, and we already know that its distance from us is 4.3 light-years (25,000,000,000,000 miles).  New Horizons, then, is 0.017% as far away as that.  It may not sound like much, but it’s enough to make Proxima Centauri, ANOTHER STAR, appear to shift its position.

​Here are two images, one from Earth, and one from New Horizons, carefully aligned.  Proxima Centauri is the only star that appears to move:



... Other images at the link.
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kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #305 on: June 15, 2020, 03:22:45 PM »
What do the red dots represent? Strong far away steady sources?
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #306 on: June 16, 2020, 10:11:23 PM »
As Many As Six Billion Earth-like Planets In Our Galaxy, According to New Estimates
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-billion-earth-like-planets-galaxy.html

To be considered Earth-like, a planet must be rocky, roughly Earth-sized and orbiting Sun-like (G-type) stars. It also has to orbit in the habitable zones of its star—the range of distances from a star in which a rocky planet could host liquid water, and potentially life, on its surface.

"My calculations place an upper limit of 0.18 Earth-like planets per G-type star," says UBC researcher Michelle Kunimoto, co-author of the new study in The Astronomical Journal. "Estimating how common different kinds of planets are around different stars can provide important constraints on planet formation and evolution theories, and help optimize future missions dedicated to finding exoplanets."

According to UBC astronomer Jaymie Matthews: "Our Milky Way has as many as 400 billion stars, with seven percent of them being G-type. That means less than six billion stars may have Earth-like planets in our Galaxy."

Michelle Kunimoto et al, Searching the Entirety of Kepler Data. II. Occurrence Rate Estimates for FGK Stars, The Astronomical Journal (2020)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ab88b0

---------------------------------------

Possibility of Dozens of Intelligent Civilizations in Our Galaxy
http://astrobiology.com/2020/06/possibility-of-dozens-of-intelligent-civilizations-in-our-galaxy.html
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-intelligent-life-galaxy.html



Is there anyone out there? This is an age-old question that researchers have now shed new light on with a study that calculates there could be more than 30 intelligent civilizations throughout our galaxy. This is an enormous advance over previous estimates which spanned from zero to billions.

... A new study led by the University of Nottingham and published today in The Astrophysical Journal has taken a new approach to this problem. Using the assumption that intelligent life forms on other planets in a similar way as it does on Earth these researchers have obtained an estimate for the number of intelligent communicating civilizations within our own galaxy, the Milky Way. They calculate that there could be over 30 active communicating intelligent civilizations in our home galaxy.

Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, Christopher Conselice who led the research, explains: "There should be at least a few dozen active civilizations in our galaxy under the assumption that it takes 5 billion years for intelligent life to form on other planets, as on Earth." Conselice also explains that "The idea is looking at evolution, but on a cosmic scale. We call this calculation the Astrobiological Copernican Limit."

First author Tom Westby explains: "The classic method for estimating the number of intelligent civilizations relies on making guesses of values relating to life, whereby opinions about such matters vary quite substantially. Our new study simplifies these assumptions using new data, giving us a solid estimate of the number of civilizations in our galaxy.

"The two Astrobiological Copernican limits are that intelligent life forms in less than 5 billion years or anytime after about 5 billion years -- similar to on Earth where communicating civilizations formed after 4.5 billion years. In the strong criteria, whereby a metal content equal to that of the Sun is needed (the Sun is relatively speaking quite metal rich), we calculate that there should be around 36 active civilizations in our galaxy."

The research shows that the number of civilizations depends strongly on how long they are actively sending out signals of their existence into space, such as radio transmissions from satellites, television, etc. If other technological civilizations last as long as ours which is currently 100 years old, then there will be about 36 ongoing intelligent technical civilizations throughout our galaxy.

However, the average distance to these civilizations would be 17,000 light-years away, making detection and communication very difficult with our present technology. It is also possible that we are the only civilization within our galaxy unless the survival times of civilizations like our own are long.

Professor Conselice continues: "Our new research suggests that searches for extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations not only reveals the existence of how life forms, but also gives us clues for how long our own civilization will last. If we find that intelligent life is common then this would reveal that our civilization could exist for much longer than a few hundred years, alternatively if we find that there are no active civilizations in our galaxy it is a bad sign for our own long-term existence."

Conselice sums this up with "By searching for extraterrestrial intelligent life -- even if we find nothing -- we are discovering our own future and fate."

Tom Westby & Christopher J. Conselice, "The Astrobiological Copernican Weak and Strong Limits for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life," Astrophysical Journal, June 15, 2020
https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.03968
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab8225

---------------------------------


PBS NOVA: Alien Planets Revealed
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

oren

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #307 on: June 17, 2020, 01:13:13 AM »
Indeed. I have long thought the solution to the Fermi paradox is the short life span of advanced civilizations due to the finiteness of planetary resources and sinks.

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #308 on: June 18, 2020, 02:42:49 AM »
Fermi looked at extraterrestrial civilizations through an anthropomorphic lens. So did Stephen Hawking.

The path that humans are following towards interstellar civilization is probably not the only one.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #309 on: June 18, 2020, 02:43:55 AM »
Extremely Sensitive Dark Matter Experiment Detects Something Weird
https://gizmodo.com/extremely-sensitive-dark-matter-experiment-detects-some-1844060043

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-excess-events-xenon1t-dark.html


The excess observed in XENON1T in the electronic recoil background at low energies, compared to the level expected from known backgrounds indicated as the red line

A mysterious signal has appeared in an extremely sensitive dark matter-hunting experiment. And after more than a year of trying to convince themselves that they were looking at noise, scientists think they might have found something new.

