A new, Bay Area-born program designed to cure kids' pandemic boredom is wrapping up its first successful summer -- and may be available to help middle and high school students keep learning in the fall.

It's called Connect-in-Place. (Think "shelter-in-place", but learning online while doing it.) The free program aims to connect kids and teens with students at Stanford, Cal, Harvard, and other top universities.

Connect-in-Place got going only a few months ago, when University of California, Berkeley business students Danielle Egan and Saumya Goyal came up with the idea.

Our goal is basically to cure the isolation and boredom that came about from shelter in place, Goyal said.

The online mini-courses cover traditional topics like astronomy and algebra, but branch into more unique categories, too -- like dance lessons for TikTok and Bollywood music, or the popular video game Minecraft.

The full title is: Minecraft, Introduction to Team Building and Architecture," Egan said. "Its not just playing on Minecraft. Its like, how can we apply this really cool program to build teams, build your own building, and dig a little deeper there.

Egan and Goyal's brainchild was a mere flash of genius in the spring. By summer, they'd already connected 150 volunteer university mentors, hosts, and teachers to 2,200 computer campers -- who might not otherwise ever interact with elite college students.

We aim to provide the opportunity to connect with these kids who are at really incredible colleges... ask them questions and learn from them firsthand," Goyal said.

With so much success so fast, we asked Egan and Goyal to share one of their secrets. Their "Four-Minute Rule" is a great example. Instructors are taught to add something engaging to every video conference, every four minutes.

"By adding little activities every four minutes, into your videoconferencing, you really build a lot of engagement and keep people looking at their screen," Goyal said. "An icebreaker; a poll; a breakout room; just something to get people thinking and clicking a button.

The courses are free and open to all middle and high school students. Connect-in-Place asks participants who can afford it to make a small weekly donation, with all money going toward laptops for low-income students.

Although Connect-in-Place is wrapping up its summer sessions, Egan and Goyal say they're looking at options for more courses in the fall and beyond.

You can learn more about Connect-in-Place and donate at ConnectInPlace.org.

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Minecraft, Bollywood Dance, and Astrophysics Help College Students Connect With Kids Online - NBC Bay Area

by Astrobites | Aug 10, 2020 | Daily Paper Summaries |

The undergrad research series is where we feature the research thatyouredoing. If youve missed the previous installments, you can find themunder the Undergraduate Research category here.

Are you doingan REU thissummer? Were you working onanastro research project during this past school year? If you, too, have been working on a project that you want to share,we want to hear from you!Think youre up to the challenge of describing your research carefully and clearly to a broad audience, in only one paragraph? Then send us a summary of it!

You can share what youre doing by clickinghereand using the form provided to submit a brief (fewer than 200 words) write-up of your work. The target audience is one familiar with astrophysics but not necessarily your specific subfield, so write clearly and try to avoid jargon. Feel free to also include either a visual regarding your research or else a photo of yourself.

We look forward to hearing from you!

************

Stephen Schmidt

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Stephen Schmidt is an undergraduate studying Astrophysics and Applied Mathematics at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He completed this research at UNC-CH under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Mann.

In recent years, NASA has sponsored several space missions to find exoplanets planets that orbit other stars. Since space-based telescopes cannot spend too much time observing each individual target, we have to use telescopes on the ground to follow-up. I used Las Cumbres Observatory, a global network of telescopes, to gather data on a set of young planets and stars. I measured the brightness of each target over many images and corrected the data for atmospheric interference. Since the stars that I am interested in tend to be very red and vary in brightness a lot, I had to make sure that my code was tailored for this. With these corrections, I generated light curves of the targets. These are plots that show how the brightness of the target star changes over time. With my light curves, I observed several transits, when one object passes in front of another and blocks out some light. This causes the flux ratio, between the current amount of light detected and the usual amount of light the star appears to emit, to decrease and appear lower for the duration of the event (see Figure). I also used the light curves to see how some of the stars with a dusty disk around them changed in brightness over time. I presented my work this June at AAS 236.

Read the original here:

UR #26: Improved Methods for Ground-Based Follow-Up of Young Stars and Planets from the ZEIT Survey - Astrobites

Through international collaborations and ground-breaking hi-res simulations, UAEU is discovering more about supermassive black holes

Muhammad Abdul Latif has been exploring the mysteries of the universe for more than a decade. An assistant professor of astrophysics at United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), he investigates supermassive black holes that lie at the centres of galaxies.

Dr Latif and other astronomers at UAEU examine the formation of these black holes, which each have a mass equal to several million, or even billion, times that of the Sun.

The question is how these black holes form and grow and how they interact with galaxies, and how galaxies feed black holes, he says. It is difficult to know the birth mass of a black hole when it is first formed, Dr Latif says, but they are understood to grow significantly over time as they accrete large amounts of material.

There are various models and mechanisms to explain how black holes form and grow over time to reach billions of solar masses, he says. Dr Latifs research focuses on the direct-collapse mechanism, where a cloud of gas monolithically collapses and, rather than splintering to form stars, forms a single massive black hole 100,000 times the mass of the Sun.

Scientists have theorised that direct-collapse black holes are responsible for powering the earliest quasars luminous and powerful distant objects that emit up to a thousand times the entire energy output of the Milky Way.

Dr Latif is working with academics around the world to better understand these direct-collapse supermassive black holes. The tools used in his research are open-source codes primarily supported by the National Science Foundation, Nasa and contributions from various academic institutions around the world. He collaborates with the developers of these codes, such as researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technologys School of Physics, and UAEU has also established partnerships in Germany, Italy, the USA, the UK, France, Chile and Japan.

Recently he has been working with researchers at the University of Portsmouth and the University of Edinburgh on the universes first quasars and binary black holes systems of two black holes in close orbit around one another. Using high-resolution simulations, they secured a breakthrough about the types of dark-matter haloes these binary black holes can form in by demonstrating that these systems can form in low-spin haloes, which raises the exciting possibility of detecting gravitational waves from the mergers of direct-collapse black holes.

Dr Latif is also involved with the European Space Agency-funded Athena X-ray observatory, which will observe X-ray emission from black holes and help to constrain different models. Various ground- and space-based missions such as the James Webb SpaceTelescope, Euclid and WFIRST will be testing models he has worked on. These projects are funded by different governments who aim to understand the mysteries of the universe, he says.

