Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

A chance to name a quasi-moon

Moon missions and tech

Asteroids and comets

What is a planet

In the cosmos

Kill-shots

A real stillsuit

Watch for fire

To Mars
 
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Physicists Suggest "Nuclear Life" Could Explain Strange Dimming Of HD 139139 Star

The team even suggests that binary star system EPIC 249706694 (HD 139139) – better known as the "random transiter" could be a candidate for this kind of life. As the name suggests, astronomers saw dips in light from the system, which would usually indicate a transit of a planet, but at seemingly random intervals. However, follow-up observations by another team suggest either their observations were not long enough to see transitions, had stopped by the time they observed the stars, or that there were some unidentified errors in the original team's equipment.


Paper linked to in the article.

Stellar Winds Have Started Blowing From A Strange "Guest Star" Lost for 840 Years


Related paper:

 
Researchers predict new phase in neutron stars that favors 'nuclear pasta'

Researchers at the Department of Physics at TU Darmstadt and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have now adopted a new theoretical approach to investigate the state of nuclear matter in the inner crust of neutron stars. They showed that both neutrons and protons can "drip out" of atomic nuclei and stabilize the "nuclear pasta." Their findings are reported in Physical Review Letters.


Related paper:

 
An exoplanet infamous for its deadly weather has been hiding another bizarre feature—it reeks of rotten eggs, according to a new Johns Hopkins University study of data from the James Webb Space Telescope.

The atmosphere of HD 189733 b, a Jupiter-sized gas giant, has trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a molecule that not only gives off a stench but also offers scientists new clues about how sulfur, a building block of planets, might influence the insides and atmospheres of gas worlds beyond the solar system.


Related paper:

 
That is excellent news Michel Van, and in the temperate zone or rather Goldilocks zone as it is known, and it is possible of having intelligent life on the planets surface.
 
JWST Spots Signs Of Earth-Like Atmosphere Around The Best Planet To Look For Life

Observations by the JWST have revealed exciting hints of an Earth-like atmosphere on a planet orbiting a relatively nearby star. The planet is likely to be cooler than Earth, but still warmer than Mars and possibly well-suited to life.



However, its density is not that far below Earth’s and observations made by the JWST last December show no sign of the hydrogen-rich atmosphere expected of a gas planet. The most likely explanation for the lower density is that 10-20 percent of its mass is water, with the rest being rock and metal like Earth. The water would probably be a mix of liquid and ice; although the ratio is unknown, that’s a good place to start when looking for life.



"LHS 1140b is one of the best small exoplanets in the habitable zone capable of supporting a thick atmosphere, and we might just have found evidence of air on this world," said Professor Ryan MacDonald of the University of Montreal in a statement. The spectrum collected most closely matches a predominantly nitrogen-based atmosphere, like Earth’s, but as the uncertainty in MacDonald’s statement indicates, other explanations remain possible. The JWST will need to observe LHS 1140b passing between us and its star on more occasions for confirmation.



However, unless the atmosphere is also rich in powerful greenhouse gasses, it’s more likely most of LHS 1140b is icy, with a liquid ocean directly facing the star, making it look like a creepy eyeball. The ocean is estimated to be about half the size of the Atlantic, and its center, where the star is directly overhead, might be around 20°C (68°F).


Related paper:

 
Anton Petrov put out the below video concerning Supermassive Blackholes the magnetic fields their accretion discs generate:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about formation of massive black holes
0:00 Black hole formation is more surprising than believed
1:01 How this connects to JWST mysteries
2:20 Issues with simulations
3:30 New simulations and discoveries
5:30 What this means and why it's important
7:20 Similarity to other phenomena
 
Related article:

 
New study shows mysterious solar particle blasts can devastate the ozone layer, bathing Earth in radiation for years

The remarkable aurora in early May this year demonstrated the power that solar storms can emit as radiation, but occasionally the sun does something far more destructive. Known as "solar particle events," these blasts of protons directly from the surface of the sun can shoot out like a searchlight into space.

Records show that around every thousand years Earth gets hit by an extreme solar particle event, which could cause severe damage to the ozone layer and increase levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation at the surface.



These extreme solar particle events occur roughly every few millennia. The most recent one happened around 993 AD, and was used to show that Viking buildings in Canada used timber cut in 1021 AD.



We found such an event could deplete ozone levels for a year or so, raising UV levels at the surface and increasing DNA damage. But if a solar proton event arrived during a period when Earth’s magnetic field was very weak then ozone damage would last six years, increasing UV levels by 25% and boosting the rate of solar-induced DNA damage by up to 50%.


