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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Gravitational forces in Protoplanetary Disks may push Super-Earths close to their Stars

    May 12, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist’s concept of super-Earth planet 55 Cancri e, which races around its host star once every 18 hours. New research led by Penn State astronomers improves our understanding of how large super-Earth planets with small, quick orbits form. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
    An artist’s concept of super-Earth planet 55 Cancri e, which races around its host star once every 18 hours. New research led by Penn State astronomers improves our understanding of how large super-Earth planets with small, quick orbits form. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Astronomers found that as planets form out of the chaotic churn of gravitational, hydrodynamic – or, drag – and magnetic forces and collisions within the dusty, gaseous protoplanetary disk that surrounds a star as a planetary system starts to form, the orbits of these planets eventually get in sync, causing them to slide – follow the leader7-style – toward the star.

    The galaxy is littered with planetary systems vastly different from ours...

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    New Clues about how Ancient Galaxies Lit up the Universe

    May 9, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Spiral galaxy (stock illustration).
    Credit: © Alexandr Mitiuc / Adobe Stock

    NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed that some of the Universe’s earliest galaxies were brighter than expected. The excess light is a by-product of the galaxies releasing incredibly high amounts of ionising radiation. The finding offers clues to the cause of the Epoch of Reionisation, a major cosmic event that transformed the universe from being mostly opaque to the brilliant starscape seen today.

    Researchers report on observations of some of the first galaxies to form in the universe, less than 1 billion years after the big bang (or a little more than 13 billion years ago)...

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    Two Neutron Stars Collided Near the Solar System billions of years ago

    May 9, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astrophysicists Szabolcs Márka at Columbia University and Imre Bartos (GSAS’12) at the University of Florida have identified a violent collision of two neutron stars 4.6 billion years ago as the likely source of some of the most coveted matter on Earth.

    Astrophysicists have found signs of a cosmic event that created elements that sent gold and silver to Earth. Astrophysicists Szabolcs Márka at Columbia University and Imre Bartos (GSAS’12) at the University of Florida have identified a violent collision of two neutron stars 4.6 billion years ago as the likely source of some of the most coveted matter on Earth.

    This single cosmic event, close to our solar system, gave birth to 0.3% of the Earth’s heaviest elements, including gold, platinum and uranium...

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    Telescopes in Space for even Sharper Images of Black Holes

    May 7, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In space, the EHI has a resolution more than five times that of the EHT on Earth, and images can be reconstructed with higher fidelity. Top left: Model of Sagittarius A* at an observation frequency of 230 GHz. Top left: Simulation of an image of this model with the EHT. Bottom left: Model of Sagittarius A* at an observation frequency of 690 GHz. Bottom right: Simulation of an image of this model with the EHI.
    Credit: F. Roelofs and M. Moscibrodzka, Radboud University

    Astronomers propose placing two or three satellites in circular orbit around the Earth to observe black holes. Astronomers have just managed to take the first image of a black hole, and now the next challenge facing them is how to take even sharper images, so that Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity can be tested...

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