Alien life bombshell: Scientist says we will find intelligent life ‘within our lifetimes’ – Daily Express

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.

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

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

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.

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"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.

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

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

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

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

A deep, giant cloud disruption found on Venus – EarthSky

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

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A deep, giant cloud disruption found on Venus - EarthSky

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

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.

###

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

Mysterious ‘fast radio burst’ detected closer to Earth than ever before – Live Science

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

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

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.

###

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

Rapid Changes Detected in a Black Hole May Explain Origin of the Most Energetic Radiation in the Universe – SciTechDaily

Scientists from the University of Valencia detect rapid changes in a black hole that may help understand the origin of gamma-ray bursts.

A team from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Valencia has managed to observe the black hole of the active galaxy PKS1830-211 right during the most violent gamma-ray energy event ever registered in that source. Scientists have discovered very rapid changes in the structure of its magnetic field that confirm the predictions of the main models of gamma-ray production in black holes. The phenomenon, observed through the ALMA telescope, contributes new data to the study on the origin of the most energetic radiation in the Universe.

Some of the most massive and distant black holes in the Universe emit an enormous amount of extraordinarily energetic radiation, called gamma rays. This type of radiation occurs, for example, when mass is converted into energy during fission reactions that run nuclear reactors on Earth. But in the case of black holes, gamma radiation is even more energetic than that obtained in nuclear reactors and is produced by very different processes; there, the gamma rays are created by collisions between light rays and highly energetic particles, born in the vicinity of black holes by means of mechanisms still poorly understood.

As a result of these collisions between light and matter, the energetic particles give almost all their momentum to the light rays and turn them into the gamma radiation that ends up reaching Earth.

The astronomical scientific community suspects that these collisions occur in regions permeated by powerful magnetic fields subjected to highly variable processes, such as turbulence and magnetic reconnections magnetic fields that fuse together releasing an astonishing amount of energy that could be occurring in the jets of matter expelled by black holes. But probing these magnetic fields so far from Earth some of these black holes are billions of light-years away requires a very sensitive instrumentation and to find the exact moment when the emission of high energy takes place.

This is precisely what the research team led by Ivn Mart-Vidal, CIDEGENT researcher of the Valencian Government at the Astronomical Observatory and the Department of Astronomy of the University of Valencia, and main author of this work, has achieved. This team has used ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre Array), the most sensitive telescope in the World at millimeter wavelengths, to obtain precise information about the magnetic fields of a distant black hole, in a moment when energetic particles were producing an enormous amount of gamma radiation.

In a recently published article in the journalAstronomy & Astrophysics, the scientists report observations of the black hole called PKS1830-211, located more than ten billion light-years from Earth. These observations demonstrate that the magnetic fields in the region where the most energetic particles of the black-holes jet are produced were changing their structure notably in a time interval of only a few minutes. This implies that magnetic processes are originating in very small and turbulent regions, just as the main models of gamma-ray production in black holes predict, which relate turbulence to gamma radiation, explains Ivn Mart-Vidal. On the other hand, the changes that we have detected took place during a very powerful gamma-ray episode, which allows us to robustly relate them to the high-energy emission. All this brings us a little closer to understanding the origin of the most energetic radiation in the Universe, he adds.

Animation showing the change in the polarization of one of the images of the black hole (upper part) compared to the other image of the same object (lower part), which is delayed about 27 days with respect to the first one. The time-delayed image corresponds to the black hole before the high-energy burst occurred. Credit: University of Valencia

To analyze this data, the team of Mart-Vidal has used an advanced analysis technique that allows them to obtain information of rapidly changing sources from interferometric observations, such as those obtained with ALMA. Interferometry gives us the power to observe the Universe with an unparalleled level of detail; in fact, it is the technique on which the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is also based, which recently obtained the first image of a black hole, says Mart-Vidal. A part of our CIDEGENT project is, in fact, dedicated to developing algorithms like the one we have used in these ALMA observations, but applicable to much more complex data such as those from the EHT, which would allow us to reconstruct, in a near future, movies of black holes, instead of mere images, says the astronomer of the University of Valencia.

Alejandro Mus, CIDEGENT predoctoral researcher at the UV Department of Astronomy and a co-author of the article, develops his doctoral thesis in this field. Within the EHT project, there are many experts from various institutions working against the clock to solve the issue of rapid source variability, says Mus. At the moment, the algorithm we have developed works with the ALMA data and has already allowed us to obtain key information about how the magnetic fields associated to PKS1830-211 change at scales of a few tens of minutes. We hope to be able to contribute soon to the EHT with the more sophisticated algorithms in which we are working, he concludes.