Today, the scientists behind the XENON1T dark matter experiment are reporting the result of a search through its data for particles that interacted with the electrons in its detecting medium. They’ve spotted evidence of an excess, or more interactions with the detector than the Standard Model of particle physics would predict. They don’t know what’s causing the signal yet; it might be a rare but mundane event, or it could be evidence of some other unknown physics phenomenon.

... XENON1T data taken from February 2017 to February 2018 has revealed an unexpected excess of low-energy interactions with the xenon’s electrons—285 events instead of the expected 232 events, according to the paper posted today on the XENON1T website.

http://xenon1t.org/

Physicists have hypothesized various potential sources of the excess, testing their ideas against the data. They arrived at three most likely sources: Perhaps an unobserved, theoretical particle called an axion struck the detector after traveling from the Sun. Maybe a property of the neutrino particle, called its magnetic moment, is higher than previously predicted. Or, perhaps they’d simply spotted an unaccounted-for background radioactive process, the decay of the hydrogen isotope called tritium. Just a few tritium atoms sprinkled into the two tons of otherwise ultra-pure xenon could have produced the signal.

Axions are a theorized, low-mass particle meant to solve a physics problem called the strong-CP problem, which asks why subatomic particles called quarks follow the same laws of physics when you replace them with their mirror image with the opposite charge, when there’s no reason that they have to. If axions did exist, then scientists predict that the Sun would produce them in its core, and we’d be possibly be able to detect them from Earth. Axions are also a proposed culprit to explain at least some of dark matter.

Solar axions passing through the detector would look most like the signals that the researchers observed, with a 3.5-sigma significance, meaning that there’s a 99.98% chance that the observed signal wasn’t caused by typical physics processes. However, introducing tritium decay as another background process decreases the significance to 2 sigma, or a 95% chance that typical physics interactions plus decaying tritium didn’t cause the signal, Baudis said. More data could easily wipe out such a fluctuation and has in the past. Particle physicists strive for a 5-sigma significance in order to proclaim a discovery.

... if hypothetical axion particles produced by the Sun were to create this signal, then it implies a stronger interaction between axions and electrons than theory predicts today.

... The solar axion properties implied by the XENON1T experiment would result in the Sun being hotter than astronomers predict and producing far more neutrinos than astronomers observe.

Observation of Excess Events in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment
https://www.science.purdue.edu/xenon1t/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/xenon1tlowersearches.pdf

-------------------------------

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

blumenkraft

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #310 on: June 18, 2020, 04:37:46 PM »
Jupiter has Arctic sea ice "Goodbye Waves" , the red version

Link >> https://eh2r.blogspot.com/2020/06/jupiter-has-arctic-sea-ice-goodbye.html

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #311 on: June 20, 2020, 03:41:43 AM »
Are Planets With Oceans Common In the Galaxy? It's Likely, NASA Scientists Find
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-planets-oceans-common-galaxy-nasa.html



----------------------------------
Does Intelligent Life Exist On Other  Planets? Technosignatures May Hold New Clues
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-intelligent-life-planets-technosignatures-clues.html

Over the last decade, astronomers have expended great effort trying to find what traces of simple forms of life—known as "biosignatures"—might exist elsewhere in the universe. But what if an alien planet hosted intelligent life that built a technological civilization? Could there be "technosignatures" that a civilization on another world would create that could be seen from Earth? And, could these technosignatures be even easier to detect than biosignatures?

Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, has received a grant from NASA that will enable him to begin to answer these questions. The grant will fund his study of technosignatures—detectable signs of past or present technology used on other planets. This is the first NASA non-radio technosignature grant ever awarded and represents an exciting new direction for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

"SETI has always faced the challenge of figuring out where to look," Frank says. "Which stars do you point your telescope at and look for signals? Now we know where to look. We have thousands of exoplanets including planets in the habitable zone where life can form. The game has changed."

The nature of the search has changed as well. A civilization, by nature, will need to find a way to produce energy, and, Frank says, "there are only so many forms of energy in the universe. Aliens are not magic."

Although life may take many forms, it will always be based in the same physical and chemical principles that underlie the universe. The same connection holds for building a civilization; any technology that an alien civilization uses is going to be based on physics and chemistry. That means researchers can use what they've learned in Earth-bound labs to guide their thinking about what may have happened elsewhere in the universe.

The researchers will begin the project by looking at two possible technosignatures that might indicate technological activity on another planet:

Pollution ...

Solar power ...

-------------------------------
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

nanning

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #312 on: June 20, 2020, 09:33:01 AM »
I did a search on how to differentiate between dark matter and neutrino's in experiments and found this paper which might also be of interest to others.



https://vixra.org/pdf/1608.0228v1.pdf   35 interesting pages
  by George Rajna

Neutrinos and Dark Matter

ABSTRACT

Three distinguished particle physicists have joined the lab over the past months to pursue research on two particularly mysterious forms of matter: neutrinos and dark matter. [10]

 New experimental results show a difference in the way neutrinos and antineutrinos behave, which could explain why matter persists over antimatter. [9]

 Over the past few years, multiple neutrino experiments have detected hints for leptonic charge parity (CP) violation—a finding that could help explain why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter. So far, matter-antimatter asymmetry cannot be explained by any physics theory and is one of the biggest unsolved problems in cosmology. [8]

