The Milky Way Is On A Terminal Collision Course — Is This New Hubble Image A Preview?

The constellation Hercules hosts this epic clash of two galactic juggernauts.

by Doris Elín Urrutia

 

ESA/Hubble/NASA

Outer space nonchalantly sheds a “tear” as two galaxies meet their end — but is the distant scene, pictured in a new Hubble Space Telescope image, a finale?

At first glance, the answer must be yes. Some 570 million light-years away from Earth, a face-on galaxy called LEDA 59642 is overlapped by a tilted, mostly side-on galaxy called NGC 6040 that has severely warped on one side and taken on a shape resembling the top of a droplet. The galaxies’ proximity and devolution is a story as old as time: galaxy mergers.

The two bodies — known collectively as Arp 122 — are careening into one another. Their stars, planets, gas, and dust will experience new gravitational forces, according to a statement that NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) published on Friday. “Galactic collisions and mergers are monumentally energetic and dramatic events,” write officials from the two space agencies behind Hubble.

In many ways, the galaxies will unravel: the grand, highly organized spiral structures may go away. They might turn out to be irregular galaxies, looking like round hazy blobs until maybe evolving into something new.

Although this scene in the constellation Hercules is playing out very far away, it’s a preview of what will happen here at home. The Milky Way is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy (also known as M31), scheduled for 4 billion years from today.

But the Milky Way has always been a work in progress. Many galaxies, large and small, have combined to add or subtract to the Milky Way’s starry profile, according to research from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft. Astronomers know that the Andromeda galaxy is a patchwork of other galaxies, too.

The mashup will happen slowly. “The process of colliding and merging will not be a quick one either: it might take hundreds of millions of years to unfold. These collisions take so long because of the truly massive distances involved,” agency officials wrote.

What will happen to Arp 122 and to us is uncertain, but one possible outcome is that the ménages will sort themselves into elliptical galaxies. One such object appears in this image, too, at the bottom left corner. It’s NGC 6041, the elliptical galaxy that acts as the center of the galaxy cluster to which Arp 122 belongs.

While Arp 122 reveals a preview of what might become of the Milky Way, it also gifts Earthlings with a dazzling cosmic teardrop to admire.

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09-01-2025 om 01:25 geschreven door peter  

• READ MORE: Northern Lights visible across the US on New Year's Eve 

By WILIAM HUNTER

Looking up at the flickering glow of the Northern Lights is one of Earth's most incredible experiences.

But now, a NASA astronaut has revealed what it is like to look down on one of the planet's great natural wonders.

Astronaut Don Pettit has shared his bird's eye view of the Northern Lights from the window of the International Space Station.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Pettit said simply: 'Flying over aurora; intensely green.'

In this mesmerising video, you can see the lower structures of the space station silhouetted against the bright green glow of the aurora.

With the Northern Lights forming between 60 to 186 miles (100 to 300 km) above the ground, the ISS soars above at almost four times this altitude.

On social media, space fans have been blown away to discover that astronauts have this unique perspective.

One amazed commenter wrote: 'Wait wait... auroras are that low?!'

A NASA astronaut has shared his stunning bird's-eye view of the Northern Lights from aboard the International Space Station 

On social media, commenters were shocked to learn that astronauts have this unique perspective on one of Earth's natural wonders 

Don Pettit, 69, is NASA's oldest astronaut and a member of NASA's Expedition 72 crew which also includes the stranded astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore.

Currently undertaking his third stay aboard the station, Mr Pettit is well known for his orbital photography.

Over more than 300 days in space, Mr Pettit has become regarded as one of NASA's best photographers and has captured many stunning images of the Earth and the Northern Lights.

The Northern and Southern lights are caused when charged particles from the sun collide with Earth's atmosphere.

As these particles arrive, they slam into particles of gas and charge them with enough energy to glow brightly.

These are visible from the ISS because the aurora actually forms in a relatively low part of the atmosphere.

The lowest glowing gases are typically found 80 miles (130 km) above the ground but can dip as low as 60 miles (100 km) in some cases.

Orbiting at 230 to 285 miles (370 to 460 km), the ISS safely passes over the top of the aurora, allowing astronauts on board to look down on the show.

Don Pettit (pictured) is NASA's oldest serving astronaut and widely regarded as one of the space agency's best photographers 

Since the ISS orbits at an altitude of 230 to 285 miles (370 to 460 km), it can be almost four times higher than the lowest parts of the Northern Lights 

However, in some of the strongest events, even the ISS can be caught up in the aurora with the uppermost parts of the display extending several thousand miles above the Earth.

In Mr Pettit's video, the bright lights of a city appear beneath the intense green glow of excited gases 

While hints of blue and pink are caused by nitrogen, this emerald green is the characteristic sign of oxygen molecules charged by particles from the sun.

On social media, commenters flocked to share their amazement with Mr Pettit's stunning images.

One commenter wrote: 'It's like a massive emerald come alive!'

'Not sure how I thought it would look from above but this is incredible,' added another.

While one space fan wrote: 'The amount of electrical flow is astounding.'

Normally, the aurora is only visible at very high latitudes – for example at the poles, Scandinavia or the southern tip of South America. 

The ISS' height allows the crew to capture stunning images of the Northern Lights as they pass overhead. Pictured: The aurora seen from the ISS in August, 2024

Commenters on social media were amazed by the view, saying they had no idea that the Northern Lights would look like this from above 

One commenter said that the green of the aurora was 'like a massive emerald come alive'

This is because the charged particles which make the atmosphere glow are funnelled towards the poles by the Earth's magnetic fields.

However, when the sun undergoes an event called a 'coronal mass ejection' enormous clouds of charged particles are sent flying towards Earth at around two million miles per hour.

These clouds interact with the Earth's magnetic fields to produce geomagnetic storms which trigger huge auroral displays stretching into the lower latitudes.

Luckily for Mr Pettit, the start of the year has seen a few exceptionally large coronal mass ejections which have made the aurora even brighter than normal.

On January 3 and January 4, the sun was lit up by two X-class solar flares - a class reserved for the most intense kind.

Solar flares are sudden explosions of radiation created by the 'snapping' of tangled magnetic fields in the sun's atmosphere.

Since they are usually followed by coronal mass ejections, these two flares meant stunning auroral displays were soon to follow.

On the day that Mr Pettit posted his video, January 6, there had already been two days of geomagnetic storms according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Mr Pettit's video came after a week of intense Northern Lights due to a series of large solar storms. On January 4, the Northern Lights were forecast to extend as far south as the northern United States 

As clouds of charged particles arrived from the sun, they triggered massive outbursts of aurora in the Northern Hemisphere throughout the first week of the year. Pictured: Anchorage, Alaska on New Year's Day 

To make things even more exciting, a massive 'coronal hole' formed in the sun's atmosphere – a dark area of cooler plasma.

These holes allow a constant stream of charged particles called 'solar wind' to escape from the sun and bombard Earth.

This meant that even more particles arrived to collide with the Earth's atmosphere leading to even brighter aurora.

Last week, auroras were forecast in the US as far south as Washington, northern Idaho and Montana over the US.

On Monday, NASA recorded the explosion of an extremely strong solar flare rated as a class X1.8.

NASA wrote: 'Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.'

However, no significant disruption is forecast due to this stellar explosion.

The reason that there has been so much activity lately is because the sun is now at its 'solar maximum' – the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle. 

The auroral activity was made even stronger by the formation of a coronal hole - a dark, cool region which allows charged particles to escape. On January 3, a large coronal hole (pictured) formed which could have made the Northern Lights even more intense 

The Northern Lights have been more active recently because the sun is now at its 'solar maximum'. At this time there are far more sunspots (cool regions associated with solar flares) which leads to an increased level of activity and more intense auroras on Earth 

The sun goes through an 11-year cycle in which the number of sunspots (cool regions associated with solar flares) gradually increases.

