Monday, May 2, 2016

An Old Glass Plate Hints at a Potential New Exoplanet Discovery

An Old Glass Plate Hints at a Potential New Exoplanet Discovery:



Polluted white dwarf


What's the value to exoplanet science of sifting through old astronomical observations? Quite a lot, as a recent discovery out of the Carnegie Institution for Science demonstrates. A glass plate spectrum of a nearby solitary white dwarf known as Van Maanen's Star shows evidence of rocky debris ringing the system, giving rise to a state only recently recognized as a 'polluted white dwarf.'First, let's set the record straight. This isn't, as many news outlets have reported, a new exoplanet discovery per se... or even an old pre-discovery of a known world. Astronomers have yet to nab a bona fide exoplanet orbiting Van Maanen's Star. But obviously, something interesting is going on in the system that merits closer scrutiny.The discovery: it all started when astronomer Jay Farihi of University College London requested early plate observations of the star from the Carnegie Institute. Dating from 1917, the plate shows the bar code-looking spectrum of the star. Astronomer Walter Adams captured the image from the Mount Wilson observatory, noting on the sleeve that the 'ordinary' looking star (Van Maanen's Star wasn't identified as a white dwarf until 1923) was perhaps merely a bit hotter than our own Sun.But to Farihi's trained eye, something was up with Van Maanen's star. Specifically, it was the presence of the third set of absorption lines between the standard pair that showed evidence of calcium, magnesium and iron —materials that should have long since sunk down to the dense core of the degenerate star. Somehow, these heavy — remember, to an astronomer, the periodic table consists of hydrogen, helium and 'metals' — were being replenished from above.“The unexpected realization that this 1917 plate from our archive contains the earliest recorded evidence of a polluted white dwarf system is just incredible,” says Carnegie Observatory director John Mulchaey in a recent press release. “And the fact that it was made by such a prominent astronomer in our history as Walter Adams enhances the excitement.”The very fact that this crucial bit of evidence was sitting on a plate locked away in a vault for a decade is amazing. We now know that rocky rings of debris around white dwarf stars can give rise to what's known as polluted white dwarfs. And where there's debris, there are often planets. As newer exoplanet hunters such as TESS, JWST, WFIRST, LSST and the Gemini Planet Imager begin to scour the skies, we wouldn't be at all surprised if Van Maanen's Star turned out to have planets.The Carnegie Institute maintains a collection of 250,000 glass plates taken from the Las Campanas, Mount Wilson and Palomar observatories dating back over century. These stellar spectra were painstakingly all examined by 'Mk-1 eyeball,' and enabled early astronomers such as Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt to categorize stars by color and temperature and identify standard distance candles known as Cepheid variables. Both concepts are still used by astronomers today.Finding Van Maanen's StarLocated 14 light years distant, the high proper motion of Van Maanen's star was first noted by Adriaan Van Maanen in 1917, the same year the plate was made. A high proper motion hints that a star is located near our solar neighborhood. Van Maanen's Star is the third white dwarf discovered (after Sirius B and 40 Eridani B) and the third closest to our Sun (after Sirius B and Procyon B). Van Maanen's Star also holds the distinction of being the closest solitary white dwarf to our solar system.Located in the constellation Pisces, Van Maanen's Star shines at magnitude +12.4. It also made our handy list of white dwarf stars for backyard telescopes.Many false alarms of claimed exoplanet discoveries dot the history of 20th century astronomy. One of the most notorious were the claims of a planet orbiting Barnard's Star, betrayed by supposed wobbles detected in its high proper motion. The first true modern exoplanet was actually a trio discovered orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1994. Ironically, though the exoplanet tally now sits at 2108 and counting, no known worlds have been identified around Barnard's star.What other future secrets do those old glass plates hold? “We have a ton of history sitting in our basement,” says Mulchaey in this month's press release. “Who knows what other finds we might unearth in the future?”