 It could all have been so different. When matter first formed in the universe, our current theories suggest that it should have been accompanied by an equal amount of antimatter – a conclusion we know must be wrong, because we wouldn’t be here if it were true. Now the latest results from a pair of experiments designed to study the behaviour of neutrinos – particles that barely interact with the rest of the universe – could mean we’re starting to understand why. [7]

 In 2012, a tiny flash of light was detected deep beneath the Antarctic ice. A burst of neutrinos was responsible, and the flash of light was their calling card. It might not sound momentous, but the flash could give us tantalising insights into one of the most energetic objects in the distant universe. The light was triggered by the universe's most elusive particles when they made contact with a remarkable detector, appropriately called IceCube, which was built for the very purpose of capturing rare events such as this. [6]
 Neutrinos and their weird subatomic ways could help us understand high-energy particles, exploding stars and the origins of matter itself. [5]

 PHYSICS may be shifting to the right. Tantalizing signals at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, hint at a new particle that could end 50 years of thinking that nature discriminates between left and right-handed particles. [4] The Weak Interaction transforms an electric charge in the diffraction pattern from one side to the other side, causing an electric dipole momentum change, which violates the CP and Time reversal symmetry.

 The Neutrino Oscillation of the Weak Interaction shows that it is a General electric dipole change and it is possible to any other temperature dependent entropy and information changing diffraction pattern of atoms, molecules and even complicated biological living structures.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
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Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #313 on: June 24, 2020, 06:30:24 PM »
Neptune-sized Planet Discovered Orbiting Young, Nearby Star
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-neptune-sized-planet-orbiting-young-nearby.html

New research published today in Nature reports the discovery of a planet about the size of Neptune orbiting an especially young, nearby star. The planet, named AU Mic b, is orbiting AU Microscopii, which is relatively close to the Sun at 31.9 light years away. AU Microscopii is also "only" 20 or 30 million years old—at least 150 times younger than our Sun.

There are only two or three known stars that are both nearby and young, and scientists have been searching for planets orbiting them for at least a decade. This means the new finding creates a major opportunity for breakthrough research into solar system formation dynamics.



A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii, Nature (2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2400-z
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Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #314 on: June 26, 2020, 02:45:11 AM »
Watch a 10-Year Time Lapse of Sun From NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory – SDO
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/watch-a-10-year-time-lapse-of-sun-from-nasa-s-sdo/

As of June 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory – SDO – has now been watching the Sun non-stop for over a full decade. From its orbit in space around Earth, SDO has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the Sun, amassing 20 million gigabytes of data over the past 10 years.

Compiling one photo every hour, the movie condenses a decade of the Sun into 61 minutes. The video shows the rise and fall in activity that occurs as part of the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle and notable events, like transiting planets and eruptions. The custom music, titled “Solar Observer,” was composed by musician Lars Leonhard.

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #315 on: July 01, 2020, 07:55:29 PM »
A liquid oxygen sensor line on the Atlas V rocket showed unexpected data during a rehearsal for the launch.

Mars 2020 mission launch date has been pushed back again
June 30, 2020 5:30PM PST
Quote
NASA has announced another delay to the launch of its Mars-bound Perseverance rover. In a message posted on the rover’s own Twitter account on Tuesday, June 30, the space agency said that due to processing delays in uniting the rover with the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, the first launch effort at Cape Canaveral in Florida would now take place no earlier than July 30.

...NASA added that it had managed to extend the end of the launch window from August 11 to August 15, and was looking into the possibility of extending it further to enable it to better handle any further delays.

...
The ambitious mission will see Perseverance exploring the red planet for signs of ancient life. The six-wheel vehicle, which has been put through its paces ahead of launch, will also collect rock and soil samples that could be brought to Earth for scientific examination.

Joining Perseverance will be the Mars helicopter — called Ingenuity — which is set to become the first-ever aircraft to fly on another planet. Camera-equipped Ingenuity will help NASA look for potentially useful research sites on the Martian surface, and also gather data for mapping routes for future Mars rovers.

Assuming NASA can launch the mission during its targeted window, Perseverance and Ingenuity will reach Mars sometime in February 2021.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/mars-2020-mission-launch-date-slips-for-the-third-time/
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wdmn

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #316 on: July 02, 2020, 10:45:33 PM »
The Hidden Magnetic Universe Begins to Come Into View

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-magnetic-universe-begins-to-come-into-view-20200702/

"Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a major cosmological mystery."

Sebastian Jones

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #317 on: July 03, 2020, 01:44:12 AM »
The Hidden Magnetic Universe Begins to Come Into View

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-magnetic-universe-begins-to-come-into-view-20200702/

"Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a major cosmological mystery."
"Primordial magnetism might also help resolve another cosmological conundrum known as the Hubble tension — probably the hottest topic in cosmology.

The problem at the heart of the Hubble tension is that the universe seems to be expanding significantly faster than expected based on its known ingredients. In a paper posted online in April and under review with Physical Review Letters, the cosmologists Karsten Jedamzik and Levon Pogosian argue that weak magnetic fields in the early universe would lead to the faster cosmic expansion rate seen today."

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #318 on: July 03, 2020, 11:10:45 AM »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #319 on: July 05, 2020, 10:03:55 PM »
Different Mars crater video. :)
Quote
latest in space (@latestinspace) 7/3/20, 10:50 PM
Gorgeous 1.5 km wide crater on Mars captured by the HiRISE camera aboard a NASA satellite orbiting the red planet
https://twitter.com/latestinspace/status/1279246049983426560
full credit: Seán Doran/Data, @_TheSeaning, HiRISE/NASA /NASAJPL/University of Arizona
Video at the link.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #320 on: July 10, 2020, 07:15:29 PM »
NASA’s Mars 2020 mission

Upside-down welding was required to fix an O2 leak in the vertical standing rocket.

