https://phys.org/space-news/ en-us Phys.org provides the latest news on astronomy and space exploration. NASA's InSight mission provides data from the surface of Mars. Its seismometer, equipped with electronics built at ETH Zurich, not only records marsquakes, but unexpectedly reacts to solar eclipses as well. When the Martian moon, Phobos moves directly in front of the sun, the instrument tips slightly to one side. This miniscule effect could aid researchers in determining the planet's interior. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-solar-eclipse-mars-affects-interior.html Space Exploration Fri, 04 Sep 2020 09:10:34 EDT news518429430 The absolute model age (AMA), or geologic age of Finsen crater on the moon's far side is determined to be about 3.5 billion years (Ga) based on crater counting method, according to a study published in Icarus. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-geologic-age-finsen-crater-side.html Space Exploration Fri, 04 Sep 2020 07:08:23 EDT news518422100 A team of astronomers have identified the first direct evidence that groups of stars can tear apart their planet-forming disc, leaving it warped and with tilted rings. This new research suggests exotic planets, not unlike Tatooine in Star Wars, may form in inclined rings in bent discs around multiple stars. The results were made possible thanks to observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). https://phys.org/news/2020-09-planet-forming-disc-torn-central-stars.html Astronomy Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:00:03 EDT news518345172 A lopsided merger of two black holes may have an oddball origin story, according to a new study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-unexpected-story-lopsided-black-hole.html Astronomy Thu, 03 Sep 2020 03:59:43 EDT news518324375 To the surprise of many planetary scientists, the oxidized iron mineral hematite has been discovered at high latitudes on the Moon, according to a study published today in Science Advances led by Shuai Li, assistant researcher at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). https://phys.org/news/2020-09-earth-oxygen-rusted-moon-billions.html Space Exploration Wed, 02 Sep 2020 14:00:09 EDT news518248440 What if impact craters, long seen as harbingers of death, turned out to be the cradle of life? https://phys.org/news/2020-09-meteorite-impacts-life-earth.html Astrobiology Wed, 02 Sep 2020 12:38:26 EDT news518269102 Black holes can expel a thousand times more matter than they capture. The mechanism that governs both ejection and capture is the accretion disk, a vast mass of gas and dust spiraling around the black hole at extremely high speeds. The disk is hot and emits light as well as other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Part of the orbiting matter is pulled toward the center and disappears behind the event horizon, the threshold beyond which neither matter nor light can escape. Another, much larger, part is pushed further out by the pressure of the radiation emitted by the disk itself. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-universal-mechanism-ejection-black-holes.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 12:25:21 EDT news518268314 An analytical breakthrough that could significantly improve our chances of finding extra-terrestrial life in our galaxy has been discovered by a team at The University of Manchester. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-breakthrough-narrows-intelligent-life-milky.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 09:30:01 EDT news518257353 Using the Lijiang Observatory, astronomers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have inspected a gamma-ray blazar known as S5 0716+714. The observations provided important insights into the spectral behavior of this source, finding that it is brightness-dependent. The study was published August 26 on the arXiv.org preprint repository. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-chinese-astronomers-spectral-behavior-gamma-ray.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 09:10:01 EDT news518251072 For all its vast emptiness, the universe is humming with activity in the form of gravitational waves. Produced by extreme astrophysical phenomena, these reverberations ripple forth and shake the fabric of space-time, like the clang of a cosmic bell. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-ligo-virgo-detectors-massive-gravitational-wave.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 08:00:03 EDT news518238766 Scientists observed what appears to be a bulked-up black hole tangling with a more ordinary one. The research team, which includes physicists from the University of Maryland, detected two black holes merging, but one of the black holes was 1 1/2 times more massive than any ever observed in a black hole collision. The researchers believe the heavier black hole in the pair may be the result of a previous merger between two black holes.This type of hierarchical combining of black holes has been hypothesized in the past but the observed event, labeled GW190521, would be the first evidence for such activity. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and Virgo Collaboration announced the discovery in two papers published September 2, 2020, in the journals Physical Review Letters and Astrophysical Journal Letters. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-heaviest-black-hole-merger-gravitational.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 08:00:02 EDT news518238623 An alert pops up in your email: The latest spacecraft observations are ready. You now have 24 hours to scour 84 hours-worth of data, selecting the most promising split-second moments you can find. The data points you choose, depending on how you rank them, will download from the spacecraft in the highest possible resolution; researchers may spend months analyzing them. Everything else will be overwritten like it was never collected at all. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-magnetic-eruptions-space-ai.html Astronomy Space Exploration Wed, 02 Sep 2020 07:46:16 EDT news518251570 Astronomers have known for two decades that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, but the physics of this expansion remains a mystery. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa have made a novel prediction—the dark energy responsible for this accelerating growth comes from a vast sea of compact objects spread throughout the voids between galaxies. This conclusion is part of a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-candidate-mysterious-dark-energy.html Astronomy Tue, 01 Sep 2020 12:36:29 EDT news518182584 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) astronomers have detected 18 very metal-poor stars in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. They found that one of the stars from the sample has an extremely low metallicity, slightly below -3.0. The study was reported in a paper published August 22 on the arXiv preprint repository. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-astronomers-metal-poor-stars-sagittarius-dwarf.html Astronomy Tue, 01 Sep 2020 09:00:01 EDT news518163610 A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder is pioneering a new solution to the problem of spring cleaning on the moon: Why not zap away the grime using a beam of electrons? https://phys.org/news/2020-08-dustbuster-moon.html Space Exploration Mon, 31 Aug 2020 13:04:04 EDT news518097832 Radio astronomers have detected jets of hot gas blasted out by a black hole in the galaxy at the heart of the Phoenix Galaxy Cluster, located 5.9 billion light-years away in the constellation Phoenix. This is an important result for understanding the coevolution of galaxies, gas, and black holes in galaxy clusters. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-black-hole-cold-heart-phoenix.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:32:47 EDT news518085164 An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a supermassive black hole residing at the core of a galaxy that is accreting material. The accretion occurs in the vicinity of the hot torus around the nucleus, and it can generate rapidly moving jets of charged particles that emit bright, variable radiation as material ccelertes as it falls inward. Quasars are perhaps the best-known luminous AGN, and their nuclei are relatively unobscured by dust. Quasar nuclear regions and disks are too far away and much too small to be resolved with telescopes and astronomers trying to understand the behavior of quasars, AGN, and accretion disks are forced to infer the physics from indirect measurements. Flux variability measurements offer one such avenue. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-microlensing-quasar-accretion-disk.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:23:55 EDT news518084630 Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers from Japan have probed a nearby starburst galaxy known as NGC 1482. They detected a molecular gas outflow that could be essential to improving the understanding of the galactic wind in NGC 1482. The finding is detailed in a paper published August 20 on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-molecular-outflow-galaxy-ngc.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:00:01 EDT news518078266 Solar filaments are large magnetic structures confining cool and dense plasma suspended in the hot and tenuous corona. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-scientists-reveal-physical-scenario-sympathetic.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 07:39:06 EDT news518078344 NASA has approved the final development stage of the Southwest Research Institute-led Lucy mission to explore the Trojan asteroids in preparation for its October 2021 launch. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-first-ever-mission-trojan-asteroids-nasa.html Space Exploration Fri, 28 Aug 2020 14:29:37 EDT news517843759 In a landmark study, scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the immense envelope of gas, called a halo, surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor. Scientists were surprised to find that this tenuous, nearly invisible halo of diffuse plasma extends 1.3 million light-years from the galaxy—about halfway to our Milky Way—and as far as 2 million light-years in some directions. This means that Andromeda's halo is already bumping into the halo of our own galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-hubble-giant-halo-andromeda-galaxy.html Astronomy Space Exploration Thu, 27 Aug 2020 14:52:33 EDT news517758729 Previous studies on the formation and evolution of spiral galaxies might have been based on an incorrect assumption, suggests a team of researchers of Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA). https://phys.org/news/2020-08-decades-evolution-spiral-galaxies.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 13:29:32 EDT news517753770 Astronomers have used the GRAVITY instrument to study the immediate vicinity of a young star in more detail than ever before. Their observations confirm a thirty-year-old theory about the growth of young stars: the magnetic field produced by the star itself directs material from a surrounding accretion disk of gas and dust onto its surface. The results, published today in the journal Nature, help astronomers to better understand how stars like our Sun are formed and how Earth-like planets are produced from the disks surrounding these stellar babies. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-gas-young-stars-magnetic-field.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 10:31:42 EDT news517743097 A cosmic dance between two merging galaxies, each one containing a supermassive black hole that's rapidly feeding on so much material it creates a phenomenon known as a quasar, is a rare find. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-maunakea-observatories-pairs-merging-supermassive.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 08:21:49 EDT news517735304 A team of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has, for the first time, detected constant infrared emission from winds produced during the eruption of a black hole in an X-ray binary. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-infrared-eruption-stellar-mass-black.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 08:20:22 EDT news517735218 The detection more than a decade ago by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope of an excess of high-energy radiation in the center of the Milky Way convinced some physicists that they were seeing evidence of the annihilation of dark matter particles, but a team led by researchers at the University of California, Irvine has ruled out that interpretation. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-dark-destruction-extra-galaxy-center.html Astronomy Space Exploration Wed, 26 Aug 2020 15:15:12 EDT news517673704 When a star passes too close to a supermassive black hole, tidal forces tear it apart, producing a bright flare of radiation as material from the star falls into the black hole. Astronomers study the light from these "tidal disruption events" (TDEs) for clues to the feeding behavior of the supermassive black holes lurking at the centers of galaxies. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-black-hole-devouring-star-reveal.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2020 12:51:07 EDT news517665058 Using the AstroSat spacecraft, Indian astronomers have identified thermonuclear X-ray bursts on the low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) Cygnus X-2. The finding, reported in a paper published August 17 on the arXiv preprint server, could shed more light on the nature of this source. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-astrosat-thermonuclear-x-ray-cygnus-x-.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2020 09:10:05 EDT news517648422 The nebula known as W51 is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy. First identified in 1958 by radio telescopes, it makes a rich cosmic tapestry in this image from NASA's recently retired Spitzer Space Telescope. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-stars-nasa-spitzer-spies-hot.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2020 08:14:38 EDT news517648475 Imagine microscopic life-forms, such as bacteria, transported through space, and landing on another planet. The bacteria finding suitable conditions for its survival could then start multiplying again, sparking life at the other side of the universe. This theory, called "panspermia", support the possibility that microbes may migrate between planets and distribute life in the universe. Long controversial, this theory implies that bacteria would survive the long journey in outer space, resisting to space vacuum, temperature fluctuations, and space radiations. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-bacteria-survive-earth-mars-aggregates.html Space Exploration Wed, 26 Aug 2020 03:23:25 EDT news517631000