The post An Old Glass Plate Hints at a Potential New Exoplanet Discovery appeared first on Universe Today.

How Do We Terraform Mercury?

How Do We Terraform Mercury?:



Images of Mercury's northern polar region, provided by MESSENGER. Credit: NASA/JPL


Welcome back to another installment in the "Definitive Guide to Terraforming" series! We complete our tour of the Solar System with the planet Mercury. Someday, humans could make a home on this hostile planet, leading to the first Hermians!



The planet Mercury is an intensely hot place. As the nearest planet to our Sun, surface temperatures can get up to a scorching 700 K (427° C). Ah, but there's a flip-side to that coin. Due to it having no atmosphere to speak of, Mercury only experiences intensely hot conditions on the side that is directly facing the Sun. On the nighttime side, temperatures drop to well below freezing, as low as 100 K (-173° C).



Due to its low orbital period and slow rate of rotation, the nighttime side remains in the dark for an extended period of time. What's more, in the northern polar region, which is permanently shaded, conditions are cold enough that water is able to exist there in ice form. Because of this, and a few reasons besides, there are many who believe that humanity could colonize and even terraform parts of Mercury someday.







The Planet Mercury:

With a mean radius of 2440 km and a mass of 3.3022×1023 kg, Mercury is the smallest planet in our Solar System – equivalent in size to 0.38 Earths. And while it is smaller than the largest natural satellites in our system – such as Ganymede and Titan – it is more massive. In fact, Mercury’s density (at 5.427 g/cm3) is the second highest in the Solar System, only slightly less than Earth’s (5.515 g/cm3).



Mercury also has the most eccentric orbit of any planet in the Solar System. With an eccentricity of 0.205, its distance from the Sun ranges from 46 to 70 million km (29-43 million mi), and takes 87.969 Earth days to complete an orbit. But with an average orbital speed of 47.362 km/s, Mercury also takes 58.646 days to complete a single rotation. This means that it takes 176 Earth days for the sun to rise and set on Mercury, which is twice as long as a single Hermian year.







As one of the four terrestrial planets of the Solar System, Mercury is composed of approximately 70% metallic and 30% silicate material. Based on its density and size, a number of inferences can be made about its internal structure. For example, geologists estimate that Mercury’s core occupies about 42% of its volume, compared to Earth’s 17%.



The interior is believed to be composed of a molten iron which is surrounded by a 500 – 700 km mantle of silicate material. At the outermost layer is Mercury’s crust, which is believed to be 100 – 300 km thick. The surface is also marked by numerous narrow ridges that extend up to hundreds of kilometers in length. It is believed that these were formed as Mercury’s core and mantle cooled and contracted at a time when the crust had already solidified.



Mercury’s core has a higher iron content than that of any other major planet in the Solar System, and several theories have been proposed to explain this. The most widely accepted theory is that Mercury was once a larger planet which was struck by a planetesimal that stripped away much of the original crust and mantle, leaving behind the core as a major component.



Another theory is that Mercury formed from the solar nebula before the Sun’s energy output had stabilized, and was twice its present mass. However, most of this mass was vaporized as the protosun contracted and exposed it to extreme temperatures. A third hypothesis is that the solar nebula caused drag on the particles from which Mercury was accreting, which meant that lighter particles were lost and not gathered to form Mercury.







At a glance, Mercury looks similar to the Earth’s moon. It has a dry landscape pockmarked by asteroid impact craters and ancient lava flows. Combined with extensive plains, these indicate that the planet has been geologically inactive for billions of years. However, unlike the Moon and Mars, which have significant stretches of similar geology, Mercury’s surface appears much more jumbled.



The vast majority of Mercury’s surface is hostile to life, where temperatures gravitate between extremely hot and cold – i.e. 700 K (427 °C; 800 °F) 100 K (-173 °C; -280 °F). This is due to its proximity to the Sun, the almost total lack of an atmosphere, and its very slow rotation. However, at the poles, temperatures are consistently low -93 °C (-135 °F) due to it being permanently shadowed.



