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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Solar System formed from ‘Poorly Mixed Cake Batter,’ Isotope Research shows

    January 31, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Meteorite thin section courtesy Nicole Xike Nie.
    Caption:  A meteorite thin section under a microscope. Different colors represent different minerals, because light travels through them in different ways. The round mineral aggregates are chondrules, which are a major component in primitive meteorites. Credit: Nicole Xike Nie.

    Earth’s potassium arrived by meteoritic delivery service finds new research led by Carnegie’s Nicole Nie and Da Wang. Their work, published in Science, shows that some primitive meteorites contain a different mix of potassium isotopes than those found in other, more-chemically processed meteorites. These results can help elucidate the processes that shaped our solar system and determined the composition of its planets.

    “The extreme conditions found in stellar interiors enable stars to manufacture elements usi...

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    NASA’s Fermi Detects First Gamma-Ray Eclipses from ‘Spider’ Star Systems

    January 27, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Streams of material blow off an orange-yellow in the foreground. In the distance, a pulsar rotates like a lighthouse, emitting beams of magenta light. The background is black, purple, and speckled with stars.
    An orbiting star begins to eclipse its partner, a rapidly rotating, superdense stellar remnant called a pulsar, in this illustration. The pulsar emits multiwavelength beams of light that rotate in and out of view and produces outflows that heat the star’s facing side, blowing away material and eroding its partner.
    Credits: NASA/Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonnet

    Scientists have discovered the first gamma-ray eclipses from a special type of binary star system using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These so-called spider systems each contain a pulsar—the superdense, rapidly rotating remains of a star that exploded in a supernova—that slowly erodes its companion.

    An international team of scientists scoured over a decade of Fermi observations to find seven sp...

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    Webb spies Chariklo Ring System with High-Precision Technique

    January 26, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Graphic titled “Centaur 10199 Chariklo: Surface Composition; NIRSpec PRISM.” The graphic shows a reflectance spectrum in the form of a graph of the Brightness of Light (relative reflectance) on the vertical y-axis versus Wavelength of Light in microns on the horizontal x-axis. The spectrum is plotted as a continuous jagged white line. The overall shape of the line is curvy, with broad peaks and valleys. Three prominent valleys are highlighted in blue and labeled “Water Ice, H2O.” In the background is a grayscale illustration of Chariklo and its rings, as seen from an oblique angle. For more details, see the Text Description PDF.
    Webb captured a spectrum with its Near-infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) of the Chariklo system on Oct. 31, shortly after the occultation. This spectrum shows clear evidence for crystalline water ice, which was only hinted at by past ground-based observations. Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI). Science: Noemí Pinilla-Alonso (FSI/UCF), Ian Wong (STScI), Javier Licandro (IAC). Download the full-resolution version from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

    In 2013, Felipe Braga-Ribas and collaborators, using ground-based telescopes, discovered that Chariklo hosts a system of two thin rings. Such rings had been expected only around large planets such as Jupiter and Neptune.

    The astronomers had been watching a star as Chariklo passed in front of it, blocking the starlight...

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    Were Galaxies much Different in the Early Universe?

    January 26, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The HERA radio telescope consists of 350 dishes pointed upward to detect 21-centimeter emissions from the early universe. It is located in a radio-quiet region of the arid Karoo in South Africa. (Photo credit: Dara Storer, 2022)

    Newest data from HERA improves search for cosmic dawn radiation, tests theories of galaxy formation. An array of 350 radio telescopes in the Karoo desert of South Africa is getting closer to detecting “cosmic dawn” – the era after the Big Bang when stars first ignited and galaxies began to bloom.

    In a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) team reports that it has doubled the sensitivity of the array, which was already the most sensitive radio telescope in the world dedicated to exploring ...

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