In October last year, NASA revealed that the sun had reached its solar maximum and could stay at that level for another year.

That means an increased number of sunspots, more solar flares, and even brighter aurora.

While these solar flares can be dangerous to electrical systems on Earth, it also means that there will be plenty more opportunities for NASA's astronauts to bring us some spectacular views of the Northern Lights.

SOLAR STORMS PRESENT A CLEAR DANGER TO ASTRONAUTS AND CAN DAMAGE SATELLITES

Solar storms, or solar activity, can be divided into four main components that can have impacts on Earth:  

• Solar flares: A large explosion in the sun's atmosphere. These flares are made of photons that travel out directly from the flare site. Solar flares impact Earth only when they occur on the side of the sun facing Earth.  
• Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's): Large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. These clouds can erupt in any direction, and then continue on in that direction, plowing through solar wind. These clouds only cause impacts to Earth when they're aimed at Earth. 
• High-speed solar wind streams: These come from coronal holes on the sun, which form anywhere on the sun and usually only when they are closer to the solar equator do the winds impact Earth. 
• Solar energetic particles: High-energy charged particles thought to be released primarily by shocks formed at the front of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud plows through solar wind, solar energetic particles can be produced and because they are charged, they follow the magnetic field lines between the Sun and Earth. Only charged particles that follow magnetic field lines that intersect Earth will have an impact. 

While these may seem dangerous, astronauts are not in immediate danger of these phenomena because of the relatively low orbit of manned missions.

However, they do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks.

This photo shows the sun's coronal holes in an x-ray image. The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields, which when closed can cause the atmosphere to suddenly and violently release bubbles or tongues of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections

The damage caused by solar storms 

Solar flares can damage satellites and have an enormous financial cost.

The charged particles can also threaten airlines by disturbing Earth's magnetic field.

Very large flares can even create currents within electricity grids and knock out energy supplies.

When Coronal Mass Ejections strike Earth they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora.

They can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems.

A large influx of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers.

This could shut off businesses and homes around the world. 

Source: NASA - Solar Storm and Space Weather 

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09-01-2025 om 00:50 geschreven door peter  

Unexpected Mechanism Explains Formation of Pluto-Charon System

Planetary scientists at the University of Arizona say they have discovered an entirely new type of cosmic collision.

Pluto and Charon are the largest binary system in the known population of trans-Neptunian objects in the outer Solar System. Their shared external orbital axis suggests a linked evolutionary history and collisional origin. Their radii, 1,200 km and 600 km, respectively, and Charon’s wide circular orbit of about 16 Pluto radii require a formation mechanism that places a large mass fraction into orbit, with sufficient angular momentum to drive tidal orbital expansion. Denton et al. numerically modeled the collisional capture of Charon by Pluto using simulations that include material strength.

Image credit: Denton et al., doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01612-0.

For decades, planetary researchers have theorized that Pluto’s unusually large moon Charon formed through a process similar to Earth’s Moon — a massive collision followed by the stretching and deformation of fluid-like bodies.

This model worked well for the Earth-Moon system, where the intense heat and larger masses involved meant the colliding bodies behaved more like fluids.

However, when applied to the smaller, colder Pluto-Charon system, this approach overlooked a crucial factor: the structural integrity of rock and ice.

“Pluto and Charon are different — they’re smaller, colder and made primarily of rock and ice,” said Dr. Adeene Denton, a postdoctoral researcher with the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.

“When we accounted for the actual strength of these materials, we discovered something completely unexpected.”

Using advanced impact simulations, the authors found that instead of stretching during the collision, Pluto and the proto-Charon temporarily stuck together, rotating as a single snowman-shaped object before separating into the binary system we observe today.

A binary system occurs when two celestial bodies orbit around a common center of mass.

“Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge’,” Dr. Denton said.

“What we’ve discovered is something entirely different — a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound.”

“The compelling thing about this study is that the model parameters that work to capture Charon, end up putting it in the right orbit. You get two things right for the price of one,” said Professor Erik Asphaug, also from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.

The study also suggests that both Pluto and Charon remained intact during their collision, preserving much of their original composition.

This challenges previous models that suggested extensive deformation and mixing during the impact.

Additionally, the collision process, including tidal friction as the bodies separated, deposited considerable internal heat into both bodies, which may provide a mechanism for Pluto to develop a subsurface ocean without requiring formation in the more radioactive very early Solar System — a timing constraint that has troubled planetary scientists.

“Charon is captured relatively intact in our scenario, retaining its core and most of its mantle, which implies that Charon could be as ancient as Pluto,” the researchers said.

• Their work appears today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
• C.A. Denton et al. Capture of an ancient Charon around Pluto. Nat. Geosci, published online January 6, 2025; doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01612-0

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

08-01-2025 om 22:14 geschreven door peter  

Previously, scientists believed that Pluto and Charon formed from a massive collision, similar to the Giant Impact Hypothesis. According to this theory, a Mars-sized planet named Theia collided with a primordial Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago. This impact turned both bodies into molten debris that eventually coalesced to form the Earth and Moon, eventually settling into the Earth-Moon system. According to the team’s study, this theory does not fit when it comes to Pluto and Charon because it fails to take into account the structural strength of cold, icy worlds.

Using the University of Arizona’s high-performance computing cluster, the team conducted advanced impact simulations. This showed that when Pluto and a proto-Charon collided, they became temporarily stuck together and formed a single snowman-shaped object – not unlike Arrokoth, the first Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) that New Horizons surveyed on December 31st, 2018. Over time, they separated to become the binary system we observe there today. Said Denton in a U of A News story:

“Pluto and Charon are different – they’re smaller, colder and made primarily of rock and ice. When we accounted for the actual strength of these materials, we discovered something completely unexpected. Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge.’ What we’ve discovered is something entirely different – a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly, and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound.”

Their results also suggest that Pluto and Charon remained largely intact during their collision and retained much of their original composition. This challenges previous models that suggest that colliding bodies will exchange material during the impact. This is based on studies of the Apollo moonrocks, which indicated that the Earth and Moon are similar in composition, a finding that led scientists to conclude that the Earth-Moon system formed together. What’s more, their research offers a potential explanation for how Pluto may have developed an internal ocean.

The collision process, they state, combined with the tidal friction caused by the separation of Pluto and Charon, would have caused considerable internal heating for both bodies. This could have provided the necessary mechanism for creating a subsurface ocean, contrary to a previous theory where scientists have argued that Pluto formed during the very early Solar System when there were far more radioactive elements. However, scientists have expressed doubts about this theory because of the timing constraints it imposes.

Denton and her colleagues are now planning follow-up studies to explore several related questions about this system of icy bodies. This includes how tidal forces influenced Pluto and Charon’s early evolution when they were much closer together, how this formation scenario aligns with Pluto’s current geological features, and whether similar processes could explain the formation of other binary systems. Said Denton:

“We’re particularly interested in understanding how this initial configuration affects Pluto’s geological evolution. The heat from the impact and subsequent tidal forces could have played a crucial role in shaping the features we see on Pluto’s surface today.”

Further Reading: 

• University of Arizona, 
• Nature

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08-01-2025 om 21:13 geschreven door peter  

Dating the Moon

As it turns out, both numbers could be true. The Moon could have formed very early, but it experienced something that changed its geological clock. According to UC Santa Cruz professor Francis Nimmo and a team of researchers, the Moon likely did form 4.51 million years ago in that catastrophic collision with baby Earth. But, 180 million years later, it may have experienced a “remelting”. That reset the ages of lunar rocks to around 4.35 billion years. That’s why the surface samples collected by the Apollo astronauts show a younger age.

