Recent Comments

    Category Astronomy/Space

    New Measurements of Galaxy Rotation lean toward Modified Gravity as an explanation for Dark Matter

    January 3, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Rotation curve of the typical spiral galaxy M 33 (yellow and blue points with errorbars) and the predicted one from distribution of the visible matter (white line). The discrepancy between the two curves is accounted for by adding a dark matter halo surrounding the galaxy. Credit: Public domain / Wikipedia

    Although dark matter is a central part of the standard cosmological model, it’s not without its issues. There continue to be nagging mysteries about the stuff, not the least of which is the fact that scientists have found no direct particle evidence of it.

    Despite numerous searches, we have yet to detect dark matter particles. So some astronomers favor an alternative, such as modified Newtonian dynamics (MoND) or modified gravity model...

    Read More

    Venus may have Earth-like Lithospheric Thickness and Heat Flow

    January 3, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Venus planet
    Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

    Poor old Venera 9, the Soviet Union’s Venus lander, separated from its orbiter and made a hot, violent descent through the dense Venusian atmosphere on October 22, 1975, landing hard on a circular shield designed to crumple and absorb the impact. It only survived the intense surface conditions for 53 minutes, transmitting data regarding clouds, light irradiance, temperature and atmospheric chemistry, as well as the first image ever taken of the surface of another planet. And then it died. But its findings were significant because Venus and Earth are similar terrestrial planets believed to have formed through similar processes.

    It’s fair to say that while Earth and Venus are siblings, with comparable size and composition, they are vastly different in...

    Read More

    Action of 2 Protostars appears to be making conditions right for Planet Formation

    December 29, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Action of two protostars appears to be making conditions right for planet formation
    Left: ALMA 1.3 mm observations toward the triple class 0 system IRAS 16293–2422. The observations have a resolution of ∼35 au and were published in Sadavoy et al. (2018). Right: ALMA 1.3 and 3 mm observations of the southern binary system at a resolution of ∼13 and ∼7 au, respectively. Similar maps for source B are presented in Zamponi et al. (2021). In all panels, the positions of the protostars are marked by stars. Additional continuum peaks around the A1 and A2 protostars are labeled and marked with plus signs in the right panels. The beam is shown in the bottom left corner of each panel. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aca53a

    A team of researchers at Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, working with a colleague at the U...

    Read More

    Planetary Interiors in TRAPPIST-1 System could be affected by Solar Flares

    December 28, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    In a recent study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, an international team of researchers led by the University of Cologne in Germany examined how solar flares erupted by the TRAPPIST-1 star could affect the interior heating of its orbiting exoplanets.

    This study holds the potential to help us better understand how solar flares affect planetary evolution. The TRAPPIST-1 system is an exoplanetary system located approximately 39 light-years from Earth with at least seven potentially rocky exoplanets in orbit around a star that has 12 times less mass than our own sun. Since the parent star is much smaller than our own sun, then the the planetary orbits within the TRAPPIST-1 system are much smaller than our own solar system, as well...

    Read More