Space And The Universe News

  • Could Earth Life Survive on a Red Dwarf Planet?
    by Evan Gough on March 15, 2024 at 10:39 pm

    Even though exoplanet science has advanced significantly in the last decade or two, we’re still in an unfortunate situation. Scientists can only make educated guesses about which exoplanets may be habitable. Even the closest exoplanet is four light-years away, and though four is a small integer, the distance is enormous.

    That doesn’t stop scientists from trying to piece things together, though.

    One of the most consequential questions in exoplanet science and habitability concerns red dwarfs. Red dwarfs are plentiful, and research shows that they host multitudes of planets. While gas giants like Jupiter are comparatively rare around red dwarfs, other planets are not. Observational data shows that about 40% of red dwarfs host super-Earth planets in their habitable zones.

    Red dwarfs have a few things going for them when it comes to exoplanet habitability. These low-mass stars have extremely long lifespans, meaning the energy output is stable for long periods of time. As far as we can tell, that’s a benefit for potential habitability and the evolution of complex life. Stability gives life a chance to respond to changes and persist in their niches.

    But red dwarfs have a dark side, too: flaring. All stars flare to some degree, even our Sun. But the Sun’s flaring is not even in the same league as red dwarf flaring. Red dwarfs can flare so powerfully that they can double their brightness in a very short period of time. Is there any way life could survive on red dwarf planets?

    This is an artist's concept of a red dwarf star undergoing a powerful eruption, called a stellar flare. A hypothetical planet is in the foreground. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon (STScI)
    This is an artist’s concept of a red dwarf star undergoing a powerful eruption called a stellar flare. A hypothetical planet is in the foreground. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon (STScI)

    New research from scientists in Portugal and Germany examines that question. To test the idea of red dwarf exoplanet habitability, the researchers used a common type of mould and subjected it to simulated red dwarf radiation, protected only by a simulated Martian atmosphere.

    The research is “How habitable are M-dwarf Exoplanets? Modelling surface conditions and exploring the role of melanins in the survival of Aspergillus niger spores under exoplanet-like radiation.” The lead author is Afonso Mota, an astrobiologist at the Aerospace Microbiology Research Group in the Institute of Aerospace Medicine at the German Aerospace Center (DLR.) The paper has been submitted to the journal Astrobiology and is currently in pre-print.

    Aspergillus niger is ubiquitous in soil and is commonly known for the black mould it can cause on some fruits and vegetables. It’s also a prolific producer of melanin. Melanin absorbs light very efficiently, and in humans, melanin is produced by exposure to UV radiation and darkens the skin. Melanins are widespread in nature, and extremophiles use them to protect themselves. Melanin can dissipate up to 99.9% of absorbed UV. Scientists think that the appearance of melanins may have played a critical role in the development of life on Earth by protecting organisms from the Sun’s harmful radiation.

    A scanning electron microscope of freeze-dried Aspergillus niger. Image Credit: By Mogana Das Murtey and Patchamuthu Ramasamy - [1], CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52254793
    A scanning electron microscope of freeze-dried Aspergillus niger. Image Credit: By Mogana Das Murtey and Patchamuthu Ramasamy – [1], CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52254793

    In essence, this research asks a pretty simple question. Can Aspergillus niger’s melanin help it survive red dwarf flaring when protected by a thin atmosphere like Mars’?

    Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1 are both well-known red dwarfs in exoplanet science because they host rocky exoplanets in their habitable zones. This study zeroes in on Proxima Centauri b (PCb hereafter) and TRAPPIST-1 e (T1e hereafter.) They’re both likely to have temperatures that allow liquid water to exist on their surfaces, given the right atmospheric properties. Both PCb and T1e likely have tolerable radiation environments, as well.

    This figure from the research shows the Top of Atmosphere UV and X-ray radiation on Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets. Image Credit: Mota et al. 2024.
    This figure from the research shows the Top of Atmosphere UV and X-ray radiation on Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets. Image Credit: Mota et al. 2024.

    It’s impossible to model the surface conditions of these planets perfectly, but researchers can get close by using what’s called the equilibrium temperature. Measuring stellar flaring is easier because it can be observed accurately from great distances. Melanin production in A. niger is likewise well understood. By working with all three factors, the researchers were able to model how the mould would fare on the surface of a habitable zone planet around a red dwarf.

    “In the context of astrobiology, and particularly astromycology, the study of extremotolerant fungi has proven critical to better understanding the limits of life and habitability,” the authors write. “Aspergillus niger, an extremotolerant filamentous fungus, has been frequently used as a model organism for studying fungal survival in extreme environments, growing in a wide range of conditions.”

    A. niger’s spores have a complex and dense coating of melanin that protects them from UV and X-ray radiation. They’ve been found in the International Space Station, a testament to their ability to withstand some of the hazards in space. Though they’re terrestrial, scientists can use them to study the potential habitability of exoplanets.

    In this work, the researchers tested the survivability of A. niger spores in simulated surface conditions of PCb and T1c, where the red dwarf stars bathe the planetary surfaces in powerful UV and X-ray radiation.

    The researchers tested different types of A. niger spores in different solutions. One was a wild strain, one was a mutant strain modified to produce and excrete pyomelanin, one of the melanins of particular interest to scientists, and the third was a melanin-deficient strain. The spores were suspended in either saline solutions, melanin-rich solutions, or a control solution for a period of time while being exposed to different amounts of both X-ray and UV radiation.

