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    Category Astronomy/Space

    70-year-old mystery of how Magnetic Waves Heat the Sun cracked

    March 8, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A view of a sunspot on the solar surface, visible here as a dark collection of plasma with magnetic field strengths similar to those found in modern hospital MRI machines. However, it is the size of the sunspot, which is comparable to that of our own Earth (see the scale Earth depicted in the lower-right corner), that gives these structures immense power and energy. The recent work published in Nature Physics reveals first-time evidence for how a rare breed of magnetic waves, which originate within the centre of sunspots, can form shockwaves that heat the surrounding plasma by thousands of degrees. Credit: Image courtesy of Queen's University, Belfast

    A view of a sunspot on the solar surface, visible here as a dark collection of plasma with magnetic field strengths similar to those found in modern hospital MRI machines. However, it is the size of the sunspot, which is comparable to that of our own Earth (see the scale Earth depicted in the lower-right corner), that gives these structures immense power and energy. The recent work published in Nature Physics reveals first-time evidence for how a rare breed of magnetic waves, which originate within the centre of sunspots, can form shockwaves that heat the surrounding plasma by thousands of degrees. Credit: Image courtesy of Queen’s University, Belfast

    Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast have led an international team to the ground-breaking discovery that magnetic waves crashing throug...

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    Hubble finds huge system of Dusty Material enveloping the Young Star HR 4796A

    March 7, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Hubble uncovers a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. A bright, narrow inner ring of dust is already known to encircle the star, based on much earlier Hubble images. This newly discovered huge dust structure around the system may have implications for what a yet-unseen planetary system looks like around the 8-million-year-old star. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Schneider (Univ. of Arizona)

    Hubble uncovers a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. A bright, narrow inner ring of dust is already known to encircle the star, based on much earlier Hubble images. This newly discovered huge dust structure around the system may have implications for what a yet-unseen planetary system looks like around the 8-million-year-old star. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Schneider (Univ. of Arizona)

    Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to uncover a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. A bright, narrow, inner ring of dust is already known to encircle the star and may have been corralled by the gravitational pull of an unseen giant planet...

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    Unprecedentedly Wide and Sharp Dark Matter map

    March 6, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An example of 3D distribution of dark matter reconstructed via tomographic methods using the weak lensing technique combined with the redshift estimates of the background galaxies. (Credit: University of Tokyo/NAOJ)

    An example of 3D distribution of dark matter reconstructed via tomographic methods using the weak lensing technique combined with the redshift estimates of the background galaxies. (Credit: University of Tokyo/NAOJ)

    A research team of multiple institutes, including the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and University of Tokyo, released an unprecedentedly wide and sharp dark matter map based on the newly obtained imaging data by Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope. The dark matter distribution is estimated by the weak gravitational lensing technique. The team located the positions and lensing signals of the dark matter halos and found indications that the number of halos could be inconsistent with what the simplest cosmological model suggests...

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    Chemical Sleuthing unravels possible path to forming life’s Building Blocks in Space

    March 6, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An asteroid belt orbits a star in this artist's rendering. In a new study, experiments at Berkeley Lab explored possible chemical pathways that could form complex hydrocarbons -- like those found in some meteorite samples - in space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    An asteroid belt orbits a star in this artist’s rendering. In a new study, experiments at Berkeley Lab explored possible chemical pathways that could form complex hydrocarbons — like those found in some meteorite samples – in space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Experiments reveal how a hydrocarbon called pyrene could form near stars. Scientists have used lab experiments to retrace the chemical steps leading to the creation of complex hydrocarbons in space, showing pathways to forming 2D carbon-based nanostructures in a mix of heated gases...

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