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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Unique Exoplanet Photobombs CHEOPS study of Nearby Star System

    June 29, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This infographic reveals the details of the Nu2 Lupi planetary system. This bright, Sun-like star is located just under 50 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Lupus (the Wolf), as shown to the left of the frame, and is known to host three planets (named ‘b’, ‘c’ and ‘d’, with the star deemed to be object ‘A’). The relative sizes, orbital periods, and possible compositions of these three planets are depicted to the centre and lower right of the frame, while planet d’s comparative position within our Solar System is shown to the upper right (as defined by the amount of incident light it receives from its star, Nu2 Lupi).© ESA

    While studying two exoplanets in a bright nearby star system, the CHEOPS satellite has unexpectedly spotted the system’s third kn...

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    Throwing an ‘Axion Bomb’ into a Black Hole challenges fundamental Law of Physics

    June 28, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    New research shows how the fundamental law of conservation of charge could break down near a black hole. Singularities such as those at the centre of black holes, where density becomes infinite, are often said to be places where physics ‘breaks down’. However, this doesn’t mean that ‘anything’ could happen, and physicists are interested in which laws could break down, and how.

    Now, a research team from Imperial College London and the Cockcroft Institute and Lancaster University have proposed a way that singularities could violate the law of conservation of charge. Their theory is published in Annalen der Physik.

    Co-author Professor Martin McCall, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: “‘Physics breaks down at a singularity’ is one of the most famous statements in pop-...

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    First Clear View of a Boiling Cauldron Where Stars are Born

    June 27, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    First clear view of a boiling cauldron where stars are born
    The RCW 49 galactic nebula pictured above is one of the brightest star-forming regions in the Milky Way. By analyzing the movement of carbon atoms in an expanding bubble of gas surrounding the Westerlund 2 star cluster within RCW 49, a UMD-led team of researchers have created the clearest image to date of a stellar-wind driven bubble where stars are born. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltec/E.Churchwell (University of Wisconsin).

    UMD-led team used NASA’s SOFIA telescope to capture high-resolution details of a star nursery in the Milky Way. University of Maryland researchers created the first high-resolution image of an expanding bubble of hot plasma and ionized gas where stars are born...

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    Earth-like Biospheres on other Planets may be Rare

    June 25, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artistic representation of the potentially habitable planet Kepler 422-b (left), compared with Earth (right).
    Credit
    Ph03nix1986 / Wikimedia Commons
    Licence type
    Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA 4.0)

    A new analysis of known exoplanets has revealed that Earth-like conditions on potentially habitable planets may be much rarer than previously thought. The work focuses on the conditions required for oxygen-based photosynthesis to develop on a planet, which would enable complex biospheres of the type found on Earth. The study is published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

    The number of confirmed planets in our own Milky Way galaxy now numbers into the thousands...

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