    After exposure, the three types of A. niger spores were tested for their survivability and viability.

    The results show that A. niger would be able to survive the intense radiation environments that can sterilize the surfaces of red dwarf exoplanets. Not if directly exposed, but if under only a few millimetres of soil or water. “If unattenuated, X-rays from flares would most likely sterilize the surface of all studied exoplanets. However, microorganisms suited to survive under the surface would be unaffected by most exogenous radiation sources under a few millimetres of soil or water,” the researchers explain.

    This figure from the research shows the estimated subsurface X-ray absorbed dose throughout a thin layer of soil (orange) or water (blue). Water has a lower capacity for attenuating these high-energy photons, so a thicker water layer is needed to reduce the same dose compared to soil. The three dashed lines represent the LD90 (Lethal dose for 90% of a population) values for E. coli, A. niger, and D. radiodurans. E. coli is a common bacterium, and D. radiodurans is a radiation-resistant extremophile. Image Credit: Mota et al. 2024.
    This figure from the research shows the estimated subsurface X-ray absorbed dose throughout a thin layer of soil (orange) or water (blue). Water has a lower capacity for attenuating these high-energy photons, so a thicker water layer is needed to reduce the same dose compared to soil. The three dashed lines represent the LD90 (Lethal dose for 90% of a population) values for E. coli, A. niger, and D. radiodurans. E. coli is a common bacterium, and D. radiodurans is a radiation-resistant extremophile. Image Credit: Mota et al. 2024.

    What the study comes down to is melanin. The more melanin there is, the higher the survival rate for A. niger.

    “The experiments performed in this study corroborate the multifunctional purpose of melanin since A. niger MA93.1 spores germinated faster and more efficiently in a melanin-rich extract when compared to the two control solutions,” the authors write. A. niger MA93.1 is the mutant strain modified to produce and excrete melanin.

    These figures from the research show the protective power of melanin when A. niger is exposed to UV-C radiation (left) and X-ray radiation (right.) A. niger in melanin solution showed better outgrowth after radiation exposure than either the saline solution or the control solution. The solid lines represent non-irradiated A. niger, and the dashed lines represented non-irradiated A. niger control samples. Image Credit: Mota et al. 2024.
    These figures from the research show the protective power of melanin when A. niger is exposed to UV-C radiation (left) and X-ray radiation (right.) A. niger in melanin solution showed better outgrowth after radiation exposure than either the saline solution or the control solution. The solid lines represent non-irradiated A. niger, and the dashed lines represented non-irradiated A. niger control samples. Image Credit: Mota et al. 2024.

    For the exoplanets T1e and PCb, the research is promising for those of us hoping for habitability on other planets. When it comes to UV-C radiation, a significant fraction of spores from samples containing melanin could survive the superflares striking PCb and T1e, even with very little atmospheric shielding. Exposure to X-rays was similar.

    While we all like to imagine complex life elsewhere in the Universe, we’re more likely to stumble on worlds nothing like Earth. If we find life, it’ll probably be simple organisms that are finding a way to survive in what we would consider marginal or extreme environments. Since red dwarfs are so common, that’s likely where we’ll find this life.

    This study bolsters that idea.

    “Furthermore,” the authors write in their conclusion, “results from this work showed how A. niger, like other extremotolerant and extremophilic organisms, would be able to survive harsh radiation conditions on the surface of some M-dwarf exoplanets.”

    The melanin plays a critical role in their potential survival, the authors conclude. “Additionally, melanin-rich solutions were shown to be highly beneficial to the survival and germination of A. niger spores, particularly when treated with high doses of UV and X-ray radiation.”

    There’s an ongoing scientific discussion around red dwarf exoplanet habitability, with flaring playing a prominent role. But this research shows maybe it’s too soon to write red dwarfs off while also shedding light on how life on Earth may have got going.

    “These results offer an insight into how lifeforms may endure harmful events and conditions prevalent on exoplanets and how melanin may have had a role in the origin and evolution of life on Earth and perhaps on other worlds.”

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  • Webb Continues to Confirm That Universe is Behaving Strangely
    by Matt Williams on March 15, 2024 at 8:32 pm

    Over a century ago, astronomers Edwin Hubble and Georges Lemaitre independently discovered that the Universe was expanding. Since then, scientists have attempted to measure the rate of expansion (known as the Hubble-Lemaitre Constant) to determine the origin, age, and ultimate fate of the Universe. This has proved very daunting, as ground-based telescopes yielded huge uncertainties, leading to age estimates of anywhere between 10 and 20 billion years! This disparity between these measurements, produced by different techniques, gave rise to what is known as the Hubble Tension.

    It was hoped that the aptly named Hubble Space Telescope (launched in 1990) would resolve this tension by providing the deepest views of the Universe to date. After 34 years of continuous service, Hubble has managed to shrink the level of uncertainty but not eliminate it. This led some in the scientific community to suggest (as an Occam’s Razor solution) that Hubble‘s measurements were incorrect. But according to the latest data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Hubble’s successor, it appears that the venerable space telescope’s measurements were right all along.

