Space Scan

Astronomers have used the largest telescopes available on the planet to examine and study the glassy layers of a red giant star called S Orionis. S Orionis is a red giant star that pulsates in a size from a diameter roughly equal to the orbit of Mars to that of Jupiter in every 410 days. Red giants are enlarged stars. When stars burn off their hydrogen reserves they begin to burn helium this causes radiation that increases the size of the star to up to 100 times its original size. Our Sun will also have the same future and will become a red giant after some five billion years. At that time our Sun will get enormous and will consume many planets of the solar system. During the red giant phase of a star, it pushes stellar gas and dust into space. S Orionis also sheds about the mass of Earth each year. This material which escapes the gravity of a star forms beautiful planetary nebulas. But eventually this mass is pulled back into the star and then this is the start of a new cycle. Earlier it was not known as to what this material mainly comprises of but a research carried out by some researches discovered that the star’s dusty shell consists of corundum and moreover these researchers also discovered that the corundum was twice as large as previously thought. This research required the expertise of the best telescopes present in the world and the task was accomplished by the Very Long Baseline Array, which is a series of 10 telescopes spread over 5,350 miles that can see radio waves and the infrared-seeing Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile. These telescopes are so powerful that if a person uses them, he can read a newspaper in California while sitting in New York. The waves of S Orionis look like a blob of emission so the team of researchers had to record the masers from the star. Masers are naturally occurring lasers. This star’s red giant formation has shown us the future of our Sun, which too will have the same fate after about 5 billion years. Via: usatoday

NASA is already lacking some money to complete all their proposed plans and with the retirement of the shuttle programs they will have to save some more money to make up for the space agency’s upcoming project Orion. This lack of money has made NASA think of some unconventional means to keep space exploration going at a good pace. The space agency has now given new assignments to two robotic spacecrafts that have already done their actual work. These spacecrafts include the comet-watching Deep Impact spacecraft and the comet-sampling Stardust probe. The Deep Impact spacecraft was originally designed to fly past Comet Tempel 1 and send an impactor in its path in 2005. This spacecraft will now observe stars known to have planets orbiting them. Stardust on the other hand will be sent to Comet Tempel 1 in 2011. This spacecraft has already dropped off a sample capsule containing comet dust and interstellar samples as it flew past Earth last year. NASA has stated that these extensions have made the missions more interesting because this is the first time that the space agency is reassigning new missions to the spacecrafts which have already completed their original duties. These spacecrafts will now allow NASA to revisit a comet for the first time and explore some small planets around stars with known large planets. This reassignment of duties can accomplish new tasks for just 15% of the cost starting a new mission from scratch. Continue reading “NASA learns to save money, assigns new missions to old spacecrafts” »

According to the standard theory of star formation, stars are formed in cloudy nebulas and shortly after their birth they consume most of the gas that is present at their birthplace. The surrounding dust and gas can now be used to form planets. This gas and dust then collapses and forms a rotating “Circumstellar disk”, which then draws the planet towards the star. Till now scientists were not aware of the reason behind this inward spiral motion of the planets towards their parent stars. Scientists have now developed a new model that suggests that this disk hosts some magnetic instability that is the reason behind this inward spiral motion. This motion drags these newly formed planets into their final orbits. Gas left over from the planet and the star formation process falls back on the surface of the star since they star emits ultraviolet radiation which attracts these particles of dust and gas. However, the main reason that could explain this transit of the gas from the disk to the stars was not available. Now a new model has been developed by some researchers that can explain why some stars love to orbit quite close to their parent stars. They state that the gas in this disk orbits at different speeds depending on its distance from the star. This changes the magnetic field of the disk somewhat like a stretched rubber band which binds the inner and the outer rings together. The inner ring rotates faster than the outer one, so the magnetic field “rubber band” stretches in the direction of the rotation. This phenomenon pulls back the inner rings and speeds the outer one. This slows the inner ring causing it to lose momentum and spiral inward to crash onto the star. This inflow of gas drags objects such as planets closer to the star. The same process also explains as to why some gas giant planets orbit much closer to their star and as a result have a much higher surface temperature. Image Via: usatoday