Dr Latif is optimistic that the Middle East can establish itself as a global hub in astronomy research. UAEUs astronomy department is small but growing, and Dr Latif has secured funding for PhD students and postdocs to build his own research group that he says will provide much-needed manpower for more research.

I think the Middle East has a lot of potential in terms of resources and [its governments] are getting more eager to invest in space and astronomy, he says. Dr Latif will soon be working with a colleague who has secured funding to create a small radio telescope, the UAEU Radio Astronomy Pathway Project (URAPP), which will eventually become part of the Square Kilometre Array an international effort to create the world's largest radio telescope. UAEU researchers are working with counterparts in Australia, who are advising them on how to build the instrumentation. In the coming years, Dr Latif will be taking on some of the questions that have puzzled astronomers for many decades. He aims to cement more international collaborations and will focus his efforts on examining how supermassive black holes grow and how the radiation that they produce regulates star formation in their host galaxies.

Accreting black holes produce a lot of radiation, which regulates the star formation within the host galaxy, Dr Latif explains. He says that these mechanisms are relatively better understood in the local universe, but that modern telescopes have given astronomers access to better observation of systems in the further reaches of the universe.

They have observed that some galaxies are forming stars at much higher rates than others. Some are forming thousands of stars per year like our Sun which is much higher than the star-formation rate in our galaxy. How and whyare questions that remain to be answered.

Read The birth of binary direct-collapse black holes, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, to find out more about UAEUs work on supermassive black holes.

Learn moreabout UAEU.

Link:

Investigating the far-flung reaches of the universe - Times Higher Education (THE)

Such discoveries would shake humanity to its very core, forcing humanity to reappraise its place in the Universe.

Dr Israelian said: I think we will discover intelligent life in our lifetime.

"At least, we will find clear signatures [evidence of life] that have come from intelligent life.

Its the kind of discovery that will shake humanity."

The 1.6billion unmanned explorer will land on the Martian surface in February 2021.

The rover will then drill into the planet to search for alien microbes in rock and soil samples.

A growing scientific consensus believes Mars had the conditions for tiny microbes to exist billions of years ago.

Many also propose the Red Planet may still host life today.

Dr Israelian thinks NASAs Perseverance has a chance of finding evidence of aliens, though the odds are stacked against it.

He said: Perseverance has a 10 percent chance of finding microbes on Mars.

"This is purely speculative. But it's a good number, really."

Should scientists make the shocking discovery, humanity would be a step closer to colonising the Red Planet.

Some experts, including billionaire and SpaceX boss Elon Musk, believe we could make Mars habitable by changing its atmosphere.

Some suggest we release gases on the dusty planet to create a greenhouse effect, while others including Musk suggest we nuke the planet as part of a process called "terraforming".

The mission would artificially give Mars an atmosphere and help its climate return to the state that [potentially] allowed life to grow there long ago.

Although the idea has been met with heavy criticism, Dr Israelian thinks mankind will likely turn to it when the planets warming climate begins to render our planet inhospitable.

"I think when the time comes people will not care, knowing humanity.

"The moment the going gets tough well have Burger Kings up there."

Dr Israelian is a founder of the Starmus Festival, which combines music and science and is in its ninth year.

He said: It was a result of our never-ending discussions about science and arts.

Link:

Alien life bombshell: Scientist says we will find intelligent life 'within our lifetimes' - Daily Express

In space, nobody can hear you scream, but with the right equipment, it is possible to detect a roar. That's what scientists discovered back in 2006 when they began to look for distant signals in the universe using a complex instrument fixed to a huge balloon that was sent to space. The instrument was able to pick up radio waves from the heat of distant stars, but what came through that year was nothing short of astounding.

As the instrument listened from a height of about 23 miles (37 kilometers), it picked up a signal that was six-times louder than expected by cosmologists. Because it was too loud to be early stars and far greater than the predicted combined radio emission from distant galaxies, the powerful signal caused great puzzlement. And scientists still don't know what is causing it, even today. What's more, it could hamper efforts to search for signals from the first stars that formed after the Big Bang.

The instrument that detected the mysterious roaring signal was the Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission (ARCADE), which NASA built to extend the study of the cosmic microwave background spectrum at lower frequencies.

The mission's science goals as ARCADE floated high above Earth's atmosphere, free of interference from our planet were to find heat from the first generation of stars, search for particle physics relics from the Big Bang and observe the formation of the first stars and galaxies. It accomplished these goals by scanning 7% of the night sky for radio signals, since distant light becomes radio waves as it loses energy over distance.

Related: The Big Bang: What really happened at our universe's birth?

ARCADE was able to make "absolutely calibrated zero-level" measurements, which means it was measuring the actual brightness of something in real physical terms rather than relative terms. This was different from typical radio telescopes, which observe and contrast two points in the sky. By looking at all of the "light" and comparing it to a blackbody source, ARCADE was able to see the combination of many dim sources. It was then that the intensity of one particular signal became apparent, albeit over many months.

"While it might make a good movie to see us surprised when we see the light meter pop over to a value six-times what was expected, we actually spent years getting ready for our balloon flight and a very busy night taking data," said NASA scientist Dale J. Fixsen. "It then took months of data analysis to first separate instrumental effects from the signal and then to separate galactic radiation from the signal. So the surprise was gradually revealed over months." That said, the impact was still huge.

Since then, scientists have looked to see where the radiation is coming from while looking to describe the properties of the signal. The latter became apparent rather quickly.

"It's a diffuse signal coming from all directions, so it is not caused by any one single object," said Al Kogut, who headed the ARCADE team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The signal also has a frequency spectrum, or 'color,' that is similar to radio emission from our own Milky Way galaxy."

Scientists call the signal "radio synchrotron background" background being an emission from many individual sources and blending together into a diffuse glow. But because the "space roar" is caused by synchrotron radiation, a type of emission from high-energy charged particles in magnetic fields, and because every source has the same characteristic spectrum, pinpointing the origin of this intense signal is difficult.

"It has been known since the late 1960s that the combined radio emission from distant galaxies should form a diffuse radio background coming from all directions," Kogut told All About Space in an email. "The space roar is similar to this expected signal, but there doesn't seem to be six-times more galaxies in the distant universe to make up the difference, which could point to something new and exciting as the source."