“...the launch is on track for July 30. The launch window opens at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT), with launch opportunities available at five-minute intervals.”

Mars rover mated with Atlas 5 launcher after teams deal with coronavirus cases
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/07/09/mars-rover-mated-with-atlas-5-launcher-after-teams-deal-with-coronavirus-cases/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #321 on: July 12, 2020, 06:32:31 PM »
“A spectacular cosmic display of C/2020 F3, Comet #NEOWISE in the early morning, predawn sky.”
https://twitter.com/nasa_nerd/status/1282266038193868800
Photo below.  Others at the link.
East-Northeast pre-dawn sky from the mid-Atlantic U.S. coast area. This was taken around 4am ET.

Starting Sunday, stargazers will be able to see it in the evening. After sunset, look for the comet toward the northwest, just below the Big Dipper.

How to see Comet Neowise, now visible to naked eye, according to AccuWeather - 6abc Philadelphia
Stargazers are in for a treat -- a newly discovered comet is visible in the July night sky.
https://6abc.com/science/bright-comet-now-visible-to-naked-eye-in-july-night-sky/6308987/
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #322 on: July 17, 2020, 04:48:13 PM »
A Population of Asteroids of Interstellar Origin Inhabits the Solar System
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/fda-apo071620.php

A study conducted by scientists at São Paulo State University's Institute of Geosciences and Exact Sciences (IGCE-UNESP) in Rio Claro, Brazil, has identified 19 asteroids of interstellar origin classified as Centaurs, outer Solar System objects that revolve around the Sun in the region between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune

The Centaurs identified in the study have highly inclined orbits with respect to the orbital plane of the planets.

... "The Solar System formed 4.5 billion years ago in a stellar nursery, with its systems of planets and asteroids. The stars were close enough to each other to foster strong gravitational interactions that led to an exchange of material among the systems. Some objects now in the Solar System must therefore have formed around other stars.

The planets and asteroids that originated in the Solar System emerged from a thin disk of gas and dust that once orbited the Sun. For this reason, they all moved in the plane of the disk 4.5 billion years ago. If the Centaurs originated in the Solar System, they should also have moved in the plane of the disk at that time. "However, our simulation showed that 4.5 billion years ago, these objects revolved around the Sun in orbits perpendicular to the disk's plane. In addition, they did so in a region distant from the gravitational effects of the original disk," Morais said.

These two findings showed that the Centaurs did not originally belong to the Solar System and must have been captured from nearby stars during the period of planet formation.



"An interstellar origin for high-inclination Centaurs", Royal Astronomical Society's Monthly Notices, 2020
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/494/2/2191/5822028
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Sebastian Jones

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #323 on: July 17, 2020, 08:48:27 PM »
Very cool! I wonder what the night sky looked like back then? With stars so close we could exchange asteroids?

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #324 on: July 17, 2020, 11:47:13 PM »
We even know one of the stars that was a member of the sun's birth cluster...HD 162826:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_162826

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #325 on: July 18, 2020, 03:51:07 AM »
Here's what the night sky would look like if cosmic bodies were right next to earth



An incredible video shows what we would see if the planets replaced the moon.



NASA Mission to Psyche

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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #326 on: July 20, 2020, 03:06:00 AM »
Some tense moments when a sensor reported a solar panel had not deployed, but all is good now!

United Arab Emirates launches 'Hope' mission to Mars on Japanese rocket
Quote
A mission called Hope, the Arab region's first attempt to go interplanetary, is on its way to Mars.

The $200 million Hope mission, also called the Emirates Mars Mission, is the UAE's first foray into interplanetary exploration, and its arrival was designed to mark the nation's 50th anniversary. In particular, mission planners wanted a project that would kickstart the nation's technology and science sectors as the country looks for an economic model that can sustain it beyond its oil wealth.

So the nation targeted a Mars orbiter and stipulated that the mission needed to contribute internationally valuable science data. For a country with hardly any planetary science expertise, that was a steep challenge. …
Quote
Today's launch kicks off a spree of Red Planet-bound liftoffs as scientists seek to capitalize on a three-week window of favorable orbital alignment between Earth and Mars that only occurs every 26 months.

China is next on the launch docket, with a mission called Tianwen-1 scheduled to blast off on July 23. The mission will include an orbiter, lander and rover and will aim to tackle questions about the Red Planet's geology and environment.

Then, NASA's Mars 2020 mission heads to countdown on July 30. That launch stars Perseverance, a massive six-wheeled, life-hunting rover carrying a tiny helicopter that will, if all goes well, become the first aircraft to fly on another planet.
https://www.space.com/hope-mars-mission-uae-launch.html


Quote
Chris B - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) 7/19/20, 5:59 PM
LAUNCH! Japanese H-IIA launches with Al Amal/Hope to Mars! ...
https://twitter.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1284971190893903873
Clip of the launch.

Quote
Chris B - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) 7/19/20, 6:00 PM
Staging - there go to the twin solids.
https://twitter.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1284971490534973440
Vid Clip:  no flame on main stage after solids deploy  — hydrogen fuel burns with an invisible flame!
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #327 on: July 20, 2020, 03:51:56 AM »
The comet was visible last night here in Calif.  It was about halfway between the horizon and the Big Dipper at 9:45pm.  Kinda fuzzy with the naked eye but nice using binoculars. You only see so many comets in one lifetime. I can remember where I watched four memorable ones. 

