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19 Mar 2019, 16:00 UTC

Astronomers Find “Cannonball Pulsar” Speeding Through Space

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have found a pulsar speeding away from its presumed birthplace at nearly 700 miles per second, with its trail pointing directly back at the center of a shell of debris from the supernova explosion that created it. The discovery is providing important insights into how pulsars — superdense neutron stars left over after a massive star explodes — can get a “kick” of speed from the explosion.“This pulsar has completely escaped the remnant of debris from the supernova explosion,” said Frank Schinzel, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). “It’s very rare for a pulsar to get enough of a kick for us to see this,” he added.The pulsar, dubbed PSR J0002+6216, about 6,500 light-years from Earth, was discovered in 2017 by a citizen-science project called Einstein@Home. That project uses computer time donated by volunteers to analyze data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. So far, using more than 10,000 years of computing time, the project has discovered a total of 23 pulsars.Radio observations with the VLA clearly show the pulsar outside the supernova remnant, with a tail of shocked particles and magnetic energy some 13 light-years ... Next Previous
14 Mar 2019, 14:00 UTC

A Cosmic Bat in Flight

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12 Mar 2019, 14:00 UTC

What Scientists Found After Sifting Through Dust in the Solar System

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7 Mar 2019, 15:00 UTC

What Does the Milky Way Weigh? Hubble and Gaia Investigate

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5 Mar 2019, 17:03 UTC

Galactic Wind Provides Clues to Evolution of Galaxies

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28 Feb 2019, 01:00 UTC

Hiding Black Hole Found

Astronomers have detected a stealthy black hole from its effects on an interstellar gas cloud. This intermediate mass black hole is one of over 100 million quiet black holes expected to be lurking in our galaxy. These results provide a new method to search for other hidden black holes and help us understand the growth and evolution of black holes.Black holes are objects with such strong gravity that everything, including light, is sucked in and cannot escape. Because black holes do not emit light, astronomers must infer their existence from the effects their gravity produce in other objects. Black holes range in mass from about 5 times the mass of the Sun to supermassive black holes millions of times the mass of the Sun. Astronomers think that small black holes merge and gradually grow into large ones, but no one had ever found an intermediate mass, hundreds or thousands of times the mass of the Sun.A research team led by Shunya Takekawa at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan noticed HCN–0.009–0.044, a gas cloud moving strangely near the center of the Galaxy 25,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. They used ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) to perform ... Next Previous
28 Feb 2019, 16:22 UTC

Galactic Bubbles Play Cosmic Pinball with Energetic Particles

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26 Feb 2019, 05:00 UTC

ALMA Differentiates Two Birth Cries from a Single Star

Astronomers have unveiled the enigmatic origins of two different gas streams from a baby star. Using ALMA, they found that the slow outflow and the high speed jet from a protostar have misaligned axes and that the former started to be ejected earlier than the latter. The origins of these two flows have been a mystery, but these observations provide telltale signs that these two streams were launched from different parts of the disk around the protostar.Stars in the Universe have a wide range of masses, ranging from hundreds of times the mass of the Sun to less than a tenth of that of the Sun. To understand the origin of this variety, astronomers study the formation process of the stars, that is the aggregation of cosmic gas and dust.Baby stars collect the gas with their gravitational pull, however, some of the material is ejected by the protostars. This ejected material forms a stellar birth cry which provides clues to understand the process of mass accumulation.Yuko Matsushita, a graduate student at Kyushu University and her team used ALMA to observe the detailed structure of the birth cry from the baby star MMS5/OMC-3 and found two different gaseous flows: a slow ... Next Previous
20 Feb 2019, 18:00 UTC

Science Release: Hubble helps uncover origin of Neptune’s smallest moon Hippocamp

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20 Feb 2019, 17:14 UTC

In Colliding Galaxies, a Pipsqueak Shines Bright

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c194ff6e5c2acb75cc650ae8d63c2e78: Giant ‘chimneys’ vent X-rays from Milky Way’s core
ESA Top News

Giant ‘chimneys’ vent X-rays from Milky Way’s core

20 Mar 2019, 18:00 UTC By surveying the centre of our Galaxy, ESA’s XMM-Newton has discovered two colossal ‘chimneys’ funneling material from the vicinity of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole into two huge cosmic bubbles.
4af67501dbeda1ac05c6a571ad319dea: Taking gravity from strength to strength
ESA Top News

Taking gravity from strength to strength

20 Mar 2019, 08:09 UTC Ten years ago, ESA launched one of its most innovative satellites. GOCE spent four years measuring a fundamental force of nature: gravity. This extraordinary mission not only yielded new insights into our gravity field, but led to some amazing discoveries about our planet, from deep below the surface to high up in the atmosphere and beyond. And, this remarkable mission continues to realise new science today.
http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2019/bennu-images-reveal-unexpected-discoveries: Bennu Images Reveal Unexpected Discoveries
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Bennu Images Reveal Unexpected Discoveries

