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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Exploding Stars may have caused Mass Extinction on Earth, study shows

    August 20, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A team of researchers led by professor Brian Fields hypothesizes that a supernova about 65 light-years away may have contributed to the ozone depletion and subsequent mass extinction of the late Devonian Period, 359 million years ago. Pictured is a simulation of a nearby supernova colliding with and compressing the solar wind. Earth’s orbit, the blue dashed circle, and the Sun, red dot, are shown for scale.
    Graphic courtesy Jesse Miller

    Imagine reading by the light of an exploded star, brighter than a full moon – it might be fun to think about, but this scene is the prelude to a disaster when the radiation devastates life as we know it...

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    Researchers track slowly splitting ‘Dent’ in Earth’s Magnetic Field

    August 19, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    Earth’s magnetic field acts like a protective shield around the planet, repelling and trapping charged particles from the Sun. But over South America and the southern Atlantic Ocean, an unusually weak spot in the field – called the South Atlantic Anomaly, or SAA – allows these particles to dip closer to the surface than normal. Currently, the SAA creates no visible impacts on daily life on the surface. However, recent observations and forecasts show that the region is expanding westward and continuing to weaken in intensity. The South Atlantic Anomaly is also of interest to NASA’s Earth scientists who monitor the changes in magnetic strength there, both for how such changes affect Earth’s atmosphere and as an indicator of what’s happening to Earth’s magnetic fields, deep inside the globe...
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    Experiments Replicate High Densities in ‘White Dwarf’ Stars

    August 18, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    To study the pressures created by white dwarf stars, researchers fired nanometer laser light into a hohlraum—a tiny gold cylinder—bathing a 1 mm sample of a carbon-based compound in radiation heated to nearly 3.5 million degrees, at pressures ranging from 100 to 450 million atmospheres. (Illustration courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

    Findings could shed light on creating new materials on Earth. For the first time, researchers have found a way to describe conditions deep in the convection zone of “white dwarf” stars, which are home to some of the densest collections of matter in the Universe.

    In a project conducted at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the research team, including University of Rochester engineering profess...

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    Aurora mysteries unlocked with NASA’s THEMIS mission

    August 17, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The photograph was taken east of Saskatoon on winter solstice in 2015 with a 81% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon. It was processed with PixInsight to remove streaks caused due to an accidentally nudged tripod during exposure while attempting to retain realistic star shapes and colors. The exposure time was 2.5 seconds. Credit: Alan Duffy

    A special type of aurora, draped east-west across the night sky like a glowing pearl necklace, is helping scientists better understand the science of auroras and their powerful drivers out in space. Known as auroral beads, these lights often show up just before large auroral displays, which are caused by electrical storms in space called substorms...

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