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SciTech Daily
3 Jun 2020, 12:45 UTC
About 3.5 million years ago, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy unleashed an enormous burst of energy. Our primitive ancestors, already afoot on the African plains, likely would have witnessed this flare as a ghostly glow high overhead in the constellation Sagittarius. It might have persisted for 1 million years.
Gas Far Outside of Our Galaxy Illuminated by Enormous Burst of Energy Unleashed by Milky Way’s Black Hole
3 Jun 2020, 12:45 UTC
About 3.5 million years ago, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy unleashed an enormous burst of energy. Our primitive ancestors, already afoot on the African plains, likely would have witnessed this flare as a ghostly glow high overhead in the constellation Sagittarius. It might have persisted for 1 million years.
Discover
2 Jun 2020, 19:30 UTC
For a long time after their discovery in 1877, scientists assumed Mars’ two puny moons — Deimos and Phobos — were captured asteroids. This belief persisted until evidence revealed both moons formed at the same time as the Red Planet itself, and that the smaller one, Deimos, has a mysteriously tilted orbit. However, it wasn’t until 2017 that researchers put forth a new idea that could explain why Deimos' orbit is slanted by 2 degrees.
Ancient Mars May Have Had Rings, Then Moons, Then Rings ...
2 Jun 2020, 19:30 UTC
For a long time after their discovery in 1877, scientists assumed Mars’ two puny moons — Deimos and Phobos — were captured asteroids. This belief persisted until evidence revealed both moons formed at the same time as the Red Planet itself, and that the smaller one, Deimos, has a mysteriously tilted orbit. However, it wasn’t until 2017 that researchers put forth a new idea that could explain why Deimos' orbit is slanted by 2 degrees.
Bad Astronomy
2 Jun 2020, 13:00 UTC
Three million people in the U.S. alone use lithium as a medication to treat mental illness, including bipolar and major depressive disorders. Lithium is also used in batteries; I have four large lithium-ion batteries in my garage that charge every day from solar panels and power my house at night, and electric cars also use lithium-ion batteries. It's used in making glass and many other products as well.
Got lithium? Thank a long-gone explodey white dwarf
2 Jun 2020, 13:00 UTC
Three million people in the U.S. alone use lithium as a medication to treat mental illness, including bipolar and major depressive disorders. Lithium is also used in batteries; I have four large lithium-ion batteries in my garage that charge every day from solar panels and power my house at night, and electric cars also use lithium-ion batteries. It's used in making glass and many other products as well.
National Science Foundation's Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory
1 Jun 2020, 15:40 UTC
A project started ten years ago by NSF’s NOIRLab Director Patrick McCarthy, then an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and fellow Carnegie scientist Daniel Kelson, has come to fruition this month with the results of the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) Redshift Survey being published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Galaxy Formation at Cosmic Noon
1 Jun 2020, 15:40 UTC
A project started ten years ago by NSF’s NOIRLab Director Patrick McCarthy, then an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and fellow Carnegie scientist Daniel Kelson, has come to fruition this month with the results of the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS (CSI) Redshift Survey being published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Bad Astronomy
1 Jun 2020, 13:00 UTC
Jupiter is a very photogenic planet. That's a big reason scientists installed the JunoCam instrument on Juno, a mission orbiting the ginormous planet. Juno's mission is to study the atmosphere and interior of Jupiter, and has a lot of sophisticated instruments on board to do that.
What would a solar eclipse look like on Jupiter? But with more volcanoes?
1 Jun 2020, 13:00 UTC
Jupiter is a very photogenic planet. That's a big reason scientists installed the JunoCam instrument on Juno, a mission orbiting the ginormous planet. Juno's mission is to study the atmosphere and interior of Jupiter, and has a lot of sophisticated instruments on board to do that.
Universe Today
29 May 2020, 18:45 UTC
If we ever intend to send crewed missions to deep-space locations, then we need to come up with solutions for how to keep the crews supplied. For astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), who regularly receive resupply missions from Earth, this is not an issue. But for missions traveling to destinations like Mars and beyond, self-sufficiency is the name of the game!
How to Make the Food and Water Mars-Bound Astronauts Will Need for Their Mission
29 May 2020, 18:45 UTC
If we ever intend to send crewed missions to deep-space locations, then we need to come up with solutions for how to keep the crews supplied. For astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), who regularly receive resupply missions from Earth, this is not an issue. But for missions traveling to destinations like Mars and beyond, self-sufficiency is the name of the game!
Lights in the Dark
29 May 2020, 15:40 UTC
During the first few million years of our sun’s lifetime it was surrounded by a protoplanetary disk made up of gas and dust. Jupiter coalesced from this disk and became encircled by its own disk of satellite-building material. This “circum-Jovian disk” was fed by material from the sun’s protoplanetary disk that rained down on Jupiter at the planet’s poles, and flowed back out of Jupiter’s gravitational influence along the planet’s equatorial plane. But this is where things get tricky for satellite formation; how did this ever-changing disk accumulate enough material to form moons?
New Theory Emerges on the Formation of Jupiter’s Galilean Moons
29 May 2020, 15:40 UTC
During the first few million years of our sun’s lifetime it was surrounded by a protoplanetary disk made up of gas and dust. Jupiter coalesced from this disk and became encircled by its own disk of satellite-building material. This “circum-Jovian disk” was fed by material from the sun’s protoplanetary disk that rained down on Jupiter at the planet’s poles, and flowed back out of Jupiter’s gravitational influence along the planet’s equatorial plane. But this is where things get tricky for satellite formation; how did this ever-changing disk accumulate enough material to form moons?
Bad Astronomy
28 May 2020, 13:00 UTC
Titan is Saturn's largest moon, and the second biggest in the solar system. It's a world unto itself; nearly as big as Mercury, with a nitrogen atmosphere with higher surface pressure than Earth. The Cassini spacecraft swept past the giant moon an incredible 127 times over its 13-year tour of the Saturn system, taking close-up images of the moon.
Are rivers of liquid methane washing away craters on Saturn’s moon Titan?
28 May 2020, 13:00 UTC
Titan is Saturn's largest moon, and the second biggest in the solar system. It's a world unto itself; nearly as big as Mercury, with a nitrogen atmosphere with higher surface pressure than Earth. The Cassini spacecraft swept past the giant moon an incredible 127 times over its 13-year tour of the Saturn system, taking close-up images of the moon.
Sky and Telescope
28 May 2020, 09:11 UTC
Astronomers are beginning to understand what may be causing a special kind of flare in the distant universe.