Whether or not this source is inside or outside the Milky Way is under debate.

"There are good arguments why it cannot be coming from within the Milky Way, and good arguments for why it cannot be coming from outside the galaxy," Kogut said.

One reason it probably isn't coming from within our galaxy is because the roar doesn't seem to follow the spatial distribution of Milky Way radio emission. But nobody is saying for certain that the signal isn't from a source closer to home only that the smart money is on it coming from elsewhere.

All About Space

(Image credit: Future)

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All About Spacemagazine takes you on an awe-inspiring journey through our solar system and beyond, from the amazing technology and spacecraft that enables humanity to venture into orbit, to the complexities of space science.

"I wouldn't quite say that scientists have largely ruled out the possibility of the radio synchrotron background originating from our galaxy," said Jack Singal, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Richmond in Virginia, who recently led a workshop on the matter. "However, I would say that this explanation does seem to be less likely.

"The primary reason is that it would make our galaxy completely unlike any similar spiral galaxy, which as far as we can tell do not exhibit the sort of giant, spherical, radio-emitting halo extending far beyond the galactic disk that would be required. There are other issues as well, such as that it would require a complete rethinking of our models of the galactic magnetic field."

Fixsen agrees wholeheartedly. "In other spiral galaxies there is a close relation between the infrared and radio emission, even in small sections of these others," he said. "So, if it is from a halo around our galaxy, it would make the Milky Way a weird galaxy, while in most other respects it seems like a 'normal' spiral galaxy."

For those reasons, experts think the signal is primarily extragalactic in origin. "It would make it the most interesting photon background in the sky at the moment because the source population is completely unknown," Singal said. But since the universe is so vast this doesn't exactly narrow things down that much, which is why scientists have been working hard to come up with multiple theories for the signal's source.

Related: Mysterious deep-space flashes repeat every 157 days

American physicist David Brown, for example, said the space roar could be "the first great empirical success of M-theory," a broad mathematical framework encompassing string theory. "There might be a Fredkin-Wolfram automaton spread across multitudes of alternate universes, yielding recurrent physical time with endless repetitions of all possible physical events," Brown wrote on the FQXi Community blog. What this supposes is that the early universe had much more real matter than today, accounting for the powerful radio signal.

The space roar could be "the first great empirical success of M-theory," a broad mathematical framework encompassing string theory.

But if that is too far out, there are other theories to get your teeth into. "Radio astronomers have looked at the sky and have identified a couple of types of synchrotron sources," Fixsen said.

Synchrotron radiation is easy to make, he said. "All you need is energetic particles and a magnetic field, and there are energetic particles everywhere, produced by supernovas, stellar winds, black holes, even OB stars," which are hot, massive stars of spectral type O or early-type B. "Intergalactic space seems to be filled with very hot gas, so if intergalactic magnetic fields were strong enough [stronger than predicted], they could generate smooth synchrotron radiation," he said.

It is also known that synchrotron radiation is associated with star production. "This also generates infrared radiation, hence the close correlation," Fixsen said. "But perhaps the first stars generated synchrotron radiation yet, before metals were produced, they did not generate very much infrared radiation. Or perhaps there is some process that we haven't thought of yet."

So what does this leave us with? "Possible sources include either diffuse large-scale mechanisms such as turbulently merging clusters of galaxies, or an entirely new class of heretofore unknown incredibly numerous individual sources of radio emission in the universe," Singal said. "But anything in that regard is highly speculative at the moment, and some suggestions that have been raised include annihilating dark matter, supernovae of the first generations of stars and many others."

Some scientists have suggested gases in large clusters of galaxies could be the source, although it's unlikely ARCADE's instruments would have been able to detect radiation from any of them. Similarly, there is a chance that the signal was detected from the earliest stars or that it is originating from lots of otherwise dim radio galaxies, the accumulative effect of which is being picked up. But if this was the case then they'd have to be packed incredibly tightly, to the point that there is no gap between them, which appears unlikely.

"Of course, there is also the possibility that there has been a coincidence of errors among ARCADE and the other measurements to date that have mismeasured the level of the radio synchrotron background," Singal said. "This does seem unlikely, given that these are very different instruments measuring in quite different frequency bands."

Whatever the signal is, it's also causing issues when it comes to detecting other space objects. As NASA has pointed out in the past, the earliest stars are hidden behind the space roar, and that is making them more difficult to detect. It's as if the universe is giving with one hand and taking with another, but to have uncovered something so unusual is immensely exciting. When you're ruling out an origin from primordial stars and known radio sources such as gas in the outermost halo of our galaxy, it's a mystery any scientist would savour with relish.

"Beyond that, I think we may need some brilliant new origin hypothesis that nobody has thought of yet."

In order for scientists to finally resolve this 13-year conundrum, more research and evidence is sorely needed. As it stands, there is a debate over sending ARCADE back up given the advent of new technology, and given its precise set of instruments, immersed in more than 500 gallons of ultra-cold liquid helium to make them even more sensitive, there would certainly be no harm in doing so.

But there are also new projects emerging which could help. "One of them will use the 300-foot [91 meter] radio telescope at Green Bank, West Virginia, to map the radio sky to higher precision than before," Kogut said. "Perhaps this will shed some light on the mystery."

Singal certainly hopes so. He is working on the Green Bank Telescope project, making use of the largest clear-aperture radio telescope in the world to measure the level of the background as a primary, rather than ancillary goal. It will do this using a definitive, purpose-built, absolutely calibrated zero-level measurement taken at the megahertz (MHz) frequencies where the radio sky is brightest. (A megahertz is equal to a million hertz.)

"This measurement is currently being developed by a team which I am on, utilizing custom instrumentation which will be mounted on the telescope," Singal explained. There is also going to be another measurement attempt, this one looking to measure or further limit the so-called "anisotropy," or variation of the radio synchrotron background, again at the MHz frequencies where it dominates.

"That is not its absolute level, but rather the small differences from place to place in the sky," Singal said. "With some collaborators, I am trying a first attempt at that using the Low-Frequency Array [LOFAR] in The Netherlands. Both of these measurements in concert can help nail down whether the radio synchrotron background is primarily galactic or extragalactic in origin. Beyond that, I think we may need some brilliant new origin hypothesis that nobody has thought of yet."