In 2012, NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) probe detected signs of water ice and organic molecules in Mercury's northern polar region. For over twenty years, scientists had suspected that in this area, Mercury's craters could contain ice that was most likely deposited by comets in the past. Radar signals appeared to confirm as much, but it took the MESSENGER mission to confirm it.



Scientists believe that Mercury's southern pole may also have ice. All told, it is estimated that Mercury could hold between 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of water ice at both poles, and the ice could be up to 20 meters deep in places. In the north pole, this water is particularly concentrated in craters like the Tryggvadottir, Tolkien, Kandinsky, and Prokofiev craters - which measure between 31 to 112 km in diameter.



https://youtu.be/PwSne3G9J2o



In addition, the MESSENGER mission also noted the presence of "hollows" on Mercury's surface which appeared to reach underground. Similar to hollows observed on the Moon and Mars, these features could be indicative of lava tubes that were formed during Mercury's volcanically-active past. In both of these cases, stable lava tubes are seen as a possible location for colonies that would be shielded from radiation, space, and other hazards.



Possible Methods:

While terraforming an entire planet like Mercury is not exactly practical, its subsurface geology, cratered surface, and orbital characteristics make colonizing and terraforming some parts of it attractive. For example, in the northern polar region, where permanently-shadowed craters house water ice and organic molecules, domed structures could be set up that would allow any atmosphere created within to be contained.



This is a variation on the "Shell Worlds" concept, which in turn is part of the larger concepts known as paraterraforming - where a world is enclosed (in whole or in part) in an artificial shell in order to transform its environment. Using this process, the northern craters could be enclosed within a dome, orbital mirrors could focus sunlight within the domes, and the water ice could be evaporated.



Through the process of photolysis, the water vapor could be converted into oxygen gas and hydrogen, the latter of which could either be harvested as fuel, or vented into space. Ammonia could also be introduced, most likely mined from the outer Solar System, and converted into nitrogen gas through the introduction of specific strains of bacteria - Nitrosomonas, Pseudomonas and Clostridium species – that would convert the ammonia into nitrites (NO²-) and then nitrogen gas.







Lava tubes on Mercury could similarly be colonized, with settlements built within stable ones. These areas would be naturally shielded to cosmic and solar radiation, extremes in temperature, and could be pressurized to create breathable atmospheres. In addition, at this depth, Mercury experiences far less in the way of temperature variations and would be warm enough to be habitable.



Potential Benefits:

Mercury's relative proximity to Earth makes it a good location for terraforming and colonization. On average, Mercury is 77 million km (48 million miles) from Earth. To put that distance in perspective, it took the Mariner 10 probe (which took a much more direct route than MESSENGER) took a little under five months to reach Mercury from Earth.



Colonies established on Mercury would also be in a good position to provide extensive minerals and solar power to other planets. As the second-densest planet in the Solar System, Mercury has an abundance of iron, nickel and silicate minerals that would be of use locally and elsewhere. Also, its proximity to the Sun means that solar operations, possibly in the form of space-based solar arrays, could harness abundant energy.



This energy could then be beamed to other worlds for local use. Solar wind also adds hydrogen and helium to the planet's exosphere, while radioactive decay within its crust is an additional source of helium. These could also be mined to create hydrogen fuel and helium-3, both of which could be used to power fusion reactors both on and off-planet.







As a result, colonies on Mercury, thanks to the abundance of water ice, minerals and other elements, would likely be largely self-sufficient as well. Unlike other potential sites that would require the importation of vast amounts of resources, Mercury's first wave of colonists (aka. Hermians) could begin to see to much of their own needs shortly after setting down.



Potential Challenges:

As always, the prospect of terraforming Mercury presents several challenges, an addressing one requires that others be addressed simultaneously. Fortunately, compared to many other planets (or moons) in the Solar System, they are fewer in number. In short, the challenges come down to issues of distance, technology, resources and infrastructure, and natural hazards.



