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Astronomical News

... Even if the blazar is long gone, the beam, being pointed at us, would still eventually 'reach' us, is that right?...

In principle - yes.

The light we see from the ancient blazar cited here left the blazar circa 13 billion years ago. Any changes (including emission of a different / more dangerous burst) may be billions of years in the blazar's past but who-knows-how-many years in our own future at this relatively remote location.

I'm not sure how focused or how energetic a gamma ray burst would be if it had traveled from as far away as far as the most ancient blazar cited here.

Still, this same situation applies to all the other blazars we've identified.
 
New sub-field or specialty within astronomical science: planetary post-mortems ...
Necroplanetology: The Strangest Field of Astronomy You've Never Heard Of

In 2015, astronomers found something weird. It was a white dwarf star, 570 light-years from Earth, with a peculiar dimming pattern. It dimmed several times to varying depths, each depth repeating on a 4.5 to 5-hour timeframe; and its atmosphere was polluted with elements usually found in rocky exoplanets.

It didn't take long before they figured it out. The gravity of the dead star was in the process of shredding and devouring bodies in orbit around it, a violent process known rather politely as tidal disruption.

The star is called WD 1145+017, and it's now being used as a proof of concept for a new field of planet study, forensic reconstruction of planetary bodies to understand what they were like, and how they died.

Astronomers from the US and the UK are calling this field necroplanetology. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/necroplanetology-the-study-of-planets-dismembered-remains
 
This headline indicates the potential weirdness of this newly analyzed exoplanet.
Heavy-metal alien planet may be shaped like a football

An exoplanet may be shaped like an American football due to the mighty gravitational forces it experiences close to its star, a new study finds.

Scientists investigated KOI 1843.03, an exoplanet candidate that scientists need further observations to say for sure is real. This world putatively orbits a red dwarf star with slightly less than half the mass of our sun and is located about 395 light-years from Earth. Previous research found KOI 1843.03 was about 44% Earth's mass and 60% Earth's diameter.

Prior work suggested KOI 1843.03 orbited its star more closely than any other planet known yet. "Whizzing around its star in only 4.245 hours, a 'year' for this planet is just over one-sixth of a day on Earth," Leslie Rogers, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and the senior author of the new research, told Space.com. ...

In previous work focused on KOI 1843.03, Rogers and her colleagues analyzed potential consequences of the powerful gravitational forces the planet likely experiences from its close-in orbit. (Those forces are essentially an extraordinarily strong version of the tidal forces Earth experiences from the moon.) In that work, the scientists suggested that the exoplanet must be made primarily of iron to avoid getting ripped apart. Whereas Earth is about 32% iron, they estimated KOI 1843.03 was likely 66% iron. ...

Scientists had known of a handful of iron-rich "cannonball" planets, rather like Mercury in our own solar system, which is about 70% iron. To see what effects an extreme orbit like that of KOI 1843.03 might have on such a world, the researchers carried out the first 3D simulations of the interior structures of rocky planets whose ultra-tiny orbits would generate tidal distortions.

The scientists found KOI 1843.03 might be shaped like an American football. "KOI 1843.03 is the most aspherical exoplanet discovered to date," Rogers said. "Our models show that KOI 1843.03 is significantly elongated along the direction toward its star, having an aspect ratio of up to about 1.8." She compared that to the 1.3 aspect ratio of a chicken egg or the 1.7 aspect ratio of a wide-screen television. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/cannonball-exoplanet-may-be-stretched-football.html
 
This planet has inspired me to make this image. The planet has an aspect ratio of 1.79, and a sub-stellar temperature of 2500K. The surface is almost certainly liquid lava.
I should point out that footballs are not shaped like this in the UK; this is a rugby ball.

Football1.png
 
NASA Stumped by Weird Green Blobs


While studying a supernova in the distant Fireworks galaxy (NGC 6946), a NASA space observatory has observed extremely bright sources of X-ray light that resulted in dazzling flashes of blue and green. The appearance surprised scientists, who called the lights a "mystery."

AAGUuLA.img


When the NuSTAR began monitoring the supernova, the green blob near the bottom of the galaxy wasn't visible. It only emerged on the 10th day of study. Another NASA telescope was able to confirm that the green blob had dissolved as soon as it appeared.

Scientists have seen this type of phenomena before, but they're extremely rare. They're called ultra-luminous X-ray sources, or ULXs. This one is named ULX-4, because it's only the fourth one ever observed in the Milky Way galaxy.