    The research was conducted by the Supernova H0 for the Equation of State of Dark Energy (SH0ES) project, an international effort to eliminate uncertainties in the Hubble-Lemaitre Constant. The team is led by Dr. Adam Guy Riess and consists of astrophysics from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), John Hopkin’s University (JHU), the NSF National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab), Duke University, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and Raytheon Technologies. Their findings were published in the February 6th, 2024, issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

    The Hubble Tension arises from the fact that different distance measurements (aka. the “Cosmic Distance Ladder“) result in different values. For the calibration of short distances or the first “rung” on the ladder, astronomers rely on parallax measurements of nearby stars. For the next “rung,” they rely on Cepheid variables and Type Ia supernovae to measure the distances to objects tens of millions of light-years away. Distance measurements for these stars by Hubble yielded a value of 252,000 km/h per megaparsec (Mpc).

    The final rung consists of using redshift measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) to calibrate distances of billions of light-years. The mapping of this background by the ESA’s Planck satellite yielded an estimate of about 244,000 km/h per Mpc (or about 269 km/s per light year). The simplest explanation for the discrepancy was that Hubble‘s measurements were inaccurate, perhaps because of uncertainties in the Cosmic Distance Ladder. Since it was launched in December 2021, the JWST has made its own measurements of Cepheid variables with its advanced infrared optics.

    This has allowed astronomers to cross-check the optical-light measurements made by Hubble. This includes Riess, the Bloomberg Distinguished and Thomas J. Barber Professor of Physics and Astronomy at John Hopkins University. In 2011, Riess was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Albert Einstein Medal for his co-discovery of the accelerating rate of cosmic expansion – which led to the theory of “Dark Energy.” The team’s first look at Webb’s observations in 2023 confirmed that Hubble’s measurements of the expanding Universe were accurate.

    Their latest analysis was based on Webb’s observations of over 1,000 Cepheids used as “anchors” in the distance ladder, eight Type Ia supernovae, and NGC 5468 – the farthest galaxy where Cepheids have been well measured, roughly 130 million light-years distant. As Riess stated in an ESA press release, these findings have erased any lingering doubt about measurement errors:

    “With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility that we have misunderstood the Universe. We’ve now spanned the whole range of what Hubble observed, and we can rule out a measurement error as the cause of the Hubble Tension with very high confidence.”

    The Cosmic Distance Ladder visualized, showing the methods employed to measure the Hubble Constant. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Feild (STScI), and A. Riess (STScI/JHU)

    In particular, these findings have eliminated any lingering doubts that measurement inaccuracies might grow with distance. These inaccuracies would result from “stellar crowding,” where light from the Cepheids blended with that of adjacent stars. For many astronomers, the prospect of looking deeper into the Universe meant that these errors would become visible. Accounting for this effect is made all the more difficult thanks to intervening dust in the interstellar and intergalactic medium (ISM, IGM) that naturally obscures visible light.

    Thanks to Webb’s sharp imaging capabilities at infrared wavelengths, astronomers can now see through the obscuring dust and get a clearer look at distant Cepheids. Combined with Hubble’s observations, the SH0E team determined that Hubble‘s observations were correct. As a result, said Riess, scientists are left with only one explanation for the Hubble Tension, which is that there is an unseen force responsible for how the cosmos is expanding:

    “Combining Webb and Hubble gives us the best of both worlds. We find that the Hubble measurements remain reliable as we climb farther along the cosmic distance ladder. We need to find out if we are missing something on how to connect the beginning of the Universe and the present day.”

    Next-generation telescopes will investigate this mysterious unseen force in the coming years by measuring its influence on cosmic expansion. This includes NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the ESA’s Euclid mission (which launched on July 1st, 2023). Paired with additional data obtained by Webb, these observations will allow astronomers to test “early Dark Energy” and other theories that attempt to explain the observations of Hubble and Webb. In the meantime, the so-called “crisis in cosmology” will persist, but perhaps not for long.

    Further Reading: ESA

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  • NASA is Fixing its Link to Voyager 1
    by Mark Thompson on March 15, 2024 at 8:22 pm

    Voyagers 1 and 2 were, to put it simply, incredible. They were true explorers and unveiled many mysteries of the outer Solar System, revealing the outer planets in all their glory. Communication with Voyager 1 has until recently been possible, slow but possible. More recently however, it has been sending home garbled data rendering communication to all intents impossible although messages can still be sent. Engineers at NASA have narrowed the problem down to an onboard computer, the Flight Data System (FDS). A dump of the entire memory of the FDS has now been received so that engineers can attempt to troubleshoot and fix the issue. 

    Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 on its groundbreaking mission around the outer Solar System. It’s primary mission to study Jupiter and Saturn up close and to explore the environmental conditions in the outer Solar System. In 1990 it took the iconic ‘pale blue dot’ image capturing the Earth from a distance of over 6 billion km. Voyager 1 carries with it a golden record containing the sounds and images of Earth as a message to any alien civilisations that happen to intercept it. 

      Hubble’s new look at Saturn on 12 September 2021 shows rapid and extreme colour changes in the bands in the planet’s northern hemisphere, where it is now early autumn. The bands have varied throughout Hubble observations in both 2019 and 2020. Hubble’s Saturn image catches the planet following the southern hemisphere’s winter, evident in the lingering blue-ish hue of the south pole.

    Since November 2023, Voyage 1 has been transmitting a continuous signal to Earth but unfortunately this contains no useable data. It seems that the FDS on one of the three on board computers. The function of the system is to organise the engineering and science data before it gets sent back to Earth by the telemetry module. 

