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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Mars rock-ingredient stew seen as plus for habitability

    December 14, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Images: This pair of drawings depicts the same location on Mars at two points in time: now and billions of years ago. The location is in Gale Crater, near the Red Planet’s equator. 1 shows a present-day snapshot of the northern half of Gale Crater. North is to the left. The underlying basement is the crust of Mars that forms the crater’s rim (left) and central peak (right). About 3.5 billion years ago, rivers brought sediment into the crater, depositing pebbles where the river was flowing more quickly, sand where the river entered a standing body of water in the center of the basin, and silt within this lake. Lake level rose over time as the sediments built up. Eventually they were buried by dry dust...

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    Simulations suggest Life on planet Proxima b might be possible if it has a Thick Atmosphere or Strong Magnetic Field

    December 13, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    New discovery Proxima b is in host star’s habitable zone — but could it really be habitable?

    Artist’s impression of the planet orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. Credit: ESO

    Dimitra Atri, an astrobiologist with the Blue Marble Institute of Space Science, has run simulations of planet Proxima b, an exoplanet circling the star Proxima Centauri, which could possibly support life. Last August, a team of scientists identified a planet circling Proxima Centauri—at 4.2 light-years away, the red dwarf is the closet star to our own sun and the discovery of a planet in its Goldilocks zone excited the astronomy community because it represented the possibility extraterrestrial life. Since that time, Atri has created and run simulations meant to measure the impact of stellar flares on the planet and whether they might be enough to prevent or allow life to exist on the planet.

    Pr...

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    A New Light on Stellar Death

    December 13, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist's depiction of a rapidly spinning supermassive black hole surrounded the rotating leftovers of a star that was ripped apart by the tidal forces of the black hole. Credit: ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser

    An artist’s depiction of a rapidly spinning supermassive black hole surrounded the rotating leftovers of a star that was ripped apart by the tidal forces of the black hole. Credit: ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser

    Astronomers illuminate the role rapidly spinning black holes play in tidal disruption events. Back in 2015 when astronomers discovered an intense flare in a distant galaxy, they considered it the brightest supernova ever observed. Now, UC Santa Barbara astrophysicists and a group of international colleagues offer an entirely different interpretation based on new astronomical observation data from the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO), a global robotic telescope network, and the Hubble Space Telescope.

    The new information indicates that the event, called ASASSN-15lh, is actually a tidal...

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    Rings around Young Star suggest Planet Formation in progress

    December 12, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An ALMA image of the star HD 163296 and its protoplanetary disk as seen in dust. New observations suggested that two planets, each about the size of Saturn, are in orbit around the star. These planets, which are not yet fully formed, revealed themselves in the dual imprint they left in both the dust and the gas portions of the star’s protoplanetary disk. (Credit: ALMA [ESO/NAOJ/NRAO]/Andrea Isella/B. Saxton [NRAO/AUI/NSF]) - See more at: http://news.rice.edu/2016/12/12/rings-around-young-star-suggest-planet-formation-in-progress/#sthash.pbHZ2cMD.dpuf

    An ALMA image of the star HD 163296 and its protoplanetary disk as seen in dust. New observations suggested that two planets, each about the size of Saturn, are in orbit around the star. These planets, which are not yet fully formed, revealed themselves in the dual imprint they left in both the dust and the gas portions of the star’s protoplanetary disk. (Credit: ALMA [ESO/NAOJ/NRAO]/Andrea Isella/B. Saxton [NRAO/AUI/NSF])

    Rice University astronomers and colleagues have for the first time mapped gases in 3 dark rings around a distant star. The rings mark spaces where planets are thought to have formed from dust and gas around the star...

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