Additional resources:

This article was adapted from a previous version published in All About Space magazine, a Future Ltd. publication.

The rest is here:

Space roar: NASA detected the loudest sound in the universe, but what is it? - Space.com

The University of Torontos Neda Maghbouleh seeks to better understand how borders, wars and other geopolitical forces influence the formation of immigrants identities.

My work is fundamentally motivated by unresolved questions about integration, assimilation, and racialization, says Maghbouleh, an associate professor in U of T Mississaugas department of sociology.

Through a strategic focus on Syrian refugees and others from the Middle Eastern/North African region, I am building a multilevel analysis of the evolving identities of newcomers to Canada and the U.S. today.

The goal is to advance new theories that explain the influence of geopolitics, borders, war, sanctions and surveillance on everyday peoples racial identifications and attachments.

An international expert on the formation of racial identity, Maghbouleh is one of 29 new or renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T. Her tier two chair in migration, race and identity will allow her to further expand her scholarship on how racial identities traffic across borders and categories.

The Canada Research Chair Program was established in 2000 to fund outstanding researchers in this country. It provides approximately $295 million annually to universities to help retain and attract top minds, spur innovation and foster training excellence in Canadian post-secondary institutions.

Congratulations to the University of Torontos new and renewed Canada Research Chairs, says University Professor Ted Sargent, U of Ts vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. This investment will further strengthen and build on the exceptional research environment at U of T.

The Canada Research Chairs Program enables our nations researchers to make ground-breaking discoveries, create new knowledge and attract talent that ultimately benefits all Canadians.

Maghbouleh is among those emerging researchers who are making their mark. Her 2017 award-winning book The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race explored the culture and identity of Iranian Americans as well as the discrimination they face. It has been adopted in courses at over 30 universities in North America and the U.K.

Since she became a faculty member at U of T Mississauga in 2015, Maghboulehs research has received consistent funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), including a major Insight Grant for the project Settlement, Integration, & Stress: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study of Syrian Newcomer Mothers & Teens in the GTA. She recently presented early findings from the project to the research and evaluation branch of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Maghbouleh says the research chair will help fuel her ambitious research program and further communicate her findings.

The CRC will turbo-charge my work, she says. And most excitingly, it solidifies the status of UTM, U of T and the Greater Toronto Area as a premier North American hub for research on migration and race.

Kent Moore, U of T Mississaugas vice-principal, research, said he was thrilled with the campuss success in securing three Canada Research Chair designations. In addition to Maghbouleh, they include Sonia Kang in the department of management, who is a newly named tier two chair in identity, diversity, and inclusion, and Iva Zovkic in the department of psychology, who is a tier two chair in behavioural epigenetics.

This recognition exemplifies the innovative work being undertaken by our researchers, says Moore.

With the impressive and exceptional breadth of work Professors Kang, Maghbouleh and Zovkic are doing, they continue to forge new ground in many areas of research and elevate UTM to a higher level of excellence. This support and validation of their work by the Canada Research Chair program demonstrates the outstanding caliber of their scholarly leadership.

Here are the new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T:

New Canada Research Chairs

Renewals of Canada Research Chairs

More here:

From exploring immigrant identities to treating cancer: U of T awarded 29 Canada Research Chairs - News@UofT

Sequence of infrared images of the lower clouds on Venus, showing a consistent pattern of a planetary-scale cloud discontinuity. This type of giant atmospheric wave has never been before on any other planets in our solar system. Image via Javier Peralta/ JAXA-Planet-C team/ Astrophysics and Space Sciences.

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Scientists have announced something new and unexpected: a giant atmospheric wave or disruption in Venus lower atmosphere. Its unlike anything else seen in the solar system. The researchers say it has been rapidly moving at about 30 miles (50 km) above the planets surface for at least 35 years. It went completely undetected until now.

The amazing discovery is reported in a new peer-reviewed study, published May 27, 2020, inGeophysical Research Letters.

Venus is the planet next-inward to the sun from Earth. Its completely covered by thick clouds. These clouds are so dense that we cant peer beneath them to view Venus surface. For this reason, the lower atmosphere and surface of Venus have remained largely mysterious. We know the clouds of Venus consist mostly of carbon dioxide, with droplets of sulphuric acid. Strong wind patterns have been observed before in the atmosphere of Venus in ultraviolet and infrared light.

The new atmospheric feature a giant wall of acidic clouds is different from previous observations in part because its the first huge atmospheric wave found at the lower cloud level in Venus atmosphere, at altitudes between 29.5 and 35 miles (47.5 and 56.5 km). This wall of clouds is massive, extending as far as 4,700 miles (7,500 km) across the equator of Venus, from 30 degrees north to 40 degrees south.

According to the researchers, it rotates around the planet in five days, at about 204 miles per hour (328 kph). Its been doing that since at least 1983.

The Japanese space agency JAXAsVenus orbiter Akatsuki made the discovery. The phenomenon looked like an atmospheric wave, only much larger than whats typically seen. It was found by Akatsuki as the spacecraft acquired detailed infrared images of Venus nightside, studying the mid and lower layers of the planets atmosphere.

Animation showing Venuss lower clouds (about 30 miles/ 50 km above the surface) in infrared light. Bright clouds are more transparent to thermal radiation emitted from the ground than darker clouds. Image via Javier Peralta/ JAXA-Planet C team/ Astrophysics and Space Sciences.

Pedro Machado of theInstitute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, part of theUniversity of Lisbon in Portugal said in a statement:

If this happened on Earth, this would be a frontal surface at the scale of the planet, and thats incredible. Under the follow-up campaign, we went back to images I took in the infrared in 2012 with the Galileo National Telescope in the Canary Islands, and we found precisely the same disruption.

TheInstitute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences has had a long-running research program studying Venus winds. It also contributed follow-up observations with NASAs Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii, coordinated with the new observations from Akatsuki.

Huge cloud patterns have been observed before in Venus atmosphere, such as the Y wave, a dark Y-shaped structure found in the upper atmosphere that covers nearly the whole planetary disk. It is only visible when observed in ultraviolet light. There is also a 6,200-mile-long (10,000-km-long) bow-shaped stationary wave, also in the upper clouds layers, thought to be caused by the planets huge mountain ranges.

