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Category: space – Page 728

Astrophysicists observe long-theorized quantum phenomena

At the heart of every white dwarf star—the dense stellar object that remains after a star has burned away its fuel reserve of gases as it nears the end of its life cycle—lies a quantum conundrum: as white dwarfs add mass, they shrink in size, until they become so small and tightly compacted that they cannot sustain themselves, collapsing into a neutron star.

This puzzling relationship between a white dwarf’s mass and size, called the mass-radius relation, was first theorized by Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in the 1930s. Now, a team of Johns Hopkins astrophysicists has developed a method to observe the phenomenon itself using collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and a recent dataset released by the Gaia Space Observatory. The combined datasets provided more than 3,000 white dwarfs for the team to study.

A report of their findings, led by Hopkins senior Vedant Chandra, is now in press in Astrophysical Journal and available online on arXiv.

Astronomers Find Stream of Early Universe Stars, Torn Apart

Astronomers have discovered a mysterious stream of ancient stars at the distant edges of the galaxy: a strange stellar breed so unlike any we’ve seen before, they may very well be the last of their kind.

This unusual collection of stars – called the ‘Phoenix stream’, after the Phoenix constellation in which they are visible – is what’s known as a stellar stream: an elongated chain of stars that used to exist in a spherical form, known as a globular cluster.

Such clusters can be torn asunder by a galaxy’s gravitational forces, in which case their globular form becomes warped, stretching out into a ghostly caravan of stars, fated to distantly orbit a faraway galactic core.

China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1 leaves Earth’s gravitational field, sends back photo of Earth, moon: CNSA

Photo: courtesy of china national space administration

Tianwen-1, China’s first Mars probe, has smoothly flown more than 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth, leaving Earth’s gravitational field, and entering planned interplanetary orbit, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Tuesday.

According to a press release the CNSA provided to the Global Times on Tuesday, the spacecraft is operating properly. Flight control and data communication is underway in an orderly and clear fashion.

Say “Bon Voyage” to our Mars Perseverance Rover!

We’re going back to Mars! NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover will be launching soon for its seven-month journey to the Red Planet to search for signs of ancient life. And it’s bringing along a friend: a little helicopter named Ingenuity! Ingenuity will test the first powered flight on Mars.

Join us in wishing Perseverance and Ingenuity “bon voyage” on their #CountdownToMars! https://go.nasa.gov/2CJHidq

Airbus to build ‘first interplanetary cargo ship’

“This is not just twice as difficult as any typical Mars mission; it’s twice squared — when you think about the complexity involved,” said Dr David Parker, the director of human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency (Esa).

“And this satellite that Airbus will build — I like to call it ‘the first interplanetary cargo ship’, because that’s what it will be doing. It’s designed to carry cargo between Mars and Earth,” he told BBC News.

Dr Parker announced the European aerospace company’s role in the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) at a NASA-Esa briefing with reporters just ahead of Thursday’s launch of the Perseverance robot.