Lifeboat Foundation

Can an exoplanet’s weather be mapped similar to weather on Earth and even some of the gas giants in our solar system? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as a team of international researchers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to investigated weather patterns on WASP-43 b, which is a “hot Jupiter” gas giant exoplanet located approximately 280 light-years from Earth. This study holds the potential to help astronomers develop new methods and techniques in conducting atmospheric science on planetary bodies light years from Earth.

Discovered in 2011 by the La Silla Observatory in Chile using the transit method, WASP-43 b has a radius just slightly larger than Jupiter and whose mass is slightly more than double an orbital period of 0.8 days. Because of this extremely close distance, WASP-43 b is tidally locked to its parent star, meaning one side always faces it while the opposite side always faces away from it. In 2014, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope conducted its own weather mapping of WASP-43 b, discovering its atmosphere reflects only small amounts of sunlight, which is in stark contrast to the Earth, along with discovering the presence of water vapor. Additionally, WASP-43 b was also observed by the now-retired NASA Spitzer Space Telescope.

“With Hubble, we could clearly see that there is water vapor on the dayside. Both Hubble and Spitzer suggested there might be clouds on the nightside,” said Dr. Taylor Bell, who is a researcher from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute and lead author of the study. “But we needed more precise measurements from Webb to really begin mapping the temperature, cloud cover, winds, and more detailed atmospheric composition all the way around the planet.”

When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust, they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar, like twins, but in HD 148,937, one star appears younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic.

New data from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) suggest there were originally three stars in the system, until two of them clashed and merged. This violent event created the surrounding cloud and forever altered the system’s fate.

“When doing background reading, I was struck by how special this system seemed,” says Abigail Frost, an astronomer at ESO in Chile and lead author of the study, “A magnetic massive star has experienced a stellar merger,” published in Science.

A smartphone shutting down on a sweltering day is an all-too-common annoyance that may accompany a trip to the beach on a sunny afternoon. Electronic memory within these devices isn’t built to handle extreme heat.

As temperatures climb, the electrons that store data become unstable and begin to escape, leading to device failure and loss of information. But what if gadgets could withstand not just a hot summer day but the searing conditions of a jet engine or the harsh surface of Venus?

In a paper published in the journal Nature Electronics, Deep Jariwala and Roy Olsson of the University of Pennsylvania and their teams at the School of Engineering and Applied Science demonstrated memory technology capable of enduring temperatures as high as 600° Celsius—more than twice the tolerance of any commercial drives on the market—and these characteristics were maintained for more than 60 hours, indicating exceptional stability and reliability.

Researchers using the JWST may have found evidence of the Universe’s first stars. Called Population III stars, they were massive and hot.

So we can now entertain idea of overseeing our solar system by placing a network of comm satelites…live orbital feeds from at least our neerest solar objects.

Laser beam comms are fast, so long as the weather cooperates.

Direct sample analysis offers several advantages over robotic explorers conducting it from the surface of an asteroid or planet and then beaming back the data.

It provides a window into understanding how the surface of a celestial body has changed due to its constant exposure to the harsh deep space environment.

The scientists conducted their analysis using electron holography, a technique in which electron waves infiltrate materials. This method has the potential to uncover key details about the sample’s structure and magnetic and electric properties.

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The universe seems to be ruled by equations and numbers. But why just these equations and why just those numbers? Is it just coincidence? In this video I have collected seven of the weirdest coincidences in physics.

Continue reading “The 7 Strangest Coincidences in the Laws of Nature” »

NASA’s Juno spacecraft recently spotted a glassy-smooth lava lake amid the volcanic hellscape of Jupiter’s moon Io.

When Juno’s orbit swooped past Io last December, its cameras captured a mirrorlike reflection from a small patch of the moon’s surface. The strangely shiny landmark turns out to be a lava lake, covered with a thin crust of smooth, gleaming volcanic rock. The rock was probably something like obsidian, a natural glass that forms from cooling magma here on Earth. Known as Loki Patera, the lava lake stretches 127 miles long and is dotted with rocky islands, and its edges glow with heat from the molten magma just beneath the surface.

Continue reading “NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Stumbled On A Glistening Lava Lake On Jupiter’s Moon Io” »

Researchers using Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, have detected unusual radio pulses from a previously dormant star with a powerful magnetic field.

New results published today in Nature Astronomy describe radio signals from magnetar XTE J1810-197 behaving in complex ways.

Magnetars are a type of neutron star and the strongest magnets in the Universe. At roughly 8,000 light years away, this magnetar is also the closest known to Earth.