“We predict that there shouldn’t be any lunar rocks that are older than 4.35 billion years because they should have experienced the same resetting,” said Nimmo. “Because this heating event was global, you shouldn’t find rocks anywhere on the Moon that are significantly older than that.”

Nimmo and his colleagues suggest that a global remelt of lunar rocks could account for the existence of younger surface rocks. The Apollo rocks suggest something happened, and the return of rocks from China’s Chang’e 6 mission could offer more evidence for that theory. For their paper, the authors used modeling to show that the Moon may have experienced sufficient tidal heating to cause this remelting approximately 4.35 billion years ago, which could “reset” the apparent formation age of these lunar samples.

Modeling a Lunar Surface Reset

What could cause a global melting strong enough to reset the age of the Moon’s rocks? Nimmo suggest that the Moon experienced tidal heating due to the evolution of its orbit around Earth. This happened because the Moon was closer to Earth, and the orbit was pretty unstable during certain epochs. Thanks to the immense tidal pull from Earth, the Moon could have been heated, which led to the alteration of its geology and the “age reset” of its rocks.

It turns out that the Moon isn’t the only place in the solar system where this could happen. The volcanic moon Io in orbit around Jupiter experiences the same type of tidal attraction as it orbits. That helps explain Io’s extensive volcanic activity and surface “paving” by the frequent eruptions from its volcanic features. It also explains why we don’t see widespread craters on Io.

If the same thing happened to the infant Moon after its original formation, cooldown, and subsequent bombardment, we wouldn’t see any of its original craters. They’d have been covered by subsequent eruption and melting when the Moon’s orbit was stabilizing.

Why is the Lunar Surface Age Important?

The formation and evolution of the solar system and its many different bodies is still a hot area of study. Among other things, scientists want to understand the timing of events that shaped solar system objects. For that, they need a better understanding of the geology of each object. More data leads to better models of every aspect of solar system formation—from the first “push” in the protosolar nebula to such events as collisions, tidal heating, orbital dynamics, and surface evolution of different worlds. That’s where planetary science missions come in handy. They provide “in situ” data about each world (or object, in the case of asteroids, moons, comets, and rings), and they fill in gaps in the history of each place.

“As more data becomes available—particularly from ongoing and future lunar missions—the understanding of the Moon’s past will continue to evolve,” Nimmo said. “We hope that our findings will spark further discussion and exploration, ultimately leading to a clearer picture of the Moon’s place in the broader history of our solar system.”

For More Information

• A “Remelting” of Lunar Surface Adds a Wrinkle to Mystery of Moon’s True Age
• Tidally Driven Remelting Around 4.35 billion Years Ago Indicates the Moon is Old
• Moon Formation

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

08-01-2025 om 21:00 geschreven door peter  

Nelson noted that China is planning to launch a Mars sample return mission in 2028.

“I don’t think we want the only sample return coming back on the Chinese spacecraft, and that’s just simply a grab-and-go kind of mission, whereas ours has been a very methodical process. … I think that the administration will certainly conclude that they want to proceed, so what we wanted to do was to give them the best possible options so that they can go from here,” he told reporters.

For years, NASA has been working on a plan that started out with the collection and caching of samples by the Perseverance rover in Mars’ Jezero Crater, which is considered prime territory for harboring potential evidence of ancient life. Those samples would have been gathered up and brought to a sample retrieval platform, where they would have been sent into Martian orbit on a rocket known as the Mars Ascent Vehicle. The samples would be transferred to a Mars orbiter built by the European Space Agency. That orbiter would then deliver the samples back to Earth for laboratory study.

It was a complex plan, and last year, NASA determined that the operation would have taken until 2040 to get the samples back, with a price tag of $11 billion. “That was just simply unacceptable,” Nelson said.

NASA asked its experts as well as commercial space ventures to come up with ideas for lowering the cost and speeding up the schedule, which resulted in the two options presented today.

The sky crane option would build upon the technology that used a rocket-powered, free-flying platform to lower NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers to the Martian surface. “You’re looking at cost in the range of $6.6 billion to $7.7 billion,” Nelson said.

The estimated price tag for the commercial heavy-lift option is in the range of $5.8 billion to $7.1 billion. “You all know that SpaceX and Blue Origin have already been ones that have expressed an interest, but it could be others as well, and a team is evaluating and researching all industry capability to include the schedule and the budget to determine the best strategy going forward,” Nelson said.

Both options would use many of the same elements proposed under the previous plan, but would trim costs by using a smaller Mars Ascent Vehicle as well as a simpler design for the sample retrieval platform, powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator rather than solar panels. The samples would be brought back from Mars and sent down to Earth by ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter. NASA said ESA is currently evaluating the options proposed by NASA.

The newly proposed schedule could lead to launches in the 2030-31 time frame, and delivery of the samples by as early as 2035. “But it could go out to 2039,” Nelson said. “Now, a good reason for why it could get extended out is if the Congress and the new administration do not respond.”

Nelson said Congress would have to commit at least $300 million during the current fiscal year to keep the Mars sample return campaign on track. “If they want to get this thing back on a direct return earlier, they’re going to have to put more money into it, even more than $300 million in fiscal year ’25, and that would be the case every year going forward,” he said.

Trump has been bullish on Mars exploration, in part due to the influence of SpaceX founder Elon Musk. So bullish, in fact, that Trump wants to have astronauts on the Red Planet by 2028, potentially forcing another overhaul of the Mars sample return campaign.

“We will reach Mars before the end of my term,” Trump said during a campaign rally last October. “Elon promised me he was going to do that. … He told me that we’re going to win, and he’s going to reach Mars by the end of our term, which is a big thing. Before China, before anybody.”

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The robotic arm on NASA’s Perseverance rover reached out to examine rocks in an area on Mars nicknamed the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough” area in this image captured on July 10, 2021 (the 138th sol, or Martian day, of its mission).

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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08-01-2025 om 20:39 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers have long wondered why light from hydrogen atoms can be detected, given that they should be blocked from view by gas formed in the aftermath of the Big Bang.

The new findings reveal mergers between galaxies as the likely source of these mysterious hydrogen emissions.

When astronomers view extremely distant galaxies, they appear as they would have looked long ago due to the time it takes the light they produce to travel across space. Hence, observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope are not only revealing the most distant regions of the universe in unprecedented detail, but also how they looked in much earlier times.

However, these galaxies are very faint, and hence powerful telescopes are required to make the observations, a task that Webb is well equipped to accomplish.

Very active star formation occurred within the universe’s earliest galaxies, giving rise to their other name: stellar nurseries. These regions of space produced a specific variety of light emitted from hydrogen known as Lyman-α emission.

Essentially, Lyman-α emission is produced by hydrogen atoms when an electron falls from a higher energy level to the lowest one it can be in, which can be likened to the electron’s home base. This light has a very specific color spectra that can only be discerned with the help of special instruments, which can be likened to being a “fingerprint” for this kind of activity.

NIRCam image of the Lyman-α emitting galaxy EGSY8p7

(Credit: NASA/ESA/Ceers survey)

Long ago, these stellar nurseries were enveloped in large amounts of neutral hydrogen gas, and the even the spaces between galaxies once contained far more gas than what is observed today. Light emissions produced by hydrogen are easily absorbed by this gas, causing astronomers to predict that the Lyman-α emission that populated these regions of the early Universe, despite their abundance, would effectively remain invisible to astronomers today.

Yet, mysteriously, some early hydrogen emissions have been successfully observed by astronomers, a phenomenon that has until recently remained unexplained. But how could hydrogen that should have been scattered throughout the universe by now, if not absorbed altogether, still be visible today?