    On the 1 March, the team issued a ‘poke’ command to Voyager which makes the FDS start to vary parameters and sequences in case of a corrupt section of code. The process was developed to safeguard against such occasions. 

    The team at NASA working the problem detected activity on March 3 from a particular portion of the FDS that was different to the unusable data. The data received still wasn’t in the usual Voyager 1 format so the team had to explore further. One of the Deep Space Network engineers at NASA who was responsible for operating the radio equipment that communicates with Voyager managed to decode the signal. To their surprise they found the data contained a complete and more importantly readable dump from the entire FDS memory. 

    The dump contained everything – hopefully – that the engineers needed to get to the bottom of the problem. It contained program code (which controls spacecraft operations, variables based on spacecraft commands or conditions along with scientific and engineering data too. The team are now focussing their attention on this code, meticulously comparing it with a dump from before the communication problems. They are looking to see if they can identify and isolate errors in the code that could point to the cause of the problem. 

    It seems the new dump was a result of the ‘poke’ command. Unfortunately at the distance of Voyager 1, over 24 billion km, it takes over 22 hours for a signal to arrive. It then takes over 22 hours for the response to arrive here on Earth. Engineers started to decode the data on 7 March and it wasn’t until three days later they realised they had a complete data dump from FDS.

    The teams continue to analyse the data, searching for the cause to lead them to a potential fix. When they do find the solution, it will take some time to implement but NASA are confident they can resolve the issue.

    Source : NASA Engineers Make Progress Toward Understanding Voyager 1 Issue

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  • The Cosmic Neutrino Background Would Tell Us Plenty About the Universe
    by Andy Tomaswick on March 15, 2024 at 5:55 pm

    Readers of Universe Today are probably already familiar with the concept of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Its serendipitous discovery by a pair of radio astronomers at Bell Labs is the stuff of astronomical legend. Over the past decades, it has offered plenty of insights into the Big Bang and the origins of our universe. But there is another, less well-known background signal that could be just as revolutionary – or at least we think there is. The Cosmic Neutrino Background (CvB) has been posited for years but has yet to be found, primarily because neutrinos are notoriously difficult to detect. Now, a paper from Professor Douglas Scott of the University of British Columbia, developed as part of a summer school on neutrinos held by the International School of AstroParticle Physics in the Italian town of Varenna, discusses what we could potentially learn if we do manage to detect the CvB eventually.

    The paper is written in a whimsical style and was released on arXiv, so it’s unclear whether it will be formally peer-reviewed (or if the peer reviewers will remove the picture of the “elephant in the room”). However, while it touches on some advanced mathematics, it mainly focuses on potential things we can learn from analyzing the CvB. 

    Not surprisingly, many of those facts have much to do with neutrinos. We still don’t know a lot about them, as Dr. Scott points out in his introduction. Why are there three types? How do they compare to one another? And one particularly painful thing for particle physicists is what exactly their masses are. 

    Fraser interviews Dr. Ned Wright about the origins of the CMB.

    The CvB could provide insight into all three of those questions and even more about galaxy formation and the Big Bang itself. First, let’s tackle the weight of neutrinos. One of the biggest questions regarding weight is whether the masses of the three types of neutrinos are of a “normal” or “inverted” hierarchy. Those two states change which of the three types is the “smallest.” In the normal hierarchy, the mass of the third neutrino type is much more than the mass of the other two, which are almost equal. In the inverted hierarchy, the masses of the first two types are still equivalent but much more massive than that of the third type. 

    Once data is collected on the CvB, astronomers can analyze the expected shape of the waveforms based on the assumption of either hierarchy, but figure out which one better fits the observable data. It is simple enough in astronomical terms, but collecting that data is still the hard part. However, if we can narrow down the equivalent masses of neutrinos, we could potentially calculate another fundamental cosmological parameter – the sum of all their masses. 

    While that long-term goal is still a long way off, some larger-scale questions could be answered by simply understanding the CvB more generally. Measurements of the CvB can also be complicated by neutrinos from other sources, such as from other galaxies. If we understood the parameters of the CvB itself, we could eliminate that part of the signal, allowing us to more closely analyze neutrinos that were originally emitted from galaxies outside our own. With that insight, we could prove or disprove some assumptions about the early stages of galaxy formation, especially regarding the amount of energy they emit.

    The CvB could contribute to our understanding of the Big Bang.

    Given that neutrinos play a role in everything from our understanding of dark matter to fundamental questions about particle physics, it’s natural that more than one discipline is trying to determine these factors for themselves. Particle physicists, who rely on high-energy collisions in particle accelerators rather than fortuitous collisions from neutrinos created alongside the universe, also seek to understand their mass. Dr. Scott thinks that a collaboration between astronomers seeking to tease out the secrets of the CvB and particle physicists hoping to build enough of a case for the characteristics of these elusive particles from the ground up could be beneficial. Spending a few weeks in an Italian villa discussing the nuances of their fields certainly sounds like an excellent way to kick off that collaboration.

    Learn More:
    Scott – The Cosmic Neutrino Background
    UT – Searching for the Supernova Neutrino Background to the Universe
    UT – Neutrino Evidence Confirms Big Bang Predictions
    UT – What is the Cosmic Microwave Background?

