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Archive for the Astronomy category

June 26, 2024

Crab Nebula Sonification

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NASA dicit:

This is a sonification of X-ray light emitted by the Crab Nebula. The data was obtained by NASA’s NuSTAR and Chandra space observatories, whose teams turned the data into sound to enable people to audibly perceive different features of the Crab Nebula, making it more accessible for the visually impaired.

In this sonification, X-ray wavelengths from NuSTAR (represented as different colors) are mapped to different musical pitches and sounds. Red, yellow, purple, blue, and white are mapped to notes from low to high. For Chandra, brightness in the X-ray data corresponds with pitch and volume, and a bell sound indicates the position of the pulsar at the center of the nebula.

The Crab Nebula is what remains of a star that exploded as a supernova. The explosion that created the Crab Nebula was visible from Earth in the year 1054, when it was recorded by Chinese astronomers. Most of the star’s mass was pushed into space, creating a wide debris field that continues to expand.

The rest of the stellar material collapsed into a dense object called a pulsar. The pulsar’s rapid rotation and strong magnetic field accelerate particles and shoot them into space.The particles emit high-energy X-rays that NuSTAR can detect, but as they travel outward, they collide with the debris scattered by the supernova, causing them to slow down and lose their energy. This is why NuSTAR only sees light from a relatively small region close to the pulsar. Lower energy X-rays detected by Chandra can be seen farther out.

Video credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CXC/SAO

 

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April 25, 2024

No Gamma Rays from Nearby Supernova

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Wikipedia dicit:

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST, also FGRST), formerly called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), is a space observatory being used to perform gamma-ray astronomy observations from low Earth orbit. Its main instrument is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), with which astronomers mostly intend to perform an all-sky survey studying astrophysical and cosmological phenomena such as active galactic nuclei, pulsars, other high-energy sources and dark matter. Another instrument aboard Fermi, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM; formerly GLAST Burst Monitor), is being used to study gamma-ray bursts and solar flares.

Fermi, named for high-energy physics pioneer Enrico Fermi, was launched on 11 June 2008 aboard a Delta II 7920-H rocket. The mission is a joint venture of NASA, the United States Department of Energy, and government agencies in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sweden, becoming the most sensitive gamma-ray telescope on orbit, succeeding INTEGRAL. The project is a recognized CERN experiment (RE7).

Video credit: NASA Goddard

 

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March 26, 2024

Phantom Galaxy

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Wikipedia dicit:

Messier 74 is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, which is seen face-on from Earth’s vantage point some 32 million light-years away. X-rays from Chandra (purple) have been combined with an infrared view of M74 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (green, yellow, red, and magenta) as well as optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (orange, cyan, and blue). In sonifying these data, a clockwise-moving radar-like scan starts around 12 o’clock. The distance from the center controls the frequencies of sound with light farther from the center being higher pitched. The Chandra sources correspond to relatively high musical pitches of glassy ethereal and clear plucked sounds. In the Webb data, large, medium, and small features are represented by low, medium, and high frequency ranges of pitches respectively with the brightest stars being heard as percussive sounds. The Hubble data have been turned into breathy synthesizer sounds along with thin metallic plucked sounds for bright stars and clusters.

Video credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

 

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January 29, 2024

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

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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

 

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December 23, 2023

Fermi Time Lapse

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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

 

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November 30, 2023

2024 Moon Phases

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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

 

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