Category Astronomy/Space

Coronal loops on the sun that are linked to magnetic fields. Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-11-physicists-clue-formation-magnetic-fields.html#jCp

Small magnetic perturbations can combine to form large-scale magnetic fields just like those found throughout the universe. Squire and Bhattacharjee at PPPL analyzed the behavior of dynamos, which occur when an electrically charged fluid like plasma swirls in a way that creates and then amplifies a magnetic field. Scientists have known that plasma turbulence can create lots of small magnetic fields, but the mechanism by which those fields could produce a single large field is elusive.

The puzzle consists of the seeming unlikelihood of small disturbances coming together to form something large and o...

This is an optical image with radio lobes (in yellow-red). The supermassive black hole in the red galaxy at the centre (zoomed in inset) has led to the formation of the giant radio lobes. Credit: Prathamesh Tamhane/Yogesh Wadadekar

Astronomers have discovered an extremely rare radio galaxy – a giant, with an extent of 4 million light years caught in its dying phase at an incredible distance of 9 billion light years. This discovery, made by combining observations of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, with other telescopes in space and on the ground, enables us to study properties of the magnetic field in the region between galaxies in the distant universe.

How do galaxies with an optical size of a hundred thousand light years produce radio emission several million light years in extent? I...

Allen Telescope Array. Credit: Seth Shostak, SETI Institute

A recent analysis of data collected by Kepler space telescope has shown that this star, informally known as Tabby’s Star, evidences aperiodic dimming of 20% and more. While several natural explanations for this strong change in luminosity have been proposed, one possibility is that a technologically adept civilization has built megastructures in orbit around star, causing the dimming.

One example of a large-scale astroengineering project would be the construction of a so-called Dyson swarm of solar panels for large-scale energy collection. Other possible structures include artificial space habitats, or a planet-size or larger occulting object intended to provide a long-lasting signal to other galactic inhabitants.

In order to inve...

Path to a KBO: Projected route of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft toward 2014 MU69, which orbits in the Kuiper Belt about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. Planets are shown in their positions on Jan. 1, 2019, when New Horizons is projected to reach the small Kuiper Belt object. NASA must approve an extended mission for New Horizons to study the ancient KBO.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has successfully performed the last in a series of 4 targeting maneuvers that set it on course for a January 2019 encounter with 2014 MU69. This ancient body in the Kuiper Belt is more than a billion miles beyond Pluto; New Horizons will explore it if NASA approves an extended mission.

The 4 propulsive maneuvers were the most distant trajectory corrections ever performed by any spacecraft...