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    Category Astronomy/Space

    First Candidate for an Extragalactic Planet identified

    September 28, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    First candidate for a planet in an different galaxy identified
    Left: false RGB stacked Chandra/ACIS-S image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, M 51 (total exposure of ≈850 ks). Colored points are XRSs: Red is 0.3-1 keV; green is 1-2 keV; blue is 2-7 keV. M 51-ULS1 is the orange source at the center of the 60” × 60” dashed white box. Diffuse emission is from hot gas. Right: HST image of the area defined by the white box in the top image. Red is the F814W band; green is F555W; blue is F435W. The magenta circle marks the X-ray position of M 51-ULS, which lies at the edge of a young star cluster. The source is located at right ascension and declination 13:29:43.30, +47:11:34.7, respectively. Credit: arXiv:2009.08987 [astro-ph.HE]

    A team of researchers from the U.S. and China has found the first evidence for a candidate planet in another galaxy...

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    Shadow of Black Hole in M87 galaxy is wobbling and has been for a while

    September 25, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    “Monitoring the Morphology of M87* in 2009-2017 with the Event Horizon Telescope,” M. Wielgus et al. 2020, Sept. 23, The Astrophysical Journal.

    Analysis of previously unpublished data from observations of M87* between 2009 and 2013 by scientists at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has revealed that the crescent shadow of the black hole is wobbling, and has rotated significantly over the past ten years of observation. Published today in The Astrophysical Journal, and led by scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), the study focused on the morphology of the black hole over time, and was made possible by advances in analysis and ml
    “EHT can detect changes in the M87 morphology on timescales as short as a few days, but its general geometry should be constan...

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    Asteroid Ryugu’s Rocky Past

    September 24, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Four images of grey rocks
    Surface Rocks. Hayabusa2 captures images of unusually bright S-type rocks that stand out from the darker C-type material that makes up the bulk of Ryugu. © 2020 Tatsumi et al.

    Different kinds of rocks on Ryugu provide clues to the asteroid’s turbulent history. Researchers find evidence that asteroid Ryugu was born out of the possible destruction of a larger parent asteroid millions of years ago. Thanks to the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, the international team was able to study certain surface features in detail. Variations in the kinds of boulders scattered on Ryugu tell researchers about the processes involved in its creation. The study of asteroids including Ryugu informs the study of the evolution of life on Earth.

    The asteroid Ryugu may look like a solid piece of rock, but it’s more ...

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    The first Ultra-Hot Neptune, LTT 9779b, is one of nature’s improbable planets

    September 23, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Ultra Hot Neptune. Credit: Ricardo Ramirez

    An international team of astronomers, including a group from the University of Warwick, have discovered the first Ultra Hot Neptune planet orbiting the nearby star LTT 9779.

    The world orbits so close to its star that its year lasts only 19 hours, meaning the stellar radiation heats the planet to over 1700 degrees Celsius.

    At these temperatures, heavy elements like iron can be ionized in the atmosphere and molecules disassociated, providing a unique laboratory to study the chemistry of planets outside the solar system.

    Although the world weighs twice as much as Neptune does, it is also slightly larger and so has a similar density...

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