To address the first, travel to and from Mercury would still take a significant amount of time using existing technology. While closer than many other potential sites, several trips would need to be made by crewed spacecraft, construction ships and support craft, which would take time and cost quite a lot using existing technology. In addition, hauling resources from the outer Solar System would take on the order on decades using the conventional engines and spacecraft.



Which brings us to item two: technology. In order for ships to travel to and from the outer Solar System to procure ammonia and other volatiles in large quantities (and in a reasonable amount of time), they would need to be equipped with advanced propulsion systems to make the journey. This could take the form of Nuclear-Thermal Propulsion (NTP), Fusion-drive systems, or some other advanced concept. But thus far, no such drive systems exist, with some being decades or more away from feasibility.







As for the next item, resources and infrastructure, colonizing and paraterraforming Mercury would require plenty of both. To start, it would take an immense amount of minerals and other materials to construct domes large enough to encase any of Mercury's polar craters. Building orbital mirrors would be similarly be taxing. And while these minerals could be harvested locally, the process would be very expensive.



Similarly, the technology behind space-based solar power is not even close to where it would need to be harvest energy from the Sun and beam it directly to Earth (or other locations across the Solar System). Here too, the technology needs to come a long way; and even after we have that worked out, creating such a network between Mercury and other planets would be very expensive.



At the same time, it would require a level of infrastructure that also does not yet exist. Aside from a large fleet of spacecraft to ferry colonists, settling Mercury would also require a significant amount of construction vessels and automated robots. We would also need a series of stations between Earth and Mercury to provide for refueling and resupply.



And last, any construction and settlement efforts would have to deal with the dangers of exposure to extreme heat and Solar radiation. While a colony in the northern polar region and within Mercury's lava tubes would be shielded, labor crews and construction ships would have to risk working in extremely hazardous conditions in order to build them.







Conclusion:

In the end, and compared to other terraforming ventures, the colonization and paraterrforming of Mercury does seems rather doable. While it would require a huge commitment in terms of resources, the creation of technology and infrastructure that does not yet exist, and some serious hazard pay for the work crews who would assemble the Hermian settlements, the advantages could be enough to justify such an undertaking.



A colonized Mercury would mean abundant minerals and energy for the rest of the Solar System. Having these resources at our fingertips would be intrinsic to creating a post-scarcity economy, and could speed the development of colonies and terraforming efforts elsewhere.



We have written many interesting articles about Mercury and terraforming here at Universe Today. Here's The Planet Mercury, The Definitive Guide to Terraforming, How Do We Terraforming Mars?, How Do We Terraform Venus?, How Do We Terraform the Moon?, How Do We Terraform Jupiter's Moons?, and How Do We Terraform Saturn's Moons?



We’ve also got articles that explore the more radical side of terraforming, like Could We Terraform Jupiter?, Could We Terraform The Sun?, and Could We Terraform A Black Hole?



Astronomy Cast also has a good episode on the subject, Episode 49: Mercury



And if you like the videos, come check out our Patreon page and find out how you can get these videos early while helping us bring you more great content!

The post How Do We Terraform Mercury? appeared first on Universe Today.

Fermi Links Neutrino Blast To Known Extragalactic Blazar

Fermi Links Neutrino Blast To Known Extragalactic Blazar:



This image shows the galaxy PKS B1424-418, and the blazar that lives there. The dotted circle is the area in which Fermi detected the neutrino Big Bird. Image: NASA/DOE/LAT Collaboration.


A unique observatory buried deep in the clear ice of the South Pole region, an orbiting observatory that monitors gamma rays, a powerful outburst from a black hole 10 billion light years away, and a super-energetic neutrino named Big Bird. These are the cast of characters that populate a paper published in Nature Physics, on Monday April 18th.



