Showing posts with label astrophysics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astrophysics. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

James Webb Space Telescope delivers amazing view of spiral galaxy - See in 4K - YouTube - Space.com - astrophysics

First is shown spiral galaxy NGC 2090 by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.Next is shown NGC 2090 by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope usinf its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIDI) and Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).NGC is about 37 million light years from Earth in the constellation Columbia,so right next door.

Thursday, November 21, 2024

First zoomed-in picture of an extragalactic star | ESO News - YouTube - astrophysics

WOH64 is a star on its way to becoming a supernova.It is more than 160,000 light years from Earth.The star is surrounded by a giant cocoon of gas and dust,showing that its end is near.The photo was taken with the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer.The star is 200 times as large as the Sun.

Monday, November 18, 2024

How Supernovas Act as Universe’s Largest Particle Accelerators - YouTube - PBS Space Time - astrophysics

In 1912,Victor Hess discovered cosmic rays,ascertaining their non-solar origin,and received a Nobel Prize for this a few decades later.Most cosmic rays come from supernovae.Enrico Fermi discovered how shock waves can send particles out at vastly higher speeds than the waves themselves travel at.A shock wave is a tsunami of both charged particles and magnetic field.Shock waves can accelerate particles to a large fraction of the speed of light.Cosmic rays are detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina and by the ISS Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) detector.*Dr.Matt O'Dowd is an Australian astrophysicist and presenter and writer or co-writer of PBS Space Time.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

The Alchemy of Neutron Star Collisions - YouTube - PBS Space Time - astrophysics

A collision of neutron stars created some of the heavy elements found in the human body.*Dr.Matt O'Dowd is an Australian astrophysicist and the presenter and writer or co-writer of PBS Space Time.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Tour: Sagittarius A East - YouTube - astrophysics - NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory

Saggitarius A East (Sagt A East) was thought to have been a typical supernova explosion of a massive star.Now ,however,after a longer study with Chandra,astronomers have ascertained that,in fact,Sagt A East is actually where a white dwarf star exploded.White dwarfs are the shrunken stellar embers of a fuel-depleted star like our Sun that isn't large enough to supernova.The explosion is the result of thermonuclear reactions that travel quicky through a white dwarf when it pulls too much material from a companion star or merges with another white dwarf,causing the destruction of the white dwarf and a stunning flash of light.Explosions of a white dwarf are a crtitcal source of elements critical to life on Earth such as iron,nickel and chromium.Such elements are only created in the nuclear furnaces of stars or when stars explode.*Credit:NASA/Jet Propusion Laboratory-California Institute of Technology*Text by Chandra and edited by Andrew Taylor

Thursday, October 31, 2024

The Boundary Between Black Holes & Neutron Stars - YouTube - PBS Space Time - astrophysics

Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.On 14 AUG 2024,a signal was received consistent with a gravitational wave traveling at the speed of light at the Hanford LIGO in Washington State,the Livingston LIGO in Louisiana,and the Virgo LIGO in Italy.A neutron star is what's left over after a supernova.About 1.5 Suns of matter is compressed into an area the size of a small city,making the gravity 100 billion times stronger than the gravity of Earth's surface.The signal was consistent with a neutron star being in close proximity to a black hole.*Presented and written by Dr.Matt O'Dowd,an Australian astrophysicist.

Friday, October 25, 2024

Neutron Stars: The Most Extreme Objects in the Universe - YouTube - PBS Space Time - astrophysics

Neutron stars have the strongest magnetic fields in the universe.They actually have a solid,crystalline surface and tiny subsurface mountains.Then there is nuclear spaghetti,which is the strongest substance in the universe,as it stands up to the crushing gravity of neutron stars.*Dr.Matt O'Dowd is an Australian astrophysicist and the host and writer or co-writer of PBS Space Time.

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Watch the R Aquarii binary star system evolve in Hubble imagery time-lapse - YouTube - Space.com - astrophysics

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured imagery of the R Aquarri binary star system from 2014-2023.The images have been time-lapsed to show the evolution of the region.R Aquarri is a symbiotic star system in the constellation Aquarius.It is believed to be a coupling of a white dwarf star with a Mira-type variable star,a red giant.The orbital period is about 44 years.It has a distance of about 218 parsecs/711 light years,so is right next door.By its gravitational pull,the white dwarf draws in material from the red giant and sometimes ejects some of the surplus in loops to form the nebula seen in the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images.The red giant star both pulsates and changes temperature,causing a very large change in brightness.Its brightness has a total range of 750 times.The pulsations occur every 390 days,give or take some days.*Material by Space.com and edited and augmented by Andrew Taylor

Saturday, October 19, 2024

Do Neutron Stars Shine In Dark Matter? - YouTube - PBS Space Time - new video - astrophysics

Neutron stars may produce the exotic Axion,a dark matter candidate.Axions can turn into the packets of light called photons.*Neutron stars have strong magnetic fields.Axions may or may not exist,but,if they do,neutron stars produce vast quantities of these dark matter particles and are cloaked in a cloud of them.*The neutron stars that are pulsars may be the source of the mysterious Fast Radio Bursts that puzzle astronomers.Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that blast out pulses of radiation at regular intervals ranging from seconds to milliseconds.Pulsars have strong magnetic fields that funnel particles accelerating to relativistic speeds,which produces two powerful beams of light.*Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921,especially for his discovery of the photoelectric effect.Einstein's work on the photoelectric effect demonstrates that light consists of quanta,or packets of light,which we now call photons.This was a pivotal contribution to the development of quantum theory.*PBS Space Time is presented and written or co-written by Dr.Matt O'Dowd,an Australian astrophysicist.