19 Mar 2019, 17:30 UTC This image shows a view across asteroid Bennu’s southern hemisphere and into space, and it demonstrates the number and distribution of boulders across Bennu’s surface. The image was obtained on Mar. 7 by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a distance of about 3 miles (5 km). The large, light-colored boulder just below the center of the image is about 24 feet (7.4 meters) wide, which is roughly half the width of a basketball court.
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-asteroid-has-big-surprises: NASA Mission Reveals Asteroid Has Big Surprises
NASA Breaking News

NASA Mission Reveals Asteroid Has Big Surprises

19 Mar 2019, 16:33 UTC A NASA spacecraft that will return a sample of a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu to Earth in 2023 made the first-ever close-up observations of particle plumes erupting from an asteroid’s surface. Bennu also revealed itself to be more rugged than expected, challenging the mission team to alter its flight and sample collection plans, due to the rough terrain.
http://www.almaobservatory.org/?p=34560: Spiraling giants: witnessing the birth of a massive binary star system
ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array)

Spiraling giants: witnessing the birth of a massive binary star system

18 Mar 2019, 18:42 UTC Scientists from the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research in Japan,the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden,and the University of Virginia in the USA and collaborators used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe a molecular cloud that is collapsing to form two massive protostars that will eventually become a binary star system.
1542 at http://www.astron.nl: Energy loss gives unexpected insights in evolution of quasar jets
ASTRON

Energy loss gives unexpected insights in evolution of quasar jets

18 Mar 2019, 08:07 UTC An international team of astrophysicists observed for the first time that the jet of a quasar is less powerful on long radio wavelengths than earlier predicted. This discovery gives new insights in the evolution of quasar jets. They made this observation using the international Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope, that produced high resolution radio images of quasar 4C+19.44 located over 5 billion light-years from Earth.

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https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=41927: Carbon Monoxide as Biosignature?
Centauri Dreams

Direct link Carbon Monoxide as Biosignature?

20 Mar 2019, 17:02 UTC Biosignature gases are those that can alert us to the possibility of life on a planet around another star. We’re moving into the era of biosignature observation by studying the atmospheres of such planets through instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope, and the effort to catalog the combinations of atmospheric gases that point to life is intense and ongoing.
https://www.skyandtelescope.com/?p=255492224: It’s Spring! Time to Visit the Bright Galaxies of Leo I
Sky and Telescope

Direct link It’s Spring! Time to Visit the Bright Galaxies of Leo I

20 Mar 2019, 15:55 UTC Springtime is galaxy time. Only 30 million light years away, the Leo I Group and nearby Leo Triplet entice the eye with an assortment of bright spiral and elliptical galaxies.
197870 at https://www.syfy.com: Holy spitting space rocks: Asteroid Bennu is active!
Bad Astronomy

Direct link Holy spitting space rocks: Asteroid Bennu is active!

20 Mar 2019, 13:00 UTC I've said it before, and I’ll say it again: There’s nothing like being there. This isn’t just an aphorism; when it comes to asteroids it’s the literal truth. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft is making that incredibly clear. Astronomers had some idea of the asteroid Bennu’s size and shape from ground-based observations, but once the spacecraft got there, well, it was basically one surprise after another.
C9295916-7E88-45A8-910AA83A107A6AA5: 'Oumuamua, Our First Interstellar Visitor, May Have Been a Comet After All
Scientific American

Direct link 'Oumuamua, Our First Interstellar Visitor, May Have Been a Comet After All

20 Mar 2019, 10:45 UTC New research flags jets of water vapor—rather than alien technology—as the source of the mysterious object’s anomalous motions
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/science/bennu-ryugu-asteroids.html: Tales of 2 Rugged Asteroids and 1 Is Spewing Debris Into Space
The New York Times

Direct link Tales of 2 Rugged Asteroids and 1 Is Spewing Debris Into Space

19 Mar 2019, 22:05 UTC HOUSTON — The asteroid Bennu, with the shape of a spinning top, turns out to be extremely rugged. That is going to make it difficult for a NASA spacecraft, Osiris-Rex, to vacuum up a sample to take back to Earth. It was designed to collect sand and gravel, not boulders. In addition, Bennu is shooting back.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/science/triton-neptune-nasa-trident.html: Neptune’s Moon Triton Is Destination of Proposed NASA Mission
The New York Times

Direct link Neptune’s Moon Triton Is Destination of Proposed NASA Mission

19 Mar 2019, 22:02 UTC Scientists at a conference in Houston presented the concept for a flyby mission to study a mysterious moon that may contain an ocean.

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