When stars more than eight times the size of Sun have consumed all their fuel reserves they end their lives in an enormous explosion termed as Supernova. After a supernova the top layers of the star are forcefully thrown out into space at speeds ranging in thousands of miles per hour. The result of the explosion is that a small neutron star takes the place of its ancestor. These small neutron stars are only a few miles in diameter but are so dense that neutron stars having a diameter of just ten miles weigh more than the Sun. NASA’s Chandra Telescope has shown the 2,000 year old remains such an explosion, known as the RCW 103 which occurred about 10,000 light years from Earth. The neutron star can be seen as a blue dot in the image above. To their surprise scientists noticed that the neutron star is rotating every 6.7 hours which is much slower than they normally rotate and it also exhibits unusually large variations in its X-ray emission over a period of years. Researchers have stated that the when the explosion occurred the ancestor of RCW 103 might not have exploded alone. They hope that a low-mass star that is too dim to see is orbiting near the neutron star. Gas from this mysterious neighbor might be powering its X-ray emissions and the interaction in the magnetic fields might be the result for this slow rotation of the star. Via: Physorg

A recent astronomical discovery makes the astronomers believe that, quadruple suns are a clue to a newly developing planet. This came to light when astronomers saw a dusky disk somewhere in the TW Hydrae solar system. According to sources, researchers recently spied on two different belts of material grouped in a circumstellar disk. They think that the disk in the four star solar system could be the sign of a new planet in making. For this, the astronomers used NASA’s infrared Spitzer space telescope. I think the discovery of the developing new planet is a very exciting moment in the history of space. The quadruple star system is known as the HD 98800, which is situated at a distance of 150 light years away in a different solar system labeled as TW Hydra. NASA research team member Elise Furlan expressed some very interesting views: Planets are like cosmic vacuums.They clear up all the dirt that is in their path around the central stars. Also, when there’s a lot of debris (as seen in the right hand side picture), it is expected that some kind of planet has cleared off the ring. But, the present situation is a case of anomaly according to Furlan: Typically, when astronomers see gaps like this in a debris disk, they suspect that a planet has cleared a path.However, given the presence of the diskless pair of stars sitting 50 AU away, the inward-migrating dust particles are likely subject to complex, time-varying forces, so at this point the existence of a planet is just speculation. The research also proves that worlds with multiple suns and sunsets are not very out of fashion i.e. not uncommon. I think just because we are living in Earth only, we are under the impression that there is only one sun. The space is indeed a vast arena, and there are multiple worlds with a lot of things happening at the same time. There are even few triple star systems that exist in other worlds of space. The fact is truly fascinating.

Universe seems to hide infinite mysteries and gifts to amaze us at any instant of time. Robert Rutledge of McGill University in Montrea, unfolding another secret, spotted an isolated Neutron Star, which is thought to be a distance of 250 to 1,000 light-years away from earth. This would make Calvera, as named by astronomers, one of the closest known Neutron Stars or may be the closest to earth ever observed. This discovery has increased one more member in previously discovered seven stars family known as ‘The Magnificent Seven’. After ROSAT caught the first sight, NASA’s Swift X-ray telescope enabled the group to pinpoint the object’s position more accurately. Astronomers are still not able to detect the nature of start and it still holds a mystery inside, as it’s very rare that a neutron star has no nearby mother object that is mostly an associated supernova ramanant. Further Calvera is located in constellation Ursa Minor lacks some characteristic particular to a Neutron Star. Wondering at this new discovery, Dr Rutledge said: Either Calvera is an unusual example of a known type of neutron star, or it is some new type of neutron star, the first of its kind This new discovery has given scientists a new spark in the ongoing studies intended to explore more about Neutron Stars. Now they are preparing for some more observation to find some more clues about this unusual star.

Astronomers have found yet another sun. Well, actually another calling the spacial object a sun like star would be right. The star popularly known as HIP 56948, is a little more than 200 light years away from Earth. The observations of this star was made by the 2.7 meter telescope at the Mc Donald observatory in Texas, US. This is a good place to start off with extra terrestrial intelligence. Sun’s twin would make a great hunting ground for alien life. Like they say, where there’s sun, there’s life. Sun like stars have been discovered and analyzed previously by astronomers and scientists from other disciplines as well. HIP 56948 is a better match to the sun than other sun like stars. The only problem with this star is the fact that it is 200 light years away. Being that far, no signals could travel that distance from earth, making things difficult for astronomers and scientists. The new star is about one billion years older than the Sun. As far as finding intelligent life source is concerned, I think it’s very rare. Why? Well, first of all it’s a mistake of nature. One thing that confuses me in the newscientist article is the word hunt for life. Hopefully they just used the word hunting in the sense of looking. Whatever it is, HIP 56948 is the new twin of sun.

