🚀 Fascinating Frontiers - Space & Astronomy News
| Astronomers have fresh clues about the irregular dimming of Tabby's Star that once hinted at alien structures. |
- New clues surface for Tabby's Star's strange brightness changes — Vietnam.vn
| The star KIC 8462852 shows brightness drops of up to twenty percent at irregular intervals. It is an F-type star in Cygnus with a red dwarf companion. The discovery came from citizen scientists in the Planet Hunters project using Kepler telescope data. Theories include an uneven dust belt, a cluster of comets, a destroyed planet, or a Dyson swarm built by aliens. No hypothesis has fully explained the fluctuations so far. Scientists may be closer to the answer with new observations reported today. Source: vietnam.vn |
- US pushes to place nuclear reactor on the moon by twenty thirty — Ynetnews
NASA has asked private contractors to build a nuclear reactor capable of surviving space travel and operating without maintenance near the moon's south pole. The target launch date is December twenty thirty. Russia aims to have a reactor operating on the moon by twenty thirty six as part of a partnership with China. The reactor must function during the fourteen Earth day long lunar night when solar panels cannot generate power. Temperatures during the night plunge to minus one hundred thirty degrees. The goal is to beat Russia and China in the race for lunar nuclear power. Source: ynetnews.com - Gliese twelve b shows Earth-like temperatures at forty light years — MARCA
The planet Gliese twelve b orbits its star every twelve point eight days and is similar in size to Venus. Its approximate surface temperature is forty two degrees, much lower than most exoplanets. The host star is approximately twenty seven percent the size of the Sun with a surface temperature close to sixty percent that of our star. The planet receives one point six times more energy from its star than Earth does from the Sun. Observations were made using NASA's TESS satellite. The star does not show extreme activity, which is important for preserving any atmosphere. Source: amp.marca.com - Helium loss observed from super-Earth LHS eleven forty b — yourweather.co.uk | Meteored
LHS eleven forty b is a super-Earth with an estimated mass about five point six times that of Earth and a radius approximately one point seven three times larger. It orbits its red dwarf host star every twenty four point seven days at a distance of forty nine light years. The planet is losing helium from its upper atmosphere at a rate of between two hundred and four hundred tons per second. No trace of hydrogen was detected in the atmosphere. The discovery was made using transmission spectroscopy. This provides an opportunity to study how exoplanet atmospheres evolve over time. Source: yourweather.co.uk - Honda teams with Redwire on robotic lab assistant for future stations — Universe Today
Honda is teaming up with space infrastructure firm Redwire to develop an automated laboratory support system. Astronaut time on the International Space Station is the most limited resource. Future commercial stations will be smaller with crews of only two or four. Redwire is providing the reaching and motion platform known as STAARK. Redwire already manages eight operational science facilities on the ISS. Automation will be essential for keeping experiments running during uncrewed periods. Source: universetoday.com - Artemis two crew creates unique lunar science record now available to public — Universe Today
The Artemis two crew launched on April first twenty twenty six and spent nine days one hour and thirty two minutes in space. Through photographs spoken observations drawings and annotations the four astronauts built a scientific record of the lunar farside. Images captured active weather systems auroras at both poles atmospheric layers a Saharan dust plume zodiacal light and city lights on Earth. The data is now released as the Artemis two preliminary lunar science report. The mission provided the first crewed opportunity for such observations since the Apollo era. Source: universetoday.com - Potential second generation planet detected around dying white dwarf — Universe Today
Astronomers have potentially detected the first known second generation planet around white dwarf HS 0209 plus 0832. The Jupiter like planet likely formed from accretion of debris cast off by the dying star. The white dwarf atmosphere contains zinc copper aluminum silicon titanium and niobium at levels more than one thousand times that of the Sun. The planet orbits on an extremely short period of four point four days. Archival Hubble and FUSE data plus TESS observations supported the finding. This marks the first time a planet has been shown to form after a star's main sequence phase. Source: universetoday.com
Cosmic Spotlight
New data on Tabby's Star is helping astronomers test whether the dimming comes from internal stellar processes or external material. The irregular pattern rules out regular planetary transits. Follow-up observations could distinguish between dust and comet scenarios. The star's binary nature adds another layer to the analysis. Each new measurement narrows the range of possible causes. The involvement of citizen scientists highlights the role of public participation in astronomy.
Cosmic Deep Dive: How Transmission Spectroscopy Reveals Exoplanet Atmospheres
A planet the size of Earth passing in front of a star fifty light years away blocks only one hundredth of one percent of the starlight, yet that sliver carries the chemical signature of an entire atmosphere. During transit the starlight filters through the planet's upper layers where different molecules absorb specific wavelengths and leave dark lines in the spectrum. Instruments spread that light across ultraviolet to infrared bands and measure the depth of each absorption feature to identify helium hydrogen or even complex organics. The method works because the planet's atmosphere acts like a temporary filter that changes with altitude and temperature. One surprising number is that helium escape rates of several hundred tons per second have already been recorded on worlds forty nine light years away. We can see the gas leaving but nobody knows whether the flow will strip the entire atmosphere or leave a denser layer behind.
That's the view from the frontiers today. |