University of Cambridge astronomer Callum Witten, who specializes in the study of galaxies and active galactic nuclei, calls this question “one of the most puzzling issues” astronomers have faced in trying to resolve this cosmic mystery.

“Many hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain the great escape of this ‘inexplicable’ emission,” Witten, the principal investigator on a new study that explores this phenomenon, said in a recent statement.

However, thanks to the power and precision of the James Webb Space Telescope, new insights appear to have shed light on this longstanding mystery.

With help from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Witten and his colleagues were able to observe much smaller and dimmer galaxies clustered around the brighter ones from which mysterious hydrogen emissions were previously noted. However, these lesser galaxies are not static, but instead appear to be dynamically interacting and combining.

“Where Hubble was seeing only a large galaxy, Webb sees a cluster of smaller interacting galaxies,” said Sergio Martin-Alvarez, a team member from Stanford University involved with the study, who adds that Webb’s latest revelations have “had a huge impact on our understanding of the unexpected hydrogen emission from some of the first galaxies.”

Using state-of-the-art simulations, the team then explored the physics behind what they observed, learning that the fast accumulation of stellar mass that results from galaxy mergers had likely driven the strong hydrogen emissions being observed. Based on the new observations, this appeared to have occurred through channels that had been cleared of neutral gasses that had originally been prevalent.

The team believes that the merging of these smaller, previously unobserved galaxies is very likely to be the solution to the lasting riddle of inexplicable early hydrogen emissions, and now aims to follow up their recent observations by looking at galaxies in other stages of merging, which they believe will not only help them to better understand how hydrogen emission is ejected, but also to reveal new clues to the evolution of galaxies.

The team’s research was the subject of a new paper, “Deciphering Lyman-α emission deep into the epoch of reionization, that was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

08-01-2025 om 00:38 geschreven door peter  

Scientists are baffled after discovering a unique asteroid-comet hybrid that's like NOTHING seen before

• READ MORE: Scientists SOLVE the mystery of 'alien' signal received from space

By WILIAM HUNTER

In the dark depths of the solar system, astronomers have discovered a truly baffling object.

Named 2060 Chiron, this 125-mile-wide (200km) asteroid-comet hybrid is a type of body known as a Centaur, named after the mythical creature that is half-horse and half-man.

Centaurs are solar system bodies found between Jupiter and Neptune that move and behave like asteroids but produce glowing tails of gas and dust like comets.

Now, astronomers from the University of Central Florida have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to show that Chiron is 'like nothing' they've seen before.

By analysing near-infrared images, the researchers have carefully reconstructed the chemical makeup of this interplanetary chimaera.

They found that Chiron's surface contains a cocktail of chemicals from a time predating the formation of the solar system including CO2, methane, and frozen water. 

Co-author Dr Charles Schambeau says: 'These results are like nothing we've seen before.

'These detections enhance our understanding of Chiron's interior composition and how that material produces the unique behaviours as we observe Chiron.'

Scientists have uncovered the baffling secrets of the comet-asteroid hybrid Chiron, a 'Centaur' body which is now travelling through the region of the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Pictured: An artist's impression of Chiron 

When Chiron was discovered in 1977, it was the first of a new group of solar system bodies which astronomers dubbed Centaurs.

Astronomers believe that Centaurs were formed in the very earliest days of the solar system and have remained relatively unchanged since then.

Hidden in the frozen expanses of the Trans-Neptunian region, meaning outside the orbit of Neptune, their immense distance from the sun makes Centaurs frozen time capsules of information about the solar system's formation.

But even among that growing body of mysterious objects, Chiron stuck out as exceptionally unusual.

Dr Schambeau says: 'It's an oddball when compared to the majority of other Centaurs.

'It has periods where it behaves like a comet, it has rings of material around it, and potentially a debris field of small dust or rocky material orbiting around it.'

Yet what most interested astronomers is the tail of dust and gas that Chiron produces as it is warmed by the sun. 

Most objects from the depths of space are either too cold or don't have the ice needed to create a tail.

Centaurs are a type of body which are typically found between Jupiter and Neptune and behave like comets but produce tails of gas and dust like comets. Chiron (pictured) is a particularly strange Centaur because it has a ring of dust like Saturn. Pictured: Artists' impression of Chiron and its rings 

2060 Chiron: Key Facts

Comets, on the other hand, do produce tails known as a coma but only when they get much closer to the sun.

That means that the coma is disturbed by interactions with the radiation from the sun and is so thick that astronomers can't see through it to the comet beneath.

Lead researcher Dr Noemi Pinilla-Alonso says: 'What is unique about Chiron is that we can observe both the surface, where most of the ices can be found, and the coma, where we see gases that are originating from the surface or just below it.

'Discovering which gases are part of the coma and their different relationships with the ices on the surface helps us learn the physical and chemical properties, such as the thickness and the porosity of the ice layer, its composition, and how irradiation is affecting it.'

Using the JWST, the researchers looked at the near-infrared radiation coming from the coma surrounding Chiron.

Since certain chemicals absorb or re-emit energy at specific frequencies, researchers can look at the dips and spikes in the spectrum to see which are present.

This spectrum revealed that Chiron contains carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane which were part of the cloud of materials which existed before the solar system formed.

Other chemicals like propane and ethane were likely formed later as the chemicals oxidised, the same chemical process that turns iron into rust.

By analysing the light coming from Chiron (illustrated), the scientists were able to work out that it contained water ice, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, acetylene, carbon dioxide, methane, ethane, and propane. Some of these compounds were formed from the cloud of materials which predated the solar system 

Dr Pinilla-Alonso says: 'Based on our new JWST data, I'm not so sure we have a standard centaur.

'Every active centaur that we are observing with JWST shows some peculiarity. But they cannot be all outliers. There must be something that explains why they appear to all behave differently or something that is common between them all that we cannot yet see.'

In the future, the researchers plan to follow up with Chiron using the FWS to learn more about the layers of ice and rock that make up this strange body.

Those observations could help researchers learn what it is that all centaurs have in common and just why Chiron appears to behave so strangely.

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{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

06-01-2025 om 18:05 geschreven door peter  

(Credit: Johns Hopkins University)

Are there fish swimming in Titan’s rivers and seas? If they exist and I had the opportunity to catch some, I would have avoided the temptation to eat them because of related health risks from methane and ethane, both flammable gases. However, the mere existence of fish or any other living organism on Titan, would constitute life-as-we-do-not-know-it based on chemistry in liquids other than water.

This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Saturn’s exotic moon, Titan. Taking advantage of Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity, Dragonfly will explore dozens of locations across the icy world, sampling and measuring the compositions of Titan’s organic surface materials to characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment and investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry. 

Credits: NASA/JHU-APL

Finding life on Titan would have major implications not only for the prevalence of life in the present-day Universe but also in the early Universe. The surface temperature of Titan is 94 degrees Kelvin, about a third of room temperature on Earth relative to absolute zero. This happened to be the temperature of the cosmic microwave background about a hundred million after the Big Bang when the first generation of stars formed.

An object like Titan forming out of matter enriched by heavy elements from the first supernovae, would have acquired this surface temperature irrespective of its distance from a star. As I wrote in a recent paper, the bath of cosmic radiation would have kept the Titan-like object warm for tens of millions of years, sufficiently long for primitive forms of life to possibly emerge on it when the Universe was just a percent of its current age.

NASA’s mission Dragonfly is planned for launch in July 2028 , with arrival to Titan in 2034. It will carry a robotic rotorcraft that will fly in Titan’s atmosphere with the goal of studying prebiotic chemistry. This quadcopter drone lander will possess a mass of about 450 kilograms, packaged inside a heat shield 3.7 meters in diameter. It will collect regolith samples on multiple locations by vertically taking off and landing. The craft can fly at a speed of about 10 meters per second, and reach altitudes of about 4 kilometers.