The observatory that resides deep in the cold dark of the Antarctic ice has one job: to detect neutrinos. Neutrinos are strange, standoffish particles, sometimes called 'ghost particles' because they're so difficult to detect. They're like the noble gases of the particle world. Though neutrinos vastly outnumber all other atoms in our Universe, they rarely interact with other particles, and they have no electrical charge. This allows them to pass through normal matter almost unimpeded. To even detect them, you need a dark, undisturbed place, isolated from cosmic rays and background radiation.



This explains why they built an observatory in solid ice. This observatory, called the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, is the ideal place to detect neutrinos. On the rare occasion when a neutrino does interact with the ice surrounding the observatory, a charged particle is created. This particle can be either an electron, muon, or tau. If these charged particles are of sufficiently high energy, then the strings of detectors that make up IceCube can detect it. Once this data is analyzed, the source of the neutrinos can be known.



The next actor in this scenario is NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. Fermi was launched in 2008, with a specific job in mind. Its job is to look at some of the exceptional phenomena in our Universe that generate extraordinarily large amounts of energy, like super-massive black holes, exploding stars, jets of hot gas moving at relativistic speeds, and merging neutron stars. These things generate enormous amounts of gamma-ray energy, the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that Fermi looks at exclusively.



Next comes PKS B1424-418, a distant galaxy with a black hole at its center. About 10 billion years ago, this black hole produced a powerful outburst of energy, called a blazar because it's pointed at Earth. The light from this outburst started arriving at Earth in 2012. For a year, the blazar in PKS B1424-418 shone 15-30 times brighter in the gamma spectrum than it did before the burst.



Detecting neutrinos is a rare occurrence. So far, IceCube has detected about a hundred of them. For some reason, the most energetic of these neutrinos are named after characters on the popular children's show called Sesame Street. In December 2012, IceCube detected an exceptionally energetic neutrino, and named it Big Bird. Big Bird had an energy level greater than 2 quadrillion electron volts. That's an enormous amount of energy shoved into a particle that is thought to have less than one millionth the mass of an electron.







Big Bird was clearly a big deal, and scientists wanted to know its source. IceCube was able to narrow the source down, but not pinpoint it. Its source was determined to be a 32 degree wide patch of the southern sky. Though helpful, that patch is still the size of 64 full Moons. Still, it was intriguing, because in that patch of sky was PKS B1424-418, the source of the blazar energy detected by Fermi. However, there are also other blazars in that section of the sky.



The scientists looking for Big Bird's source needed more data. They got it from TANAMI, an observing program that used the combined power of several networked terrestrial telescopes to create a virtual telescope 9,650 km(6,000 miles) across. TANAMI is a long-term program monitoring 100 active galaxies that are located in the southern sky. Since TANAMI is watching other active galaxies, and the energetic jets coming from them, it was able to exclude them as the source for Big Bird.



The team behind this new paper, including lead author Matthias Kadler of the University of Wuerzberg in Germany, think they've found the source for Big Bird. They say, with only a 5 percent chance of being wrong, that PKS B1424-418 is indeed Big Bird's source. As they say in their paper, "The outburst of PKS B1424–418 provides an energy output high enough to explain the observed petaelectronvolt event (Big Bird), suggestive of a direct physical association."



So what does this mean? It means that we can pinpoint the source of a neutrino. And that's good for science. Neutrinos are notoriously difficult to detect, and they're not that well understood. The new detection method, involving the Fermi Telescope in conjunction with the TANAMI array, will not only be able to locate the source of super-energetic neutrinos, but now the detection of a neutrino by IceCube will generate a real-time alert when the source of the neutrino can be narrowed down to an area about the size of the full Moon.



This promises to open a whole new window on neutrinos, the plentiful yet elusive 'ghost particles' that populate the Universe.

The post Fermi Links Neutrino Blast To Known Extragalactic Blazar appeared first on Universe Today.

