Category Astronomy/Space

Top: Visible light continuum image. Bottom: Magnetic field strength map. The color shows the field strength, from weak (cool colors) to strong (warm colors). Red indicates a location with a strength of more than 6,000 gauss (600 mT). Credit: NAOJ/JAXA

Astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) using the HINODE spacecraft observed the strongest magnetic field ever directly measured on the surface of the Sun. Analyzing data for 5 days around the appearance of this record breaking magnetic field, the astronomers determined that it was generated as a result of gas outflow from one sunspot pushing against another sunspot.

Magnetism plays a critical role in various solar phenomena such as flares, mass ejections, flux ropes, and coronal heating...

Schematic illustration showing chemical desorption is at work in interstellar molecular clouds. Molecules are released from an ice dust surface using excess energy from a chemical reaction. Credit: Hokkaido University

Researchers demonstrate how a gas escapes ice at an extremely cold temperature, providing insight about how stars form in interstellar clouds. The mechanism by which hydrogen sulphide is released as gas in interstellar molecular clouds is described by scientists in Japan and Germany. Chemical desorption, is more efficient than previously believed, and this has implications for our understanding of star formation in molecular clouds.

Molecular clouds are rare, but are important parts of the galaxy where molecules form and evolve...

This artist’s impression shows several of the planets orbiting the ultra-cool red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. New observations, when combined with very sophisticated analysis, have now yielded good estimates of the densities of all seven of the Earth-sized planets and suggest that they are rich in volatile materials, probably water. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

A new study has found that planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1 are made mostly of rock, and some could hold more H2O than Earth. The planets’ densities suggest that some of them could have up to 5% of their mass in the form of water. The hotter planets closest to their parent star are likely to have dense steamy atmospheres and the more distant ones probably have icy surfaces...

This artist’s concept shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like, based on available data about the planets’ diameters, masses, and distances from the host star, as of February 2018. Credit: NASA, JPL/Caltech, and R. Hurt and T. Pyle (IPAC)

Astronomers using Hubble have conducted the first spectroscopic survey of the Earth-sized planets (d, e, f, and g) within the habitable zone around the nearby star TRAPPIST-1. This study is a follow-up to Hubble observations made in May 2016 of the atmospheres of the inner TRAPPIST-1 planets b and c. Hubble reveals that at least 3 of the exoplanets (d, e, and f) do not seem to contain puffy, hydrogen-rich atmospheres similar to gaseous planets such as Neptune...