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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers Closer to Explaining Mysterious Radio Pulses from Space

    December 3, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist impression of a Fast Radio Burst (FRB) reaching Earth. The colors represent the burst arriving at different radio wavelengths, with long wavelengths (red) arriving several seconds after short wavelengths (blue). This delay is called dispersion and occurs when radio waves travel through cosmic plasma. Credit: Jingchuan Yu, Beijing Planetarium

    Artist impression of a Fast Radio Burst (FRB) reaching Earth. The colors represent the burst arriving at different radio wavelengths, with long wavelengths (red) arriving several seconds after short wavelengths (blue). This delay is called dispersion and occurs when radio waves travel through cosmic plasma. Credit: Jingchuan Yu, Beijing Planetarium

    Origin of a Fast Radio Burst has been tied to to a highly magnetized, gas-filled region of space, providing a new hint in the decade-long quest to explain the mysterious radio pulses. “We now know that the energy from this particular burst passed through a dense magnetized field shortly after it formed,” says Kiyoshi Masui...

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    LISA Pathfinder will pave the way for us to ‘See’ Black Holes for the first time

    December 2, 2015, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Stick with me and I’ll show you the universe. Artist’s impression of LISA Pathfinder. ESA, CC BY-ND

    Stick with me and I’ll show you the universe. Artist’s impression of LISA Pathfinder. ESA, CC BY-ND

    LISA pathfinder mission will prepare the way for us to study violent events that we’ve never seen before – such as the creation of massive black holes. The probe is to test technology needed to launch another mission, eLISA, in 2034, which will aim to detect gravitational waves. Intriguingly, the project may also help us prove some of the most extreme aspects of 3Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

    Defn: General relativity states that gravity is just a manifestation of the fact that mass causes the surrounding space to curve, and it is the curvature of space that dictates the path followed by any other object, or indeed by light...

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    Exiled Exoplanet likely Kicked out of Star’s Neighborhood

    December 2, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    These are two direct images of the cometary dust and exoplanet surrounding the young star HD 106906. The wider field in blue shows Hubble Space Telescope data where the star's blinding light is artificially eclipsed (gray circular mask). The point to the upper right is an 11 Jupiter mass planet located over 650 times the Earth-Sun distance. A new discovery in these Hubble observations is an extremely asymmetric nebulosity indicating a dynamically disturbed system of comets. Surprisingly, the planet is located 21 degrees above the plane of the nebulosity. The circular orange inset shows a region much closer to the star that can only be detected using advanced adaptive optics from the ground-based Gemini Observatory. Using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), researchers found a narrow loop of nebulosity suggesting that a planetary system formed close to the star, but somehow the architecture of the outer regions is severely disrupted. The investigators also find that the planet HD 106906b may have a dusty ring system of its own, motivating future work with Hubble and ground-based astronomical observatories. Credit: Paul Kalas, UC Berkeley

    These are two direct images of the cometary dust and exoplanet surrounding the young star HD 106906. The wider field in blue shows Hubble Space Telescope data where the star’s blinding light is artificially eclipsed (gray circular mask). The point to the upper right is an 11 Jupiter mass planet located over 650 times the Earth-Sun distance. A new discovery in these Hubble observations is an extremely asymmetric nebulosity indicating a dynamically disturbed system of comets. Surprisingly, the planet is located 21 degrees above the plane of the nebulosity. The circular orange inset shows a region much closer to the star that can only be detected using advanced adaptive optics from the ground-based Gemini Observatory...

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    1st direct evidence for Explosive releases of Energy in Saturn’s Magnetic Bubble using data from Cassini

    December 1, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist’s concept of Saturn’s Magnetosphere based on data from the Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL

    An artist’s concept of Saturn’s magnetosphere based on data from the Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL

    These “explosions” are produced in a process known as magnetic reconnection, something well studied at Earth and is an important part of Space Weather, involved in energising the radiation belts and producing displays of the Northern lights. Space Physicists led by Lancaster University used data to show that Cassini had passed through the region at Saturn where magnetic reconnection was occurring, which has never before been observed.

    One of the mysteries this gives us clues to answering is how Saturn’s magnetic bubble, known as its magnetosphere, gets rid of gas from Saturn’s tiny icy moon Enceladus...

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