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #328 on: July 20, 2020, 06:30:35 PM »
More on the UAE Mars mission launched yesterday

United Arab Emirates begins historic first interplanetary mission
Quote
A flight of international cooperation, the mission has three main objectives, to:
   1   understand the climate dynamics and the global weather map of Mars through characterizing the planet’s lower atmosphere,
   2   explain how weather changes the escape of hydrogen and oxygen through correlating the lower atmosphere conditions with the upper atmosphere,
   3   understand the structure and variability of hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere, as well as identifying why Mars is losing them to space.

With this set of three objectives, the Emirates Mars Mission will be the first to form a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere — including an improved understanding of how circulation and weather in Mars’ lower and middle atmosphere contribute to the escape of atmospheric particles to space.

In this regard, Al Amal will be “the first true weather satellite” at Mars, according to the mission’s project managers and leaders.

The Al Amal spacecraft was built by 150 Emirati engineers and 200 partnering U.S. engineers and scientists, with the majority of construction having taken place at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado. Academic partners from Arizona State University and the University of California, Berkeley also collaborated in the development of the orbiter. …
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/07/uae-ready-for-first-mars-mission/
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kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #329 on: July 21, 2020, 01:55:15 PM »
That´s a cool mission.  :)
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #330 on: July 21, 2020, 09:10:42 PM »
... might explain 'Snowball Earth' ...

Asteroid Shower On the Earth-Moon System 800 Million Years Ago Revealed by Lunar Craters
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-asteroid-shower-earth-moon-million-years.html

A research team led by Osaka University investigated the formation ages of 59 lunar craters with a diameter of approximately 20 km using the Terrain Camera (TC) onboard the lunar orbiter spacecraft Kaguya.

... The group demonstrated that an asteroid of 100 km in diameter was disrupted 800 million years ago (800 Ma) and that at least (4-5) ×10^[sp]16[/sp] kg of meteoroids, approximately 30-60 times more than the Chicxulub impact, must have plunged into the Earth-Moon system. Their research results were published in Nature Communications.

?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip

... The probability of an asteroid of the size of the K-T impactor striking Earth is thought to be once in 100 million years. It is known that impact craters on Earth created before 600 Ma have been erased over the years by erosion, volcanism, and other geologic processes. Thus, to find out about ancient meteoroid impacts on Earth, they investigated the Moon, which has almost no erosion.

They investigated the formation age distribution of 59 large craters with diameters larger than approximately 20 km by examining the density of 0.1-1 km-diameter craters in the ejecta of these 59 craters. One of these examples is the Copernicus crater (93 km in diameter) and its surrounding craters. The density of 860 craters with diameter of 0.1-1 km (shown in green) was examined to derive the age of the Copernicus crater. As a result, 8 of 59 craters were found to be formed simultaneously (17 by a spike model), a world first.



Considering crater scaling laws and collision probabilities with the Earth and Moon, at least (4-5)×1016 kg of meteoroids, approximately 30-60 times more than the Chicxulub impact, must have struck the Earth immediately before the Cryogenian (720-635 Ma), which was an era of great environmental and biological changes.

In addition, given the disruption age and orbit elements of existing asteroid families, it is highly likely that the disruption of the parent body of C-type asteroid Eulalia caused an asteroid shower. A C-type asteroid is a class expected to contain carbon in analogy to the carbonaceous chondrites (meteorites).

Because Eulalia's surface reflectance is similar to that of near-Earth C-type asteroid Ryugu, Eulalia has drawn attention as a parent body of a C-type Rubble pile, a celestial body consisting of numerous pieces of rock near the Earth. (Sugita et al. 2019)

From these considerations, they concluded that sporadic meteorite bombardment due to the disruption of asteroids 800 Ma caused the following:

- Some of the resulting fragments fell on terrestrial planets and the Sun
- Others stayed in an asteroid belt as the Eulalia family, and
- Remnants had orbital evolution as a member of near-Earth asteroids.

This research suggests the following possibilities:

- An asteroid shower may have brought a large amount of phosphorus (P) to the Earth, affecting the terrestrial surface environment,
- A recent C-type asteroid shower may have contaminated the lunar surface with volatile elements,
- The Eulalia family, the parent body of a near-Earth C-type asteroid, may have brought an asteroid shower to the Earth and the Moon.

Terada, K., Morota, T. & Kato, M. Asteroid shower on the Earth-Moon system immediately before the Cryogenian period revealed by KAGUYA. Nature Communications (2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17115-6
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JayW

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #331 on: July 21, 2020, 11:54:04 PM »
The comet was visible last night here in Calif.  It was about halfway between the horizon and the Big Dipper at 9:45pm.  Kinda fuzzy with the naked eye but nice using binoculars. You only see so many comets in one lifetime. I can remember where I watched four memorable ones.
Quite visible in the Maine darkness. Snagged a few shots last night.
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blumenkraft

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #332 on: July 22, 2020, 09:10:29 AM »
WOW, amazing, Jay. Thanks for sharing.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #333 on: July 23, 2020, 08:50:54 PM »
China’s probe is successfully on its way to Mars:

Mike Wall. 
“…the mission's name: Tianwen means "questions to heaven," and it was taken from the title of a poem by Qu Yuan, who lived from about 340 to 278 BCE.”
China launches ambitious Tianwen-1 Mars rover mission
https://www.space.com/amp/china-tianwen-1-mars-mission-launch.html

