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Astronomers develop ‘accurate method’ to determine surface temperatures of red supergiants

March 2, 2021 by Zakia

Red supergiants are a class of star that end their lives in supernova explosions. Their lifecycles are not fully understood, partly due to difficulties in measuring their temperatures.

For the first time, astronomers develop an accurate method to determine the surface temperatures of red supergiants.

Stars come in a wide range of sizes, masses and compositions. Our sun is considered a relatively small specimen, especially when compared to something like Betelgeuse which is known as a red supergiant. [Read more…] about Astronomers develop ‘accurate method’ to determine surface temperatures of red supergiants

Filed Under: Research, Universe Tagged With: absorption, atmospheres, betelgeuse, calculated, consistent, ratio, researchers, spectral, stars, supergiants, supernova, taniguchi, temperatures, visible

On the quest for other Earths

February 19, 2021 by Zakia

In the search for planets capable of sustaining life, an international research team with members from ETH has taken a significant step forward.

As the researchers reported recently in the journal Nature Communications, they found signs of a Neptune-sized planet in the Alpha Centauri star system, a mere 4.4 light years away from Earth.

This exoplanet is located in a zone that may offer suitable conditions for life. The team was able to collect data with unprecedented sensitivity, thus registering even very weak signals. [Read more…] about On the quest for other Earths

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  • Earth has a hot new neighbour – and it's an astronomer's dream
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    Earth has a hot new neighbour – and it's an astronomer's dreamA newly discovered planet could be our best chance yet of studying rocky planet atmospheres outside the solar system, a new international study involving UNSW Sydney shows. The planet, called Gliese 486b (pronounced Glee-seh), is a “super-Earth”: that is, a rocky planet bigger than Earth but smaller than ice giants…
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  • Carbon-rich exoplanets may be made of diamonds
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    Carbon-rich exoplanets may be made of diamondsAs missions like NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, TESS and Kepler continue to provide insights into the properties of exoplanets (planets around other stars), scientists are increasingly able to piece together what these planets look like, what they are made of, and if they could be habitable or even inhabited. In…
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  • First transiting exoplanet's 'chemical fingerprint' reveals its distant birthplace
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    First transiting exoplanet's 'chemical fingerprint' reveals its distant birthplaceAstronomers have found evidence that the first exoplanet that was identified transiting its star could have migrated to a close orbit with its star from its original birthplace further away. Analysis of the planet's atmosphere by a team including University of Warwick scientists has identified the chemical fingerprint of a…
    Tags: atmosphere, star, planet, water, exoplanet, planets, life, team, planet's, universe
  • Young stars ‘destroy Earth-like atmospheres’
    32
    Young stars ‘destroy Earth-like atmospheres’The discoveries of thousands of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system have made questions about the potential for life to form on these planets fundamentally important in modern science. Fundamentally important for the habitability of a planet is whether or not it can hold onto an atmosphere, which requires…
    Tags: planets, stars, atmosphere, earth-like, planet, life, star, earth

Filed Under: Research, Universe Tagged With: atmosphere, boehle, data, earth, life, light, measurement, measurements, planet, planet's, range, signal, signals, signs, stars, telescope

Study: X-Rays surrounding ‘Magnificent 7’ may be traces of sought-after particle

January 21, 2021 by Zakia

A new study, led by a theoretical physicist at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), suggests that never-before-observed particles called axions may be the source of unexplained, high-energy X-ray emissions surrounding a group of neutron stars.

First theorized in the 1970s as part of a solution to a fundamental particle physics problem, axions are expected to be produced at the core of stars, and to convert into particles of light, called photons, in the presence of a magnetic field.

