Space...the final Frontier

satanboy

satanboy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Messages
20,569
Location
Batcave
1643889270178.pngI
Image of the Antenna galaxies, composite from ALMA and Hubble observations !
The Antenna galaxies (also known as NGC 4038 and 4039) are a pair of colliding spiral galaxies with highly distorted shapes located about 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Corvo. This image combines ALMA observations, taken at two different wavelength regions during the observatory's initial testing phase, with observations taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The Hubble image is the sharpest image ever taken of this object, making it a milestone in terms of resolution. ALMA observes at much longer wavelengths, which makes it much more difficult to obtain images that are comparatively sharp. However, when ALMA's network is complete, your view will be ten times sharper than Hubble's.
Most of the ALMA test observations used to create this image were taken with just twelve antennas working in unison - far fewer than those that will be used to make the first scientific observations - and situated very close together. Both factors contribute to making this new image just a foretaste of what is yet to come. As the observatory grows, the sharpness, speed and quality of observations will increase dramatically as more antennas become available and the network will grow in size. Despite this, this is the best submillimetre-wavelength image of the Antenna galaxies and opens a new window into the submillimetre Universe.
While visible radiation - here shown in blue - shows newborn stars in galaxies, the ALMA image shows something that cannot be seen at these wavelengths: the clouds of dense, cold gas from which new stars form. . The ALMA observations - shown here in red, pink and yellow - were obtained at specific wavelengths of millimeter and submillimeter radiation (ALMA bands 3 and 7), calibrated to detect carbon monoxide molecules in the hydrogen clouds (which would be otherwise invisible), where new stars are forming.
Enormous concentrations of gas were found, not only in the hearts of the two galaxies but also in the chaotic region where the collision is taking place. There, the total amount of gas amounts to billions of times the mass of the Sun - an extremely rich reservoir of material for future generations of stars. Observations like these will be vital to understanding how galaxy collisions give rise to new stars. This is just one example of how ALMA reveals parts of the Universe that cannot be seen with a telescope operating in both visible and infrared.
Credit:
SOUL (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Visible light image: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope
 
Last edited:
satanboy

satanboy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Messages
20,569
Location
Batcave
phys.org

Puffy planets lose atmospheres, become super-Earths

Astronomers have identified two different cases of "mini-Neptune" planets that are losing their puffy atmospheres and likely transforming into super-Earths. Radiation from the planets' stars is stripping away their atmospheres, driving hot gas to escape like steam from a pot of boiling water.
phys.org phys.org
 
satanboy

satanboy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Messages
20,569
Location
Batcave
phys.org

First ever free-floating black hole found roaming through interstellar space

An international team of researchers has confirmed that a possible microlensing event witnessed in 2011 was due to the presence of a free-floating black hole roaming through interstellar space—the first of its kind ever observed. The group has published a paper describing their findings on the...
phys.org phys.org
 
satanboy

satanboy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Messages
20,569
Location
Batcave
Gigantic solar flare is recorded by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft
The biggest solar flare ever observed occurred this Tuesday (15) and was captured by the Solar Orbiter probe , from NASA and the European Space Agency ( ESA ). The phenomenon extended for a few million kilometers in space and was recorded in a single image, which also included the Sun. Despite its large dimensions, the solar eruption did not come towards Earth, going in the opposite direction to that of our planet.
The images were captured by the probe's Full Sun Imager (FSI) instrument, created to observe the solar disk in its entirety even at moments of closest proximity to our star. The solar flare observed by Solar Orbiter is the largest event of its kind ever captured in a single field of view, which showed it next to the solar disk, and represents new possibilities for studies on how these events relate to the disk of our star.
Apparently, the coronal mass ejection related to the eruption did not occur towards Earth. In fact, the event occurred on the opposite side of ours — there are no signatures of the eruption in the solar disk facing the spacecraft, which is approaching the "line" between the Sun and Earth. So this means that the event must have happened on the side of the solar disk away from our planet.
There are space telescopes, such as the SOHO observatory, that often track solar activity of this type. However, they are either closer to the Sun, or further away due to an occultator, which blocks the glare of the solar disk to allow detailed images of the corona to be captured. While Solar Orbiter was able to record the phenomenon with a wide field of view, SOHO will be able to provide complementary observations at greater distances.
Other space missions were following the event, such as the Parker Solar Probe, and even satellites operating on missions with other scientific objectives felt the effects of the prominence. The BepiColombo mission, by ESA and JAXA, Japan's space agency, is on the outskirts of Mercury's orbit but has recorded a significant increase in readings of electrons, protons and heavy ions on the radiation monitor.
Solar flares have structures formed by tangled magnetic field lines, which keep dense concentrations of solar plasma suspended over the Sun's surface. They are attached to the photosphere and extend toward the solar corona , the Sun's outermost atmosphere. these prominences form in about a day, but the most stable of them can spend months in the solar corona.
Plasma concentrations can extend for millions of kilometres into arc-shaped space and are often associated with coronal mass ejections (CME), which are massive eruptions of plasma from the solar corona. If they occur towards Earth, CMEs are capable of causing great damage to the technologies we use, damaging satellites in orbit.
While this latest phenomenon did not send dangerous particles to Earth, it does represent an important reminder of how the Sun has often unpredictable behaviour. Therefore, scientists continue to follow and monitor this behaviour closely.

1645358460357.png
1645358477897.png
1645358491997.png
 
N

Nicholas

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
6,481
Location
East London
satanboy said:
View attachment 29837
UY Scuti

Catalogued in 1860 by astronomers at the Bonn Observatory under the name BD - 12 5055 and properly measured in 2012, UY Scuti lies in the constellation Scutum, approximately at the center of the Milky Way, about 9,500 light-years from Earth. It is estimated to have a radius that is equivalent to approximately 1,708 solar rays, which means that if it were placed in the center of the Solar System, it would occupy all the space from the Sun to the region beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

Also considering the gas nebula around the star, the space occupied by it would reach Pluto's orbit region, which is 400 times farther from the Sun than Earth. The measurement is not exact because there is a difficulty in measuring stars.

According to astronomer Jillian Scudder, who explained the situation to Space.com, they don't have sharp edges, making it tricky to determine where they actually start and end. Thus, the margin of error for measuring the UY Scuti is 192 sun rays, which means that it can measure from 1,516 to 1,900 sun rays.

Thus, despite officially holding the title of biggest star — which was formerly VY Canis Majoris (1,300 to 1,540 sun rays), it may be smaller than stars like WOH G64 (1,504 to 1,730 sun rays) and RW Cephei ( 1,535 solar rays). In addition, there are stars whose size needs to be confirmed, such as Westerlund 1-26 and KY Cygni, and which can dethrone the UY Scuti, as they measure up to 2,000 solar rays. It is also necessary to consider that there are other ways to measure stars, such as brightness or mass, and that, in these aspects, the UY Scuti does not occupy the first place.
Click to expand...
Stephenson 2-18 is a respectable size, too.
 
satanboy

satanboy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Messages
20,569
Location
Batcave
1673801733052.png
Poster of 42 asteroids in our Solar System and their orbits (blue background)
This poster shows 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter (orbits not to scale). The images in the outermost circle of this infographic have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope.
The asteroid sample features 39 objects larger than 100 kilometres in diameter, including 20 larger than 200 kilometres. The poster highlights a few of the objects, including Ceres (the largest asteroid in the belt), Urania (the smallest one imaged), Kalliope (the densest imaged) and Lutetia, which was visited by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission.
You can buy this poster on the ESOshop.
Credit:
ESO/M. Kornmesser/Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top