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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Hubble captures Re-Energized Planetary Nebula

    March 24, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Hubble captures re-energized planetary nebula
    Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Guerrero; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt

    Located around 5,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan), Abell 78 is an unusual type of planetary nebula.

    After exhausting the nuclear fuel in their cores, stars with a mass of around 0.8 to eight times the mass of our Sun collapse to form dense and hot white dwarf stars. As this process occurs, the dying star will throw off its outer layers of material, forming an elaborate cloud of gas and dust known as a planetary nebula. This phenomenon is not uncommon, and planetary nebulae are a popular focus for astrophotographers because of their often beautiful and complex shapes. However, a few like Abell 78 are the result of a so-called “born again” star.

    Although the core of the star has stopp...

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    Researchers Tackle the ‘Spiders’ from Mars

    March 23, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, acquired May 13, 2018 during winter at the South Pole of Mars, shows a carbon dioxide ice cap covering the region and as the sun returns in the spring, “spiders” begin to emerge from the landscape.

    Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have been shedding light on the enigmatic “spiders from Mars,” providing the first physical evidence that these unique features on the planet’s surface can be formed by the sublimation of CO2 ice.

    Spiders, more formally referred to as araneiforms, are strange-looking negative topography radial systems of dendritic troughs; patterns that resemble branches of a tree or fork lightning...

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    Scientists uncover Warehouse-full of Complex Molecules never before seen in Space

    March 20, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In a series of nine papers, scientists from the GOTHAM—Green Bank Telescope Observations of TMC-1: Hunting Aromatic Molecules—project described the detection of more than a dozen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, or TMC-1. These complex molecules, are allowing scientists to better understand the formation of stars, planets, and other bodies. In this artist’s conception, some of the detected molecules include, from left to right: 1-cyanonaphthalene, 1-cyano-cyclopentadiene, HC11N, 2-cyanonaphthalene, vinylcyanoacetylene, 2-cyano-cyclopentadiene, benzonitrile, trans-(E)-cyanovinylacetylene, HC4NC, and propargylcyanide, among others.
    Credit: M. Weiss / Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

    Radio observations of a cold, dense cloud of molecular ga...

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    Astronomers see a ‘Space Jellyfish’

    March 19, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A composite image of the USS Jellyfish in Abell 2877 showing the optical Digitised Sky Survey (background) with XMM X-ray data (magenta overlay) and MWA 118 MHz radio data (red-yellow overlay). Credit: Torrance Hodgson, ICRAR/Curtin University.

    A radio telescope located in outback Western Australia has observed a cosmic phenomenon with a striking resemblance to a jellyfish.

    Published today in The Astrophysical Journal, an Australian-Italian team used the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope to observe a cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2877.

    Lead author and PhD candidate Torrance Hodgson, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, said the team observed the cluster for 12 hours at five radio frequencies betwee...

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