So what caused the colors? Nobody is sure, but scientists posit in their latest study that it could be light generated from the accretion disk of a black hole. Accretion disks are a traffic jams built into black holes. They pull in matter so quickly that there's not enough space for it all, so the waiting matter spins around the black hole at such speeds that it illuminates a bright whiteness.

Most ULXs are long-lived, but this one was quick. So it's possible that it was triggered by a quick event—something like a black hole destroying a nearby small star.

But that's just one idea. Another, according to the paper's authors, it that the source of ULX-4 could be a neutron star. As some of the densest objects in the universe, neutron stars are formed when a star's explosion doesn't generate enough energy for a black hole. But, like black holes, they can create accretion disks.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/article/nasa-stumped-by-weird-green-blobs/ar-AAGUsuh

maximus otter
 
It's long been known that a radio telescope located on the far side of the moon would have unparalleled advantages. NASA has committed the funding for a feasibility study to examine the prospects for robotically constructing a radio telescope array spanning a lunar crater.
NASA funds proposal to build a telescope on the far side of the moon

NASA is funding an early-stage proposal to build a meshed telescope inside a crater on the far side of the moon ...

This "dark side" is the face of the moon that is permanently positioned away from Earth, and as such it offers a rare view of the dark cosmos, unhindered by radio interference from humans and our by our planet's thick atmosphere.

The ultra-long-wavelength radio telescope, would be called the "Lunar Crater Radio Telescope" and would have "tremendous" advantages compared to telescopes on our planet, the idea's founder Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, a robotics technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote in a proposal. ...

NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program is awarding $125,000 for a Phase 1 study to understand the feasibility of such a telescope, Bandyopadhyay told Vice.
FULL STORY (With Graphics):
https://www.livescience.com/nasa-telescope-far-side-of-moon.html
 
Remotely operated robots are probably going to be used a lot in the foreseeable future on the Moon, to build infrastructure, explore, prospect and mine. It might be decades before humans go there in any numbers, but when they do, there will already be a load of stuff there ready for them.
 
THE LAWS OF PHYSICS MAY BREAK DOWN AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

A controversial new study suggests that it may be possible to bend the laws of the universe — but just a little bit.

Source: futurism.com
Date: 27 April, 2020

Scientists at the University of New South Wales found what seem to be discrepancies in what’s called the fine structure constant, a number that’s thought to remain perfectly unchanging and describes how subatomic particles interact with each other. It’s a bold claim, but if it holds up it would fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe.

The fine structure constant describes the force that influences subatomic particles with electrical charge, like how protons and electrons within an atom are drawn to one another. The study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, found that the number seemed to change when they analyzed extremely distant quasars — but only when they looked in certain directions, meaning that the laws of physics may break down at the edges of the universe.

“And it seems to be supporting this idea that there could be a directionality in the universe,” University of New South Wales physicist John Webb said in a press release, “which is very weird indeed.”

https://futurism.com/the-byte/laws-physics-break-down-edge-universe
 
The weight of the Universe

Bochum cosmologists headed by Professor Hendrik Hildebrandt have gained new insights into the density and structure of matter in the Universe.

Source: heritagedaily.com
Date: 28 April, 2020

Several years ago, Hildebrandt had already been involved in a research consortium that had pointed out discrepancies in the data between different groups. The values determined for matter density and structure differed depending on the measurement method. A new analysis, which included additional infrared data, made the differences stand out even more. They could indicate that this is the flaw in the Standard Model of Cosmology.

Rubin, the science magazine of Ruhr-Universität Bochum, has published a report on Hendrik Hildebrandt’s research. The latest analysis of the research consortium, called Kilo-Degree Survey, was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics in January 2020.

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/04/the-weight-of-the-universe/128041
 
‘Elegant’ solution reveals how the universe got its structure

Source: heritagedaily.com
Date: 27 April, 2020

The universe is full of billions of galaxies–but their distribution across space is far from uniform. Why do we see so much structure in the universe today and how did it all form and grow?

A 10-year survey of tens of thousands of galaxies made using the Magellan Baade Telescope at Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile provided a new approach to answering this fundamental mystery. The results, led by Carnegie’s Daniel Kelson, are published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“How do you describe the indescribable?” asks Kelson. “By taking an entirely new approach to the problem.”

“Our tactic provides new–and intuitive–insights into how gravity drove the growth of structure from the universe’s earliest times,” said co-author Andrew Benson. “This is a direct, observation-based test of one of the pillars of cosmology.”