Meanwhile, in visible light, Venus dense atmosphere looks very bland.

Example of undulations behind the atmospheric discontinuity on the night side of Venus on April 15, 2016. Image via Javier Peralta/ JAXA-Planet C team/ Astrophysics and Space Sciences.

Pattern of cloud disruption seen in infrared images taken by the Japanese space agency JAXA Akatsuki Venus orbiter in 2016. Image via Javier Peralta/ JAXA-Planet C team/ Astrophysics and Space Sciences.

Finding this phenomenon in the lower atmosphere is interesting, not only because it wasnt noticed before, but also because this region in the atmosphere of Venus is thought to be responsible for the planets hellish greenhouse effect. This effect causes the heat of the sun to be retained near Venus surface. It keeps the surface at a sizzling temperature of 869 degrees Fahrenheit (465 degrees Celsius), hot enough to melt lead. The dynamics of Venus atmosphere are still not well understood overall, so planetary-scale waves such as this might help scientists better understand how the planets surface and atmosphere interact.

Javier Peralta, who led the new study, said:

Since the disruption cannot be observed in the ultraviolet images sensing the top of the clouds at about 43-mile (70-km) height, confirming its wave nature is of critical importance. We would have finally found a wave transporting momentum and energy from the deep atmosphere and dissipating before arriving at the top of the clouds. It would therefore be depositing momentum precisely at the level where we observe the fastest winds of the so-called atmospheric super-rotation of Venus, whose mechanisms have been a long-time mystery.

Ultraviolet image of the Y wave in Venus upper atmosphere, from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter on February 26, 1979. Image via NASA/ Astronomy Now.

The bow-shaped atmospheric wave in Venus upper atmosphere, as seen by Akatsuki in 2015. It is thought to be caused by Venus massive mountain ranges. Image via JAXA/ Science Alert.

Artists illustration of Akatsuki orbiting Venus. Image via ISAS/ JAXA.

This newly discovered cloud front on Venus is essentially meteorological. Basically, were talking here about the weather on Venus. The feature appears to be unique; its never been seen before on any other planets in the solar system. Its therefore difficult to know for certain what is happening, even though the researchers have devised computer simulations to try to mimic the cloud feature. The mechanisms that can create such a giant and long-lasting atmospheric wave are still unknown.

One possibility is that this atmospheric disruption may be a physical manifestation of a type of Kelvin wave,a class of atmospheric gravity wave that shares some important common features with this disruption. Kelvin waves can maintain their shape over long periods of time, and in this case, propagate in the same direction as Venus super-rotating winds. Kelvin waves can also interact with other types of atmospheric waves, such as Rossby waves, which naturally occur as a result of the rotation of the planet. Like Kelvin waves, they can be seen in both atmospheres and oceans. On Venus, they may transport energy from the super-rotation of the atmosphere where the atmosphere rotates faster than the planet itself to the equator.

The researchers looked at images of Venus going as far back as 1983. They were able to confirm the presence of the same features that were seen by Akatsuki. But how did this particular and huge wind formation go unnoticed for so long? According to Machado:

we needed access to a large, growing and scattered collection of images of Venus gathered in the recent decades with different telescopes.

Javier Peralta, a team member of the Akatsuki mission who led the new study. Image via The Planetary Society.

Finding such a large atmospheric phenomenon on Venus, after its being undetected for so long, was a big surprise for scientists. The discovery will help them learn more about the planets complex atmosphere and how it interacts with the planet itself.

Bottom line: Researchers have discovered a giant atmospheric wave-like phenomenon in Venus lower atmosphere, something not seen anywhere else in the solar system.

Source: A Long-Lived Sharp Disruption on the Lower Clouds of Venus

Via Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences

Via Institute of Space and Astronautical Science

Read the rest here:

A deep, giant cloud disruption found on Venus - EarthSky

Artists interpretation of the calcium-rich supernova 2019ehk. Shown in orange is the calcium-rich material created in the explosion. Purple coloring represents gas shed by the star right before the explosion, which then produced bright X-ray emission when the material collided with the supernova shockwave. Credit: A. M. Geller/Northwestern University/CTIO/SOAR/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Calcium-rich supernovae, a unique type of exploding stars, produce up to half of the calcium in the Universe.

Astronomers using several telescopes at NOIRLab, including the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope, have obtained critical data on a particular type of exploding star that produces copious amounts of calcium. The calcium produced in this unique type of supernova explosion is the same calcium found in our bones and teeth and these events account for up to half of the calcium found in the Universe.

Thanks to detailed observations using the SOAR Telescope, located on Cerro Pachn in Chile, and a host of telescopes around the world and in space[1], astronomers have been able to probe the inner workings of a special type of supernova explosion. These particular explosions, from compact stars that lose copious amounts of mass late in their lives, appear to create the element calcium in their last dying gasps and it is dispersed by the explosion throughout galaxies like the Milky Way. SOAR is a facility of Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSFs NOIRLab.

Hubble Space Telescope image of SN 2019ehk in its spiral host galaxy, Messier 100. The image is a composite made of pre- and post-explosion images. Credit: CTIO/SOAR/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Northwestern University/C. Kilpatrick/University of California Santa Cruz/NASA-ESA Hubble Space Telescop

Most massive stars create small amounts of calcium during their lifetimes, but events like SN 2019ehk appear to be responsible for producing vast quantities of calcium and in the process of exploding disperse it through interstellar space within galaxies. Ultimately this calcium makes its way into forming planetary systems, according to Rgis Cartier, an astronomer at NOIRLab and a member of the research team, and into our bodies in the case of our Earth!

Raffaella Margutti, senior author of the study at Northwestern University, adds that prior to this event astronomers had only indirect information on these events, called calcium-rich supernovae. With this direct evidence, we can now confidently rule out the production of calcium-rich supernovae by the vast majority of massive stars, said Margutti.

By observing what this star did in its final month before it reached its critical, tumultuous end, we peered into a place previously unexplored, opening new avenues of study, said Wynn Jacobson-Galan, of Northwestern University, who led the study. The results are published in the 5 August issue of The Astrophysical Journal, which included contributions from a huge collaboration of nearly 70 co-authors from over 15 countries.