The universe seems to have remained hugely unexplored, much more than what has been expected! This is also well revealed by a new synthesis by the scientists – they have concluded that the universe has been housing a category of stars, previously unknown. This has been concluded by the eight unusual examples of a burned-out celestial object — white dwarf — detected in our Milky Way galaxy. With the fact that white dwarfs mark the stellar evolution’s end point for all, the series of this phenomenon led the astronomers believe that the most massive of stars in the universe — with about 97 percent of stars, including our sun – are destined to disappear this way! The eight white dwarfs are said to break the mold by possessing carbon atmospheres. Have they formed from stars much more massive than the sun? The researchers are zeroing onto this, believing their not being quite massive enough to explode as a supernova. In a telephone interview, University of Arizona astrophysicist Patrick Dufour said, It was totally unexpected because all of the white dwarfs we knew so far were either hydrogen-rich or helium-rich. So this is a completely new kind of star. How do the white dwarfs form? What does this tell us about stellar evolution? — Trying to explain these definitely come as challenge to the astronomers.

The cosmos never ceases to amaze us with its sheer size and splendor. The star studded sky above us and the vast unexplored eternity that lay beyond us have always captured both human mind and human heart. While the glitz and shine of the stars and the spectacular celestial aura have drawn us towards them, it is impossible to deny that our space programs are barely at a stage of infancy, with 99.9% of the universe still left unexplored. It is this magic of finding something new each day, each moment, each time you point your telescope in to the sky that hold our imagination and ignites our senses. The universe around us is so kind that you can randomly look at any part of it and it still will give you a surprise or two. You can call that either our luck or our sheer ignorance. But since ages, the question that has intrigued us the most is, ‘Are we alone in the universe?’ This one question has always baffled our thoughts, challenged our imagination and of course made Spielberg in to a movie making icon. But off late scientists are starting to believe more and more that the answer to that question is ‘No’. The discovery of Gliese 581 was one of the most exciting moments in extra-solar planetary researcher. The star is said to be having a planetary system and now researchers claim that they have found two planets that might be conducive to existence of life on them. Astronomers have found an Earth-massed planet orbiting within the habitable zone of a distant star. This would mean that liquid water could be on its surface – and maybe even life! Any planet needs to be at a right distance from its own sun, so as to be able to maintain conditions that help the sustenance of life on it. If it is too close to the star, it looses the water on its surface due to excessive heat and if it is too far, it might be too cold to harbor life. Two separate teams of astronomers have found out in two different ways that the system of Gliese 581 has planets in the habitable zone. They did this by calculating and comparing the position of Earth and the planet on which they believe life could exist. The first team lead by Franck Selsis calculated that the inner boundary of this habitable zone around Gliese 581 should be somewhere between 0.7 and 0.9 astronomical units and the outer zone should be between 1.7 and 2.4 AU. At least one planet orbiting Gliese 581 falls within this range. Now that is indeed exciting news. I always thought that we would find life beyond earth first on Titan- Saturn’s largest moon. But I still think the problem is that we look for life that is organic-similar to ourselves in nature. Why can’t life have evolved out of Platinum and gold somewhere else in the cosmos? Now that would be ‘Rich life’, if not intelligent.

The 400 light-years away open cluster in the constellation of Taurus and among the nearest to the Earth — Pleiades — seems to be ever happening, now that small, rocky planets may be in the making in the cluster! It is all happening around one of the hundreds of stars — known as HD 23514 — in the Pleiades cluster and interestingly, the forming planets could resemble either Earth or Mars! The star is found to be surrounded by an extraordinary number of hot dust particles, and these perhaps are the planets’ building blocks, researchers believe. Leading the study, Joseph Rhee of the University of California at Los Angeles said, This is the first clear evidence for planet formation in the Pleiades, and the results we are presenting may well be the first observational evidence that terrestrial planets like those in our solar system are quite common. Terrestrial planets similar to those in our solar system might probably be quite common, but none of the 200 planets spotted around stars outside our solar system are as small as Earth and just one. But, will the forming Pleiades cluster-planets be capable of supporting life? This question is surely the next that will keep the scientists busy with.