OrbitalHub

The place where space exploration, science, and engineering meet

Domain is for sale. $50,000,000.00 USD. Direct any inquiries to contact@orbitalhub.com.

Archive for the Astronomy category

January 29, 2024

14-Year Time-Lapse of the Gamma-Ray Sky

Posted by

 

 

NASA dicit:

The entire gamma-ray sky is unwrapped into a rectangular map, with the center of our Milky Way galaxy located in the middle, in this 14-year time-lapse of the gamma-ray sky. A moving source, our Sun, can be seen following a curving path through the sky, a reflection of Earth’s annual orbital motion. Watch for strong flares that occasionally brighten the Sun.

The central plane of our galaxy is on full display, glowing in gamma rays produced when accelerated particles (cosmic rays) interact with interstellar gas and starlight. Pulsars and supernova remnants, all bright gamma-ray sources for Fermi, also fleck the Milky Way band. Above and below the bright central plane, where our view of the broader cosmos becomes clearer, splotches of color brighten and fade. These sources are jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light driven by supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. The jets happen to point almost directly toward Earth, which enhances their brightness and variability. Over a few days, these galaxies can erupt to become some of the brighest objects in the gamma-ray sky and then fade to obscurity.

In these maps, brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays detected by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope from Aug. 10, 2008, to Aug. 2, 2022.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

 

  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • Live
  • TwitThis
December 23, 2023

Fermi Time Lapse

Posted by

 

 

NASA dicit:

The entire gamma-ray sky is shown as two circular views centered on the north (left) and south poles of our Milky Way galaxy in this 14-year time-lapse of the gamma-ray sky. The central plane of our galaxy wraps around the edges of both circles, suppressing its glow and improving the view of black-hole-powered galaxies in the distant universe. Their gamma rays come from jets produced by supermassive black holes in distant galaxies that point almost directly toward Earth, which enhances their brightness and variability. Over a few days, these galaxies can erupt to become some of the brighest objects in the gamma-ray sky and then fade to obscurity. A moving source, our Sun, can be seen arcing up and down the circles as it appears to move through the sky, a reflection of Earth’s annual orbital motion. Watch for strong flares that occasionally brighten the Sun. In these maps, brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays detected by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope from Aug. 10, 2008, to Aug. 2, 2022.

Video credit: NASA

 

  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • Live
  • TwitThis
November 30, 2023

2024 Moon Phases

Posted by

 



 

 

NASA dicit:

These visualizations show the Moon’s phase and libration at hourly intervals throughout 2024. Each frame represents one hour. In addition, the visualizations show the Moon’s orbit position, sub-Earth and subsolar points, and distance from the Earth at true scale. Craters near the terminator are labeled, as are Apollo landing sites, maria, and other albedo features in sunlight.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Data visualization by: Ernie Wright (USRA)/Producer & Editor: David Ladd (AIMM)/Music Provided by Universal Production Music: “Go Win It” – Alexander Hitchens

 

  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • Live
  • TwitThis
November 7, 2023

NASA Data Sonification

Posted by

 

 

NASA dicit:

This sonification turns the orbits of a new seven-planet system, discovered by NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope, into sound. It begins at the center of the system with the innermost orbit and builds toward the outermost, introducing each orbit with a new sound that plays once per rotation around the central Sun-like star. It then focuses on two specific orbits in resonance, which creates a beating sound with the inner rotating twice in the same period as the outer rotates three times. Next, only the three outer-most planets are singled out as an orbital resonance chain before blending all seven together again. This is the first planetary system in which each planet bathed in more radiant heat from their host star per area than any in our solar system.

Video credit: NASA’s Ames Research Center/Bishop’s University /Jason Rowe

 

  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • Live
  • TwitThis
October 30, 2023

Water Near Moon’s South Pole

Posted by

 

 

NASA dicit:

A new study using the now-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) data has pieced together the first detailed, wide-area map of water distribution on the Moon. The new map covers about one-quarter of the Earth-facing side of the lunar surface below 60 degrees latitude and extends to the Moon’s South Pole. In this data visualization, SOFIA’s lunar water observations are indicated using color, with blue representing areas of higher water signal, and brown lower.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio/Ernie Wright

 

  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • Live
  • TwitThis
September 30, 2023

Black Hole Attack

Posted by

 

 

NASA dicit:

Using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which launched in 2004, scientists have discovered a black hole in a distant galaxy repeatedly nibbling on a Sun-like star. The object heralds a new era of Swift science made possible by a novel method for analyzing data from the satellite’s X-ray Telescope (XRT). When a star strays too close to a monster black hole, gravitational forces create intense tides that break the star apart into a stream of gas. The leading edge swings around the black hole, and the trailing edge escapes the system. These destructive episodes are called tidal disruption events. Astronomers see them as flares of multiwavelength light created when the debris collides with a disk of material already orbiting the black hole.

Recently, astronomers have been investigating variations on this phenomena, which they call partial or repeating tidal disruptions. During these events, every time an orbiting star passes close to a black hole, the star bulges outward and sheds material, but survives. The process repeats until the star looses too much gas and finally breaks apart. The characteristics of the individual star and black hole system determine what kind of emission scientists observe, creating a wide array of behaviors to categorize.

On June 22, 2022, XRT captured Swift J0230 for the first time. It lit up in a galaxy around 500 million light-years away in the northern constellation Triangulum. Swift’s XRT has observed nine additional outbursts from the same location roughly every few weeks. Scientists propose that Swift J0230 is a repeating tidal disruption of a Sun-like star orbiting a black hole with over 200,000 times the Sun’s mass. They estimate the star loses around three Earth masses of material on each pass. This system provides a bridge between other types of suspected repeating disruptions and allowed scientists to model how interactions between different star types and black hole sizes affect what we observe.

Swift J0230’s discovery was possible thanks to a new, automated search of XRT observations called the Swift X-ray Transient Detector. After the instrument observes a portion of the sky, the data is transmitted to the ground, and the program compares it to previous XRT snapshots of the same spot. If that portion of the X-ray sky has changed, scientists get an alert. In the case of Swift J0230, astronomers were able to rapidly coordinate additional observations of the region.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Producer: Sophia Roberts (AIMM)/Science writer: Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park)/Editor: Sophia Roberts (AIMM)/Narrator: Sophia Roberts (AIMM)/Animator: Chris Smith (KBRwyle)/Project support: Scott Wiessinger (KBRwyle)

 

  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • Live
  • TwitThis