Space News and Discussions

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caltrek
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'Star Trek' Star Tim Russ Helps Detect Asteroid for NASA's Upcoming Mission
by Sudiksha Kochi
August 27, 2021

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertai ... 204195002/

Introduction:
(USA Today) Tim Russ, who played Lieutenant Commander Tuvok on the sci-fi show "Star Trek: Voyager" is going back to his space roots. On his latest mission, he's helping detect asteroids for NASA.

Russ and five other citizen astronomers contributed to the detection of Patroclus, an asteroid orbiting Jupiter.

The purpose of detecting the asteroid is to serve NASA's upcoming mission in October where it will launch a probe named Lucy into space, according to Russ. NASA said in a statement posted to their website that Lucy will complete a 12-year journey to eight different asteroids: a Main Belt and seven Trojans.

"These Trojan asteroids were captured in Jupiter's orbit, probably from farther out in the solar system, so they're more rare and more pristine in terms of what information they might have in their chemical makeup," Russ tells USA TODAY.

According to NASA, the Trojan asteroids are "stabilized by the Sun and its largest planet in a gravitational balancing act. …These primitive bodies hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system, and perhaps even the origins of organic material on Earth."
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Tim Russ stands next to his telescope.
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Enigmatic Object Called 'The Accident' Hints of an Entire Population of Unknown Stars
by Michele Starr
September 1, 2021

https://www.sciencealert.com/something- ... ic-objects

Introduction:
(Science Alert) There are many kinds of stars out there in the big, wide Universe. We have a whole system for categorizing them according to temperature, size, and brightness.

Even so, a recently discovered object is suggesting that we're far from knowing everything.

It's been nicknamed 'The Accident', and it's a type of object called a brown dwarf, also known as failed stars. But it's unlike any brown dwarf we've ever seen before, with a confusing spectrum – suggesting that it may be nearly as old as the Universe.

Since all of the other brown dwarfs discovered to date are considerably younger, this means there could be an entire population of very old ones out there that we've simply not spotted because they don't look like we expect them to.

"This object defied all our expectations," said astrophysicist Davy Kirkpatrick of Caltech.
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That faint, moving object in the bottom left is The Accident.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Dan Caselden
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NASA's Hubble Telescope Spots Rare Object That Looks Like a Space Lightsaber
by Amanda Kooser
August 31, 2021

https://www.cnet.com/news/nasas-hubble- ... ightsaber/

Introduction:
(c/net)Paging Luke Skywalker. A newly released Hubble Space Telescope view of a slash of glowing gas against the star-studded darkness of space has me in a very Star Wars mood. The European Space Agency described the object as a "relatively rare celestial phenomenon" in a statement Monday.

What we're seeing in the image is a Herbig–Haro object (named for astronomers George Herbig and Guillermo Haro) called HH111. The setting is a star-forming region in the constellation of Orion. The jet of gas looks like it's cosplaying as a blue lightsaber.

Herbig-Haro objects have dramatic origin stories. "Newly formed stars are often very active, and in some cases they expel very narrow jets of rapidly moving ionized gas — gas that is so hot that its molecules and atoms have lost their electrons, making the gas highly charged," said ESA. "The streams of ionized gas then collide with the clouds of gas and dust surrounding newly formed stars at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second."

NASA is the agency that first clued me into how Herbig–Haro objects can look like lightsabers in space. In 2015, NASA shared a Hubble view of Herbig-Haro Jet HH24 just ahead of the opening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, calling it a "double-bladed lightsaber" with a "Jedi-like cloak of dust."
The spectacular view of HH111 comes from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, which sees in both optical (close to what our human eyes see) and infrared. The ability to make observations in infrared gives Hubble the clarity to peer through the gas and dust to get a good look at objects like this one.
Image
Herbig–Haro object HH111 resembles a Star Wars weapon.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Nisini
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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Planetary radar observes 1,000th near-earth asteroid since 1968
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-planetary ... eroid.html
by Jet Propulsion Laboratory
On Aug. 14, 2021, a small near-Earth asteroid (NEA) designated 2021 PJ1 passed our planet at a distance of over 1 million miles (about 1.7 million kilometers). Between 65 and 100 feet (20 and 30 meters) wide, the recently discovered asteroid wasn't a threat to Earth. But this asteroid's approach was historic, marking the 1,000th NEA to be observed by planetary radar in just over 50 years.

And only seven days later, planetary radar observed the 1,001st such object, but this one was much larger.
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New class of supernova discovered

4th September 2021

Until now, astronomers have divided supernovae into two main types: those involving the core collapse of very massive stars at the end of their lives, and those involving the accretion of material onto white dwarfs.

A third type has now been confirmed, however, following the results of a multi-year project using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) in central New Mexico, USA. Researchers found strong evidence that a black hole or neutron star spiralled its way into the core of a companion star and caused that companion to explode.

"Theorists had predicted that this could happen, but this is the first time we've actually seen such an event," said Dillon Dong, a graduate student at Caltech and lead author on a paper reporting the discovery in the journal Science.

https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/202 ... meline.htm


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Astronomers Create the First 3D-printed Stellar Nurseries
by Tim Stephens
September 2, 2021

https://news.ucsc.edu/2021/09/touching-stars.html

Introduction:
(UC Santa Cruz) Astronomers can’t touch the stars they study, but astrophysicist Nia Imara is using 3-dimensional models that fit in the palm of her hand to unravel the structural complexities of stellar nurseries, the vast clouds of gas and dust where star formation occurs.

Imara and her collaborators created the models using data from simulations of star-forming clouds and a sophisticated 3D printing process in which the fine-scale densities and gradients of the turbulent clouds are embedded in a transparent resin. The resulting models—the first 3D-printed stellar nurseries—are highly polished spheres about the size of a baseball (8 centimeters in diameter), in which the star-forming material appears as swirling clumps and filaments.

“We wanted an interactive object to help us visualize those structures where stars form so we can better understand the physical processes,” said Imara, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz and first author of a paper describing this novel approach published August 25 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

An artist as well as an astrophysicist, Imara said the idea is an example of science imitating art. “Years ago, I sketched a portrait of myself touching a star. Later, the idea just clicked. Star formation within molecular clouds is my area of expertise, so why not try to build one?” she said.

She worked with coauthor John Forbes at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics to develop a suite of nine simulations representing different physical conditions within molecular clouds. The collaboration also included coauthor James Weaver at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who helped to turn the data from the astronomical simulations into physical objects using high-resolution and photo-realistic multi-material 3D printing.
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The first 3D-printed stellar nurseries are highly polished spheres about the size of a baseball, in which swirling clumps and filaments represent star-forming clouds of gas and dust.
Photo by Saurabh Mhatre
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NASA's next space telescope to launch in December
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nasa-spac ... ember.html

The $10 billion observatory, which will be the largest and most powerful telescope launched into space, will take off on a European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane 5 rocket from Spaceport in French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.

The James Webb Space Telescope, which astronomers hope will herald a new era of discovery, will launch on December 18, NASA said Wednesday.

The $10 billion observatory, which is a joint project by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, will blast off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Spaceport in French Guiana.

It is currently stowed at contractor Northrop Grumman's facilities in Redondo Beach, California, where it is awaiting shipping.

"Webb is an exemplary mission that signifies the epitome of perseverance," said Webb's NASA program director Gregory Robinson in a statement.

"We are extremely honored to orbit NASA's James Webb Space Telescope with Ariane, a first for Arianespace and the European space team," added Stephane Israel, CEO of Arianespace.
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