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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Signals from Distant Stars Connect Optical Atomic Clocks across Earth for the first time

    October 9, 2020, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Fig.
    Antennas and optical lattice clocks used in the measurements

    Upper left: Transportable 2.4 m antenna installed at the INAF radio observatory in Medicina, Italy.
    Upper middle: Transportable 2.4 m antenna installed at NICT in Koganei, Japan.
    Upper right: 34 m antenna located at NICT in Kashima, Japan.
    Bottom left: The ytterbium optical lattice clock IT-Yb1, operated at INRIM in Torino, Italy.
    Bottom right: The strontium optical lattice clock NICT-Sr1, located at NICT in Koganei, Japan.

    Transportable radio telescopes could provide global high-precision comparisons of the best atomic clocks. Using radio telescopes observing distant stars, scientists have connected optical atomic clocks on different continents...

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    Moon’s Magnetic Crust research sees scientists Debunk Long-held Theory

    October 8, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Moon ©NASA

    New international research into the Moon provides scientists with insights as to how and why its crust is magnetised, essentially ‘debunking’ one of the previous longstanding theories.
    Australian researcher and study co-author Dr Katarina Miljkovic, from the Curtin Space Science and Technology Centre, located within the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University, explained how the new research, published by Science Advances, expands on decades of work by other scientists.
    “There are two long term hypotheses associated with why the Moon’s crust might be magnetic: One is that the magnetisation is the result of an ancient dynamo in the lunar core, and the other is that it’s the result of an amplification of the interplanetary magnetic field, created by meteo...

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    Trans-Neptunian Object Arrokoth: Flattening of a Snowman

    October 7, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Arrokoth’s flattened shape can only be seen from a certain perspective. The first images returned by NASA’s New… [more]
    © NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

    Only in the course of several million years did Arrokoth, also known by its nickname Ultima Thule, acquire its bizarre, pancake-flat shape. The trans-Neptunian object Arrokoth, also known as Ultima Thule, which NASA’s space probe New Horizons passed on New Year’s Day 2019, may have changed its shape significantly in the first 100 million years since its formation...

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    Gemini South’s high-def version of ‘A Star is Born’

    October 6, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Two near-infrared images of the star-forming region in the Carina Nebula known as the Western Wall illustrate the capabilities of a wide-field adaptive optics camera at the Gemini South 8.1-meter telescope on Cerro Pachón mountain in Chile. Both images were captured by captured by Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan and colleagues from telescopes at the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab observatory near near Vicuña, Chile. The lefthand image was taken with the four-meter Blanco telescope’s Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Imager in 2015. The righthand image, taken in January 2018, has about 10 times finer resolution thanks to a mirror in the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager that changes shape to correct for atmospheric distortion caused by Earth’s atmosphere...
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