    Lead Image:
    Japan’s Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector

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  • Mars Was Hiding Another Giant Volcano
    by Mark Thompson on March 15, 2024 at 5:35 pm

    Olympus Mons is well known for being the largest volcano in the Solar System. It’s joined on Mars by three other shield volcanoes; Ascraeus, Pavonis and Arsia but a recent discovery has revealed a fifth. Provisionally called Noctis volcano, this previously unknown Martian feature reaches 9,022 metres high and 450 kilometres across. Its presence has eluded planetary scientists because it has been heavily eroded and is on the boundary of the fractured maze-like terrain of Noctis Labyrinthus. 

    Mars seems to like shield volcanoes. They are a type of volcano that have a broad gently sloping profile and are generally composed of basaltic lava flows. The flows spread out over large distances during eruptions before eventually solidifying and creating long gently sloping faces. They tend to be the result of divergent plate boundaries where tectonic plates gently drift apart. It’s not just Mars that hosts them, here on Earth Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in Hawaii are great examples of shield volcanoes.

    Olympus Mons, captured by the ESA’s Mars Express mission from orbit. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck

    Noctis volcano was found on the edges of Noctis Labyrinthus, a region whose name means Labyrinth of the Night. It’s a fascinating surface feature with a complex valley, canyon and ridge system within Valles Marineris. It’s a distinctive feature on the Martian surface with disorderly, intersecting valleys and plateaus. Thought to be the result of erosion and tectonic activity the region has masked the new volcano, until now. 

    Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars as seen by Viking 1 orbiter. Courtesy NASA.
    Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars as seen by Viking 1 orbiter. Courtesy NASA.

    A team of scientists, led by SETI Institute planetary scientist Dr Pascal Lee said “We were examining the geology of an area where we had found the remains of a glacier last year when we realised we were inside a huge and deeply eroded volcano.” There were a number of signs that revealed the volcanic activity in the region and led to the volcano’s discovery. Located on the eastern edge of Noctis Labyrinthus there were a number of meseas – or flat topped mountains – arranged in an arc that seemed to reach a peak before descending away from an apparent summit area. A gentle slope softly slips away over distances of over 200km and close study seems to reveal the remains of a caldera. The study revealed what looked like a collapsed crater that once contained a lava lake and there was significant evidence of lava flows in the area including pyroclastic deposits. 

    The study of Mars over the years since the invention of the telescope and more recently the advent of space flight has revealed a complex geological history. The features across the planet seem to reveal significant modification too perhaps from thermal erosion, glacial erosion and fracturing of the crust. 

    The team conclude that the volcano is a shield volcano that has been built up of layers of accumulations of pyroclastic material, lava and ice. The ice it seems, just like volcanic lava, has built up over repeated years of snow and ice build up on the flanks of the volcano. With the fractures, likely driven by plate uplifts in the general Tharsis region, lava was able to seep through different regions of the volcano. Where the ice has been buried and subsequently melted, catastrophic collapses have occurred compounding the challenge of identifying it.

    Source : Giant Volcano Discovered on Mars

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  • It's Time for Jupiter's Annual Checkup by Hubble
    by Nancy Atkinson on March 15, 2024 at 2:48 pm

    Each year, the Hubble Space Telescope focuses on the giant planets in our Solar System when they’re near the closest point to Earth, which means they’ll be large and bright in the sky. Jupiter had its photos taken on January 5-6th, 2024, showing off both sides of the planet. Hubble was looking for storm activity and changes in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

    The images are part of OPAL, the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program. These yearly images provide a long-time baseline of observations of the outer planets, helping to understand their atmospheric dynamics and evolution as gas giants. Jupiter was at perigee — its closest point to Earth — back in November 2023.

    Jupiter’s colorful clouds present an ever-changing medley of shapes and colors, as it is the stormiest place in the Solar System. Its atmosphere is tens of thousands of kilomters/miles deep, and this stormy atmosphere gives the planet its banded appearance. Here you can find cyclones, anticyclones, wind shear, and other large and fantastic storms.

    The largest and most famous storm on Jupiter is the Great Red Spot. In the image on the left, you can see the Great Red Spot and a smaller spot to its lower right known as Red Spot Jr. The two spots pass each other every two years on average. In the right image, several smaller storms are rotating in alternating atmospheric bands.

    “The many large storms and small white clouds are a hallmark of a lot of activity going on in Jupiter’s atmosphere right now,” said OPAL project lead Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

    This 12-panel series of Hubble Space Telescope images, taken January 5-6, 2024, presents snapshots of a full rotation of the giant planet Jupiter. The Great Red Spot can be used to measure the planet’s real rotation rate of nearly 10 hours. The innermost Galilean satellite, Io is seen in several frames, along with its shadow crossing over Jupiter’s cloud tops. Hubble monitors Jupiter and the other outer solar system planets every year under the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program. Credit: NASA, ESA, Joseph DePasquale (STScI).

    NASA explains that the bands are produced by air flowing in different directions at various latitudes with speeds approaching 560 km/h (350 miles per hour). Lighter-hued areas where the atmosphere rises are called zones, while the darker regions where air falls are called belts. When these opposing flows interact, storms and turbulence appear.

    Hubble tracks these dynamic changes every year (see a few of our previous articles about Hubble’s view of Jupiter here, here and here.) There is always lots of activity and changes taking place from year to year.

    Toward the far-left edge of the right-side image is Jupiter’s tiny moon Io. The variegated orange color is where volcanic outflow deposits are seen on Io’s surface.