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/...als-how-the-universe-got-its-structure/128013
 
Longstanding mystery of matter and antimatter may be solved

Source: phys.org
Date: 19 May, 2020

An element which could hold the key to the long-standing mystery around why there is much more matter than antimatter in our Universe has been discovered by a University of the West of Scotland (UWS)-led team of physicists.

The UWS and University of Strathclyde academics have discovered, in research published in the journal Nature Physics, that one of the isotopes of the element thorium possesses the most pear-shaped nucleus yet to be discovered. Nuclei similar to thorium-228 may now be able to be used to perform new tests to try find the answer to the mystery surrounding matter and antimatter.

UWS's Dr. David O'Donnell, who led the project, said: "Our research shows that, with good ideas, world-leading nuclear physics experiments can be performed in university laboratories.

"This work augments the experiments which nuclear physicists at UWS are leading at large experimental facilities around the world. Being able to perform experiments like this one provides excellent training for our students."

https://www.phys.org/news/2020-05-longstanding-mystery-antimatter.amp
 
Massive disk galaxy could change our understanding of how galaxies are born

Source: livescience.com
Date: 21 May, 2020

A massive, rotating disk galaxy that first formed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, could upend our understanding of galaxy formation, scientists suggest in a new study.

In traditional galaxy formation models and according to modern cosmology, galaxies are built beginning with dark-matter halos. Over time, those halos pull in gases and material, eventually building up full-fledged galaxies. Disk galaxies, like our own Milky Way, form with prominent disks of stars and gas and are thought to be created in a method known as "hot mode" galaxy formation, where gas falls inward toward the galaxy's central region where it then cools and condenses.

This process is thought to be fairly gradual, taking a long time. But the newly discovered galaxy DLA0817g, nicknamed the "Wolfe Disk," which scientists believe formed in the early universe, suggests that disk galaxies could actually form quite quickly.

In a new study led by Marcel Neeleman of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, researchers spotted the Wolfe Disk using ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. They found out that the object was a large, stable rotating disk, clocking in at a whopping 70 billion times the mass of our sun.

[...]

https://www.livescience.com/wolfe-disk-massive-galaxy-discovery.html


"...70 billion times the mass of our sun".

Contemplated cross-posting to, 'Things That Make You Go...WTF?'.
 
The gravitational center (barycentre) of our solar system has now been pinpointed, and it's not located at the center of the sun. It's not even within the sun.
Astronomers Have Located The Centre of The Solar System to Within 100 Metres

When you picture the Solar System in your head, most people would think of the Sun, stolid and stationary in the centre, with everything else whizzing about around it. But every body in the Solar System also exerts its own gravitational tug on the star, causing it to move around just a tiny bit.

Therefore, the precise gravitational centre (or barycentre) of the Solar System is not smack-bang in the middle of the Sun, but somewhere closer to its surface, just outside it. But it hasn't been easy for us to figure out exactly where this barycentre is, due to the myriad gravitational influences at play. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/astron...ntre-of-the-solar-system-to-within-100-metres
 
Comet Neowise is becoming visible- and it's great. I had to get up at 02.30 to see it this morning, but it was impressive, We should be able to see it all night fairly soon. The problem is, it is in the north, which is the brightest part of the sky this time of year; apart from that, it's the best comet I've seen (and I've seen a few.)
.
_113284107_photo08-07-2020073046.jpg
 
(Well, Hale-Bopp was brighter, but it was a shapeless blob - Neowise is shaped like a proper comet at the moment).
 
Comet Neowise is becoming visible- and it's great. I had to get up at 02.30 to see it this morning...

I had a look for it last night (1:30am and again at 4am), as recounted here - no joy as yet, but if it remains visible long enough, should start being able to see it once it clears the trees around the park out back of here (central UK) around the 20th-ish.
 
Here's a new astrophysical puzzle. A massive gas cloud pulses with a regular "heartbeat in the gamma-ray range, and this pulsation is synched with the "pulse" of a black hole 100 light years away. Why? How? Who knows? ...
Mysterious Gamma-Ray Heartbeat Coming From Cosmic Gas Cloud Leaves Scientists Baffled – “As Unexpected as Amazing”

Cosmic gas cloud blinks in sync with circling black hole.

Scientists have detected a mysterious gamma-ray heartbeat coming from a cosmic gas cloud. The inconspicuous cloud in the constellation Aquila is beating with the rhythm of a neighboring precessing black hole, indicating a connection between the two objects, as the team led by DESY Humboldt Fellow Jian Li and ICREA Professor Diego F. Torres from the Institute of Space Sciences (IEEC-CSIC) reports in the journal Nature Astronomy. Just how the black hole powers the cloud’s gamma-ray heartbeat over a distance of about 100 light years remains enigmatic. ...

FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/mysterious...-scientists-baffled-as-unexpected-as-amazing/
 
Interesting event.

Like the mythical half-human, half-horse creatures, centaurs in the solar system are hybrids between asteroids and comets.

Now, astronomers have caught one morphing from one type of space rock to the other, potentially giving scientists an unprecedented chance to watch a comet form in real time in the decades to come.

“We have an opportunity here to see the birth of a comet as it starts to become active,” says planetary scientist Kat Volk of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The object, called P/2019 LD2, was discovered by the ATLAS telescope in Hawaii in May. Its orbit suggests that it’s a centaur, a class of rocky and icy objects with unstable orbits. Because of that mixed composition and potential to move around the solar system, astronomers have long suspected that centaurs are a missing link between small icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune and comets that regularly visit the inner solar system (SN: 11/19/94).

These “short-period” comets, which are thought to originate from icy objects in the Kuiper Belt, orbit the sun once a decade or so, and make repeat appearances in Earth’s skies. (Long-period comets, like Halley’s Comet, which visits the inner solar system once a century, probably originate even farther from the sun, in the Oort cloud (SN: 10/25/13).) ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/space-rock-comet-centaur-astronomy
 
The Oort cloud doesn't conform to solar system formation models in terms of its size or density. New simulation-based research suggests these anomalies are better explained if our sun had originated as one of a binary pair of stars.
The sun may have a long-lost twin

The most distant region of our solar system, a sphere of dark, icy debris out beyond Neptune, is too crowded. All that stuff out there, beyond the reach of the ancient disk of gas and dust that formed the planets, doesn’t match with scientific models of how the solar system formed. Now, a pair of researchers has offered a new take on this far-out mystery: Our sun has a long-lost twin. And the two stars spent their childhoods collecting the passing debris from interstellar space, crowding the outer reaches of the solar system.

We can't see this twin. Wherever it is — if it ever existed — it broke away from its orbit with our sun eons ago. The two stars would have circled the Milky Way well over a dozen times since then, and may have ended up in totally different regions of space. But a record of that lost twin's influence on our solar system may remain in our Oort cloud — a mysterious neighborhood of comets and space rocks at the outer bounds of our sun's influence.

The Oort cloud is a strange place. Unlike the planets and asteroids of the inner solar system, which lie on a single flat disk around the sun, it forms a hollow sphere of debris encircling the solar system in every direction. Compared to the inner planets, these distant drifters experience very little of the sun's gravity, and could easily be nudged out of their orbits and into interstellar space. The most distant objects in that sphere are barely linked to our sun at all, drifting along 100,000 times farther away from the sun than Earth. ...

All that mass far beyond Neptune causes problems for astronomers, Loeb said. So does the fact that the Oort cloud forms a sphere, when all the planets and asteroids in the inner solar system seem to have formed from one flat disk of dust and gas.

"The question is: How did it come to exist?" Loeb told Live Science. "The popular view is that maybe they were scattered from the disk that made the planets." ...

And simulations of Oort cloud formation that have all the objects coming from the inner solar system suggest it should have somewhere between one-third and one-tenth the number of large objects it seems to hold.

"You cannot easily explain the large number of Oort cloud objects this way," Loeb said.

And if you assume there's a big planet orbiting out there, the crowded Oort cloud gets even more difficult to explain. ...

In this case, together with his frequent collaborator, Harvard undergraduate Amir Siraj, Loeb suggested that the sun may have worked together with a lost twin to capture passing objects from deep space. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/planet-9-sun-twin.html
 
Apparently theres going to be some big astronomy news announced on monday 14th Sept.

That night's edition of 'The Sky at Night' is going to cover it.

It can't be anything 'earth-shattering' - aliens- asteroid heading our way - as any really big news would surely of leaked.

So what can it be? Water detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet is my guess.
 
Apparently theres going to be some big astronomy news announced on monday 14th Sept.

That night's edition of 'The Sky at Night' is going to cover it.

It can't be anything 'earth-shattering' - aliens- asteroid heading our way - as any really big news would surely of leaked.

So what can it be? Water detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet is my guess.

No. It's a biosignature possibly indicative of life on Venus.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...ind-gas-linked-to-life-in-atmosphere-of-venus
 
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