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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Tidally Locked Exoplanets may be more Common than previously thought

    August 16, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Tidally locked bodies such as the Earth and moon are in synchronous rotation, each taking as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its host star or gravitational partner. New research from UW astronomer Rory Barnes indicates that many exoplanets to be found by coming high-powered telescopes also will probably be tidally locked — with one side permanently facing their host star, as one side of the moon forever faces the Earth. Credit: NASA

    Tidally locked bodies such as the Earth and moon are in synchronous rotation, each taking as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its host star or gravitational partner. New research from UW astronomer Rory Barnes indicates that many exoplanets to be found by coming high-powered telescopes also will probably be tidally locked — with one side permanently facing their host star, as one side of the moon forever faces the Earth. Credit: NASA

    Tidal locking results when there is no side-to-side momentum between a body in space and its gravitational partner and they become fixed in their embrace...

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    Supernova Collides with Nearby Star, taking astrophysicists by surprise

    August 15, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Only 55 million lightyears away, this is one of the closest supernovae discovered in recent years. Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Santa Barbara

    Only 55 million lightyears away, this is one of the closest supernovae discovered in recent years. Credit: Image courtesy of University of California – Santa Barbara

    In the 2009 film “Star Trek,” a supernova hurtles through space and obliterates a planet unfortunate enough to be in its path. Fiction, of course, but it turns out the notion is not so farfetched. Using the nearby Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO), astrophysicists from UC Santa Barbara have observed something similar: an exploding star slamming into a nearby companion star. What’s more, they detected the fleeting blue glow from the interaction at an unprecedented level of detail...

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    New 3D Simulations show how Galactic Centers Cool their Jets

    August 15, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Side-by-side comparison of density "snapshots" produced in a 3-D simulation of jets beaming out from a black hole (at the base of images). Red shows higher density and blue shows lower density. The black directional lines show magnetic field streamlines. The perturbed magnetic lines reflect both the emergence of irregular magnetic fields in the jets and the large-scale deviations of the jets out of the image plane, both caused by the 3-D magnetic kink instability. Credit: Berkeley Lab, Purdue University

    Side-by-side comparison of density “snapshots” produced in a 3-D simulation of jets beaming out from a black hole (at the base of images). Red shows higher density and blue shows lower density. The black directional lines show magnetic field streamlines. The perturbed magnetic lines reflect both the emergence of irregular magnetic fields in the jets and the large-scale deviations of the jets out of the image plane, both caused by the 3-D magnetic kink instability. Credit: Berkeley Lab, Purdue University

    Theories and models show how instabilities develop in extreme energy releases from black holes, “These jets are notoriously hard to explain,” said Alexander “Sasha” Tchekhovskoy, a former NASA Edbolt Einsteinein fellow...

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    If the potential for Intelligent life to exist somewhere in the universe is so large, Where is Everybody?

    August 14, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This dwarf galaxy is named NGC 5949. It sits at a distance of around 44 million light-years from Earth, placing it within the Milky Way's cosmic neighborhood. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

    This dwarf galaxy is named NGC 5949. It sits at a distance of around 44 million light-years from Earth, placing it within the Milky Way’s cosmic neighborhood. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

    In a new paper, an astrophysicist argues that species such as ours go extinct soon after attaining high levels of technology. The universe is incomprehensibly vast, with billions of other planets circling billions of other stars. The potential for intelligent life to exist somewhere out there should be enormous. That’s the Fermi paradox in a nutshell. Daniel Whitmire, a retired astrophysicist who teaches mathematics at the University of Arkansas, once thought the cosmic silence indicated we as a species lagged far behind.

    “I taught astronomy for 37 years,” said Whitmire...

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