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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Under pressure: Extreme Atmosphere Stripping may Limit Exoplanets’ Habitability

    July 3, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Under pressure -- Extreme atmosphere stripping may limit exoplanets' habitability

    Artist’s impression of HD189733b, showing the planet’s atmosphere being stripped by the radiation from its parent star. Credit: Ron Miller

    New models of massive stellar eruptions hint at an extra layer of complexity when considering whether an exoplanet may be habitable or not. Models developed for our own Sun have now been applied to cool stars favoured by exoplanet hunters, in research presented by Dr Christina Kay, of the NASA Goddard Flight Center, on Monday 3rd July at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull.

    Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are huge explosions of plasma and magnetic field that routinely erupt from the Sun and other stars...

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    New Faint Dwarf galaxy discovered

    July 3, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A cutout of the map of M81’s stellar halo in resolved RGB stars (Smercina et al. 2017, in preparation). The colors correspond to the metallicity bins defined on the CMD in the top left figure. The known galaxies in the field are labeled. d1005+68 is located at the bottom left of the map, indicated by a black arrow. It appears as a significant overdensity of blue (metal-poor) RGB stars, very near to the dwarf spheroidal, BK5N. Credit: Smercina et al., 2017.

    A cutout of the map of M81’s stellar halo in resolved RGB stars (Smercina et al. 2017, in preparation). The colors correspond to the metallicity bins defined on the CMD in the top left figure. The known galaxies in the field are labeled. d1005+68 is located at the bottom left of the map, indicated by a black arrow. It appears as a significant overdensity of blue (metal-poor) RGB stars, very near to the dwarf spheroidal, BK5N. Credit: Smercina et al., 2017.

    Astronomers have detected a new faint dwarf spheroidal galaxy using Japan’s Subaru Telescope located in Hawaii. The newly found dwarf, designated d1005+68, belongs to a nearby galaxy group known as the M81 Group. Dwarf galaxies are small galaxies composed of about 100 million up to several billion stars...

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    Juno Spacecraft to Fly over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot July 10

    July 2, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    True color mosaic of Jupiter

    This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles). Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

    Just days after celebrating its first anniversary in Jupiter orbit, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will fly directly over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the gas giant’s iconic, 10,000-mile-wide storm. This will be humanity’s first up-close and personal view of the gigantic feature—a storm monitored since 1830 and possibly existing for more than 350 years...

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    Mid-Infrared Images from the Subaru telescope extend Juno Sacecraft discoveries

    July 1, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Mid-infrared images from the Subaru telescope extend Juno spacecraft discoveries

    Image of Jupiter taken on May 18, 2017, one day before the Juno spacecraft’s sixth close approach to Jupiter, taken with a filter centered at 8.8 microns that is sensitive to Jupiter’s tropospheric temperatures and the thickness of a cloud near the condensation level of ammonia gas. The Great Red Spot appears distinctively at the lower center of the planet as a cold region with a thick cloud layer. It is surrounded by a warm and relatively clear periphery. To its northwest is a turbulent and chaotic region of gas with bands of alternative warm, dry and cold, moist gas. Many other features are also present...

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