Related paper:

 
The Atlantic Gulf Stream was unexpectedly strong during the last ice age – new study

But our research, now published in Nature, has uncovered at least one surprise in the ice age climate: the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water northwards through the Atlantic, was stronger and deeper than it is today.

This research came about because as paleoceanographers (scientists who study oceans in the past), we wanted to understand how the oceans behaved during the last ice age to provide insights into how climate change might alter things in future.



In fact, our research suggests that the glacial climate itself was responsible for driving a stronger Gulf Stream. In particular, the ice age was characterised by much stronger winds over parts of the North Atlantic, which would have driven a stronger Gulf Stream. Therefore, although the amount of water sinking from the surface into the deep ocean was reduced, the Gulf Stream was stronger and still transporting lots of heat northwards, albeit not as far as today.


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A semiotic puzzle.

A candidate for a planet in a Trojan orbit - that is, in a position sixty degrees ahead of or behind an planet in the same orbit.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfrf1qSmKsY


It would be at the Lagrange point L5 of the star.


There are numerous Trojan-type objects in our own Solar System, most famously the eponymous Trojan asteroids locked with Jupiter.


This is one notable for being potentially a planet-like object rather than a group of asteroids. Now, an object at an L4 or L5 point would not be rigidly fixed at a point sixty degrees ahead or behind the more massive body but rather orbit a point that is in that position. This could explain why the planet GJ 3470 b, or 'Phailinsiam', is seen to transit its primary while the hypothetical Trojan planet is not - it doesn't stay strictly in the same orbital plane but only orbits a point that is on that plane.

If it exists, is it a planet? Is Phailinsiam? The problem is that this potential object is significantly massive (terrestrial mass at least), as is Phailinsiam (Neptune-like mass).

Pluto was disqualified as a planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) because met only two of three criteria: 1) It orbits a star, not a planet; 2) it is a spheroid - but it has not 3) 'cleared its orbit of other bodies.' This last is very controversial as Jupiter's (and other planet's) Trojan and Greek bodies appear to contradict this and would deprive even Jupiter of planetary status.

So, if this object exists, Phailinsiam may still be a planet and if it is, this object might be too, or may have to be classified as a 'quasi-moon', which will upset a lot of pedants. Earth does itself have 'quasi-moons' which are small, non-spheroidal asteroids that orbit the sun in approximately the same orbit but are bound by their interactions with Earth, at least temporarily.

Now, we can think of Pluto as a large Kuiper-belt object (KBO), like Eris et al, but that definition depends on their formation and history, not current orbital status. For example, there is strong evidence that Triton, a 'moon' of Neptune, is a sibling of Pluto and originated as a KBO too. As an analogue, evolutionary biology went through a crisis provoked by 'cladistics' when the history of extant species was considered versus their evolutionary history.


For example, consider the class 'pachyderm.' It used to mean a large, mostly hairless grey-skinned mammal living in Africa - hippos, elephants and rhinos. We now know that they are not closely related at all (hippos are in fact more related to whales than rhinos).

Whether this potential 'GJ 3470 c' exists is not the point. If it is not impossible, current categories need to be reconsidered.

So, is Pluto a planet, is Phailinsiam, is Jupiter?

What is a planet?

Wait and see.
 
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Astronomers may have discovered the presence of water in the atmosphere of a blisteringly hot planet that is also one of the most "metal" worlds ever spotted. The planet's formation remains a mystery, one that could be solved by the discovery.



”The composition of the planet seems not to be compatible with current formation scenarios that we have for hot gas giants, and it is still a mystery to this day," said Ali Rafi. "This signifies the importance of observing the planet’s atmosphere as it could help reveal the planet's formation history through its atmospheric properties such as its metallicity and carbon to oxygen ratio."


Related paper:

 
Interesting find Flyaway. It is a pity that it is a hot Jupiter and not an Earthlike planet, I suppose that it is only a matter of time before we find the first proper Earthlike planet.
 





Related paper:


Having a metal-rich atmosphere IMO means the deep interior of this gas-giant is so hot that despite the eye-watering, stupendous pressures in the core the result is a liquid-core with convection currents dredging up material from it all the way to the planet's "Surface". I think we're looking at the early stages of a Chthonic planet in its formation.
 