Dragonfly will carry meteorological sensors to measure atmospheric temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed, a seismometer to detect potential “Titan-quakes,” and a collection of cameras that will image each landing site, take microscopic images at the millimeter scale of grains of sand, and capture aerial photos as the rotorcraft flies between locations.

Titan’s atmospheric pressure is 1.5 larger than Earth’s and its surface gravity is 14% of Earth’s. As a result, the required flight power per payload mass is about 40 times lower than needed for flights around Earth.

About 17% of Titan’s surface is covered by dune fields, mostly at latitudes between plus or minus 30 degrees. Dragonflywill provide important information about the dune properties but only over a small region of Titan’s surface. It will not deliver a high-quality global map of Titan.

The detailed compositions of Titan’s lakes and seas are important for studying the prospects for it to host life, since prebiotically relevant organic structures can form in these liquid reservoirs and also condense from the atmosphere. If Dragonfly detects exposed water ices on Titan’s surface, that finding could be indicative of recent endogenic or exogenic activity, since much of the surface might be covered by organics that accumulate from Titan’s atmosphere.

I realize that my wish to go fishing on Titan may not be granted in the short time that I have left to live. But I am content with relying on Dragonfly to provide me some clues on what forms of life may exist within Titan’s lakes, rivers and seas.

• Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011-2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

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{  https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

06-01-2025 om 00:49 geschreven door peter  

Perhaps one of the most spectacular developments over recent years and 2024 saw this demonstrated beautifully, spacecraft landing back successfully under rocket control. SpaceX have been driving this technology forward at pace firstly with the landing of their Falcon rockets on drone ships but last year saw a real milestone. 

October saw the 5th test flight of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. Its the tallest launch vehicle to have flown, beating the Apollo Saturn V rocket by 11 metres. After its launch on 13 October and the upper stage being delivered into a suborbital trajectory (reached space but didn’t complete an orbit before returning) the booster returned! It didn’t just disintegrate or flat down attached to parachutes, it used the powerful Raptor engines to return to the launch pad. After descent, it slowed, almost hovering in mid air, before manoeuvring sideways to line up with launch pad before touching back down. As it returned to the arms of the launch tower, the arms grabbed the rocket and the engines shut down! 

It is no doubt that 2024 saw some amazing developments in rocket flight including but not limited to the SpaceX booster landings. What of 2025? What can we look forward to in the year ahead? Well I’m not sure we are going to see any pure rocket launch landmarks this year but there are some exciting missions ahead; NASA launching SPHEREx (new space observatory to map the sky in optical and near-infrared,) SpaceX launching to missions to surface of Moon (Texas built Blue Ghost and a Japanese lander,) a new commercial space station called Haven-1 and if all goes to plan we may finally see the return to Earth of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore who have been stuck on the ISS since June after their planned 1 week mission!

Source : 

• Space Stats

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-01-2025 om 16:09 geschreven door peter  

Mars experiences dust storms regularly, which often begin as smaller storms that form around the polar regions, usually during the second half of the Martian year. These storms can grow rapidly as they move towards the equator until they cover millions of square kilometers. While these dust storms are not very powerful due to Mars’ thin atmosphere (roughly 0.5% as dense as Earth’s), they can still pose a significant hazard. In fact, global dust storms were responsible for the loss of the Opportunity rover in 2018 and the InSight lander last year.

“Dust storms have a significant effect on rovers and landers on Mars, not to mention what will happen during future crewed missions to Mars. This dust is very light and sticks to everything,” said Pieris in a recent NASA press release. “Even though the wind pressure may not be enough to knock over equipment, these dust grains can build up a lot of speed and pelt astronauts and their equipment,” added Hayne. “We need to understand what causes some of the smaller or regional storms to grow into global-scale storms. We don’t even fully understand the basic physics of how dust storms start at the surface.”

For their study, Pieris and Hayne focused on “A” and “C” storms, two weather patterns that tend to occur every year on Mars. This consisted of analyzing data gathered by the Mars Climate Sounder instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) over the course of 15 years (eight Mars years). Specifically, they searched for periods of unusual warmth, when more sunlight filtered through Mars’ thin atmosphere to heat the planet’s surface. They discovered that roughly 68% of major storms on the planet were preceded by a sharp rise in temperatures at the surface, which led to dust being kicked up.

While these results don’t definitively prove that warmer conditions cause dust storms, they indicate that the same phenomena that trigger storms on Earth may be at work on Mars. During hot summers in dry regions, warm air near the surface can rise through the atmosphere, leading to large gray clouds that signal rain. Said Pieris:

“When you heat up the surface, the layer of atmosphere right above it becomes buoyant, and it can rise, taking dust with it. This study is not the end all be all of predicting storms on Mars. But we hope it’s a step in the right direction.”

Two 2001 images from the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor orbiter show a dramatic change in the planet’s appearance when haze raised by dust-storm activity in the south became globally distributed (Figure 1). At left, an image from late June 2001 shows clear conditions over much of the planet, with regional dust-storm activity occurring in the Hellas basin (bright oval feature) near the edge of the south polar cap. At right, a July 2001 image from the same perspective shows the planet almost completely enveloped. Dust extends to altitudes of more than 60 kilometers (37 miles) during global-scale storms. 

NASA Larger image

This close-up image of a dust storm on Mars was acquired by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 7, 2007, around 3 p.m. local time on Mars. Scientists working with NASA’s Curiosity rover, which is set to land on Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT), are monitoring Mars each day for similar small storms that could either drift over the landing site or stir up dust that moves as haze over the site.

NASA (larger image)

Pieris and Hayne are now gathering more recent observations of Mars to continue investigating these explosive weather patterns. Eventually, they hope that scientists will be able to predict weather patterns on Mars based on live data from the planet.

Further Reading: 

• UC Boulder, 
• AGU24

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-01-2025 om 16:00 geschreven door peter  

One of the classic ways to distinguish a star from a planet in the night sky is that stars twinkle, but planets don’t. The light of both passes through the atmosphere, but since planets appear as a small disk of light, we don’t see them flicker. Stars appear as points of light, so we can see the flicker. The apparent size of a light source is the key factor.

In the same way, by looking at the scintillation of the FRB, the team was able to determine the size and location of the FRB light source. In this case, they found that FRB 20221022A had to have happened within 10,000 kilometers of a highly magnetic pulsar. This means the FRB must have originated within the magnetosphere of the pulsar, which confirms magnetars as the source of this particular FRB.

This study not only confirms magnetars as the source of FRBs; it proves that it is specifically an effect of their intense magnetic fields. Further observations such as this should allow us to understand how these magnetic fields can generate such intense radio light so quickly.

Reference: 

• Nimmo, Kenzie, et al. “Magnetospheric origin of a fast radio burst constrained using scintillation.” Nature 637.8044 (2025): 48-51.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-01-2025 om 15:44 geschreven door peter  

Het jaar begint meteen spannend: Wetenschappers ontrafelen de oorsprong van een snelle radioflits

Vivian Lammerse

Het vluchtige ‘kosmische vuurwerk’ lijkt te zijn ontstoken in de woelige magnetosfeer van een verre neutronenster.

Snelle radioflitsen zijn korte, heldere explosies van radiogolven. Sinds de ontdekking van de eerste snelle radioflits in 2007 hebben astronomen duizenden van deze mysterieuze flitsen opgemerkt, sommige in onze eigen Melkweg, andere tot wel 8 miljard lichtjaar verderop. Hoe dit ‘kosmische vuurwerk’ precies ontstaat, is echter nog steeds een mysterie. Maar nu hebben MIT-astronomen eindelijk de oorsprong van één van deze flitsen ontrafeld.