    Side-by-side images show the opposite faces of Jupiter. The largest storm, the Great Red Spot, is the most prominent feature in the left bottom third of this view. Credit: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC).

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  • This is a 1.3 Gigapixel Image of a Supernova Remnant
    by Mark Thompson on March 15, 2024 at 1:37 pm

    Stars more massive than the Sun blow themselves to pieces at the end of their life. Usually leaving behind either a black hole, neutron star or pulsar they also scatter heavy elements across their host galaxy. One such star went supernova nearly 11,000 years ago creating the Vela Supernova Remnant. The resultant expanding cloud of debris covers almost 100 light years and would be twenty times the diameter of the full Moon. Astronomers have recently imaged the remnant with a 570 megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) creating a stunning 1.3 gigapixel image. 

    The Vela supernova remnant is visible in long exposure photographs in the constellation Vela. It is the result of a star more massive than the Sun reaching the end of its life. As the progenitor star evolved the fusion deep in its core ceased. The lack of fusion means the cessation of the outward pushing thermonuclear force, the star instantly implodes under the immense force of gravity. The inward rushing material rebounds leading to the supernova explosions we see. The shockwave from the event is still travelling through the surrounding gas cloud thousands of years later. 

    The image recently released is one of the largest images ever taken of the object with the DECam camera. The instrument, built by the Department of Energy, was mounted upon the 4 metre Victor M Blanco telescope in Chile. It reveals amazing levels of detail with red, yellow and blue tendrils of gas. The image was taken through three colour filters in a technique familiar to amateur astronomers. The filters capture specific wavelengths of light and are then stacked on top of each other during processing to reveal the stunning high resolution colour image. 

    The Dark Energy Camera mounted on CTIO’s Blanco 4-meter telescope. Credit: DOE/FNAL/DECam/R. Hahn/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

    Supernova explosions of this type take hundreds of thousands of years for the effects to dissipate however the core of the collapsed star does remain. As the star collapses, the core is compressed leaving an ultra dense sphere of neutrons, the result of protons and electrons having been forced together under extreme pressures. The Vela Pulsar is only a few kilometres across but contains as much mass as the Sun. The stellar remnant is rotating rapidly, sweeping out a powerful beam of radiation across the Galaxy at a speed of 11 times per second.  

    Previous images from other instruments highlight the incredible capabilities of DECam.  Coupled up to the 4 metre telescope in Chile, it operates like a conventional camera. Light enters the telescope and is redirected back up the tube by the large mirror. The light passes into DECam, through a 1 metre corrective lens and then arrives at its final destination, a grid of 62 charge-coupled devices. These little sensor generate current dependent on the amount of light that falls upon them. With an array of these sensors (570 million of them to be exact), a high resolution image can be recreated!

    Source : Ghostly Stellar Tendrils Captured in Largest DECam Image Ever Released

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  • Nancy Grace Roman will Map the Far Side of the Milky Way
    by Mark Thompson on March 15, 2024 at 10:29 am

    The Galaxy is a collection of stars, planets, gas clouds and to the dismay of astronomers, dust clouds. The dust blocks starlight from penetrating so it’s very difficult to learn about the far side of the Galaxy. Thankfully the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman telescope has infrared capability so it can see through the dust. A systematic survey of the far side of the Milky Way is planned to see what’s there and could discover billions of objects in just a month. 

    The Nancy Grace Roman telescope (NGRt) has been named after NASA’s inaugural chief astronomer who was known as the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope.’ It will have a field of view at least 100 times that of Hubble giving it an impressive swathe of space in each capture. Not only will it be able to peer through dust clouds, it also has the capability to block out starlight enabling direct observation of exoplanets and other infrared observations. 

    The incredible resolution of NGRt will help to identify individual stars within interstellar dust clouds even at the far reaches of the Galaxy. It’s expected the observations will lead to the creation of an extensive stellar catalogue of stars previously unseen. Even the mapping observatory satellite Gaia (from the European Space Agency) didn’t have the mapping and precision available from NGRt which will surpass it tenfold. The extraordinary work of Gaia mapped over a billion stars within a distance of about 10,000 light years. NGRt will go a step further and map over 100 billion stars out to 100,000 light years! As far as our Galaxy is concerned, there’s not much out of NGRt’s reach. Even Spitzer, NASA’s infrared space telescope had surveyed the Galactic plane, it did not have the resolution to resolve stars on the far side of the Galaxy.

    The Spitzer Space Telescope observatory trails behind Earth as it orbits the Sun. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    In 2021 calls were made for ideas for surveys and the Galactic Plane Survey was the top ranking idea. It is now down to the scientific community to pull together observational projects to support the survey. It’s impressive to think that the survey will be targeting 1,000 square degrees of sky, equivalent to 5,000 full moons. That might not sound like too much but it would pretty much allow for all the stars in our Galaxy to be surveyed. That might sound like a lifelong piece of work but NGRt is a telescope that means business, knocking out the survey in around a month!