SOAR Telescope with snow on mountain. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. Fuentes

The SOAR data were critical to the result. In particular, the infrared spectrum acquired with SOAR, only the second-ever obtained of a calcium-rich supernova, opened a new window on the kind of elements expelled by the supernova elements such as helium, carbon, magnesium and calcium, all of which have a clear spectral fingerprint at infrared wavelengths. Understanding how much and what kind of elements are expelled by a supernova provides critical clues to the nature of the explosion what kind of star exploded and how it exploded. It also provides insights into how calcium-rich supernovae produce so much calcium. While that interesting question remains an open issue, the SOAR observations represent some of the first steps toward an answer.

Because these events are so rare, and difficult to detect because they are faint, we dont have a lot of data on which to base our theories about what happens as these stars expel material in their death throes, said Cartier.

The explosive event occurred in the relatively nearby galaxy known as Messier 100 which is a popular target for amateur astronomers and is readily visible through small telescopes. In fact, it was amateur astronomer Joel Shepherd who first spotted the light from the exploding star while stargazing in Seattle on 28 April 2019, and soon thereafter it was designated SN 2019ehk. Messier 100 is a beautiful spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way and is located some 55 million light-years away towards the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenices Hair) in the northern sky near the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear) which contains the Big Dipper.

According to Jacobson-Galan, once the discovery was announced telescopes around the world and in space were pointed at the exploding star.

Augmenting optical and infrared observations like those by SOAR, X-ray observations revealed a flood of high-energy X-rays from SN 2019ehk the first time they were observed in a calcium-rich supernova. According to the researchers, nobody had ever thought to look at this type of explosion in X-ray light so soon after it occurred.

The combination of observations by SOAR and other telescopes led to the teams conclusion that this calcium-rich supernova was a compact star that expelled an outer layer of gas as it expired. When it exploded its expelled material collided with surrounding material in its outer shell and the extremely hot temperatures produced X-rays and powered the chemical reactions that make calcium.

The SOAR Telescopes role in studying this event reflects its evolution toward preparations for the massive Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will be carried out at the nearby Vera C. Rubin Observatory, also sited on Cerro Pachn. As SOAR Director Jay Elias explained, The SOAR Telescope is a flexible platform, designed to be able to respond quickly to unexpected astronomical events like this one. In recent years, SOAR has observed many such transient events discovered by large-area surveys in order to probe the nature of those events. We are continually working to increase the telescopes efficiency and agility as we prepare for the start of LSST.

This type of science, which is critically time-dependent, is an important aspect of where astronomy is heading, said Edward Ajhar of the US National Science Foundation. Future facilities such as the Rubin Observatory will discover thousands of transient events like this and will keep astronomers busy making many new discoveries.

[1] Post-explosion observations and spectra for this result were also collected by several facilities at NOIRLab observatories including the Bok 2.3-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory and Las Cumbres Observatory telescopes at CTIO, as well as at the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, the Swope 1-meter telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, the PlaneWave CDK-700 0.7-meter telescope at Thacher Observatory in California, Las Cumbres Observatory telescopes in South Africa (Sutherland), Australia (Siding Spring, Faulkes Telescope South) and the US (McDonald and Faulkes Telescope North), the ATLAS twin 0.5-meter telescope system in Hawaii, the Konkoly Observatory in Hungary, the ESO New Technology Telescope, the MMT Observatory, and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico. Pre-explosion data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory were also used.

This research was presented in a paper to appear in the 5 August issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

For more on this research, read Unprecedented Observations Shine Light on a Dying Stars Final Moments.

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Reference: SN2019ehk: A double-peaked Ca-rich transient with luminous X-ray emission and shock-ionized spectral features by Wynn V. Jacobson-Galn, Raffaella Margutti, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Daichi Hiramatsu, Hagai Perets, David Khatami, Ryan J. Foley, John Raymond, Sung-Chul Yoon, Alexey Bobrick, Yossef Zenati, Llus Galbany, Jennifer Andrews, Peter J. Brown, Rgis Cartier, Deanne L. Coppejans, Georgios Dimitriadis, Matthew Dobson, Aprajita Hajela, D. Andrew Howell, Hanindyo Kuncarayakti, Danny Milisavljevic, Mohammed Rahman, Csar Rojas-Bravo, David J. Sand, Joel Shepherd, Stephen J. Smartt, Holland Stacey, Michael Stroh, Jonathan J. Swift, Giacomo Terreran, Jozsef Vinko, Xiaofeng Wang, Joseph P. Anderson, Edward A. Baron, Edo Berger, Peter K. Blanchard, Jamison Burke, David A. Coulter, Lindsay DeMarchi, James M. DerKacy, Christoffer Fremling, Sebastian Gomez, Mariusz Gromadzki, Griffin Hosseinzadeh, Daniel Kasen, Levente Kriskovics, Curtis McCully, Toms E. Mller-Bravo, Matt Nicholl, Andrs Ordasi, Craig Pellegrino, Anthony L. Piro, Andrs Pl, Juanjuan Ren, Armin Rest, R. Michael Rich, Hanna Sai, Krisztin Srneczky, Ken J. Shen, Philip Short, Matthew R. Siebert, Candice Stauffer, Rbert Szakts, Xinhan Zhang, Jujia Zhang and Kaicheng Zhang, 5 August 2020, The Astrophysical Journal.DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab9e66

