Category Astronomy/Space

These simulated views of the ultrahot Jupiter WASP-121b show what the planet might look like to the human eye from five different vantage points, each illuminated to different degrees by its parent star. The images were made with a computer simulation being used to help scientists understand the atmospheres of these planets. Ultrahot Jupiters reflect almost no light, much like charcoal. However, their daysides have temperatures of between 3,600 F and 5,400 F, so they produce their own glow like a hot ember. The orange color in this simulated image thus comes from the planet’s own heat.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Vivien Parmentier/Aix-Marseille University (AMU)

An unusual kind of star-planet hybrid atmosphere is emerging from studies of ultrahot planets orbiting close to other stars...

The 44 confirmed planets and their approximate size class, orbits and surface temperatures. Credit: John Livingston Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-largest-haul-extrasolar-planets-japan.html#jCp

Confirmation of exoplanets and planetary systems may shed light on our place in the cosmos. Forty-four planets in solar systems beyond our own have been unveiled in one go, dwarfing the usual number of confirmations from extrasolar surveys, which is typically a dozen or less. The findings will improve our models of solar systems and may help researchers investigate exoplanet atmospheres. Novel techniques developed to validate the find could hugely accelerate the confirmation of more extrasolar planet candidates.

An international team of astronomers pooled data from U.S...

Strong whistler mode waves observed in the vicinity of Jupiter’s moons. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05431-x

Chorus waves are electromagnetic waves. Converted to sound they sound like singing and chirping birds at dawn. They can cause polar lights above the Earth as well as damage to satellites. Now, a team of researchers has found that such waves are intensified million-fold around Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. This study provides important observational constraints for theoretical studies.

These are the new results from a systematic study on Jupiter’s wave environment taken from the Galileo Probe spacecraft...

NWA 11119 is an unusual light-green fusion crust, silica mineral-rich achondrite meteorite.
Credit: UNM Institute of Meteoritics

Scientists believe the solar system was formed some 4.6 billion years ago when a cloud of gas and dust collapsed under gravity possibly triggered by cataclysmic explosion from a nearby massive star or supernova. As this cloud collapsed, it formed a spinning disk with the sun in the center. Since then scientists have been able to establish the formation of the solar system piece by piece. Now, new research has enabled scientists from The University of New Mexico, Arizona State University and NASA’s Johnson Space Center to add another piece to that puzzle with the discovery of the oldest-ever dated igneous meteorite.

The research titled, Silica-rich volcanism in the...