Chris Gebhardt.  The Long March 5 rocket used on this mission has a less than stellar history.
China seeks “Heavenly Questions” with ambitious Tianwen-1 mission to Mars
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/07/china-ambitious-tianwen1-mars/

Stephen Clark.  More details.
China launches robotic mission to orbit, land, and drive on Mars
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/07/23/china-launches-robotic-mission-to-orbit-land-and-drive-on-mars/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #334 on: July 23, 2020, 09:18:58 PM »
Quote
Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) 7/23/20, 9:19 AM
The U.S. Space Force says “Russia conducted a non-destructive test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon” last Wednesday (July 15): BREAKING
Statement from Gen. Jay Ramond:
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1286289896169234438
 [text image at the link]


< Would it be this ?

Quote
Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) 7/17/20, 5:04 PM
Object 45915 appears to have separated from Kosmos-2543 at about 0750 UTC Jul 15 at a fairly high relative velocity (I don't entirely trust my code here so someone else should look at this)
Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) 7/23/20, 9:25 AM
Yes, that’s it.
From USSF: “Russia injected a new object into orbit from Cosmos 2543, currently Satellite Catalog Number 45915”
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1286291432324640772


From April:
Quote
Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) 4/15/20, 4:50 PM
U.S. Space Command says Russia conducted a test of an anti-satellite missile today, "capable of destroying satellites in low Earth orbit."
Russia last conducted a test of its PL-19 Nudol anti-satellite missile system in December 2018.
~ Russia continues to try to expand its space capabilities. While this would be the 8th test of the PL-19 Nudol system, US intelligence has captured photographers of an air-launched anti-satellite missile on an MiG-31, as @amanda_m_macias reported:

Quote
Russia tests anti-satellite missile, US general says
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/04/15/russia-tests-anti-satellite-missile-us-general-says.html
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1250527051972579338


From February:
Russian Spacecraft Tailing U.S. Spy Satellite, General Says
Quote
A pair of Russian satellites are tailing a multibillion-dollar U.S. spy satellite hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface, a top U.S. military commander tells TIME, underscoring a growing threat to America’s dominance in space-based espionage and a potentially costly new chapter in Washington’s decades-long competition with Moscow.

Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, commander of the newly minted U.S. Space Force, says the Russian spacecraft began maneuvering toward the American satellite shortly after being launched into orbit in November, at times creeping within 100 miles of it. “We view this behavior as unusual and disturbing,” Raymond says. “It has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space.” Raymond says the U.S. government has expressed concern to Moscow through diplomatic channels. …
https://time.com/5779315/russian-spacecraft-spy-satellite-space-force/
H/t  Artemiy (@superartemiy)
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #335 on: July 24, 2020, 04:11:52 PM »


NASA released a mesmerizing video this week that shows Perseverance's last steps toward the launch pad, as it gets packed up and ready to board the rocket to the Red Planet.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #336 on: July 25, 2020, 01:23:07 AM »
On Friday, the NASA Asteroid Watch Twitter account shared a GIF of the Atlas Maunoloa telescope's view of the Tianwen-1 spacecraft against a field of stars. Red lines point out the spacecraft's movement.

During routine survey operations for hazardous #asteroids for @NASA
's  #PlanetaryDefense Coordination Office, the @fallingstarIfA ATLAS-MLO telescope spotted China’s Tianwen-1 on its way to #Mars. Bon Voyage Tianwen-1!

https://mobile.twitter.com/AsteroidWatch/status/1286665542624043009
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kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #337 on: August 06, 2020, 04:50:23 PM »
Early Mars was covered in ice sheets, not flowing rivers, researchers say

...

A large number of the valley networks scarring Mars's surface were carved by water melting beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers as previously thought, according to new UBC research published today in Nature Geoscience. The findings effectively throw cold water on the dominant "warm and wet ancient Mars" hypothesis, which postulates that rivers, rainfall and oceans once existed on the red planet.

To reach this conclusion, lead author Anna Grau Galofre, former PhD student in the department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences, developed and used new techniques to examine thousands of Martian valleys. She and her co-authors also compared the Martian valleys to the subglacial channels in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and uncovered striking similarities.

"For the last 40 years, since Mars's valleys were first discovered, the assumption was that rivers once flowed on Mars, eroding and originating all of these valleys," says Grau Galofre. "But there are hundreds of valleys on Mars, and they look very different from each other. If you look at Earth from a satellite you see a lot of valleys: some of them made by rivers, some made by glaciers, some made by other processes, and each type has a distinctive shape. Mars is similar, in that valleys look very different from each other, suggesting that many processes were at play to carve them."

...

In total, the researchers analyzed more than 10,000 Martian valleys, using a novel algorithm to infer their underlying erosion processes. "These results are the first evidence for extensive subglacial erosion driven by channelized meltwater drainage beneath an ancient ice sheet on Mars," says co-author Mark Jellinek, professor in UBC's department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences. "The findings demonstrate that only a fraction of valley networks match patterns typical of surface water erosion, which is in marked contrast to the conventional view. Using the geomorphology of Mars' surface to rigorously reconstruct the character and evolution of the planet in a statistically meaningful way is, frankly, revolutionary."

...


