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astronomers

SPACE: Water Vapor Detected on Ganymede

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Ganymede - NASA

In the wisp-thin sky of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the largest satellite in the solar system, astronomers have for the first time detected evidence of water vapor, a new study finds. The discovery could shed light on similar watery atmospheres that may envelop other icy bodies in the solar system and beyond, researchers said. Previous research suggested that Ganymede — which is larger than Mercury and Pluto, and only slightly smaller than Mars — may contain more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. However, the Jovian moon is so cold that water on its surface is frozen solid. Any liquid … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Find Giant, Ghostly Hand in Space

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Ghostly Hand

An enormous ghostly hand stretches through the depths of space, its wispy fingers pressing against a glowing cloud. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s quite real, as imagery gathered by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows. The “hand” was spawned by the death of a massive star in a supernova explosion, which left behind a fast-spinning, superdense stellar corpse known as a pulsar, Chandra team members said in a description of the dramatic images. Full Story From Live Science

Meet Faffarout – The Farthest Object in the Solar System (That We Know About)

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Farfarout

Astronomers have identified the most distant known object in our solar system — a dwarf planet nicknamed Farfarout that orbits far beyond Pluto. This remote mini-planet swings so far away from the sun that from Farfarout’s perspective Earth and Saturn look like neighbors. With an orbit that’s an average of 132 times the distance between Earth and the sun, or 132 astronomical units (AU), it beats “Farout,” the previous record holder for most-distant solar object; Farout orbits the sun at an average of 124 A.U. Farfarout’s technical name is 2018 AG37, and it will likely get an official name as … Read more

SPACE: Mars is Wobbly. Astronomers Don’t Know Why

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Mars - Pixabay

The Red Planet is wiggling and wobbling as it spins, research in the journal Geophysical Research Letters confirms, and astronomers have no idea why. Like a toy top that teeters as it loses speed, the poles of Mars are wandering ever-so-slightly away from the planet’s axis of rotation, moving about 4 inches (10 centimeters) off-center every 200 days or so, researchers reported in a study published Oct. 13, 2020. That makes Mars only the second known planet in the universe to exhibit this phenomenon — known as the Chandler wobble — with Earth being the first, according to the American … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Discover “Arches of Chaos” in the Solar System

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black hole - pixabay

A vast network of invisible energy structures have been discovered in the solar system — a celestial superhighway that future space probes might use to explore far-away corners of solar space. These hidden energy structures, called manifolds, emerge in space-time due to the gravitational interaction of massive objects like the planets, said Nataša Todorović, a mathematician at the Serbian Belgrade Astronomical Observatory and lead author of a paper on the discovery. While astronomers have long known about such pathways, and even used them to navigate our celestial neighborhood, the new study has revealed a new shape in these manifolds: “arches … Read more

Non-Binary Astronomers? Of Course There Are, And We Need to Treat Them Better

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observatory - pixabay

Gender equality in astronomy doesn’t end with the male/female gender binary. In a study led by nonbinary astrophysicist Kaitlin Rasmussen, researchers took a look at gender equity in astronomy and what practices could address outstanding issues that leave out or have a negative impact on researchers who do not fit into binary male or female gender identities. This study, released in 2019, was inspired by surveys that were done by astronomers who looked at gender equity in astronomy. They and others in the field, as they point out in this study, noticed that a lot of the papers that have … Read more

SPACE: Uranus is Weird

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Uranus

Uranus is a weirdo — the icy giant rotates while lying on its side and it’s been called a rear end in even the highest echelons of academia (right?). Now, astronomers have found it has an oddball ring system, too. In new images of the rings around Uranus (the seventh planet from the sun has 13 known rings), researchers have been able to decipher not only the temperature, but also the bits that create the rings. The scientists found that the densest, brightest ring — called the epsilon ring — is pretty darn cold (by human standards): 77 Kelvin, which … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Identify “Chimneys” in the Galactic Center

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Milky Way Chimneys

The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is a bit like the hearth at the center of a cozy pub. It’s a bright, warm gathering place around which all the quotidian life of the Milky Way swirls — and, according to a new study published today (Mar. 20) in the journal Nature, it might even have a chimney or two. In a recent study of the X-ray emissions seething out of the Milky Way’s galactic center, researchers noticed two unusual structures that have never been described before. Twin columns of superhot, X-ray-emitting plasma appeared to be billowing … Read more

SPACE: It’s an Epic Clash of Galaxies

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Andromeda Milky Way - pixabay

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is on a collision course with its neighbor Andromeda. Although the collision will take place about 4 billion years from now, astronomers have long placed bets on which of the two star systems is more likely to survive the mega crash. Until recently, Andromeda, currently roughly 2.5 million light-years away from the Milky Way, was the clear favorite. But a new study suggests the outcome of the cosmic smashup might be closer to a tie. In a paper published online Jan. 10 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team of … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Detect a Swarm of Tiny Objects Orbiting an Alien Sun

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comets

There are tiny comets orbiting foreign suns. And human beings can detect them. Six times, about 800 years ago, dark things passed between the bright-yellow dwarf star KIC 3542116 and Earth. They were small in cosmic terms, about 330 billion tons (300 billion metric tons). That’s about the size of Halley’s Comet, or just one-245 millionth the mass of Earth’s moon. But they were big enough. They blocked a fraction of a fraction of the light that was streaming outward from that star. Eight hundred years later, the sensitive lens of the Kepler Space Telescope — a nearly meterwide piece … Read more