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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers find a Planet that Shouldn’t Exist

    June 30, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A "hot Jupiter" exoplanet named Halla may have orbited two stars at one time. Interactions between the two stars may have helped Halla survive a stellar outburst.
    A “hot Jupiter” exoplanet named Halla may have orbited two stars at one time. Interactions between the two stars may have helped Halla survive a stellar outburst. Adam Makarenko/W.M. Keck Observatory

    When our sun reaches the end of its life, it will expand to 100 times its current size, enveloping the Earth. Many planets in other solar systems face a similar doom as their host stars grow old. But not all hope is lost, as astronomers from the University of HawaiÊ»i Institute for Astronomy (UH IfA) have made the remarkable discovery of a planet’s survival after what should have been certain demise at the hands of its sun.

    The Jupiter-like planet 8 UMi b, officially named Halla, orbits the red giant star Baekdu (8 UMi) at only half the distance separating the Earth and the sun...

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    ALMA digs deeper into the Mystery of Planet Formation

    June 29, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Images of disks around 19 protostars, including 4 binary systems observed with ALMA. For 1 binary system, disks around the primary and secondary are presented independently (2nd line rightmost and 3rd line leftmost). Disks are presented in the order of their evolutionary sequence (the one in the upper-left corner is the youngest while the one at the lower-right corner is the oldest). The two oldest disks show faint ring-gap structures. A scale bar of 20 au (roughly the distance between the Sun and Uranus) is shown for each disk image. (Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Ohashi et al.) Original size (1.0MB)

    An international research team used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe disks around 19 protostars with a very high resolution to search for the earliest...

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    ‘Smiling cat’ Sh2-284 nebula captured in new image

    June 28, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In the centre of this image is a large cloud, orange and red in colour, which is stretched out over the majority of the frame. The region in the top left of the cloud is particularly vivid. All around the image there are stars, in different colours of white, orange and purple. Some of these are smaller, background stars, whereas others reside in the foreground of the image, such as those in the central cluster of the nebula.
    The Sh2-284 nebula, imaged by the VLT Survey Telescope

    This cloud of orange and red, part of the Sh2-284 nebula, is shown here in spectacular detail using data from the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). This nebula is teeming with young stars, as gas and dust within it clumps together to form new suns. If you take a look at the cloud as a whole, you might be able to make out the face of a cat, smiling down from the sky.

    The Sh2-284 stellar nursery is a vast region of dust and gas and its brightest part, visible in this image, is about 150 light-years (over 1400 trillion kilometers) across. It’s located some 15,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Monoceros.

    Nestled in the center of the brightest part of the nebula—right under...

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    A Surprise Chemical find by ALMA may help Detect and Confirm Protoplanets

    June 28, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), M. Weiss (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

    Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the protoplanetary disk around a young star have discovered the most compelling chemical evidence to date of the formation of protoplanets. The discovery will provide astronomers with an alternate method for detecting and characterizing protoplanets when direct observations or imaging are not possible. The results will be published in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

    HD 169142 is a young star located in the constellation Sagittarius that is of significant interest to astronomers due to the presence of its large, dust- and gas-rich circumstellar disk that is viewed nearly face-on...

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