Three New Earth-sized Planets Found Just 40 Light-Years Away

Three New Earth-sized Planets Found Just 40 Light-Years Away:



Artist's impression of the view from the most distant exoplanet discovered around the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser.



Three more potentially Earthlike worlds have been discovered in our galactic backyard, announced online today by the European Southern Observatory. Researchers using the 60-cm TRAPPIST telescope at ESO’s La Silla observatory in Chile have identified three Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting a star just 40 light-years away.

The star, originally classified as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 but now known as TRAPPIST-1, is a dim “ultracool” brown dwarf only .05% as bright as our Sun . Located in the constellation Aquarius, it’s now the 37th-farthest star known to host orbiting exoplanets.

The exoplanets were discovered via the transit method (TRAPPIST stands for Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope) through which the light from a star is observed to dim slightly by planets passing in front of it from our point of view. This is the same method that NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has used to find over 1,000 confirmed exoplanets.

Location of TRAPPIST-1 in the constellation Aquarius. Credit: ESO/IAU and Sky & Telescope.
Location of TRAPPIST-1 in the constellation Aquarius. Credit: ESO/IAU and Sky & Telescope.
As a brown dwarf “failed star” TRAPPIST-1 is a very small and dim and isn’t easily visible from Earth, but it’s its very dimness that has allowed its planets to be discovered with existing technology. Their subtle silhouettes may have been lost in the glare of larger, brighter stars.

Follow-up measurements of the three exoplanets indicated that they are all approximately Earth-sized and have temperatures ranging from Earthlike to Venuslike (which is, admittedly, a fairly large range.) They orbit their host star very closely with periods measured in Earth days, not years.

“With such short orbital periods, the planets are between 20 and 100 times closer to their star than the Earth to the Sun,” said Michael Gillon, lead author of the research paper. “The structure of this planetary system is much more similar in scale to the system of Jupiter’s moons than to that of the Solar System.”

Read more: Mini Solar System Around a Brown Dwarf

Structure of the TRAPPIST-1 exosystem. The green is the star's habitable zone. Credit: PHL.
Structure of the TRAPPIST-1 exosystem. The green is the star’s habitable zone. Credit: PHL.
Although these three new exoplanets are Earth-sized they do not yet classify as “potentially habitable,” at least by the standards of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL) operated by the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo. The planets fall outside PHL’s required habitable zone; two are too close to the host star and one is too far away.

This does not mean that the exoplanets are completely uninhabitable, though; it’s entirely possible that there are regions on or within them where life could exist, not unlike Mars or some of the moons in our own Solar System.

The exoplanets are all likely tidally locked in their orbits, so even though the closest two are too hot on their star-facing side and too cold on the other, there may be regions along the east or west terminators that maintain a climate conducive to life.

“Now we have to investigate if they’re habitable,” said co-author Julien de Wit at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. “We will investigate what kind of atmosphere they have, and then will search for biomarkers and signs of life.”

Artist's impression of the view from the most distant exoplanet discovered around the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser.
Artist’s impression of the view from the most distant exoplanet discovered around the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser.
Discovering three planets orbiting such a small yet extremely common type of star hints that there are likely many, many more such worlds in our galaxy and the Universe as a whole.

“So far, the existence of such ‘red worlds’ orbiting ultra-cool dwarf stars was purely theoretical, but now we have not just one lonely planet around such a faint red star but a complete system of three planets,” said study co-author Emmanuel Jehin.

The team’s research was presented in a paper entitled “Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star” and will be published in Nature.

Source: ESO, PHL, and MIT

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By Jason Major  -        
A graphic designer in Rhode Island, Jason writes about space exploration on his blog Lights In The Dark, Discovery News, and, of course, here on Universe Today. Ad astra!

