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☆ Unusual world offers astronomers a glimpse into how planets become ‘hot Jupiters’
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-17 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

The star is one of a binary pair, so the planet orbits the primary star, while the primary star orbits a secondary star. While Jupiter takes 4,000 Earth days to complete one orbit around the sun, hot Jupiters complete one orbit every few days. Astronomers use “eccentric” to refer to the shape of a planet’s orbit on a scale from zero to 1. “It’s a pretty extreme process in that the changes to the planet’s orbit are massive,” Millholland said. Discovering a second hot Jupiter precursor is helping astronomers to confirm the idea that high-mass gas giants transform into hot Jupiters as they migrate from eccentric to circular orbits, the researchers said.

Persons: —, ”, Arvind Gupta, NOIRLab, Gupta, Suvrath Mahadevan, Verne, Willaman, Jason Wright, ” Wright, ” Gupta, Sarah Millholland, “, ” Millholland, Wright, James Webb Organizations: CNN —, Penn State, Astronomy, Mercury, NASA, Massachusetts Institute, Technology’s Kavli, for Astrophysics, Space Research, chrysalis Locations: Kitt, Arizona

☆ NASA Lucy mission: A space rock got a moon after sun-driven quake
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-31 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —Astronomers were in for a surprise when NASA’s Lucy mission flew by an asteroid named Dinkinesh in November and spotted a contact binary — two smaller space rocks that touch each other — orbiting the asteroid like a moon. “Basically, the planets formed when zillions of smaller objects orbiting the Sun, like asteroids, ran into each other. The Lucy mission captured additional imagery revealing that the asteroid Dinkinesh’s moon is actually two space rocks that are touching one another. Too distant to be seen in detail with telescopes, the asteroids will get their close-up when Lucy reaches the Trojans in 2027. The mission borrows its name from the Lucy fossil, the remains of an ancient human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia in 1974.

Persons: NASA’s Lucy, Dinky ”, ”, Hal Levison, Lucy, Dinkinesh, Goddard, Johns Hopkins, Keith Noll, Jessica Sunshine, ” Levison, Sunshine, Selam, “ I’m, “, NASA Galileo, Ida, Lucy’s, NASA Lucy, ” Sunshine, Dinky Organizations: CNN —, Southwest Research, NASA, Goddard Space Flight, University of Maryland, College Locations: Boulder , Colorado, Greenbelt , Maryland, Dinkinesh, Ethiopia, Jupiter

☆ The largest map of the cosmos hints that dark energy is changing. It could prove Einstein wrong and upend a pillar of modern physics.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Jessica Orwig | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

New data from the largest 3-D map of our universe suggests we may be wrong about dark energy. One of the driving forces behind that evolution is also one of our age's biggest mysteries in physics: dark energy. Einstein abandoned the idea as his "greatest blunder" in the 1930s, as astrophysicist Ethan Siegal explains, but a constant dark energy would have vindicated him. "If true, it would be the first real clue we have gotten about the nature of dark energy in 25 years," Adam Riess, a Nobel laureate for his co-discovery of dark energy, told Quanta Magazine. "The idea that dark energy is varying is very natural," Paul Steinhardt, a Princeton University cosmologist, told the magazine.

Persons: —, we're, Michael Levi, Levi, DESI, Marenfeld, Claire Lamman, Albert Einstein's, Einstein, Ethan Siegal, Albert Einstein, Ernst Haas, Adam Riess, Paul Steinhardt, Princeton University cosmologist, Riess, Vera C, Travis Lange, Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell, NASA's Nancy Grace, Arnaud de Mattia, Mattia Organizations: Service, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, American Physical Society, Princeton University, NASA, Rubin, Accelerator, Atomic Energy Commission Locations: Arizona, Princeton , New Jersey

☆ Got $1,350? Spend a Night in a Space Observatory. Here’s What It’s Like.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Bob Davis | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

CHECK IN TO OUTER SPACE Arizona’s Kitt Peak National Observatory is a rare astronomy center that lets star seekers spend the night. SlovinskyFROM THE TOP of Kitt Peak National Observatory, just 50 miles from downtown Tucson, the autumn night sky blazed; the Milky Way was so dense with stars it looked like a luminescent cloud. Jupiter shone like a beacon—so bright I wondered how I’d never noticed it before. After lifetimes in cities where urban lights blot out the night sky, my wife, Deb, and I have sought out stargazing opportunities. Count us among the many who have popularized so-called dark-sky tourism, in which star seekers travel to find better viewing conditions.

