What’s that below those strange clouds? Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html…
Tag: clouds
A surprising find of fast-moving gas from a young star
Fast-moving gas from a young star – located in a star-forming region 400 light-years away – is giving astronomers insight into how planets form. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/no-lup-surprising-find-outflowing-gas-young-star…
The Stingray nebula is disappearing
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured never-before-seen images of the rapid fading of the Stingray Nebula. This nebula is a cloud in space, surrounding a dying star. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/disappearing-stingray-neula-20-years-hubble-images…
A three-dimensional view of the Milky Way
In our Milky Way, there are about 200 billion suns as well as large quantities of gas, some of which serves as raw material for star births. The gas collects in compact lumps but also appears as extended molecular clouds. Astronomers have used the Apex sub-millimeter telescope in Chile to look deep into the galactic plane and measure the interstellar medium….
Dark energy camera snaps deepest photo yet of galactic siblings
Images from the Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History (SMASH) reveal a striking family portrait of our galactic neighbors—the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The images represent a portion of the second data release from the deepest, most extensive survey of the Magellanic Clouds. The observations consist of roughly 4 billion measurements of 360 million objects. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-dark-energy-camera-snaps-deepest.html…
Phew! Record-smashing 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is officially over
November 30 marked the official end of the record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, although more storms are still possible. Why did 2020 have so many storms? And what does climate change have to do with it? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/record-smashing-2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-official-end…
Curiosity rover spots signs of ancient megafloods on Mars
We already know that Gale Crater on Mars used to hold a lake or series of lakes a few billion years ago. Now, NASA’s Curiosity rover has found evidence for ancient giant floods that washed through the region as well. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/megafloods-gale-crater-mars-life-curiosity-rover…
A planet-forming disk still fed by the mother cloud
Stellar systems like our own form inside interstellar clouds of gas and dust that collapse producing young stars surrounded by protoplanetary disks. Planets form within these protoplanetary disks, leaving clear gaps, which have been recently observed in evolved systems, at the time when the mother cloud has been cleared out. ALMA has now revealed an evolved protoplanetary disk with a large…
Astronomers’ success: Seven new cosmic masers
A group of astronomers from Toruń in Poland have successfully completed a survey of the Milky Way plane. They searched for gas clouds, where there was a maser reinforcement of the OH molecule. They saw seven new sources – each of them brings scientists closer to the process by which massive stars are born. “It is like listening to the buzzing…
Ending Greenhouse Gas Emissions May Not Stop Global Warming, Study Says
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org : Even if humanity stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, Earth will warm for centuries to come and oceans will rise by meters, according to a controversial modeling study published Thursday. Natural drivers of global warming — more heat-trapping clouds, thawing permafrost, and shrinking sea ice — already set in motion by carbon pollution…