In the study, researchers from the Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Onsala Space Observatory (Sweden), the Institute for Astrophysical Research, Boston University (USA) and the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, CSIC (Granada) have collaborated with the University of Valencia.

Reference: ALMA full polarization observations of PKS 1830211 during its record-breaking flare of 2019 by I. Marti-Vidal, S. Muller, A. Mus, A. Marscher, I. Agudo and J. L. Gomez, 30 June 2020, Astronomy & Astrophysics.DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038094

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Rapid Changes Detected in a Black Hole May Explain Origin of the Most Energetic Radiation in the Universe - SciTechDaily

What is Astrophysics? | Space

Astrophysics is a branch of space science that applies the laws of physics and chemistry to explain the birth, life and death of stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae and other objects in the universe. It has two sibling sciences, astronomy and cosmology, and the lines between them blur.

In the most rigid sense:

In practice, the three professions form a tight-knit family. Ask for the position of a nebula or what kind of light it emits, and the astronomer might answer first. Ask what the nebula is made of and how it formed and the astrophysicist will pipe up. Ask how the data fit with the formation of the universe, and the cosmologist would probably jump in. But watch out for any of these questions, two or three may start talking at once!

Astrophysicists seek to understand the universe and our place in it. At NASA, the goals of astrophysics are "to discover how the universe works, explore how it began and evolved, and search for life on planets around other stars," according NASA's website.

NASA states that those goals produce three broad questions:

While astronomy is one of the oldest sciences, theoretical astrophysics began with Isaac Newton. Prior to Newton, astronomers described the motions of heavenly bodies using complex mathematical models without a physical basis. Newton showed that a single theory simultaneously explains the orbits of moons and planets in space and the trajectory of a cannonball on Earth. This added to the body of evidence for the (then) startling conclusion that the heavens and Earth are subject to the same physical laws.

Perhaps what most completely separated Newton's model from previous ones is that it is predictive as well as descriptive. Based on aberrations in the orbit of Uranus, astronomers predicted the position of a new planet, which was then observed and named Neptune. Being predictive as well as descriptive is the sign of a mature science, and astrophysics is in this category.

Because the only way we interact with distant objects is by observing the radiation they emit, much of astrophysics has to do with deducing theories that explain the mechanisms that produce this radiation, and provide ideas for how to extract the most information from it. The first ideas about the nature of stars emerged in the mid-19th century from the blossoming science of spectral analysis, which means observing the specific frequencies of light that particular substances absorb and emit when heated. Spectral analysis remains essential to the triumvirate of space sciences, both guiding and testing new theories.

Early spectroscopy provided the first evidence that stars contain substances also present on Earth. Spectroscopy revealed that some nebulae are purely gaseous, while some contain stars. This later helped cement the idea that some nebulae were not nebulae at all they were other galaxies!

In the early 1920s, Cecilia Payne discovered, using spectroscopy, that stars are predominantly hydrogen (at least until their old age). The spectra of stars also allowed astrophysicists to determine the speed at which they move toward or away from Earth. Just like the sound a vehicle emits is different moving toward us or away from us, because of the Doppler shift, the spectra of stars will change in the same way. In the 1930s, by combining the Doppler shift and Einstein's theory of general relativity, Edwin Hubble provided solid evidence that the universe is expanding. This is also predicted by Einstein's theory, and together form the basis of the Big Bang Theory.

Also in the mid-19th century, the physicists Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) and Gustav Von Helmholtz speculated that gravitational collapse could power the sun, but eventually realized that energy produced this way would only last 100,000 years. Fifty years later, Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation gave astrophysicists the first clue to what the true source of energy might be (although it turns out that gravitational collapse does play an important role). As nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and particle physics grew in the first half of the 20th century, it became possible to formulate theories for how nuclear fusion could power stars. These theories describe how stars form, live and die, and successfully explain the observed distribution of types of stars, their spectra, luminosities, ages and other features.