The team is composed of Wynn V. Jacobson-Galn (Northwestern University and University of California, Santa Cruz), Raffaella Margutti (Northwestern University), Charles D. Kilpatrick (University of California, Santa Cruz), Daichi Hiramatsu (University of California, Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory), Hagai Perets (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), David Khatami (University of California, Berkeley), Ryan J. Foley (University of California, Santa Cruz), John Raymond (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian), Sung-Chul Yoon (Seoul National University), Alexey Bobrick (Lund University), Yossef Zenati (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), Llus Galbany (Universidad de Granada), Jennifer Andrews (Steward Observatory), Peter J. Brown (Texas A&M University), Rgis Cartier (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/NOIRLab), Deanne L. Coppejans (Northwestern University), Georgios Dimitriadis (University of California, Santa Cruz), Matthew Dobson (Queens University Belfast), Aprajita Hajela (Northwestern University), D. Andrew Howell (University of California, Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory), Hanindyo Kuncarayakti (University of Turku), Danny Milisavljevic (Purdue University), Mohammed Rahman (The Thacher School), Csar Rojas-Bravo (University of California, Santa Cruz), David J. Sand (Steward Observatory), Joel Shepherd (Seattle Astronomical Society), Stephen J. Smartt (Queens University Belfast), Holland Stacey (The Thacher School), Michael Stroh (Northwestern University), Jonathan J. Swift (The Thacher School), Giacomo Terreran (Northwestern University), Jozsef Vinko (CSFK Konkoly Observatory, University of Szeged, and ELTE Etvs Lornd University), Xiaofeng Wang (Tsinghua University and Beijing Planetarium), Joseph P. Anderson (European Southern Observatory), Edward A. Baron (University of Oklahoma), Edo Berger (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian), Peter K. Blanchard (Northwestern University), Jamison Burke (University of California, Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory), David A. Coulter (University of California, Santa Cruz), Lindsay DeMarchi (Northwestern University), James M. DerKacy (University of Oklahoma), Christoffer Fremling (California Institute of Technology), Sebastian Gomez (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian), Mariusz Gromadzki (University of Warsaw), Griffin Hosseinzadeh (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian), Daniel Kasen (University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Levente Kriskovics (CSFK Konkoly Observatory and ELTE Etvs Lornd University), Curtis McCully (University of California, Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory), Toms E. Mller-Bravo (University of Southampton), Matt Nicholl (University of Birmingham and University of Edinburgh), Andrs Ordasi (CSFK Konkoly Observatory), Craig Pellegrino (University of California, Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory), Anthony L. Piro (The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science), Andrs Pl (CSFK Konkoly Observatory, ELTE Etvs Lornd University), Juanjuan Ren (National Astronomical Observatory of China), Armin Rest (Space Telescope Science Institute and The Johns Hopkins University), R. Michael Rich (University of California at Los Angeles), Hanna Sai (Tsinghua University), Krisztin Srneczky (CSFK Konkoly Observatory), Ken J. Shen (University of California, Berkeley), Philip Short (University of Edinburgh), Matthew Siebert (University of California, Santa Cruz), Candice Stauffer (Northwestern University), Rbert Szakts (CSFK Konkoly Observatory), Xinhan Zhang (Tsinghua University), Jujia Zhang (Yunnan Astronomical Observatory of China), and Kaicheng Zhang (Tsinghua University).

NSFs National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC-Canada, ANID-Chile, MCTIC-Brazil, MINCyT-Argentina, and KASI-Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Duag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawaii, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachn in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono Oodham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

The Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope, is a joint project of the Ministrio da Cincia, Tecnologia e Inovaes do Brasil (MCTIC/LNA), NSFs NOIRLab, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU).

The Las Cumbres Observatory global telescope network is a non-profit science institute with the mission of advancing science and education has five telescopes between 0.4 and 1.0 meters deployed at CTIO.

The Bok 2.3-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory is operated by Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona.

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Astronomers Sink Their Teeth Into Special Supernova Exploding Stars Produce the Calcium in Our Bones and Teeth - SciTechDaily

Thirty thousand years ago, a dead star on the other side of the Milky Way belched out a powerful mixture of radio and X-ray energy. On April 28, 2020, that belch swept over Earth, triggering alarms at observatories around the world.

The signal was there and gone in half a second, but that's all scientists needed to confirm they had detected something remarkable: the first ever "fast radio burst" (FRB) to emanate from a known star within the Milky Way, according to a study published July 27 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Since their discovery in 2007, FRBs have puzzled scientists. The bursts of powerful radio waves last only a few milliseconds at most, but generate more energy in that time than Earth's sun does in a century. Scientists have yet to pin down what causes these blasts, but they've proposed everything from colliding black holes to the pulse of alien starships as possible explanations. So far, every known FRB has originated from another galaxy, hundreds of millions of light-years away.

Related: 11 fascinating facts about our Milky Way galaxy

This FRB is different. Telescope observations suggest that the burst came from a known neutron star the fast-spinning, compact core of a dead star, which packs a sun's-worth of mass into a city-sized ball about 30,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Vulpecula. The stellar remnant fits into an even stranger class of star called a magnetar, named for its incredibly powerful magnetic field, which is capable of spitting out intense amounts of energy long after the star itself has died. It now seems that magnetars are almost certainly the source of at least some of the universe's many mysterious FRBs, the study authors wrote.

"We've never seen a burst of radio waves, resembling a fast radio burst, from a magnetar before," lead study author Sandro Mereghetti, of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Milan, Italy, said in a statement. "This is the first ever observational connection between magnetars and fast radio bursts."

The magnetar, named SGR 1935+2154, was discovered in 2014 when scientists saw it emitting powerful bursts of gamma rays and X-rays at random intervals. After quieting down for a while, the dead star woke up with a powerful X-ray blast in late April. Sandro and his colleagues detected this burst with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Integral satellite, designed to capture the most energetic phenomena in the universe. At the same time, a radio telescope in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada, detected a blast of radio waves coming from the same source. Radio telescopes in California and Utah confirmed the FRB the next day.

A simultaneous blast of radio waves and X-rays has never been detected from a magnetar before, the researchers wrote, strongly pointing to these stellar remnants as plausible sources of FRBs.

Crucially, ESA scientist Erik Kuulkers added, this finding was only possible because multiple telescopes on Earth and in orbit were able to catch the burst simultaneously, and in many wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum. Further collaboration between institutions is necessary to further "bring the origin of these mysterious phenomena into focus," Kuulkers said.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Mysterious 'fast radio burst' detected closer to Earth than ever before - Live Science

Artists interpretation of the calcium-rich supernova 2019ehk. Shown in orange is the calcium-rich material created in the explosion. Purple coloring represents gas shed by the star right before the explosion, which then produced bright X-ray emission when the material collided with the supernova shockwave. Credit: Aaron M. Geller/Northwestern University

Calcium-rich supernova examined with X-rays for first time.

Half of all the calcium in the universe including the very calcium in our teeth and bones was created in the last gasp of dying stars.

Called calcium-rich supernovae, these stellar explosions are so rare that astrophysicists have struggled to find and subsequently study them. The nature of these supernovae and their mechanism for creating calcium, therefore, have remained elusive.