Snelle radioflitsen
De laatste jaren is de detectie van snelle radioflitsen enorm toegenomen. Dat is mede te danken aan het Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). Deze radiotelescoop, met vier grote, stationaire ontvangers in de vorm van een halve pijp, is bijzonder gevoelig voor snelle radioflitsen. Sinds 2020 heeft CHIME al duizenden van deze kosmische flitsen uit het hele universum vastgelegd. Hoewel wetenschappers het erover eens zijn dat snelle radioflitsen afkomstig zijn van extreem compacte objecten, blijft de exacte fysica erachter een raadsel. Sommige modellen voorspellen dat snelle radioflitsen ontstaan in de chaotische magnetosfeer rondom zo’n compact object, terwijl andere aangeven dat de flitsen verder weg ontstaan, als onderdeel van een schokgolf die zich van het centrale object af beweegt.

FRB 20221022A
In een nieuwe studie, gepubliceerd in Nature, concentreerden de wetenschappers zich op FRB 20221022A. Dit is een eerder ontdekte snelle radioflits uit een sterrenstelsel op zo’n 200 miljoen lichtjaar afstand. Het team vond de precieze locatie van het radiosignaal door de zogenaamde ‘scintillatie’ ervan te bestuderen, vergelijkbaar met het fonkelen van sterren aan de nachtelijke hemel. Dit effect treedt op wanneer het licht van een kleine, heldere bron, zoals een ster, door een medium zoals gas in een sterrenstelsel heen dringt. Hoe kleiner of verder weg een object is, hoe meer het lijkt te fonkelen. Het team ontdekte op deze manier dat FRB 20221022A waarschijnlijk afkomstig is uit de directe nabijheid van de bron.

Neutronenster
Het team schat dat FRB 20221022A ontstond binnen slechts 10.000 kilometer van een draaiende neutronenster. Voor je beeldvorming, dat is korter dan de afstand tussen Amsterdam en Kaapstad. Van zo’n korte afstand is het waarschijnlijk dat de flits tot leven kwam in de magnetosfeer van de neutronenster, een krachtig magnetisch gebied rondom deze compacte ster. De bevindingen van het team zijn interessant. Het betekent namelijk dat onderzoekers nu voor het eerst onmiskenbaar bewijs hebben gevonden dat een snelle radioflits kan ontstaan in de magnetosfeer.

Klein gebied
Onderzoekers vermoeden al langer dat snelle radioflitsen worden veroorzaakt door sterk gemagnetiseerde neutronensterren, ook wel magnetars genoemd. En nu blijkt dat FRB 20221022A ook nog eens uit een extreem klein gebied afkomstig was, van slechts 10.000 kilometer groot. De resultaten sluiten uit dat FRB 20221022A uit de buitenste regio van een compact object kwam. In plaats daarvan tonen de bevindingen aan dat snelle radioflitsen zeer dicht bij neutronensterren kunnen ontstaan, in de turbulente magnetische omgevingen die hen omgeven. Het betekent dat onderzoekers de precieze oorsprong van snelle radioflitsen nu steeds beter beginnen te doorgronden.

Halverwege het universum
“In de buurt van neutronensterren zijn de magnetische velden zo intens dat ze de grenzen van het mogelijke in het universum opzoeken”, zegt hoofdauteur van de studie Kenzie Nimmo. “Er is veel gedebatteerd of deze felle radio-emissies überhaupt kunnen ontsnappen uit dat extreme plasma.” Maar nu lijken de onderzoekers dat toch te hebben bewezen. “Bij deze extreem magnetische neutronensterren kunnen atomen niet eens bestaan – ze zouden simpelweg worden verscheurd door de kracht van de magnetische velden”, zegt Kiyoshi Masui, onderzoeker en hoogleraar natuurkunde aan de MIT. “Het spannende is dat we ontdekken hoe de energie in deze velden, dicht bij de bron, zich zo verdraait en herschikt dat het vrijkomt als radiogolven die we zelfs tot halverwege het universum kunnen zien.”

De onderzoekers zijn van plan om dezelfde techniek die ze in deze studie hebben toegepast in de toekomst ook in te zetten om de oorsprong van andere snelle radioflitsen te ontrafelen. Dit zou de onderliggende fysica verder kunnen verduidelijken. Hiermee wordt dan ook een cruciale stap gezet in het ontcijferen van de complexe processen die zich afspelen in enkele van de meest extreme omgevingen in het universum.

Bronmateriaal

• "MIT scientists pin down the origins of a fast radio burst" - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  
• Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: Daniel Liévano, edited by MIT News

GERELATEERDE INFO

the birth of a magnetar.

In an ejection that would have caused its rotation to slow, a magnetar is depicted losing material into space in this artist’s concept.

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

03-01-2025 om 22:26 geschreven door peter  

Asteroid Collision Shocked NASA Scientists, They Can't Explain Why This Happened

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

03-01-2025 om 22:08 geschreven door peter  

Mars is often considered to be the planet most similar to the Earth. Earth however, is capable of supporting life, Mars on the other hand could not. There was once a time when it was warmer and wetter and could support life. Exploring life on Earth shows us that bacteria known as extremophiles can live in the most harsh conditions on Earth, it may just be possible that there are places on Mars that could also support these hardy forms of life. A new paper explores that possibility by studying the most extreme Earth-based bacteria that could survive under ground on Mars. 

Mars, often referred to as the “Red Planet” because of its reddish appearance. It’s the fourth planet from the Sun orbiting at an average distance of 228 million kilometres. It has a thin atmosphere, made up mostly of carbon dioxide with surface temperatures from about -125°C to 20°C. Mars has some fascinating geological features including the largest volcano in the solar system; Olympus Mons, and a vast canyon system; Valles Marineris. Unlike Earth, Mars has two moons Phobos and Deimos which are thought to be captured asteroids. 

The atmosphere of Mars is thin and, whilst carbon dioxide is the main component, there is also methane in small amounts, around 0.00003% of the whole. It’s origins in the Martian atmosphere are not fully understood and it may be that it is there as a result of biological processes such as the metabolism of microbes. It could also be there due to geological processes such as volcanic eruptions. The presence of methane has also excited researchers who have been exploring whether Mars could in anyway support more extreme forms of primitive life. 

In a paper recently authored by Butturini A from the University of Barcelona and team, they explore the Martian environment and its suitability to support extremophiles known as methanogens (from the Methanobacteriaceae family.) These primitive forms of bacteria are found in some of the most inhospitable regions of Earth. They have been found thriving in the hot groundwater of Lidy Hot Springs in Idaho, and are based upon methane biology. It raises an interesting possibility that areas of Mars could provide a habitat for them. 

The conditions on the surface of Mars are well understood. With high energy radiation from cosmic rays and solar radiation, along with dry and cold conditions and a high temperature differential between day and night, the surface is not conducive to any known forms of life. Look a little deeper however and the conditions seem a little more favourable. Lower levels on Mars however may be more habitable than the surface. A few metres underground and the surface material offers protection from the incoming radiation. Temperatures lower down would be higher and less variable too giving the possibility that liquid water may be present. It has already been seen that subsurface water has in some areas of Mars found its way to the surface only to evaporate when met with the surface conditions. With the presence of salt too the subsurface water can be present as liquid at a lower temperature. 

The team conclude that methanogens seem to be thriving in hostile environments on Earth which are analogous to some areas of Mars. They identify the southern area of Acidalia Planitia as somewhere to search due to the high levels of radiogenic heat producing elements which suggest subsurface water may be present. It raises the interesting possibility that, theoretically at least, primitive life could exist on Mars, even today, we just need to find it!

