A NASA mission has observed a supermassive black hole pointing its highly energetic jet straight toward Earth. Don’t panic just yet, though. As fearsome as this cosmic event is, it’s located at a very safe distance of about 400 million light-years away.
The two planets are in circles that kind of look like, er….let’s just call the whole thing a cosmic donut (the outer “halo” is the protoplanetary disc of gas and dust from which planets eventually coalesce).
We already know that more than one object can share the same orbit; Jupiter has a collection of 120,000 asteroids following its same path around the Sun, for example. Earth has one, too. But although it’s theoretically possible, astronomers have never discovered two whole planets sharing the same orbit around a star before.
Hmm…the language here is a bit misleading. The two objects are technically not both “planets.”
The article comments later on that the object in the dotted line circle is “a cloud of debris about twice the mass of our Moon trailing a bit behind the innermost gas giant” in one of its LaGrange points (where “Trojan” asteroids follow gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn). So it’s way too early to say that “two” planets formed in the same orbit.
Still, this is the first time that astronomers have spotted two such objects this close to one another in the same orbit. Who knows if both will remain viable (the debris cloud could become partly or mostly absorbed by the gas giant with the rest either being expelled or thrust into separate orbits).
So why is this called a “cosmic unicorn”?
Apparently because although such Trojans “are allowed to exist by theory, but no one has ever detected them.”
Um. OK.
So, like, totally NOT at all like this? Kind of a bummer, really…
“If we want to develop the Moon as an outpost, a gateway to deep space, then we need to carry out many more explorations to see what sort of habitat would we be able to build there with the locally-available material and how will we carry supplies to our people there,” Mr Annadurai says.
Chandrayaan-1 was India’s first successful Moon launch in 2008 — it deliberately crashed in order to measure the amount of water at the South Pole.
Chandrayaan-2 was only partly successful, as it did put an orbiter around the Moon, but the rover crashed. (The orbiter is still there, sending back information on a regular basis.)
Now, Chandrayaan-3 aims to finally land a rover and do some research exploring.
Let’s hope they can get it to land safely this time…
1. I know it to be certain that the wording of this prompt is a bit odd. Is this meant to mean “know to be true”?
2. I know it to be absolutely certain that there are many things about which I am far from certain.
3. I also know it to be absolutely certain that at least one of the things I know to be certain will annoy at least one person who reads this.
4. I also also know it to be absolutely certain that at least one of the things to know to be certain will amuse at least one person.
5. One of these things I know to be absolutely certain may even irritate and amuse the same person (👈 maybe even this one right here).
6. I even know it to be absolutely certain that writing a list of ten things that are absolutely certain takes a considerably longer time than I had initially anticipated.
7. Just to be sure I irritate someone, it is absolutely certain that the world is a warmer place than it was when I was a kid 40 years ago.
8. The fact that June 2023 was the hottest month on record is absolutely certain.
Images of the Orion Nebula, c/o ESA and NASA (it’s complicated…)
For the first time ever, a team of international scientists detected a carbon compound known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on), or CH3+, in d203-506. CH3+ is significant for understanding how life began on Earth — and how it might develop elsewhere.
Images of the Orion Nebula, c/o ESA and NASA (it’s complicated…)
For the first time ever, a team of international scientists detected a carbon compound known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on), or CH3+, in d203-506. CH3+ is significant for understanding how life began on Earth — and how it might develop elsewhere.
Scientists have suspected for a long time that this tiny moon of Saturn may be the best place in our solar system to look for life.
Now they have confirmed evidence of all six crucial elements necessary for life to exist (life as we know it, anyway): carbon (C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), oxygen (O), phosphorus (P), and sulphur (S). If present as a phosphate, essential for DNA and RNA to exist, the discovery of phosphorus on the 310-mile-wide Enceladus may indicate life of sort sort, perhaps at a microscopic level beneath the icy surface.
One guess is that the oceans of Enceladus have at least 100 times more phosphorus than the Earth’s oceans. That would make for quite the carbonated fizzy pop. Methane has already been seen coming out out of various “ice geysers” (a.k.a. cryovolcanoes). Since methane results from rotten organic material, there logically should be something alive out there.
Now we just have to get back out there and figure out a way to find them.
The link below includes a night sky in Montana, which makes little sense when the researchers were in Beijing and Honolulu…
“The first-generation star we observed has the potential to become the oldest star we have ever seen,” said Alexander Heger, a professor in the school of physics and astronomy at Monash University in Australia who was part of the research team. “It probably had only lived for 2 1/2 million years and then exploded.”
Oh, and it also was discovered to be 260 times the size of our own Sun…just as theorized.
More importantly, this involved scientists from three different countries (China, Japan, and Australia), sharing information and working together for science.
Imagine if that spirit of cooperation could be extended into other domains…
Betelgeuse, the closest red giant to Earth, has long been understood to move between brighter and dimmer in 400-day cycles. But from late 2019 to early 2020, it underwent what astrophysicists called “the great dimming”, as a dust cloud obscured our view of the star.
Now, it is glowing at 150% of its normal brightness, and is cycling between brighter and dimmer at 200-day intervals – twice as fast as usual…It is currently the seventh brightest star in the night sky – up three places from its usual tenth brightest.
Betelgeuse is the closet red giant Star to our solar system, one of the shoulders of the Greek constellation of Orion.
The cultural information in the linked article was actually more interesting than the phenomenon observed. For instance, the fact that an Aboriginal people in Australia saw it long before the Greeks did was something I didn’t know.
And that the Greek name comes originally from the Arabic “bat al-jawzāʾ” meaning “giant’s shoulder.”
And all three cultures saw the star as connected with fire held by a giant hunter of some sort.
And so have ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and probably everyone else, too. We just can’t help personifying even the stars.
The kicker?
When it does eventually explode, it could – over the course of a week – grow so bright that it will be visible during daylight, and cast shadows at night.
Now that’s something I’d like to be around to see. Hmm. If only I could manage to live for another 10- to 100,000 years…
…Ispace engineers observed that the estimated remaining propellant was “at the lower threshold and shortly afterward the descent speed rapidly increased.”
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