Anton Petrov has uploaded a video concerning recent discoveries concerning Mars:


0:00 Mars Updates and new images from the surface
1:10 Discovery of water frost on volcanoes
2:45 Polar ice on Mars is a bit strange
4:20 Sound on Mars is weird too
6:10 Spiders on Mars and sublimation of co2
7:00 Lava tubes and future colonies on Mars
9:50 Impacts on Mars are too frequent and too dangerous
11:40 Signs of life or just chemistry?
13:00 Sunlight may create a lot of organics
14:20 But maybe manganese oxide is created by life
15:20 Bees on Mars
 
Radar measurements from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn between 2004 and 2017, have hinted at differences in the lakes’ properties, such as their composition and the waves on their surface. But there wasn’t enough information in the signals to distinguish between them.

Now, Valerio Poggiali at Cornell University, New York, and his colleagues have mapped the composition and surface of Titan’s seas using a different radar technique, revealing an increasing amount of ethane as you travel down the planet from its north pole. “The more north you go, the cleaner and purer the seas are; they’re more methane-dominated,” says Poggiali.



 
Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has detected a new exoplanet. The newfound alien world, designated TOI-3261b, is nearly the size of Neptune and its equilibrium temperature exceeds 1,700 K. The finding was reported in a research paper published July 5 on the pre-print server arXiv.



TOI-3261 b has a radius of approximately 3.82 Earth radii, therefore it is only about 2% smaller than Neptune. However, the newfound exoplanet has an unusually high mass for its size—around 30.3 Earth masses. These results yield a high bulk density of 3.0 g/cm3.

TOI-3261 b orbits its host every 0.88 days at a distance of 0.017 AU from it. Due to this, it was classified as an ultra-short period planet (USP), and so far, it is only the fourth known Neptune-sized USP. Moreover, the planet's proximity to its parent star, which has an effective temperature of about 5,070 K, suggests that this extrasolar world is ultra-hot—with an estimated equilibrium temperature at a level of 1,722 K.


Related paper:

 
Yet another detection of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere and a tentative detection of ammonia by another team in the planet’s atmosphere. Also talk of getting the JUICE team to turn on its instruments as it flys by the planet.

So no confirmation of life yet, but the work done by Greaves, Clements, and their team is extremely exciting and tells us just how complex Venus is as a planet. It is not just “Earth’s evil twin” but a changing world with volcanoes, bone-crushing atmospheres, hellish temperatures, and something truly bizarre going on in its clouds. There's much more to find out about this fascinating world, and luckily both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are planning to go back there soon.



But we will not have to wait that long for more Venus insights. The team is continuing observation campaigns across multiple telescopes, and not just in the range to see phosphine. Currently, there is a real push to understand Venus and its atmosphere better.

In terms of close encounters, the Rocket Lab Probe, part of the Morning Star Missions, is expected to launch in January 2025 and be the first private mission to another planet. It will enter Venus's atmosphere and hopefully detect some of these intriguing molecules. On top of that, the team hopes to convince ESA's JUICE mission to turn the spacecraft instruments on as it flies by Venus next year on its way to Jupiter.

 
Excellent, as always. However, according to some simulations, ocean currents would distribute heat and if there were a significant atmosphere, atmospheric circulation would too, leading to heating more complicated than the simple eyeball.


001aa0c1c3a1142f655023.png

See also


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7PiIAg12SM
 
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Astronomers have detected an exoplanet with a highly oblong orbit that experiences wild temperature swings — and it may be transitioning into another type of world.

The exoplanet, named TIC 241249530 b, orbits a star about 1,100 light-years from Earth. The star is one of a binary pair, so the planet orbits the primary star, while the primary star orbits a secondary star.

Interactions between the two stars, which have a misaligned orbit, could be responsible for putting this planet on the path to becoming a “hot Jupiter,” researchers reported in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Astronomers have found more than 5,600 confirmed exoplanets, and 300 to 500 of them are “hot Jupiters.” These planets are massive Jupiter-like gaseous bodies that closely orbit their host stars, which heats them to scorching temperatures.

While Jupiter takes 4,000 Earth days to complete one orbit around the sun, hot Jupiters complete one orbit every few days.

Scientists believe the large planets begin by orbiting their stars from a distance but migrate nearer over time. But they have long questioned how the massive worlds end up in such tight orbits, which are far closer to their stars than Mercury is to our sun.

The observations of TIC 241249530 b, first captured by NASA’s planet-hunting TESS satellite in January 2020, offer rare, revelatory insights into what may be a planet on the path to becoming a hot Jupiter.

[snip]
 
’Shockingly bright' carbon monoxide detected in supernova remnant


Related paper:


Using the Keck II telescope, astronomers have detected an object that may be a brown dwarf or a low-mass star, exhibiting a very high radial velocity. The object, designated CWISE J124909.08+362116.0 is located some 400 light years away. The finding was reported July 11 on the pre-print server arXiv.