Axions may also make up dark matter – the mysterious stuff that accounts for an estimated 85 percent of the total mass of the universe, yet we have so far only seen its gravitational effects on ordinary matter. Even if the X-ray excess turns out not to be axions or dark matter, it could still reveal new physics. [Read more…] about Study: X-Rays surrounding ‘Magnificent 7’ may be traces of sought-after particle

Filed Under: News, Universe Tagged With: axions, berkeley, dark, excess, expected, light, magnetic, magnificent, matter, neutron, particle, particles, physics, produced, researchers, safdi, stars, study, university, x-ray

How nearby galaxies form their stars

January 1, 2021 by Zakia

Stars are born in dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas that permeates interstellar space of most galaxies. While the physics of star formation is complex, recent years have seen substantial progress towards understanding how stars form in a galactic environment. What ultimately determines the level of star formation in galaxies, however, remains an open question.

In principle, two main factors influence the star formation activity: The amount of molecular gas that is present in galaxies and the timescale over which the gas reservoir is depleted by converting it into stars. While the gas mass of galaxies is regulated by a competition between gas inflows, outflows and consumption, the physics of the gas-to-star conversion is currently not well understood.

Given its potentially critical role, many efforts have been undertaken to determine the gas depletion timescale observationally. However, these efforts resulted in conflicting findings partly because of the challenge in measuring gas masses reliably given current detection limits. [Read more…] about How nearby galaxies form their stars

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    Student astronomer finds galactic missing matterAstronomers have for the first time used distant galaxies as 'scintillating pins' to locate and identify a piece of the Milky Way's missing matter. For decades, scientists have been puzzled as to why they couldn't account for all the matter in the universe as predicted by theory. While most of…
    Tags: gas, galaxies, universe

Filed Under: Research, Universe Tagged With: formation, galaxies, gas, hydrogen, molecular, reservoir, stars, universe

Astronomers’ success: seven new cosmic masers

November 28, 2020 by Zakia

The publication is the result of many months of observations of radiation coming from the plane of the Milky Way, namely from the spiral arms of our galaxy, where a lot of matter, dust and gas accumulate. It is under such conditions that massive stars are born.  [Read more…] about Astronomers’ success: seven new cosmic masers

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  • Signals from distant stars connect optical atomic clocks across Earth for the first time
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    Signals from distant stars connect optical atomic clocks across Earth for the first timeUsing radio telescopes observing distant stars, scientists have connected optical atomic clocks on different continents. The results were published in the scientific journal Nature Physics by an international collaboration between 33 astronomers and clock experts at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, Japan), the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca…
    Tags: radio, time, sources, telescopes, telescope, news, space

Filed Under: News, Space Tagged With: areas, astronomers, bartkiewicz, explains, frequency, massive, methanol, months, observations, scientists, sources, star, stars, telescope, time

Stars and planets grow up together as siblings

October 25, 2020 by Zakia

Astronomers have found compelling evidence that planets start to form while infant stars are still growing. The high-resolution image obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows a young proto-stellar disk with multiple gaps and rings of dust.

This new result, just published in Nature, shows the youngest and most detailed example of dust rings acting as cosmic cradles, where the seeds of planets form and take hold.

An international team of scientists led by Dominique Segura-Cox at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Germany targeted the proto-star IRS 63 with the ALMA radio observatory. [Read more…] about Stars and planets grow up together as siblings

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    Tags: planets, stars, planet, young, years, gas, solar, system

Filed Under: News, Universe Tagged With: disk, dust, form, grow, jupiter, planet, planet's, proto-star, rings, solar, stars, system

Evidence of broadside collision with dwarf galaxy discovered in Milky Way

October 22, 2020 by Zakia

Nearly 3 billion years ago, a dwarf galaxy plunged into the center of the Milky Way and was ripped apart by the gravitational forces of the collision.

Astrophysicists announced today that the merger produced a series of telltale shell-like formations of stars in the vicinity of the Virgo constellation, the first such “shell structures” to be found in the Milky Way.

