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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Explaining why the Universe can be ‘Transparent’: Reionization is based on a Galaxy’s Dust Content

    September 14, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Reionization as illustrated by data from the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

    Reionization as illustrated by data from the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

    Scientists can explain why the universe has enough energy to become transparent. The study marks the first quantitative study of how the gas content within galaxies scales with the amount of interstellar dust. This analysis shows that the gas in galaxies is like a “picket fence,” where some parts of the galaxy have little gas and are directly visible, whereas other parts have lots of gas and are effectively opaque to ionizing radiation. The ionization of hydrogen is important because of its effects on how galaxies grow and evolve...

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    Astronomers Observe Star Reborn in a Flash

    September 13, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers observe star reborn in a flash

    An international team of astronomers using Hubble have been able to study stellar evolution in real time. Over a period of 30 years dramatic increases in the temperature of the star SAO 244567 have been observed. Now the star is cooling again, having been reborn into an earlier phase of stellar evolution. This makes it the first reborn star to have been observed during both the heating and cooling stages of rebirth.

    An international team using Hubble have studied stellar evolution in real time. Over 30 years dramatic increases in the temperature of the star SAO 244567 have been observed. Now the star is cooling again, having been reborn into an earlier phase of stellar evolution...

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    NASA’s THEMIS sees Auroras move to the rhythm of Earth’s Magnetic field

    September 13, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist's rendering (not to scale) of a cross-section of the magnetosphere, with the solar wind on the left in yellow and magnetic field lines emanating from the Earth in blue. The five THEMIS probes were well-positioned to directly observe one particular magnetic field line as it oscillated back and forth roughly every six minutes. In this unstable environment, electrons in near-Earth space, depicted as white dots, stream rapidly down magnetic field lines towards Earth's poles. There, they interact with oxygen and nitrogen particles in the upper atmosphere, releasing photons and brightening a specific region of the aurora. Credit: Emmanuel Masongsong/UCLA EPSS/NASA

    An artist’s rendering (not to scale) of a cross-section of the magnetosphere, with the solar wind on the left in yellow and magnetic field lines emanating from the Earth in blue. The five THEMIS probes were well-positioned to directly observe one particular magnetic field line as it oscillated back and forth roughly every six minutes. In this unstable environment, electrons in near-Earth space, depicted as white dots, stream rapidly down magnetic field lines towards Earth’s poles. There, they interact with oxygen and nitrogen particles in the upper atmosphere, releasing photons and brightening a specific region of the aurora. Credit: Emmanuel Masongsong/UCLA EPSS/NASA

    For the first time, scientists have directly mapped Earth’s fluctuating magnetic field and resulting electrical currents to...

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    Chemistry says Moon is Proto-Earth’s Mantle, relocated

    September 12, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Two recent models for the formation of the moon, one that allows exchange through a silicate atmosphere (top), and another that creates a more thoroughly mixed sphere of a supercritical fluid (bottom), lead to different predictions for potassium isotope ratios in lunar and terrestrial rocks (right). CREDIT Kun Wang

    Two recent models for the formation of the moon, one that allows exchange through a silicate atmosphere (top), and another that creates a more thoroughly mixed sphere of a supercritical fluid (bottom), lead to different predictions for potassium isotope ratios in lunar and terrestrial rocks (right). CREDIT Kun Wang

    Measurements of an element in Earth and Moon rocks have just disproved the leading hypotheses for the origin of the Moon. Tiny differences in the segregation of the isotopes of potassium between the Moon and Earth were hidden below the detection limits of analytical techniques until recently. But in 2015, Washington University in St. Louis geochemist Prof...

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