Source:  

• Potential habitability of present-day Mars subsurface for terrestrial-like methanogens

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

03-01-2025 om 15:15 geschreven door peter  

Scientists SOLVE the mystery of 'alien' signal received from outer space

• READ MORE:  Dark energy mystery is finally SOLVED by radical new theory 

By WILIAM HUNTER

Scientists have finally discovered the mysterious origins of an 'alien' signal received from outer space.

In 2022, a radio telescope detected a burst of energy coming from a galaxy about 200 million light-years from Earth.

Although the burst only lasted milliseconds, it contained enough energy to outshine entire galaxies and was theorised to have been a signal from an advanced alien civilisation. 

Now, scientists from MIT have discovered that this 'fast radio burst' (FRB) originated from a small area extremely close to a rotating neutron star, the ultra-dense remains of a dead sun.

The researchers argue that the burst must have come from the layer of powerful magnetic fields surrounding the star known as the magnetosphere.

Although thousands of FRBs have been detected, this is the first time that astronomers have been able to pin down the origin of one of these mysterious signals.

Co-author Professor Kiyoshi Masui says: 'Around these highly magnetic neutron stars, also known as magnetars, atoms can't exist — they would just get torn apart by the magnetic fields.

'The exciting thing here is, we find that the energy stored in those magnetic fields, close to the source, is twisting and reconfiguring such that it can be released as radio waves that we can see halfway across the universe.'

Scientists have revealed the origin of a mysterious 'fast radio burst' signal (illustrated) which arrived from space in 2022. Although the signal only lasted two milliseconds it briefly outshone some galaxies 

Neutron stars are formed when a star about seven to 19 times the size of our sun explodes in a violent supernova, leaving behind a dense core of compressed matter.

Although they are only a few miles wide, these alien stars contain up to twice as much matter as the sun.

These stellar cores are so dense that a sugar cube-sized chunk of neutron star material would weigh one billion tonnes on Earth - making them the densest objects we can directly observe.

Surrounding these strange worlds are violent magnetic fields which can be trillions of times stronger than those surrounding the Earth.

Since the first FRB was spotted in 2007, researchers have detected thousands of these brief but intense bursts everywhere from our own galaxy to 8 billion light-years away.

Although these bursts don't contain enough energy to be dangerous, they have presented scientists with a perplexing mystery.  

Some scientists have suggested that these could be created by the powerful magnetic fields surrounding distant neutron stars - but not all astronomers agree.

Lead researcher Dr Kenzie Nimmo says: 'In these environments of neutron stars, the magnetic fields are really at the limits of what the universe can produce.

Researchers believe this powerful signal originated from within the magnetic fields surrounding a neutron star, the ultra-dense remains of a dead star. As this burst passed through gases in another galaxy it split into multiple paths (illustrated) causing the signal to flicker in brightness

The signal was detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (pictured). By looking at how the signal flickered, researchers calculated that it must have emerged from a region no larger than 10,000 km (6,200 miles) across 

'There's been a lot of debate about whether this bright radio emission could even escape from that extreme plasma.'

Some models suggest that the bursts of energy are formed in the turbulent magnetosphere while others argue that they originate from much farther out as part of a shockwave coming from the star itself.

In their study, published in Nature, the researchers focused on a radio pulse spotted in 2022 by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME).

Using four large radio receivers shaped like half pipes, scientists detected a two-millisecond pulse which was named FRB 20221022A.

Based on the highly polarised light that the FRB produced, the researchers worked out that its source is very likely to be rotating - something that has been seen in fast-spinning neutron stars called pulsars.

But to figure out exactly where FRB 20221022A originated, Dr Nimmo and her co-authors looked at a property called 'scintillation'.

If you see a star in the night sky from Earth, it appears to twinkle or 'scintillate' because the light from the star is filtered through gasses in the atmosphere.

Yet this effect doesn't just affect stargazers since light from any small, bright source will be bent as it passes through an obstruction like the gasses surrounding a galaxy.

The researchers argue that the burst would have come from the magnetic fields within hundreds of thousands of kilometres of a neutron star. This is the first evidence that a neutron star's magnetosphere (illustrated) is capable of releasing a fast radio burst.

The smaller and farther away the source of light is the more it scintillates, which is why planets like Jupiter and Mars don't appear to twinkle when you see them.

If the FRB originated from a shockwave tens of millions of kilometres from the neutron star the area of origin would be so large that researchers wouldn't expect to see any scintillation at all.

But when Dr Nimmo and her colleagues analysed the energy from FRB 20221022A they saw that the mysterious flash was twinkling like a star in the sky. 

Dr Nimmo says: 'This means that the FRB is probably within hundreds of thousands of kilometres from the source.'

By identifying the gas cloud that the flash must have passed through, the researchers were able to zoom in on its origin within unprecedented accuracy.

Although the FRB emerged from a galaxy more than ten times the distance to our nearest neighbouring galaxy, the researchers found that its source was an area just 10,000km (6,200 miles) wide.

For comparison, that is equivalent to the distance from Edinburgh to Cape Town, South Africa.

Professor Masui says: 'Zooming in to a 10,000-kilometer region, from a distance of 200 million light years, is like being able to measure the width of a DNA helix, which is about 2 nanometers wide, on the surface of the moon.'

FAST RADIO BURSTS ARE BRIEF RADIO EMISSIONS FROM SPACE WHOSE ORIGIN IS UNKNOWN

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are radio emissions that appear temporarily and randomly, making them not only hard to find, but also hard to study.

The mystery stems from the fact it is not known what could produce such a short and sharp burst.

This has led some to speculate they could be anything from stars colliding to artificially created messages.

Scientists searching for fast radio bursts (FRBs) that some believe may be signals sent from aliens may be happening every second. The blue points in this artist's impression of the filamentary structure of galaxies are signals from FRBs

The first FRB was spotted, or rather 'heard' by radio telescopes, back in 2001 but wasn't discovered until 2007 when scientists were analysing archival data.

But it was so temporary and seemingly random that it took years for astronomers to agree it wasn't a glitch in one of the telescope's instruments. 

Researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics point out that FRBs can be used to study the structure and evolution of the universe whether or not their origin is fully understood.

A large population of faraway FRBs could act as probes of material across gigantic distances. 

This intervening material blurs the signal from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the left over radiation from the Big Bang. 

A careful study of this intervening material should give an improved understanding of basic cosmic constituents, such as the relative amounts of ordinary matter, dark matter and dark energy, which affect how rapidly the universe is expanding.

FRBs can also be used to trace what broke down the 'fog' of hydrogen atoms that pervaded the early universe into free electrons and protons, when temperatures cooled down after the Big Bang. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

02-01-2025 om 18:34 geschreven door peter  

Mars from 2020.

Credit: Andrew Symes

The atmosphere of Mars is thin and made up mostly of carbon dioxide (about 95%.) There are traces of nitrogen, argon, and oxygen too. This sparse atmosphere is only about 1% the density of Earth’s and is unable to support human life without significant technological aid. Despite its thinness, the Martian atmosphere is active, and one of its most fascinating phenomena is the occurrence of dust devils. These swirling columns of dust and air are similar to tornadoes on Earth.

Dust devils are created when the surface heats up and causes warm air to rise rapidly, drawing in dust particles into a rotating column. They can range in size from small, harmless whirlwinds to massive, kilometer-wide spirals that can last for hours. Dust devils on Mars are important for scientists because they help to redistribute dust across the planet’s surface, driving its weather patterns and even the Martian climate. 

