The #DailySpace brings you the universe at 10am PST / 1pm EST / 5pm GMT on twitch.tv/CosmoQuestX. Today’s #spacenews includes the following stories:

The Crab Nebula is an illuminated cloud of gas and dust that can be seen expanding over time. What we’re seeing is the light and energy of a supernova that went of in 1054 and was recorded by Chinese scientists. In the heart of this nebula is the remnant of that exploded star; a neutron star that rotates roughly 30 times per second and streams high energy particles in a beam that is focused by its magnetic field.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-highest-energy-photons-ever-have-been-detected-coming-from-the-crab-nebula

It has long been known that the Crab Nebula is responsible for some of the highest energy photons we can observer. Just how high these energies go is still being learned. Detecting the highest energy photons can be a challenge – these photons are almost impossible to focus, and will often just pass through an orbiting detector instead of triggering a detection. Our atmosphere prevents these particles from getting to the surface of the Earth, for which we are grateful since these particles could blast apart our DNA. When they hit our atmosphere their energy gets changed into a shower of other harmless particles that can be detected on the surface of the planet. By studying what particles get generated in what numbers, astronomers can work backwards to figure out the energy of the particle hitting Earth’s atmosphere were.

New research, conducted using the AS-gamma detector in Tibet has detected the highest energy photons ever detected – a photon more than 30% more energetic than had previously been seen.

The AS-gamma facility is administered by China and Japan, and includes an underground liquid detector. When particles interact with chemicals in the water, they give off a flash of detectable light. These high energy photons demonstrate that pulsars accelerate particles to 4 times the energies we can create with the Large Hadron Collider, and its possible the very young crab nebula is the highest energy particle accelerator in our Milky Way Galaxy. The amazing thing is, it’s possible that some day humans will be able to out do the crab nebula in accelerating particles.

https://www.dartmouth.edu/press-releases/new_space_discovery_sheds_light_on_how_planets_form.html

Jumping to the other end of a star’s life, we have a story from the TESS mission. In this rather confusion plot, we see the smooth changes in brightness associated with the variability of a young star. Superimposed on this pattern are glitches that indicate a planet is orbiting the star, having formed in close in to its parent star. This planet is interesting for a lot of reasons. For one, it orbits a star that is part of a binary system. For another, the entire system is only 45 million years old. This means that while the planet has formed, it’s still evolving as it’s young parent blasts away it’s atmosphere.

This planet was first spotted by TESS and confirmed by Spitzer and a combination of Earth-based telescopes.

By observing systems like this, we can watch processes that until now had only been theoretical, and for once, our ideas match what we’re seeing.

Join us tomorrow for more Daily Space news – and keep mapping Bennu!