Astrophysics is the physics of stars and other distant bodies in the universe, but it also hits close to home. According to the Big Bang Theory, the first stars were almost entirely hydrogen. The nuclear fusion process that energizes them smashes together hydrogen atoms to form the heavier element helium. In 1957, the husband-and-wife astronomer team of Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge, along with physicists William Alfred Fowler and Fred Hoyle, showed how, as stars age, they produce heavier and heavier elements, which they pass on to later generations of stars in ever-greater quantities. It is only in the final stages of the lives of more recent stars that the elements making up the Earth, such as iron (32.1 percent), oxygen (30.1 percent), silicon (15.1 percent), are produced. Another of these elements is carbon, which together with oxygen, make up the bulk of the mass of all living things, including us. Thus, astrophysics tells us that, while we are not all stars, we are all stardust.

Becoming an astrophysicist requires years of observation, training and work. But you can start becoming involved in a small way even in elementary and high school, by joining astronomy clubs, attending local astronomy events, taking free online courses in astronomy and astrophysics, and keeping up with news in the field on a website such as Space.com.

In college, students should aim to (eventually) complete a doctorate in astrophysics, and then take on a post-doctoral position in astrophysics. Astrophysicists can work for the government, university labs and, occasionally, private organizations.

Study.com further recommends the following steps to put you on the path to being an astrophysicist:

Take math and science classes all through high school. Make sure to take a wide variety of science classes. Astronomy and astrophysics often blend elements of biology, chemistry and other sciences to better understand phenomena in the universe. Also keep an eye out for any summer jobs or internships in math or science. Even volunteer work can help bolster your resume.

Pursue a math- or science-related bachelor's degree. While a bachelor in astrophysics is the ideal, there are many other paths to that field. You can do undergraduate study in computer science, for example, which is important to help you analyze data. It's best to speak to your high school guidance counselor or local university to find out what degree programs will help you.

Take on research opportunities. Many universities have labs in which students participate in discoveries and sometimes even get published. Agencies such as NASA also offer internships from time to time.

Finish a doctorate in astrophysics. A Ph.D. is a long haul, but the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that most astrophysicists do have a doctoral degree. Make sure to include courses in astronomy, computer science, mathematics, physics and statistics to have a wide base of knowledge.

Natalie Hinkel, a planetary astrophysicist who was then at Arizona State University, gave a lengthy interview with Lifehacker in 2015 that provided a glimpse into the rewards and challenges of being a junior astrophysics researcher. She described the long number of years she has put into doing her research, the frequent job switches, her work hours and what it's like to be a woman in a competitive field. She also had an interesting insight about what she actually did day to day. Very little of her time is spent at the telescope.

"I spend the vast majority of my time programming. Most people assume that astronomers spend all of their time at telescopes, but that's only a very small fraction of the job, if at all. I do some observations, but in the past few years I've only been observing twice for a total of about two weeks," Hinkel told Lifehacker.

"Once you get the data, you have to reduce it (i.e. take out the bad parts and process it for real information), usually combine it with other data in order to see the whole picture, and then write a paper about your findings. Since each observation run typically yields data from multiple stars, you don't need to spend all of your time at the telescope to have enough work."

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Howell, Space.com contributor.

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What is Astrophysics? | Space

Astrophysics – Wikipedia

Branch of astronomy

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that employs the principles of physics and chemistry "to ascertain the nature of the astronomical objects, rather than their positions or motions in space".[1][2] Among the objects studied are the Sun, other stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium and the cosmic microwave background.[3][4] Emissions from these objects are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad subject, astrophysicists apply concepts and methods from many disciplines of physics, including classical mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, nuclear and particle physics, and atomic and molecular physics.

In practice, modern astronomical research often involves a substantial amount of work in the realms of theoretical and observational physics. Some areas of study for astrophysicists include their attempts to determine the properties of dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and other celestial bodies; whether or not time travel is possible, wormholes can form, or the multiverse exists; and the origin and ultimate fate of the universe.[3] Topics also studied by theoretical astrophysicists include Solar System formation and evolution; stellar dynamics and evolution; galaxy formation and evolution; magnetohydrodynamics; large-scale structure of matter in the universe; origin of cosmic rays; general relativity, special relativity, quantum and physical cosmology, including string cosmology and astroparticle physics.