Persons: I’d, Deb, Count Organizations: Kitt Locations: Tucson

☆ Asteroid visited by NASA spacecraft has a ‘puzzling’ companion
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Dinkinesh, a small asteroid that NASA’s Lucy mission visited last week, continues to surprise. At first, images suggested that the space rock was part of a binary pair, with a smaller asteroid orbiting Dinkinesh. The first image taken by the spacecraft during its closest approach revealed the companion, but not the fact that it was a contact binary. “Contact binaries seem to be fairly common in the solar system,” said John Spencer, Lucy deputy project scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, in a statement. The skeleton has helped researchers piece together aspects of human evolution, and NASA Lucy team members hope their mission will achieve a similar feat regarding the history of our solar system.

Persons: CNN —, Lucy, Goddard, Johns Hopkins, ”, John Spencer, we’ve, We’d, Hal Levison, “, Tom Statler, NASA Lucy Organizations: CNN, NASA, Southwest Research Institute, Dinkinesh, Trojans Locations: Ethiopia, Jupiter

Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars The tech billionaire has become the dominant power in satellite internet technology. Today, more than 4,500 Starlink satellites are in the skies, accounting for more than 50 percent of all active satellites. 53% of active satellites are Starlink.” The Starlink satellites are highlighted and are all operating in low-Earth orbit. How Starlink customers connect to the internet Starlink satellites orbit at much lower altitudes than traditional satellite internet services. “Everywhere on earth will have high bandwidth, low latency internet,” Mr. Musk predicted on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2020.

Persons: Elon Musk’s, Mark, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Elon Musk, Zaluzhnyi, General Zaluzhnyi, Musk, Musk’s, ”, Starlink’s, ” Mykhailo Fedorov, Mr, Biden, ” Dmitri Alperovitch, Sir Martin Sweeting, Sweeting, Mike Blake, Patrick Seitzer, Rafael Schmall, Joe Rogan, Jeff Bezos, Starlink, Russia —, Fedorov, —, Clodagh Kilcoyne, Nancy Pelosi, Colin H, Kahl, Lynsey Addario, messaged Mr, Lloyd Austin, Gregory C, Allen, we’ve, Mykhailo Podolyak, Volodymyr Zelensky, Jason Hsu, Hsu, “ Elon, Michael McCaul of, Tsai Ing, Tsai, Audrey Tang, Mariana Suarez, Thierry Breton, SpaceX, Chérif El, Amazon Organizations: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ukraine’s Armed Forces, SpaceX, Tesla, Twitter, Mr, U.S . Defense Department, NASA, Senior Pentagon, The Defense Department, Starlink, European Union, Silverado, Accelerator, Surrey Satellite Technology, Reuters, Airbus, Earth, Getty, Satellite, University of Michigan, National Science Foundation, Rivals, Amazon, Origin, Viasat, Pentagon, CNN, The New York Times, U.S, Defense Department, Center for Strategic, International Studies, Elon, Harvard Kennedy School, Republican, House Foreign Affairs, OneWeb, Agence France, European, United Nations Locations: Ukraine, United States, Iran, Turkey, Japan, Starlink, Crimea, Russian, Starlinks, Europe, Taiwan, China, Beijing, British, Colorado, Cape Canaveral, Fla, —, California, Florida, Latin America, Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique, Rwanda, Ukrainian, Russia, Kreminna, Aspen, Colo, Kherson's, Kherson, Dnipro, Shanghai, Taipei, Michael McCaul of Texas, del, Uruguay, European Union

☆ A supernova that exploded in a nearby galaxy is one of the brightest in a decade. Here's how to see it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A supernova has exploded in the Pinwheel Galaxy 21 million light-years away. Named SN 2023ixf, it sets itself apart by being one of the brightest seen in a decade. The supernova, which appeared in the Pinwheel Galaxy 21 million light-years away, is one of the biggest and brightest in our skies in a decade, Space.com reported. But this supernova, named SN 2023ixf, sets itself apart by its proximity to Earth: it's located in the Pinwheel Galaxy, which is only about 21 million light-years away. The Pinwheel Galaxy is located close to two of the stars in the handle of the Big Dipper.