A fascinating phenomenon but a friend and foe to machines on the surface of the red planet; they can both deposit and clear particles of dust from solar panels and other instruments. The swirling nature of these vortex weather events can lift up the fine dust particles, carry them across the Martian surface and over time, they can accumulate on surfaces. When depositing on solar panels, the effect can reduce the efficiency by blocking sunlight, and reduce power output. Their strong winds though can act as cleaners by scrubbing the panels clean. 

An image recently released by NASA JPL shows dust devils tracking across the surface of Mars. Teams of astronomers are studying their fading tracks to calculate the rate of deposition of dust over time. Gaining a better ujnderstanding of this helps to safeguard future space misssions. 

Source : 

• The Art of Dust Devils

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

02-01-2025 om 18:05 geschreven door peter  

This idea is supported by the fact that there is a correlation between the spectral category of TNOs and their orbital types. For example, cold classical TNOs with orbits at the outer edge of the planetary disk are mostly cliff-type TNOs.

The team was also able to connect TNOs to another type of planetoid known as centaurs, which orbit the Sun between Jupiter and Saturn. While the spectra of centaurs differ significantly from those of TNOs, there are enough similar features to identify many centaurs as part of a particular TNO type. The centaur Thereus matches the bowl-type category, for example. On the other hand, some centaurs, such as Okyrhoe don’t fall into any TNO category. This supports the idea that many centaur planetoids were TNOs that migrated inward over time, while others are likely comets that became centaurs after a close approach with Jupiter or Saturn.

In the future, the team would like to gather even more detailed spectra of TNOs. This could tell us the specific histories of each TNO category and how they connect to the early evolution of our solar system.

Reference: 

• Pinilla-Alonso, Noemí, et al. “A JWST/DiSCo-TNOs portrait of the primordial Solar System through its trans-Neptunian objects.” Nature Astronomy (2024): 1-15.

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02-01-2025 om 17:41 geschreven door peter  

Dark energy is central to our modern understanding of cosmology. In the standard model, dark energy is what drives the expansion of the Universe. In general relativity, it’s described by a cosmological constant, making dark energy part of the structure of space and time. But as we’ve gathered more observational evidence, there are a few problems with our model. For one, the rate of cosmic expansion we observe depends on the observational method we use, known as the Hubble tension problem. For another, while we assume dark energy is uniform throughout the cosmos, there are some hints suggesting that might not be true. Now a new study argues we’ve got the whole thing wrong. Dark energy, the authors argue, doesn’t exist.

Let’s start with what we know. When we look out across the billions of light-years of cosmic space, we see that matter is clumped into galaxies, and those galaxies are groups into clusters so that the Universe has clumps of matter separated by great voids. On a small scale, this means that the distribution of matter is uneven. But as we go to larger scales, say a billion light-years or so, the average distribution of matter evens out. On a large scale, the cosmos is homogeneous and not biased in a particular direction. This means we can broadly describe the Universe as the same everywhere. This is known as the principle of homogeneity. By applying this principle to cosmic expansion, we can model the Universe by the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) metric, where dark energy is a cosmological constant.

Opponents of the standard model argue that the principle can’t be applied to cosmic expansion. Some even argue that the basic principles of general relativity can’t be applied on cosmic scales. In one such model, known as the Timescape model, it’s argued that dark energy would violate the principle of equivalence. Since the principle equates inertial energy and gravitational energy, there is no way to distinguish cosmic expansion as a real effect. Furthermore, since we know that gravitational fields affect the rate of time, the Timescape model argues that the Universe can’t be homogeneous in time. Basically, the model argues that within the gravitational well of a galactic cluster, clocks would run more slowly than they would within the vast empty cosmic voids. Over the billions of years of cosmic history, this difference would build up, creating a variance of time throughout the Universe. It is this time divergence that would give the appearance of cosmic expansion.

In this latest study, the authors use the Pantheon+ dataset of Type Ia supernovae to see if it better fits the standard cosmological model or the Timescape model. The main difference between the two models is that cosmic expansion must be uniform in the standard model, while in the Timescape model, cosmic expansion can’t be uniform. What the team found was that while the Pantheon+ supports both models, the data is a slightly better fit to the Timescape model. In other words, the best fit of the data suggests that dark energy is an illusion, but the fit is not strong enough to disprove the standard model.

If future observations continue to support the Timescape model, it would revolutionize our understanding of the Universe. But there are reasons to be cautious. To begin with, the Timescape model is only one of many proposed alternatives to the standard model, which this study doesn’t address. The Timescape model also has some internal issues of its own that would need to be resolved to become the new cosmological model. But it is clear now that we can’t ignore the fact that the standard model may be wrong. We are entering an exciting period of astronomy where our knowledge of the Universe will increase significantly in the near future.

Reference: 

• Seifert, Antonia, et al. “Supernovae evidence for foundational change to cosmological models.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters 537.1 (2025): L55-L60.

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02-01-2025 om 17:20 geschreven door peter  

This location has advantages and disadvantages – the Moon’s disk is much smaller than the Earth’s, so LUMIO could capture the entire hemisphere and watch for any impacts on the lunar surface. It’s important to note that most of the impacts would indeed be on the surface itself, since the lunar atmosphere is negligible in terms of providing energy for a micrometeoroid to burn up before impact. That is why the Moon is pockmarked with so many craters.

LUMIO CubeSat operative orbit.

Credits: ASI/LUMIO Collaboration

Overview of LUMIO mission.

Credits: LUMIO collaboration

LUMIO mission upgraded roadmap. Last week the European Space Agency approved the next stage of the Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer (LUMIO) CubeSat mission, which means it could be ready for launch as early as 2027.

Credits: ASI/LUMIO Collaboration

Also, while it’s commonly referred to as the “dark side” of the Moon, the far side is lit up half the time – and fully lit when we down on the planet experience a “new Moon.” But, when it is dark on the lunar surface, it is genuinely dark – there aren’t any lights that could be misconstrued as an asteroid strike. The L2 point has the added advantage of not suffering from “Earthshine” – reflected light from Earth that could diminish the effectiveness of the LUMIO-cam when trying to detect faint light streaks.

Difficulties abound with the placement, though, including a lack of a direct line of communication and the necessity of an automated navigation and control system. Since the Moon is literally between the CubeSat and any ground receiver that could send commands or receive data, it must be bounced off a relay satellite in order to do so.

LUMIO will also capture a large amount of data, not all of which will be useful. Since the flashes it’s looking for are very fast, LUMIO-Cam will capture about 15 frames per second. Then, onboard processing will use an algorithm to sort through the image to see if there are any flashes visible in it. Those interesting images will then be the ones sent back to Earth. 

Estimates put the number of micrometeoroids striking the Moon’s surface at as high as 23,000 times per year for micrometeoroids as small as 30 grams. Even if LUMIO only watches half of that area, it will observe impacts multiple times every day. Each is a little look into the types of debris that still exist in our local part of the solar system and maybe into what asteroids and comets they were initially a part of.

There’s a good chance the LUMIO team will be able to capture that data as well – the mission was accepted as a finalist to ESA’s Lunar CubeSat for Exploration (LUCE) SYSNOVA Competition and is currently planned for launch in 2027. Once it reaches its stable orbit, expect to see some brilliant flashes on the Lunar surface popping up new reports regularly.

Learn More:

• ESA – LUMIO – New CubeSat Illuminating Lunar Impacts
• Topputo et al. – LUMIO: A CubeSat at Earth-Moon L2
• UT – Astronomers are Working to Put a Radio Telescope on the Far Side of the Moon by 2025
• UT – Finally, an Explanation for the Moon’s Radically Different Hemispheres

Lead Image:

• Depiction of LUMIO’s orbital path to the L2 Earth-Moon point.
  Credit – ESA

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02-01-2025 om 16:22 geschreven door peter