Now a Northwestern University-led team has potentially uncovered the true nature of these rare, mysterious events. For the first time ever, the researchers examined a calcium-rich supernova with X-ray imaging, which provided an unprecedented glimpse into the star during the last month of its life and ultimate explosion.

The new findings revealed that a calcium-rich supernova is a compact star that sheds an outer layer of gas during the final stages of its life. When the star explodes, its matter collides with the loose material in that outer shell, emitting bright X-rays. The overall explosion causes intensely hot temperatures and high pressure, driving a chemical reaction that produces calcium.

These events are so few in number that we have never known what produced calcium-rich supernova, said Wynn Jacobson-Galan, a first-year Northwestern graduate student who led the study. By observing what this star did in its final month before it reached its critical, tumultuous end, we peered into a place previously unexplored, opening new avenues of study within transient science.

Before this event, we had indirect information about what calcium-rich supernovae might or might not be, said Northwesterns Raffaella Margutti, a senior author of the study. Now, we can confidently rule out several possibilities.

The research will be published today (August 5, 2020) in The Astrophysical Journal. Nearly 70 co-authors from more than 15 countries contributed to the paper.

Margutti is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy in Northwesterns Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a member of CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics). Jacobson-Galan is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Marguttis transients research group.

Amateur astronomer Joel Shepherd first spotted the bright burst, dubbed SN2019ehk, while stargazing in Seattle. On April 28, 2019, Shepherd used his new telescope to view Messier 100 (M100), a spiral galaxy located 55 million light years from Earth. The next day, a bright orange dot appeared in the frame. Shepherd reported the anomaly to a community astronomical survey.

As soon as the world knew that there was a potential supernova in M100, a global collaboration was ignited, Jacobson-Galan said. Every single country with a prominent telescope turned to look at this object.

This included leading observatories in the United States such as NASAs Swift Satellite, W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Lick Observatory in California. The Northwestern team, which has remote access to Keck, was one of the many teams worldwide who triggered its telescopes to examine SN2019ehk in optical wavelengths. University of California Santa Barbara graduate student Daichi Hiramatsu was the first to trigger Swift to study SN2019ehk in the X-ray and ultraviolet. Hiramatsu also is a staff scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory, which played a crucial role in monitoring the long-term evolution of this supernova with its global telescope network.

The worldwide follow-up operation moved so quickly that the supernova was observed just 10 hours after explosion. The X-ray emission detected with Swift only lingered for five days and then completely disappeared.

In the world of transients, we have to discover things very, very fast before they fade, Margutti said. Initially, no one was looking for X-rays. Daichi noticed something and alerted us to the strange appearance of what looked like X-rays. We looked at the images and realized something was there. It was much more luminous than anybody would have ever thought. There were no preexisting theories that predicted calcium-rich transients would be so luminous in X-ray wavelengths.

While all calcium comes from stars, calcium-rich supernovae pack the most powerful punch. Typical stars create small amounts of calcium slowly through burning helium throughout their lives. Calcium-rich supernovae, on the other hand, produce massive amounts of calcium within seconds.

The explosion is trying to cool down, Margutti explained. It wants to give away its energy, and calcium emission is an efficient way to do that.

Using Keck, the Northwestern team discovered that SN 2019ehk emitted the most calcium ever observed in a singular astrophysical event.

It wasnt just calcium rich, Margutti said. It was the richest of the rich.

SN2019ehks brief luminosity told another a story about its nature. The Northwestern researchers believe that the star shed an outer layer of gas in its final days. When the star exploded, its material collided with this outer layer to produce a bright, energetic burst of X-rays.

The luminosity tells us how much material the star shed and how close that material was to the star, Jacobson-Galan said. In this case, the star lost a very small amount of material right before it exploded. That material was still nearby.

Although the Hubble Space Telescope had been observing M100 for the past 25 years, the powerful device never registered the star which was experiencing its final evolution responsible for SN2019ehk. The researchers used the Hubble images to examine the supernova site before the explosion occurred and say this is yet another clue to the stars true nature.

It was likely a white dwarf or very low-mass massive star, Jacobson-Galan said. Both of those would be very faint.

Without this explosion, you wouldnt know that anything was ever there, Margutti added. Not even Hubble could see it.

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Reference: SN2019ehk: A double-peaked Ca-rich transient with luminous X-ray emission and shock-ionized spectral features by Wynn V. Jacobson-Galn, Raffaella Margutti, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Daichi Hiramatsu, Hagai Perets, David Khatami, Ryan J. Foley, John Raymond, Sung-Chul Yoon, Alexey Bobrick, Yossef Zenati, Llus Galbany, Jennifer Andrews, Peter J. Brown, Rgis Cartier, Deanne L. Coppejans, Georgios Dimitriadis, Matthew Dobson, Aprajita Hajela, D. Andrew Howell, Hanindyo Kuncarayakti, Danny Milisavljevic, Mohammed Rahman, Csar Rojas-Bravo, David J. Sand, Joel Shepherd, Stephen J. Smartt, Holland Stacey, Michael Stroh, Jonathan J. Swift, Giacomo Terreran, Jozsef Vinko, Xiaofeng Wang, Joseph P. Anderson, Edward A. Baron, Edo Berger, Peter K. Blanchard, Jamison Burke, David A. Coulter, Lindsay DeMarchi, James M. DerKacy, Christoffer Fremling, Sebastian Gomez, Mariusz Gromadzki, Griffin Hosseinzadeh, Daniel Kasen, Levente Kriskovics, Curtis McCully, Toms E. Mller-Bravo, Matt Nicholl, Andrs Ordasi, Craig Pellegrino, Anthony L. Piro, Andrs Pl, Juanjuan Ren, Armin Rest, R. Michael Rich, Hanna Sai, Krisztin Srneczky, Ken J. Shen, Philip Short, Matthew R. Siebert, Candice Stauffer, Rbert Szakts, Xinhan Zhang, Jujia Zhang and Kaicheng Zhang, 5 August 2020, The Astrophysical Journal.DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab9e66

The study, SN2019ehk: A double-peaked Ca-rich transient with luminous X-ray emission and shock-ionized spectral features, was supported by the National Science Foundation (award numbers DGE-1842165, PHY-1748958 and AST-1909796.)

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Half of All the Calcium in the Universe: Unprecedented Observations Shine Light on a Dying Stars Final Moments - SciTechDaily