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Sunday, May 1, 2016

A Dust Angel Nebula

A Dust Angel Nebula:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 28


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
Explanation: The combined light of stars along the Milky Way are reflected by these cosmic dust clouds that soar some 300 light-years or so above the plane of our galaxy. Dubbed the Angel Nebula, the faint apparition is part of an expansive complex of dim and relatively unexplored, diffuse molecular clouds. Commonly found at high galactic latitudes, the dusty galactic cirrus can be traced over large regions toward the North and South Galactic poles. Along with the refection of starlight, studies indicate the dust clouds produce a faint reddish luminescence, as interstellar dust grains convert invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Also capturing nearby Milky Way stars and an array of distant background galaxies, the deep, wide-field 3x5 degree image spans about 10 Full Moons across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation Ursa Major.

Fermi's Gamma-ray Moon

Fermi's Gamma-ray Moon:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 29


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.


Fermi's Gamma-ray Moon

Image Credit: NASA, DOE, International Fermi LAT Collaboration


Explanation: If you could only see gamma-rays, photons with up to a billion or more times the energy of visible light, the Moon would be brighter than the Sun! That startling notion underlies this novel image of the Moon, based on data collected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's Large Area Telescope (LAT) instrument during its first seven years of operation (2008-2015). Fermi's gamma-ray vision doesn't distinguish details on the lunar surface, but a gamma-ray glow consistent with the Moon's size and position is clearly found at the center of the false color map. The brightest pixels correspond to the most significant detections of lunar gamma-rays. Why is the gamma-ray Moon so bright? High-energy charged particles streaming through the Solar System known as cosmic rays constantly bombard the lunar surface, unprotected by a magnetic field, generating the gamma-ray glow. Because the cosmic rays come from all sides, the gamma-ray Moon is always full and does not go through phases. The first gamma-ray image of the Moon was captured by the EGRET instrument onboard the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory, launched 25 years ago.

Tomorrow's picture: Moon over Makemake



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Moon over Makemake

Moon over Makemake:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 30



See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.


Moon over Makemake

Illustration Credit: Alex H. Parker (Southwest Research Institute)


Explanation: Makemake, second brightest dwarf planet of the Kuiper belt, has a moon. Nicknamed MK2, Makemake's moon reflects sunlight with a charcoal-dark surface, about 1,300 times fainter than its parent body. Still, it was spotted in Hubble Space Telescope observations intended to search for faint companions with the same technique used to find the small satellites of Pluto. Just as for Pluto and its satellites, further observations of Makemake and orbiting moon will measure the system's mass and density and allow a broader understanding of the distant worlds. About 160 kilometers (100 miles) across compared to Makemake's 1,400 kilometer diameter, MK2's relative size and contrast are shown in this artist's vision. An imagined scene of an unexplored frontier of the Solar System, it looks back from a spacecraft's vantage as the dim Sun shines along the Milky Way. Of course, the Sun is over 50 times farther from Makemake than it is from planet Earth.

Tomorrow's picture: Moon over Sunday



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Saturday, April 30, 2016

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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

M16: Pillars of Star Creation

M16: Pillars of Star Creation:

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2016 April 24


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.


M16: Pillars of Star Creation

Image Credit: J. Hester, P. Scowen (ASU), HST, NASA


Explanation: Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars. At each pillars' end, the intense radiation of bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense EGGs exposed. The Eagle Nebula, associated with the open star cluster M16, lies about 7000 light years away. The pillars of creation were imaged again in 2007 by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope in infrared light, leading to the conjecture that the pillars may already have been destroyed by a local supernova, but light from that event has yet to reach the Earth.

Be Honest: Have you seen this image before?