    Other observatories could of course undertake similar projects but it would take years for even Hubble or James Webb Space telescope to achieve the same results. They are far more suited to studying external galaxies and we have seen some incredible images revealing complex galactic structure. Our own Galaxy has rather been overlooked, but it’s actually quite difficult to study our own! The entire sky needs to be observed and then there is the obscuring effect of dust. ‘We have studied our own Solar System’s neighbourhood well’ says Catherine Zucker, co-author of a white paper entitled ‘Roman Early-Definition Astrophysics Survey Opportunity’ and astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. ‘We have a very incomplete view of what the other half of what the Milky Way looks like beyond the Galactic centre.’ she went on to say. 

    NGRt is due for launch in 2027 and, if all goes to plan, looks set to deliver not only some exciting science but the first time view of objects on the far side of the Galaxy.

    Source :  NASA’s Roman Team Selects Survey to Map Our Galaxy’s Far Side

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  • Another Hycean Planet Found? TOI-270 d
    by Evan Gough on March 14, 2024 at 5:22 pm

    Hycean planets may be able to host life even though they’re outside what scientists consider the regular habitable zone. Their thick atmospheres can trap enough heat to keep the oceans warm even though they’re not close to their stars.

    Astronomers have found another one of these potential hycean worlds named TOI-270 d.

    The word hycean is a portmanteau of ‘hydrogen’ and ‘ocean’ and it describes worlds with surface oceans and thick hydrogen-rich atmospheres. Scientists think that they may be common around red dwarfs and that they could be habitable, although any life that exists on a hycean world would be aquatic.

    Because they contain so much water, scientists think they’re larger than comparable non-hycean planets. Their larger size makes them easier targets for atmospheric study by the JWST. Though hycean worlds are largely hypothetical now, the JWST is heralding a new era in planetary science and may be able to show that they do exist.

    The telescope’s ability to characterize exoplanet atmospheres could be the key to confirming their existence. Using transmission spectroscopy, the space telescope can watch as starlight travels through their atmospheres, revealing the presence of certain important chemicals and even biosignatures.

    The exoplanet TOI-270 d could be a hycean world, and a new paper presents evidence supporting that. The paper is “Possible Hycean conditions in the sub-Neptune TOI-270 d,” and it’s published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. The authors are Måns Holmberg and Nikku Madhusudhan, both from the
    Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.

    “The JWST has ushered in a new era in atmospheric characterizations of temperate low-mass exoplanets with recent detections of carbon-bearing molecules in the candidate Hycean world K2-18 b,” the authors write. That was an important discovery, and the authors of this paper say the JWST has more to show us about exoplanet atmospheres. In this work, the pair of researchers examined two sub-Neptunes in the TOI-270 system as they transited their M-dwarf. “We report our atmospheric characterization of the outer planet TOI-270 d, a candidate Hycean world, with JWST transmission spectroscopy…,” they write.

    TOI-270 is an M-dwarf (red dwarf) star about 73 light-years away. Red dwarfs are known to sometimes flare violently, ruling out habitability on nearby planets. However, the authors describe TOI-270 as a quiet star. It hosts three sub-Neptune planets, and the pair of outermost planets, TOI-270 c and d, are both candidate hycean worlds. TOI-270 d is considered the strongest candidate.

    TOI-270 d is about 4.2 Earth masses and measures about 2.1 Earth radii. It takes just over 11 Earth days to complete an orbit, a fact that aids atmospheric study. The Hubble Space Telescope looked at TOI-270 d recently, and its observations suggested a hydrogen-rich atmosphere with some evidence of H2O. Those results warranted further examination with the more powerful JWST.

    Though scientists still haven’t proven that hycean worlds exist, they know something about their atmospheric chemistry. On an ocean world with a thick, hydrogen-rich atmosphere, scientists expect to find strong signatures of CH4 (methane) and CO2 and no evidence of NH3 (ammonia.) This is what the JWST found at K2-18b, though there is still uncertainty if that exoplanet is a hycean world.

    This graphic shows what the JWST found in the atmosphere of K2018b, a suspected hycean world. Image Credit: NASA, CSA, ESA, J. Olmstead, N. Madhusudhan
    This graphic shows what the JWST found in the atmosphere of K2-18 b, a suspected hycean world. Image Credit: NASA, CSA, ESA, J. Olmstead, N. Madhusudhan

    Every planet is different, but each type should have things in common. “For Hycean worlds, the presence of an ocean below a thin H2-rich atmosphere may be inferred by an enhancement of CO2, H2O, and/or CH4, together with a depletion of NH3,” the authors write. Since TOI-270 d is a candidate hycean world, its spectroscopy should be similar to other hycean candidates like K2-18b. “Therefore, for the Hycean candidate TOI-270 d, observations of these key carbon-, nitrogen-, and oxygen- (CNO) bearing molecules are required to assess whether or not it is a Hycean world,” the paper’s authors explain.

    In October of 2023, the JWST observed TOI-270 b and d during two transits. The observations amounted to a total exposure time of 5.3 hours. “This rare event allows for transmission spectroscopy of both planets,” the authors write.

    This figure from the study shows the spectra from both the Hubble Space Telescope and the JWST. The prominent molecules responsible for the features in different spectral regions are labelled. Image Credit: Holmberg and Madhusudhan 2024.
    This figure from the study shows the spectra from both the Hubble Space Telescope and the JWST. The prominent molecules responsible for the features in different spectral regions are labelled. Image Credit: Holmberg and Madhusudhan 2024.

    “Our atmospheric retrieval results support the inference of an H2-rich atmosphere on TOI-270 d and provide valuable insights into the abundances of dominant CNO molecules,” the authors explain. Furthermore, the abundances are similar to what the JWST found on K2-18 b, another suspected hycean world.