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803120154.htm
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Sebastian Jones

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #338 on: August 06, 2020, 07:59:02 PM »
Early Mars was covered in ice sheets, not flowing rivers, researchers say

...
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803120154.htm

Hmmm. Eskers? If Mars were once covered in an ice sheet, and rivers flowed under the ice, one would think there would be other evidence of this ice- moraines probably and eskers for sure. The article did not rule this out. Maybe nobody looked yet....

igs

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #339 on: August 06, 2020, 09:27:02 PM »
Early Mars was covered in ice sheets, not flowing rivers, researchers say

...
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803120154.htm

Hmmm. Eskers? If Mars were once covered in an ice sheet, and rivers flowed under the ice, one would think there would be other evidence of this ice- moraines probably and eskers for sure. The article did not rule this out. Maybe nobody looked yet....

Probably like so often what happened in parts of a place is generalized.

I assume that both is true, there wore open rivers ( see erosion marks ) as well as under glacial rivers.

Mars has different regions, climate zones and geological zones like the midwest of the U.S. is not nearly the same like L.A., S.F. N.Y. that are all distinct from FL or TX, cultural, climate-wise as well as geologically and Mars will be no different.

Reminds me of some people calling me in Winter how we manage all the snow, just because in norther european news they said it's bloody cold and snowing in Spain while in fact that was true for Madrid and some parts north of it while the coast had 15 - 20C daily higs and 8-10C nightly lows.

kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #340 on: August 07, 2020, 03:27:43 PM »
A proof of concept:

Hubble just made a major breakthrough in the search for alien life

Hubble took advantage of a total lunar eclipse to do a bit of science that may one day be used to detect life on other worlds. As NASA reports in a new blog post and video, Hubble was able to use the Moon as a sort of “mirror” that reflected the light beaming through Earth’s atmosphere. By analyzing the wavelengths of light coming through our planet’s atmosphere and bouncing off the surface of the Moon, researchers were able to detect the presence of ozone in Earth’s atmosphere.

https://bgr.com/2020/08/06/space-news-hubble-nasa-moon/
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blumenkraft

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #341 on: August 07, 2020, 05:51:38 PM »
Mysterious 'fast radio burst' detected closer to Earth than ever before
Nothing mysterious with FRB though.

Quote
"The bursts of powerful radio waves last only a few milliseconds at most, but generate more energy in that time than Earth's sun does in a century. "

Link >> https://www.livescience.com/fast-radio-burst-magnetar-milky-way.html

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #342 on: August 12, 2020, 04:04:56 AM »
Quote
T.S. Kelso (@TSKelso) 8/11/20, 7:26 PM
We now have 230 pieces of cataloged debris from the 2020 May 8 Fregat fragmentation event. The debris has spread all over LEO due to differential precession. Yet one more reason not to leave upper stages in orbit after they have completed their mission:

Orbital Debris Quarterly News - August 2020
https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/odqnv24i3.pdf
Second Fragmentation of Fregat Upper Stage Debris
https://twitter.com/tskelso/status/1293327972074582017
Image below.

Orbital Debris Quarterly News - May 2018
https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/odqnv22i2.pdf
Fragmentation of Fregat-SB Upper Stage Debris

Note:  SpaceX (among other launchers) specifically program their upper stages to safely dump their fuel and de-orbit after delivering their payload.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #343 on: August 13, 2020, 12:00:28 AM »
The Iconic Arecibo Telescope Goes Quiet After Major Damage
https://www.wired.com/story/the-iconic-arecibo-telescope-goes-quiet-after-major-damage/amp

Early Monday morning, a cable suspended over the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico broke and left a 100-foot-long gash in the dish of the iconic radio telescope. The 3-inch diameter cable also caused damage to the panels of the Gregorian dome that is suspended hundreds of feet above the dish and houses the telescope’s receivers. It is unclear what caused the cable to break or when radio astronomers using the telescope will be able to resume their research.



“This was an auxiliary cable used to support the weight of the platform, and we are in the process of assessing why it broke,” says Zenaida Kotala, the assistant vice president for strategic initiatives at the University of Central Florida, which manages the observatory. “We are working with engineers to determine a strategy for repairs. Our goal is to get the facility operational as soon as it is possible to do so safely.”

The history of the Arecibo telescope is also deeply entwined with the history of SETI. The planetary astronomer Frank Drake, who conducted the first radio SETI search the same year that construction on Arecibo began, served as the observatory’s director for years. In 1976, he and Carl Sagan used the telescope to transmit the world’s first interstellar message to a star system 12,000 light years away.  ... For years, Siemion and his colleagues at Berkeley collected radio data from Arecibo for SETI@Home, a distributed computing project that allowed anyone with an internet connection to help in the search for intelligent aliens.

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kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #344 on: August 13, 2020, 06:37:37 PM »
Gregorian dome. You learn something new everyday.
I had never seen it before so thanks for number 2!
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igs

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #345 on: August 13, 2020, 07:42:50 PM »
Gregorian dome. You learn something new everyday.
I had never seen it before so thanks for number 2!


James Bond Spot which is why it's quite well known.
 
That things is really really old for the kind of construction, first of it's kind  and I hope they are able to repair it.

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #346 on: August 13, 2020, 10:03:34 PM »
Hubble Finds That Betelgeuse's Mysterious Dimming Due to Traumatic Outburst
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-hubble-betelgeuse-mysterious-dimming-due.html



This four-panel graphic illustrates how the southern region of the rapidly evolving, bright red supergiant star Betelgeuse may have suddenly become fainter for several months during late 2019 and early 2020. In the first two panels, as seen in ultraviolet light with the Hubble Space Telescope, a bright, hot blob of plasma is ejected from the emergence of a huge convection cell on the star's surface. In panel three, the outflowing expelled gas rapidly expands outward. It cools to form an enormous cloud of obscuring dust grains. The final panel reveals the huge dust cloud blocking the light (as seen from Earth) from a quarter of the star's surface.

