Gamma ray bursts in hypernovae
New research from the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network finds that sometimes even stars need a little help from a friend. Using computational models, they’ve found they can reproduce what is observed if they start from a massive carbon-oxygen burning star and a neutron star companion.
TRAPPIST-1 planets aligned with star’s rotation
In other news, we’d like to share that the TRAPPIST-1 system of seven planets has been found to be behaving in completely normal ways. While it had been thought from early measurements that the planets’ orbits were all kinds of out-of-alignment, a further study by folks at the NAOJ using the Subaru Telescope found that this solar system, like ours, has all the planets neatly orbiting in a disk.
Mud flows on Mars
Our second story takes us into the Mud on Mars. While the Red planet is currently a dry desert world, this hasn’t always been the case. In new work in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team led by Petr Broz describes how Mars may once have had Mud Volcanoes, which essentially spewed liquid mud that would have settled into distinctive geologic features.
New gravitational lens candidates
Our first story of the day is one of astronomers using gravity as a telescope; non-pointable telescopes, but telescopes nonetheless. While light has no mass, it has energy, and that good ol’ E=mc^2 means that energy and mass are the same as far as gravity is concerned. As light passes by massive objects, its path gets bent.
Hidden clues in Pluto’s haze
The distances to these interesting worlds can be hugely frustrating, and the brief time that spacecraft spend getting us data is never long enough. At Jupiter, Galileo gave us years and gigabytes of information. At Pluto… New Horizons had moments. But sometimes moments are enough to get just the right info to start something awesome.
Watery plumes from Europa
Pressures of all kinds affect the periodic effects we see in our sky. Stars pulsate, galaxies echo, and even small moons can erupt when their internal pressure gets too great. We know from clear images of the moon Enceladus, taken by the Cassini mission, that this tidally tortured moon erupts organic-rich geysers into space.
Regular rhythms among pulsating stars
Today’s top story looks at an area of astronomy that rarely makes headlines: pulsating variable stars. As some of you may know, I started my research career looking first at TT Tauris in radio and then moved back to optical astronomy with Cepheids and RR Lyraes.
Black Hole Jet Warps Galactic Bridge
X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/V.Parekh, et al. &ESA/XMM-Newton; Radio: NCRA/GMRT Planets and moons aren’t the only places we see documented destruction in our Universe. In fact, we have new images from the Chandra X-Ray observatory of galaxy clusters that have tried to pass...
Mars Will Kill Earth Life
The struts of NASA's Phoenix lander showing potential brine droplets.CREDIT: Marco Di Lorenzo, Kenneth Kremer,Phoenix Mission, NASA, JPL, UA, Max Planck Inst., Spaceflight Collisions in the early solar system are responsible for carrying rock and other material...
Impact-Shock Cubic Zirconia on the Moon
The heavily cratered surface of the Moon's South Pole. CREDIT:NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre Scientific Visualization Studio We all know the universe is trying to kill us, and some days that seems more apparent than others. Take the moon for instance. This nice big...
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