    But when it comes to water, the results are less certain. “We found only tentative evidence of H2O, with the detection significance and abundance estimates varying…,” the authors write. The detection and abundance of H2O were more strongly dependent on what method the researchers used to analyze the data.

    The appearance of CS2 (carbon disulphide) in TOI-270 d’s atmosphere is intriguing. It’s considered a detectable biomarker in hycean world atmospheres, as well as in hydrogen-rich atmospheres of rocky worlds, although the direct sources could also be volcanic or photochemical.

    The atmospheric spectrum also contains hints of C2H6 (ethane.) Ethane can be a byproduct of photochemical reactions involving methane and other gases, including biogenic ones. Its presence is another indication that methane is present. The researchers also point out that the abundances of ethane and carbon disulphide are well above theoretical predictions. “More observations are required to robustly constrain the presence and abundances of both molecules,” they write.

    All the researchers can conclude is that TOI-720 d is a candidate hycean world. But while the previous HST observations that hinted at its status showed the presence of H2O in an H2-rich atmosphere, the JWST observations provide more depth. The JWST’s more robust detections of CH4 and CO2, along with its non-detection of NH3, makes it an even stronger hycean world candidate.

    “The planet stands out as a promising Hycean candidate, consistent with its initial predictions as a world with the potential for habitable oceans beneath an H2-rich atmosphere,” the authors conclude.

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  • Starship Reaches Orbit on SpaceX’s Third Test but Breaks Up on Re-Entry
    by Alan Boyle on March 14, 2024 at 3:54 pm

    After falling short in its first two attempts, SpaceX got its Starship super-rocket to an orbital altitude today during the launch system’s third integrated flight test. Now it just has to work on the landing. 

    Today’s test marked a major milestone in SpaceX’s effort to develop Starship as the equivalent of a gigantic Swiss Army knife for spaceflight, with potential applications ranging from the deployment of hundreds of Starlink broadband satellites at a time to crewed odysseys to the moon, Mars and beyond.

    The 396-foot-tall (120-meter-tall) rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas at 8:25 a.m. CT (1325 GMT), with all 33 of the first-stage booster’s methane-fueled Raptor engines firing. The Super Heavy booster is considered the world’s most powerful launch vehicle, with 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

    Minutes after launch, the rocket’s second stage — known as Ship — successfully executed a hot-staging operation to start up its six engines while still attached to the Super Heavy booster. After stage separation, Ship continued onward at orbital velocity to an altitude of about 140 miles (230 kilometers). Meanwhile, the booster began a series of burns that were meant to bring it down to a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

    The Super Heavy splashdown turned out to be not as soft as SpaceX hoped. Only a few of the booster’s engines were able to light up again for the intended landing burn. The last telemetry from the booster seemed to suggest that it hit the water at almost 700 mph (1,112 kilometers per hour). “We didn’t light all the engines that we expected, and we did lose the booster,” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot said during today’s webcast. “We’ll have to go through the data to figure out exactly what happened, obviously. … But wow, Ship in space!”

    For more than 40 minutes, a camera on the second stage transmitted stunning views of Earth as seen from an orbital height. SpaceX also tested the opening and closing of a payload door that’s meant to be used for satellite deployment in orbit — and tried out a refueling procedure that involved transferring liquid oxygen between tanks.

    The flight plan for this test didn’t call for doing a complete orbit. Rather, the trajectory was designed to have Ship come down for its own soft splashdown in a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean.

    The climax of the descent came when Ship’s onboard camera captured the glow of plasma generated by the craft’s descent at speeds in excess of 16,500 mph (26,700 kilometers per hour). The atmospheric heating was expected to reach 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit (1,425 degrees Celsius).

    “We’ve never seen anything like this before,” SpaceX commentator Kate Tice said of the fiery real-time video, which was transmitted down to Earth via SpaceX’s Starlink network.

    SpaceX founder Elon Musk marveled at the sight in a posting to X / Twitter, the social media channel he owns:

    A few minutes into the descent, SpaceX lost the signal from Ship — and the prolonged silence led SpaceX’s mission controllers to assume that the ship was lost during re-entry. It’s possible that the second stage’s engines weren’t able to fire properly to reduce the speed of the descent. The mission team will have to analyze the data to determine what went wrong.

    “No splashdown today,” Huot said. “But it’s incredible to see how much further we got this time around.”

    Huot emphasized that the aim of today’s test was to learn how to improve future Starships, and eventually make them reusable. “The data is the payload on one of these flights,” he said.

    SpaceX is already getting ready for the next test flight, and the ones after that. “Hopefully, at least 6 more flights this year,” Musk said in a pre-launch X / Twitter posting. The precise timing will depend on approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration.

    NASA is depending on SpaceX to provide a version of Starship that would serve as the landing system for the Artemis program’s first crewed mission to the lunar surface, currently set for 2026. Today, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on its “successful test flight.”

    “Starship has soared into the heavens,” Nelson wrote on X / Twitter. “Together, we are making great strides through Artemis to return humanity to the Moon — then look onward to Mars.”

    Musk has pointed to Starship as the vehicle that could carry thousands of settlers to Mars in years to come — and he touched upon that theme again after today’s test flight.

    “Starship will make life multiplanetary,” he wrote.

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