The finding offers further evidence of the ancient event, and new possible explanations for other phenomena in the galaxy. [Read more…] about Evidence of broadside collision with dwarf galaxy discovered in Milky Way

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  • A blazar in the early universe
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    A blazar in the early universeThe supersharp radio "vision" of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) has revealed previously unseen details in a jet of material ejected at three-quarters the speed of light from the core of a galaxy some 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy, dubbed PSO J0309+27, is a…
    Tags: galaxy, universe, billion, years, news

Filed Under: News, Universe Tagged With: billion, galaxy, merger, milky, overdensity, radial, stars, structures, virgo

Mystery of Universe’s expansion rate widens with new Hubble data

May 2, 2019 by Editor

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope say they have crossed an important threshold in revealing a discrepancy between the two key techniques for measuring the universe’s expansion rate. The recent study strengthens the case that new theories may be needed to explain the forces that have shaped the cosmos.

A brief recap: The universe is getting bigger every second. The space between galaxies is stretching, like dough rising in the oven. But how fast is the universe expanding? As Hubble and other telescopes seek to answer this question, they have run into an intriguing difference between what scientists predict and what they observe.

Hubble measurements suggest a faster expansion rate in the modern universe than expected, based on how the universe appeared more than 13 billion years ago. These measurements of the early universe come from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite. This discrepancy has been identified in scientific papers over the last several years, but it has been unclear whether differences in measurement techniques are to blame, or whether the difference could result from unlucky measurements.

The latest Hubble data lower the possibility that the discrepancy is only a fluke to 1 in 100,000. This is a significant gain from an earlier estimate, less than a year ago, of a chance of 1 in 3,000.

These most precise Hubble measurements to date bolster the idea that new physics may be needed to explain the mismatch.

“The Hubble tension between the early and late universe may be the most exciting development in cosmology in decades,” said lead researcher and Nobel laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. “This mismatch has been growing and has now reached a point that is really impossible to dismiss as a fluke. This disparity could not plausibly occur just by chance.”

Tightening the bolts on the ‘cosmic distance ladder’
Scientists use a “cosmic distance ladder” to determine how far away things are in the universe. This method depends on making accurate measurements of distances to nearby galaxies and then moving to galaxies farther and farther away, using their stars as milepost markers. Astronomers use these values, along with other measurements of the galaxies’ light that reddens as it passes through a stretching universe, to calculate how fast the cosmos expands with time, a value known as the Hubble constant. Riess and his SH0ES (Supernovae H0 for the Equation of State) team have been on a quest since 2005 to refine those distance measurements with Hubble and fine-tune the Hubble constant.

In this new study, astronomers used Hubble to observe 70 pulsating stars called Cepheid variables in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations helped the astronomers “rebuild” the distance ladder by improving the comparison between those Cepheids and their more distant cousins in the galactic hosts of supernovas. Riess’s team reduced the uncertainty in their Hubble constant value to 1.9% from an earlier estimate of 2.2%.

As the team’s measurements have become more precise, their calculation of the Hubble constant has remained at odds with the expected value derived from observations of the early universe’s expansion. Those measurements were made by Planck, which maps the cosmic microwave background, a relic afterglow from 380,000 years after the big bang.

The measurements have been thoroughly vetted, so astronomers cannot currently dismiss the gap between the two results as due to an error in any single measurement or method. Both values have been tested multiple ways.

“This is not just two experiments disagreeing,” Riess explained. “We are measuring something fundamentally different. One is a measurement of how fast the universe is expanding today, as we see it. The other is a prediction based on the physics of the early universe and on measurements of how fast it ought to be expanding. If these values don’t agree, there becomes a very strong likelihood that we’re missing something in the cosmological model that connects the two eras.”

How the new study was done
Astronomers have been using Cepheid variables as cosmic yardsticks to gauge nearby intergalactic distances for more than a century. But trying to harvest a bunch of these stars was so time-consuming as to be nearly unachievable. So, the team employed a clever new method, called DASH (Drift And Shift), using Hubble as a “point-and-shoot” camera to snap quick images of the extremely bright pulsating stars, which eliminates the time-consuming need for precise pointing.

“When Hubble uses precise pointing by locking onto guide stars, it can only observe one Cepheid per each 90-minute Hubble orbit around Earth. So, it would be very costly for the telescope to observe each Cepheid,” explained team member Stefano Casertano, also of STScI and Johns Hopkins. “Instead, we searched for groups of Cepheids close enough to each other that we could move between them without recalibrating the telescope pointing. These Cepheids are so bright, we only need to observe them for two seconds. This technique is allowing us to observe a dozen Cepheids for the duration of one orbit. So, we stay on gyroscope control and keep ‘DASHing’ around very fast.”