Persons: —, Space.com, Dan Perley, Kuntz, Mould, Chu, Jacoby, Hanna, Miller, Rodriguez, de Martin, Koichi Itagaki, Webb, Perley, It's Organizations: Galaxy, Service, Liverpool John Moores Observatory, Hubble, Gemini, NASA, ESA, K, JHU, Bresolin, University of Hawaii, Jet Propulsion, University of Illinois, CSA Locations: Urbana, Canada, France, Hawaii, T.A

☆ Black hole image captures jet of material launching into space
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

But a black hole can also send powerful jets of material blasting across space and beyond its home galaxy. Previous observations have shown the jet and black hole separately, including the first direct image of a black hole, released in 2019. Astronomers believe that more material is falling toward the black hole in the new image, which is why the ring looks bigger. Studying black holesRecently, astronomers also used machine learning to release a cleaner, sharper version of the original M87 black hole image from 2019. The central region is darker and larger, surrounded by a bright ring as hot gas falls into the black hole.

☆ First photo of a black hole resembles 'skinny' doughnut
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —The first photo ever taken of a black hole looks a little sharper now. The central region is darker and larger, surrounded by a bright ring as hot gas falls into the black hole in the new image. The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, called EHT, is a global network of telescopes that captured the first photograph of a black hole. Computers using PRIMO analyzed more than 30,000 high-resolution simulated images of black holes to pick out common structural details. But if heated materials in the form of plasma surround the black hole and emit light, the event horizon could be visible.

New data shows light pollution has made the night sky today twice as bright as it was eight years ago. That would mean 60% of the stars we see today will be gone by 2041 if light pollution keeps growing. For decades, astronomers have been building telescopes in the darkest places on Earth to avoid light pollution. However, satellites miss the blue light of LEDs, which are commonly used for outdoor lighting – resulting in an underestimate of light pollution. Note: If a night sky containing 250 stars today has only 100 stars in 18 years, that equates to a loss of 60% of the stars in the night sky by the year 2041.

☆ 'Planet killer' asteroid hidden by the sun may threaten Earth in a few thousand years
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Astronomers discovered a "planet killer" asteroid that may pose a threat to Earth in future millennia. That makes it a "planet killer," Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, said in a press release announcing the discovery on Monday. But there could be other planet killer asteroids lurking unseen in the blind spot where 2022 AP7 was discovered: within the orbits of Earth and Venus, between us and the sun. That makes it very difficult to spot asteroids located between Earth and the sun. "There are likely only a few [near-Earth asteroids] with similar sizes left to find," Sheppard said in the release.

☆ Астрономы обнаружили самую большую комету в истории наблюдений
▼ + stars: | 2021-06-30 | by ( Mld Media Srl | ) noi.md time to read: +1 min

Ученые в рамках проекта Dark Energy Survey обнаружили, возможно, самую большую комету. По словам экспертов, комета пришла к нам из Облака Оорта и будет приближаться к Солнцу до 2031 года. Гигантскую комету обнаружили двое ученых из Университета Пенсильвании в США. Кометы - это ледяные тела, которые испаряются по мере приближения к теплу Солнца, образуя кому и хвосты. Впервые C/2014 UN271 обнаружили в 2014 году, но до 2018 года у нее не было видно типичного хвоста кометы.

Persons: Hubble Organizations: Energy Survey, Университет Пенсильвании Locations: Облако Оорт, Солнце, США, БернардинеллиБернштейна, Земля, Лебедь

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