According to the study, CWISE J1249+3621 has a large radial velocity—at a level of -103 km/s. This gives the galactic rest frame speed of 456 km/s, which corresponds to 1,530 light years per one million years. Given that this result is just below the galactic escape velocity at the solar radius, which is currently estimated to be 521–580 km/s, the astronomers conclude that this object has a significant probability of being unbound to the Milky Way.



Based on the collected data, the authors of the paper assume that CWISE J1249+3621 is likely a hypervelocity metal-poor, early-type L subdwarf star rather than a brown dwarf. They underline that it may therefore be the first known low-mass hypervelocity star and the nearest such object to Earth.


Related paper:


For the first time, a team of scientists from HFML-FELIX at Radboud University has unveiled the cosmic fingerprints of sulfur rings. These results, published in Nature Communications, may shed new light on the way sulfur was transported from dark interstellar clouds (where stars are formed) to young planetary systems and planets like Earth and Venus, and offer ways to search for cosmic sulfur using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).



Using the free-electron laser at HFML-FELIX, the team has for the first time recorded the infrared spectral signature of the most stable all-sulfur molecule, octasulfur or S8, and of several smaller sulfur molecules. This opens up the possibility of searching for these molecules in interstellar dark clouds using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope.

Ferrari says, "However, preliminary estimates indicate that detecting S8 with JWST will still be challenging."


Related paper:

 
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Anton Petrov has just put out a video concerning an ancient supernova remnant:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about an ancient supernova remnant from the 1181 supernova
0:00 Bizarre supernova remnant
0:50 How this was discovered - archeoastronomy
1:50 1181 Supernova but the remnant didn't make sense
3:10 Accidental discovery by an amateur astronomer
4:20 Confirmation of the hottest star in the Milky Way
5:10 How did this form though?
7:00 Strange new discoveries - it's active!
8:40 Will it go supernova again?!
9:10 Conclusions
 
A new study by Rice University's David Alexander and Anthony Atkinson extends the definition of a habitable zone for planets to include their star's magnetic field. This factor, well studied in our solar system, can have significant implications for life on other planets, according to the research published in The Astrophysical Journal on July 9.



The study found that only two planets, K2-3 d and Kepler-186 f, of the 1,546 examined met all the conditions for potential habitability. These planets are Earth-sized, orbit at a distance conducive to the formation of liquid water, lie outside their star's Alfvén radius and have strong enough magnetic fields to protect them from stellar activity.


Related paper:

 
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) Remain One Of Astronomy’s Biggest Mysteries

Nearly two decades later, little is still known about the sources of FRBs —- except that they appear by the thousands all over the sky, mostly at vast extragalactic distances. And they are likely produced by several different astrophysical phenomena. One of the more interesting ideas is that a significant fraction of these FRBs are the result of blitzars, the process by which a neutron star collapses into a black hole.

In a review paper just published in The Astrophysics and Space Science Journal, the authors suggest that a fast millisecond radio burst represents the final signal of a supra-massive rotating, neutron star that collapses into a black hole.

 
Anton Petrov has a video out about the discovery of another intermediate mass Blackhole in the Milky Way's core region:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about another intermediate mass black hole discovered in a very important location
0:00 Another IMBH found
0:40 IMBH defined
2:20 Evidence from the last few years
4:20 Unusual clouds near the galactic center
6:10 IRS13 - cloud super close to SgrA*
7:35 Is this what feeds massive black holes?
8:40 Conclusions and implications

Given how many stars are packed into the galactic core along all of those gas and dust clouds this isn't surprising.
 
In a new study published July 24 in Nature, a 19-member team of scientists from around the world report the discovery of a new supergiant exoplanet orbiting the star Eps Ind A. The planet—named Eps Ind Ab—was observed with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and is at least six times the mass of Jupiter. With a temperature of around -280 degrees Kelvin, Eps Ind Ab is the coldest exoplanet ever to be imaged directly.


Related paper:


Related video:

View: https://youtu.be/gsarg2J3DVQ
 
Anton Petrov has just put out a video concerning new discoveries about neutron stars:


Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about neutron stars
0:00 Intro
0:30 Why neutron star are important
1:30 Equation of the state issue
2:00 Cold neutron stars help with this
2:38 Closest neutron star measured super precisely
3:55 Unexpected binary systems
6:40 Terzan 5 cluster hid so many more strange neutron stars
10:10 Conclusions
 

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