A supernova is a star’s colossal explosion at the end of its life, potentially outshining its entire galaxy. Read about the causes and types of supernovae here. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-supernova…
Tag: x-ray
Life-hunting Perseverance rover is halfway to Mars
NASA announced that its Perseverance rover mission – which will search for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars – has now passed the halfway mark in its journey to the planet. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/perservance-rover-halfway-to-mars-nasa-astrobiology…
Assessing the habitability of planets around old red dwarfs
A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope gives new insight into an important question: how habitable are planets that orbit the most common type of stars in the Galaxy? The target of the new study, as reported in our press release, is Barnard’s Star, which is one of the closest stars to Earth at…
Ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar Swift J0243.6+6124 investigated with AstroSat
Using India’s AstroSat spacecraft, astronomers have performed broadband timing and spectral observations of an ultra-luminous X-ray (ULX) pulsar known as Swift J0243.6+6124. Results of this observational campaign, presented in a paper published October 16 on arXiv.org, reveal more details about the properties of this pulsar. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-ultra-luminous-x-ray-pulsar-swift-j024366124.html…
The magnetic fields of a jellyfish galaxy
New work reveals the intricate relationship between so-called jellyfish galaxies, and the magnetic environment through which they move. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/magnetic-fields-jellyfish-galaxy-jo206…
NASA’s Probe Sampled Too Much From Asteroid Bennu and Now It’s Leaking
Iwastheone shares some space news from OPB: A NASA spacecraft sent out to collect a sample of rock and dust from an asteroid has nabbed so much that it’s created an unexpected problem. Rocks are jammed in the device in a way that’s keeping a Mylar flap open, creating a gap that’s letting some of the collected pebbles and dust drift…
How the world came to understand black holes
Earlier this month, Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez split the 2020 physics Nobel Prize for decades of work on black holes. Click here to learn more about their monumental achievement and about the history of our understanding of these exotic objects in space. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nobel-prize-3-astrophysicists-black-holess-penrose-genzel-ghez…
Technology ready for back-up detector X-IFU in Athena space telescope
In 2031, ESA launches its new X-ray space telescope Athena. SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research plays a large role in building one of its two instruments, the X-IFU spectrometer, by producing the camera plus the back-up detectors. SRON scientists have now successfully developed detectors that are optimized for a readout based on a special system called Frequency Domain Multiplexing. They…
Do ripples on the surface of the sun tell us that a flare is coming?
Flares from the sun are some of the nastiest things in the solar system. When the sun flares, it belches out intense X-ray radiation (and sometimes even worse). Predicting solar flares is a tricky job, and a new research paper sheds light on a possible new technique: looking for telltale ripples in the surface of the sun minutes before the blast…
Ancient microbial life used arsenic to thrive in a world without oxygen
Today, most life on Earth is supported by oxygen. But ancient microbial mats existed for a billion years before oxygen was present in the atmosphere. So what did life use instead? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/ancient-microbial-life-arsenic…