Friday, October 4, 2024

Hubble Spots Black Hole Beam Causing Stellar Eruptions - YouTube - NASA Goddard - astrophysics

In a surprise finding,the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has discovered that the jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of M 87,a huge spiral galaxy 54 million light years away,seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory.The stars,are called novae,are not caught inside the jet,but are in a dangerous spot near it.A nova explosion occurs when an aged,swollen normal star spills hydrogen onto a burned out white dwarf companion star.When the white dwarf has collected a big enough layer of hydrogen,it explodes into space.The white dwarf survives to resume the cycle.*Credit:NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,Maryland*Text by NASA Goddard and edited by Andrew Taylor

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Hubble’s Inside the Image: The Bubble Nebula - YouTube - NASA Goddard - astrophysics

NASA Goddard material augmented by Andrew Taylor*The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) is in the constellation Cassiopeia and about 7100 light years from Earth,so is right next door.It has a massive hot star at its center and was created by the intense winds of this star throwing off its own material.The star is large enough that it will become a supernova in tens of millions of years.It is an H II Region Emission Nebula.The star is designated SAO 205 75.NGC 7635 was discovered by the German-British astronomer and composer William Herschel.Born in Hanover electorate,he emigrated to Great Britain at the age of 19.He frequently collaborated with his younger sister,the astronomer Caroline Herschel.He was the discoverer of Uranus and infrared radiation.*Dr.Kenneth G. Carpenter,an astrophysicist,is the Hubble Space Telescope Operations Scientist and Roman Space Telescope Ground System Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,Maryland.He is a member of the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard.

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Secrets of the Cosmic Microwave Background - YouTube - PBS Space Time - astrophysics

with Dr.Matt O'Dowd,PhD (astrophysics),writer and host of PBS Space Time*The universe is flat.The era of radiation following the Big Bang evolved to the era of dark matter and dark energy.*CMB was discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965.They were working for Bell Labs in New Jersey and stumbled upon this discovery while trying to eliminate noise from their radio telescope.Their finding provided strong evidence for the Big Bang and earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.

Monday, August 26, 2024

ALMA's extreme makeover: the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade - YouTube - astrophysics

The Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade is expected to be a gamechanger for astronomy.Operating partners for ALMA includes the National Radio Astronomy Observatory based at the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville,Virginia.It is operated by the US National Science Foundation.The third operating partner is the Japanese Astronomical Observatory.Additional partners include the USNSF;NINS Japan;NRC (Canada);NSTC and ASIAA (Taiwan);and KASI (Republic of Korea).ALMA is located in the Chajnantor Plateau of the Chilean Andes Mountains.

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Shielding the Extremely Large Telescope from the Atacama Desert | ELT Updates - YouTube - astrophysics

The Extremely Large Telescope will be located in Amazones,Chile in the Atacama Desert,requiring a lot of shielding from the harsh environmental conditions.It's a major engineering project to construct the dome and shielding.

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Palomar Observatory celebrates 75 years - YouTube - CBS 8 San Diego - Report from 2023 - astrophysics

This Caltech Optical Observatory located in San Diego County,California atop Mt.Palomar,constantly makes technological innovations that keep it on the cutting edge of astrophysics research.The observatory's founder,heliophysicist George Ellery Hale,was also a founder of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).The observatory prides itself in being an educational institution,both for mentoring astronomy students and educating the general public.It is booked by international scientists for their research projects.

Thursday, August 1, 2024

Virtual guided tour ESO's Paranal Observatory. Saturday, July 30th, 15:00h CST. - YouTube - astrophysics

All the ESO observatories are located in the Atacama desert of Chile.Mt.Paranal is the main optical facility.ESO is sponsored by a consortium of 16 EU member states plus partner Australia.It's one of the main centers of astrophysics research in the world.Others include Mt.Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii and Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson,Arizona.Caltech operates the Palomar Mountain Observatory in San Diego County,California.Scientists from all over the world can book time at these observatories.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst Of All Time had a curious feature, NASA Fermi Finds - NASA Goddard - astrophysics

Gamma-Ray Bursts are formed when a new black hole expels matter into space.The Brightest Burst of All Time (BOAT) was detected using the NASA Fermi Space Telescope om 2022.A study of the data has revealed a new feature.The particles emitting the Gamma-Ray line must have been traveling at 99.9% of the speed of light.The speed of light is the fastest speed in the universe and is a constant speed,regardless of how fast you're traveling when you observe light,according to Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity,the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) points out.His exploration of the fundamental properties of light was an astonishing recognition and revolutionized our understanding of space and time.The Special Theory laid the groundwork for his greatest achievement,the General Theory of Relativity.*Both the Special Theory and General Theory have repeatedly been verified.For instance,the Special Theory,proposed in 1905,has been validated through experiments using high-speed particles and precise time measurements.For example,the time dilation effect has been confirmed using atomic clocks on fast-moving aircraft.One of the earliest confirmations of the General Theory,proposed in 2015,took place in 1919 with observations of the bending of light by a solar eclipse.A more recent confirmation was the detection of gravitational waves in 2018 by two LIGOs,Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories. * Credit:NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Friday, July 12, 2024

Hubble Finds New Evidence for Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Omega Centauri - YouTube - NASA Goddard - astrophysics

Intermdiate-mass black holes are a long sought missing link in black hole evolution.They are smaller than supermassive black holes,but larger than stellar mass black holes,formed by the collapse of massive stars.Only a few candidates have been found to date.*A team astronomers analyzed over 500 images from 20 years of NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations to find evidence of an intermediate-range blsck hole by tracking seven fast-moving starsin Omega Centauri.The Omega Cantauri globular cluster is in the constellarion Centaurus at a distabce of 17,090 light years from Earth.It is the largest-known globular cluster in our Milky Way galaxy at a diameter of about 150 light years.*Text by NASA/Goddard and edited by Andrew Taylor