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    Category Astronomy/Space

    NASA’s Fermi Satellite Clocks ‘Cannonball’ Pulsar Speeding through Space

    March 23, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The CTB 1 supernova remnant resembles a ghostly bubble in this image, which combines new 1.5 gigahertz observations from the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope (orange, near center) with older observations from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) and infrared data (blue). The VLA data clearly reveal the straight, glowing trail from pulsar J0002+6216 and the curved rim of the remnant’s shell. CTB 1 is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a full Moon.
    Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

    Astronomers found a pulsar hurtling through space at nearly 2...

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    Giant X-ray ‘Chimneys’ are Exhaust Vents for Vast Energies produced at Milky Way’s center

    March 21, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Galactic chimneys (yellow-orange areas) are centered on the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. (This is a false-color image; white patches indicate spots where unrelated, bright X-ray sources have been removed from the image.)
    Credit: Gabriele Ponti/MPE/INAF and Mark Morris/UCLA

    Close look at what might be happening in other, more energetic galaxies. The center of our galaxy is a frenzy of activity. A behemoth black hole – 4 million times as massive as the sun – blasts out energy as it chows down on interstellar detritus while neighboring stars burst to life and subsequently explode.

    Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered two exhaust channels – dubbed “galactic center chimneys” – that appear to funnel matter and energy away from the cosmic firewo...

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    Weird, Wild Gravity of Asteroid Bennu

    March 20, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The asteroid Bennu as seen by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. The flying saucer-like shape of Bennu is generated, in part, by its spin.
    Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona

    Research led by the University of Colorado Boulder is revealing the Alice in Wonderland-like physics that govern gravity near the surface of the asteroid Bennu. The new findings are part of a suite of papers published today by the team behind NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. And they come just three months after OSIRIS-REx first encountered Bennu on Dec. 3, 2018.

    Since then, the spacecraft has completed a few dozen laps around the asteroid, which is about as tall as the Empire State Building, circling Bennu fro...

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    Hayabusa2 Probes Asteroid Ryugu for secrets

    March 19, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Ryugu is a C-type asteroid — rich in carbon — about 900m wide.
    Credit: © 2019 Seiji Sugita et al., Science

    Hayabusa2 helps researchers understand ingredients for life in early solar system. The first data received from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft in orbit of asteroid Ryugu helps space scientists explore conditions in the early solar system. The space probe gathered vast amounts of images and other data which gives researchers clues about Ryugu’s history, such as how it may have formed from a larger parent body. These details in turn allow researchers to better estimate quantities and types of materials essential for life that were present as Earth formed.

    “The ground shook. My heart pounded. The clock counted...

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