Tomorrow's picture: Strands of Star Death



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Simeis 147: Supernova Remnant

Simeis 147: Supernova Remnant:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 25


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
Explanation: It's easy to get lost following the intricate strands of the Spaghetti Nebula. A supernova remnant cataloged as Simeis 147 and Sh2-240, the glowing gas filaments cover nearly 3 degrees -- 6 full moons -- on the sky. That's about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud's estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. This sharp composite includes image data taken through a narrow-band filter to highlight emission from hydrogen atoms tracing the shocked, glowing gas. The supernova remnant has an estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from the massive stellar explosion first reached Earth about 40,000 years ago. But the expanding remnant is not the only aftermath. The cosmic catastrophe also left behind a spinning neutron star or pulsar, all that remains of the original star's core.

NGC 6872: A Stretched Spiral Galaxy

NGC 6872: A Stretched Spiral Galaxy:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 26



See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.


NGC 6872: A Stretched Spiral Galaxy

Image Credit: FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO; Processing & License: Judy Schmidt


Explanation: What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known. The galaxy's protracted shape likely results from its continuing collision with the smaller galaxy IC 4970, visible just above center. Of particular interest is NGC 6872's spiral arm on the upper left, as pictured here, which exhibits an unusually high amount of blue star forming regions. The light we see today left these colliding giants before the days of the dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. NGC 6872 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Peacock (Pavo).

Tomorrow's picture: ancient star ball



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

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Sunday, April 24, 2016

Milky Way in Moonlight

Milky Way in Moonlight:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 23


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.


Milky Way in Moonlight

Image Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi (TWAN)


Explanation: A waning crescent moon, early morning twilight, and Al Hamra's city lights on the horizon can't hide the central Milky Way in this skyscape from planet Earth. Captured in a single exposure, the dreamlike scene looks southward across the region's grand canyon from Jabal Shams (Sun Mountain), near the highest peak in Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula. Mist, moonlight, and shadows still play along the steep canyon walls. Dark rifts along the luminous band of the Milky Way are the galaxy's cosmic dust clouds. Typically hundreds of light-years distant, they obscure starlight along the galactic plane, viewed edge-on from the Solar System's perspective.

Tomorrow's picture: star stuff



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Asperatus Clouds Over New Zealand

Asperatus Clouds Over New Zealand:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 17


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.


Asperatus Clouds Over New Zealand

Image Credit & Copyright: Witta Priester


Explanation: What kind of clouds are these? Although their cause is presently unknown, such unusual atmospheric structures, as menacing as they might seem, do not appear to be harbingers of meteorological doom. Known informally as Undulatus asperatus clouds, they can be stunning in appearance, unusual in occurrence, are relatively unstudied, and have even been suggested as a new type of cloud. Whereas most low cloud decks are flat bottomed, asperatus clouds appear to have significant vertical structure underneath. Speculation therefore holds that asperatus clouds might be related to lenticular clouds that form near mountains, or mammatus clouds associated with thunderstorms, or perhaps a foehn wind -- a type of dry downward wind that flows off mountains. Such a wind called the Canterbury arch streams toward the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. The featured image, taken above Hanmer Springs in Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2005, shows great detail partly because sunlight illuminates the undulating clouds from the side.

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Tomorrow's picture: space station



< | Archive | Submissions | Index | Search | Calendar | RSS | Education | About APOD | Discuss | >



Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Andromeda Rising over Colombia

Andromeda Rising over Colombia:

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 April 19


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
Explanation: What’s that rising over the hill? A galaxy. Never having seen a galaxy themselves, three friends of an industrious astrophotographer experienced an exhilarating night sky firsthand that featured not only the band of our Milky Way galaxy but also Milky Way's neighbor -- the Andromeda galaxy. Capturing the scene required careful pre-shot planning including finding a good site, waiting for good weather, balancing relative angular sizes with a zoom lens, managing ground lighting, and minimizing atmospheric light absorption. The calculated shot therefore placed the friends on a hill about 250 meters away and about 50 meters up. The featured single-exposure image was taken last July 26 at about 11:30 pm in Guatape, Colombia, about two hours from Medellin. The surrounding stars visible are all nearby in our own galaxy, while the small galaxy just above M31 is Andromeda's satellite M110.