Space Stories: Strange Flashing Object, New Dwarf Planet in Our Solar System, and a Short-Lived Galaxy

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia. (https://www.csiro.au/)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “Strange Flashing Object Discovered in Deep Space Puzzles Astronomers“

Astronomers have detected a mystery stellar object that emitted pulses of light for two minutes every 44 minutes. A handful of objects like this have been found before, but this is the first to emit both radio waves and X-rays…An international team, led by Curtin University astronomer Ziteng Andy Wang, first detected a radio signal in data captured by CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia...By chance, the signal was also spotted by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory on Valentine’s Day last year.

—Newsweek: “Astronomers Think They’ve Discovered a New Dwarf Planet in Our Solar System“

A team of astronomers believe they may have discovered a new dwarf planet—just like Pluto—on the edge of our solar system. The object—which orbits out beyond Neptune—has been named “2017 OF201” by the team, which was led by Sihao Cheng of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Cheng and colleagues estimate that the body has a diameter of more than 430 miles, which means that it may be large enough to qualify as a dwarf planet.

—Brighter Side of News: “Astronomers Discover That Galaxies Die Much Earlier Than Expected“

In a Universe that was only 700 million years old, long before Earth even formed, something unexpected happened. A massive galaxy stopped forming stars and went silent. This type of galaxy, called quiescent, typically needs billions of years to grow and then shut down star formation. But thanks to the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have now confirmed that one such galaxy had already died young. This ancient galaxy, called RUBIES-UDS-QG-z7, is now the most distant quiescent galaxy ever confirmed. It challenges current ideas about how quickly galaxies form and evolve in the early Universe. This discovery pushes the boundaries of what scientists thought was possible during cosmic dawn.

Space Stories: New Bacterial Species at NASA, Geologic Life on Venus, and Water Found in Distant Solar System

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Venus captured by NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—SciTechDaily: “NASA Just Found New Signs of Life Inside Venus – Geologic Life, That Is“

Vast, circular features on the surface of Venus may be signs that the planet is still geologically active. That’s according to new research based on data collected over 30 years ago by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft. Unlike Earth, where giant plates of crust shift and recycle through a process called plate tectonics, Venus doesn’t have these moving plates. But its surface is still being reshaped—likely by molten rock rising from deep within the planet.

—USAToday: “NASA ‘Cleanrooms’ Found Crawling with 26 New Bacterial Species“

 A new study reports 26 new bacterial species were found growing inside cleanrooms associated with NASA space missions. Specifically, scientists looked in the cleanrooms used to prepare the Phoenix Mars lander for its launch in August 2007. In the study, scientists analyzed microorganisms growing in the NASA cleanrooms and discovered many of the new species had genes that made them resilient to decontamination and radiation.

—NASA: “Another First: NASA Webb Identifies Frozen Water in Young Star System“

Is frozen water scattered in systems around other stars? Astronomers have long expected it is, partially based on previous detections of its gaseous form, water vapor, and its presence in our own solar system. Now there is definitive evidence: Researchers confirmed the presence of crystalline water ice in a dusty debris disk that orbits a Sun-like star 155 light-years away using detailed data known as spectra from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. (The term water ice specifies its makeup, since many other frozen molecules are also observed in space, such as carbon dioxide ice, or “dry ice.”)

Help NASA Classify New Galaxies

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If you have a little bit of time left in your day, maybe you want to help NASA classify a few galaxies captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The NASA site has more than 500,000 that need to be classified, and volunteers can make this process faster. For instance, you can help determine if a galaxy is round or has spiral arms.

While a lot of this classification work can be accomplished with artificial attention (AI), the program bumps into numerous images where human eyes can really help. Plus, you will be training the AI as you go.

If this sounds like fun, check out the site. You may be the first human to set eyes on a new galaxy. That sounds like a fun way to end the day.

Space Stories: SPHEREx Starts Mapping, Studying an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere, and Explosive Diamonds

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Image (Credit): The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) observatory. (NASA)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Engadget: “NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Has Begun its Mission to Map the Entire Sky in 3D“

A space observatory designed to map the entire sky over a period of two years to further our understanding of the early universe has started snapping images. SPHEREx, which launched in early March, got started with its observations this past week after over a month of setup procedures and system checks, according to NASA. The space telescope will complete about 14.5 orbits of Earth per day, capturing roughly 3,600 images daily and observing the sky in an unprecedented 102 wavelengths of infrared light. Its observations will eventually be combined to create four “all-sky” maps.

—Sci.News: “Webb Determines Atmospheric Makeup of Sub-Neptune TOI-421b“

Sub-Neptunes are high-occurrence exoplanets that have no solar system analog. Much smaller than gas giants and typically cooler than hot-Jupiter exoplanets, these worlds were extremely challenging to observe before the launch of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Many of sub-Neptunes appear to be very highly obscured by clouds and hazes, which have made it impossible to determine their atmospheric makeup. Now, astronomers using Webb have captured the transmission spectrum of the sub-Neptune TOI-421b and uncovered the chemical fingerprints of its atmosphere.

—Study Finds: “A Star 30,000 Light-Years Away May Have Forged The Gold In Your Jewelry“

The gold in your wedding ring may have come from a star’s explosive death. For decades, scientists have hunted for the factories that produce the universe’s heaviest elements, and now they’ve found an unexpected one: magnetar giant flares, cosmic explosions that release more energy in a millisecond than our Sun does in 100,000 years. Researchers have confirmed that these titanic blasts create the elements that make up our jewelry, electronics, and even our bodies.

Have We Detected Life on an Exoplanet?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by Adis Resic from Pixabay.

The news is filled this week with a story about possible life on a distant exoplanet? What did scientists find?

The exoplanet is named K2-18b, and it orbits a red star that is about 124 light-years away. It is also about 2.6 times larger than the Earth and 8.6 times as massive.

Scientists using data from the James Webb Space Telescope have detected a biosignature similar to molecules – dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) – associated with marine phytoplankton on our planet.

Nikku Madhusudhan, professor of astrophysics and exoplanetary science at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, stated:

Earlier theoretical work had predicted that high levels of sulfur-based gases like DMS and DMDS are possible on Hycean worlds…And now we’ve observed it, in line with what was predicted. Given everything we know about this planet, a Hycean world with an ocean that is teeming with life is the scenario that best fits the data we have.

A Hycean planet is basically a world with liquid oceans and a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. Such planets are also more common around red dwarf stars.

Of course, more work is necessary to determine whether this finding could relate to something other than biological life, but its does offer exciting possibilities and a clear target for more study.