The Hubble astronomers then combined their result with another set of observations, made by the Araucaria Project, a collaboration between astronomers from institutions in Chile, the U.S., and Europe. This group made distance measurements to the Large Magellanic Cloud by observing the dimming of light as one star passes in front of its partner in eclipsing binary-star systems.

The combined measurements helped the SH0ES Team refine the Cepheids’ true brightness. With this more accurate result, the team could then “tighten the bolts” of the rest of the distance ladder that extends deeper into space.

The new estimate of the Hubble constant is 74 kilometers (46 miles) per second per megaparsec. This means that for every 3.3 million light-years farther away a galaxy is from us, it appears to be moving 74 kilometers (46 miles) per second faster, as a result of the expansion of the universe. The number indicates that the universe is expanding at a 9% faster rate than the prediction of 67 kilometers (41.6 miles) per second per megaparsec, which comes from Planck’s observations of the early universe, coupled with our present understanding of the universe.

So, what could explain this discrepancy?
One explanation for the mismatch involves an unexpected appearance of dark energy in the young universe, which is thought to now comprise 70% of the universe’s contents. Proposed by astronomers at Johns Hopkins, the theory is dubbed “early dark energy,” and suggests that the universe evolved like a three-act play.

Astronomers have already hypothesized that dark energy existed during the first seconds after the big bang and pushed matter throughout space, starting the initial expansion. Dark energy may also be the reason for the universe’s accelerated expansion today. The new theory suggests that there was a third dark-energy episode not long after the big bang, which expanded the universe faster than astronomers had predicted. The existence of this “early dark energy” could account for the tension between the two Hubble constant values, Riess said.

Another idea is that the universe contains a new subatomic particle that travels close to the speed of light. Such speedy particles are collectively called “dark radiation” and include previously known particles like neutrinos, which are created in nuclear reactions and radioactive decays.

Yet another attractive possibility is that dark matter (an invisible form of matter not made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons) interacts more strongly with normal matter or radiation than previously assumed.

But the true explanation is still a mystery.

Riess doesn’t have an answer to this vexing problem, but his team will continue to use Hubble to reduce the uncertainties in the Hubble constant. Their goal is to decrease the uncertainty to 1%, which should help astronomers identify the cause of the discrepancy.

The team’s results have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

Main picture: This illustration shows the three basic steps astronomers use to calculate how fast the universe expands over time, a value called the Hubble constant. All the steps involve building a strong “cosmic distance ladder,” by starting with measuring accurate distances to nearby galaxies and then moving to galaxies farther and farther away. This “ladder” is a series of measurements of different kinds of astronomical objects with an intrinsic brightness that researchers can use to calculate distances. Among the most reliable for shorter distances are Cepheid variables, stars that pulsate at predictable rates that indicate their intrinsic brightness. Astronomers recently used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe 70 Cepheid variables in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud to make the most precise distance measurement to that galaxy. Astronomers compare the measurements of nearby Cepheids to those in galaxies farther away that also include another cosmic yardstick, exploding stars called Type Ia supernovas. These supernovas are much brighter than Cepheid variables. Astronomers use them as “milepost markers” to gauge the distance from Earth to far-flung galaxies. Each of these markers build upon the previous step in the “ladder.” By extending the ladder using different kinds of reliable milepost markers, astronomers can reach very large distances in the universe. Astronomers compare these distance values to measurements of an entire galaxy’s light, which increasingly reddens with distance, due to the uniform expansion of space. Astronomers can then calculate how fast the cosmos is expanding: the Hubble constant. Credits: NASA, ESA and A. Feild (STScI)

Filed Under: News, Space Tagged With: astronomers, cepheid, constant, dark, distance, early, expansion, fast, galaxies, hubble, ladder, measurements, observe, space, stars, team, telescope, universe

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