... Between October and November 2019, Hubble Space Telescope observed dense, heated material moving outward through the star's extended atmosphere at 200,000 miles per hour. The following month, several ground-based telescopes observed a decrease in brightness in Betelgeuse's southern hemisphere, as if something was blocking light in this region of the star. By February 2020, the star had lost more than two-thirds of its brilliance, a dimming visible even to the naked eye, creating buzz that the star might be going supernova. Continued ultraviolet light spectroscopic observations with Hubble provided a timeline for researchers to follow, like breadcrumbs leading back through time to pinpoint the source of the mysterious dimming.

And Betelgeuse held another surprise for scientists when Hubble observations revealed that the detected plasma was not ejected from the star's rotational poles as predicted by stellar models. "Hubble observations suggest that material can be driven off from any part of the stellar surface," said Dupree, adding that recent activity on Betelgeuse was not normal for this star. Dupree noted that Betelgeuse is losing mass at a rate 30 million times higher than the Sun, but that recent activity resulted in a loss of roughly two times the normal amount of material from the southern hemisphere alone.

... "No one knows how a star behaves in the weeks before it explodes, and there were some ominous predictions that Betelgeuse was ready to become a supernova. Chances are, however, that it will not explode during our lifetime, but who knows?"
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #347 on: August 14, 2020, 09:23:38 PM »
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter passes first test in space
August 13, 2020
Quote
A week into its seven-month journey to Mars and already several million miles from Earth, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has been successfully powered up for the first time during its epic trip with the Perseverance rover.

The procedure, which lasted eight hours, saw the charge level of the helicopter’s six lithium-ion batteries brought up to 35%, with a low charge state considered optimal for battery health during the cruise to Mars. …
https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-passes-first-test-in-space/
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #348 on: August 18, 2020, 05:03:41 PM »
The Sun May Have Started Its Life With a Binary Companion
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-sun-life-binary-companion.html

A new theory published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters by scientists from Harvard University suggests that the sun may once have had a binary companion of similar mass. If confirmed, the presence of an early stellar companion increases the likelihood that the Oort cloud was formed as observed and that Planet Nine was captured rather than formed within the solar system.

... "Previous models have had difficulty producing the expected ratio between scattered disk objects and outer Oort cloud objects. The binary capture model offers significant improvement and refinement, which is seemingly obvious in retrospect: most sun-like stars are born with binary companions."

... More than just redefining the formation of our solar system, evidence of a captured Oort cloud could answer questions about the origins of life on Earth. "Objects in the outer Oort Cloud may have played important roles in Earth's history, such as possibly delivering water to Earth and causing the extinction of the dinosaurs," said Siraj. "Understanding their origins is important."

The model also has implications for the hypothesized Planet Nine, which Loeb and Siraj believe isn't alone out there. "The puzzle is not only regarding the Oort clouds, but also extreme trans-Neptunian objects, like the potential Planet Nine," said Loeb. "It is unclear where they came from, and our new model predicts that there should be more objects with a similar orbital orientation to Planet Nine."



The Case for an Early Solar Binary Companion, arXiv:2007.10339
https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.10339
« Last Edit: August 19, 2020, 08:27:03 AM by vox_mundi »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #349 on: August 18, 2020, 07:25:13 PM »
NASA satellite set to conclude successful green propellant demo mission
August 17, 2020 Stephen Clark
Quote
A NASA-funded satellite that launched last year on the third flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has begun a sequence of thruster firings to begin falling out of orbit after successfully demonstrating the effectiveness of a non-toxic fuel that could fly on future space missions.

The Green Propellant Infusion Mission, or GPIM, spacecraft is in the final weeks of its in-orbit test campaign aimed at proving the usefulness of the non-toxic fuel that could replace hydrazine — a caustic liquid that requires special handling before launch — for spacecraft propulsion needs.

Ground teams exercised the GPIM spacecraft’s five thrusters across a range of operating modes over the past year, testing their ability to control the satellite’s attitude, or pointing, and demonstrating their effectiveness at changing the spacecraft’s orbital altitude.

The main purpose of the $65 million GPIM mission was to test the performance of a hydroxyl ammonium nitrate fuel and oxidizer blend called AF-M315E, which could take the place of hydrazine used in conventional satellite propulsion systems. Hydrazine is often mixed with nitrogen tetroxide, another hazardous chemical, to feed small maneuvering thrusters on-board satellites in space.

The “green” propellant blend comes with several benefits, officials said before the mission’s launch.
Technicians can load the AF-M315E blend onto a spacecraft without needing to wear protective self-contained suits to guard themselves against a toxic leak. The green propellant blend is more dense and viscous than hydrazine, allowing more of the AF-M315E fuel to fit into the same tank volume.
That results in an improvement in the performance of a spacecraft’s propulsion system.

“If I compare this to a standard monopropellant hydrazine system, we have 50 percent more total impulse available, mainly due the density of the propellant,” said Chris McLean, the GPIM mission’s principal investigator from Ball Aerospace. “So for a given tank volume, we’re able to squeeze in 50 percent more propellant, which means 50 percent more mileage for the spacecraft.” …
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/08/17/nasa-satellite-set-to-conclude-successful-green-propellant-demo-mission/
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