Category Astronomy/Space

Charles Lue holds a lunar globe showing the reflection of solar wind from magnetic fields of the lunar crust. The strongest reflection takes place in the areas marked in red on the lunar globe. Montage: photo Hans Huybrighs. Credit: Charles Lue

The solar wind is reflected from the surface and crustal magnetic fields of the moon which has effects on for instance lunar water levels. The Swedish space instrument SARA has measured a strong and varied interaction between the Moon and solar wind (continuous flow of plasma from the Sun which affects the planets and contributes to aurora on Earth). The lunar atmosphere, on the other hand, is too thin to show the same phenomenon and the Moon also lacks a global magnetic field to regulate the solar wind...

During Exploration Mission-1, Orion will venture thousands of miles beyond the moon during an approximately three week mission. Credits: NASA

Here are the ins and outs of NASA’s First Launch of SLS and Orion. NASA is building Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems needed to send astronauts into deep space and core capabilities needed to enable the journey to Mars.

Orion’s first flight atop the SLS will not have humans aboard, but it paves the way for future missions with astronauts. During this flight, Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), the spacecraft will travel thousands of miles beyond the moon over 3 wks. It will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown...

Artists impression of GJ 3470b and its host star. Image credit: NAOJ.

A team of astronomers have used the LCOGT network to detect light scattered by tiny particles (called Rayleigh scattering), through the atmosphere of a Neptune-size transiting exoplanet. This suggests a blue sky on this world which is only 100 light years away from us.

When the orbit of an exoplanet is aligned just right for transits to occur, astronomers can measure the planet’s size at different wavelengths in order to generate a spectrum of its atmosphere >> reveals substances in the planet’s atmosphere, thus composition. This measurement is most often performed using infrared light, where the planet is brightest and most easily observed...

A black hole devouring a star. Credit: NASA

An international team of astrophysicists led by a Johns Hopkins University scientist has for the first time witnessed a star being swallowed by a black hole and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light.
The finding tracks the star—about the size of our sun—as it shifts from its customary path, slips into the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole and is sucked in. “These events are extremely rare,” van Velzen said. “It’s the first time we see everything from the stellar destruction followed by the launch of a conical outflow, also called a jet, and we watched it unfold over several months.”

Astrophysicists had predicted that when a black hole is force-fed a large amount of gas, in this case a whole star, then a ...