Astronomy is an ancient science, long separated from the study of terrestrial physics. In the Aristotelian worldview, bodies in the sky appeared to be unchanging spheres whose only motion was uniform motion in a circle, while the earthly world was the realm which underwent growth and decay and in which natural motion was in a straight line and ended when the moving object reached its destination. Consequently, it was held that the celestial region was made of a fundamentally different kind of matter from that found in the terrestrial sphere; either Fire as maintained by Plato, or Aether as maintained by Aristotle.[5][6]During the 17th century, natural philosophers such as Galileo,[7] Descartes,[8] and Newton[9] began to maintain that the celestial and terrestrial regions were made of similar kinds of material and were subject to the same natural laws.[10] Their challenge was that the tools had not yet been invented with which to prove these assertions.[11]

For much of the nineteenth century, astronomical research was focused on the routine work of measuring the positions and computing the motions of astronomical objects.[12][13] A new astronomy, soon to be called astrophysics, began to emerge when William Hyde Wollaston and Joseph von Fraunhofer independently discovered that, when decomposing the light from the Sun, a multitude of dark lines (regions where there was less or no light) were observed in the spectrum.[14] By 1860 the physicist, Gustav Kirchhoff, and the chemist, Robert Bunsen, had demonstrated that the dark lines in the solar spectrum corresponded to bright lines in the spectra of known gases, specific lines corresponding to unique chemical elements.[15] Kirchhoff deduced that the dark lines in the solar spectrum are caused by absorption by chemical elements in the Solar atmosphere.[16] In this way it was proved that the chemical elements found in the Sun and stars were also found on Earth.

Among those who extended the study of solar and stellar spectra was Norman Lockyer, who in 1868 detected radiant, as well as dark, lines in solar spectra. Working with chemist Edward Frankland to investigate the spectra of elements at various temperatures and pressures, he could not associate a yellow line in the solar spectrum with any known elements. He thus claimed the line represented a new element, which was called helium, after the Greek Helios, the Sun personified.[17][18]

In 1885, Edward C. Pickering undertook an ambitious program of stellar spectral classification at Harvard College Observatory, in which a team of woman computers, notably Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, and Annie Jump Cannon, classified the spectra recorded on photographic plates. By 1890, a catalog of over 10,000 stars had been prepared that grouped them into thirteen spectral types. Following Pickering's vision, by 1924 Cannon expanded the catalog to nine volumes and over a quarter of a million stars, developing the Harvard Classification Scheme which was accepted for worldwide use in 1922.[19]

In 1895, George Ellery Hale and James E. Keeler, along with a group of ten associate editors from Europe and the United States,[20] established The Astrophysical Journal: An International Review of Spectroscopy and Astronomical Physics.[21] It was intended that the journal would fill the gap between journals in astronomy and physics, providing a venue for publication of articles on astronomical applications of the spectroscope; on laboratory research closely allied to astronomical physics, including wavelength determinations of metallic and gaseous spectra and experiments on radiation and absorption; on theories of the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, meteors, and nebulae; and on instrumentation for telescopes and laboratories.[20]

Around 1920, following the discovery of the HertzsprungRussell diagram still used as the basis for classifying stars and their evolution, Arthur Eddington anticipated the discovery and mechanism of nuclear fusion processes in stars, in his paper The Internal Constitution of the Stars.[22][23] At that time, the source of stellar energy was a complete mystery; Eddington correctly speculated that the source was fusion of hydrogen into helium, liberating enormous energy according to Einstein's equation E = mc2. This was a particularly remarkable development since at that time fusion and thermonuclear energy, and even that stars are largely composed of hydrogen (see metallicity), had not yet been discovered.[non-primary source needed]

In 1925 Cecilia Helena Payne (later Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin) wrote an influential doctoral dissertation at Radcliffe College, in which she applied ionization theory to stellar atmospheres to relate the spectral classes to the temperature of stars.[24] Most significantly, she discovered that hydrogen and helium were the principal components of stars. Despite Eddington's suggestion, this discovery was so unexpected that her dissertation readers convinced her to modify the conclusion before publication. However, later research confirmed her discovery.[25]

By the end of the 20th century, studies of astronomical spectra had expanded to cover wavelengths extending from radio waves through optical, x-ray, and gamma wavelengths.[26] In the 21st century it further expanded to include observations based on gravitational waves.

Observational astronomy is a division of the astronomical science that is concerned with recording and interpreting data, in contrast with theoretical astrophysics, which is mainly concerned with finding out the measurable implications of physical models. It is the practice of observing celestial objects by using telescopes and other astronomical apparatus.

The majority of astrophysical observations are made using the electromagnetic spectrum.

Other than electromagnetic radiation, few things may be observed from the Earth that originate from great distances. A few gravitational wave observatories have been constructed, but gravitational waves are extremely difficult to detect. Neutrino observatories have also been built, primarily to study our Sun. Cosmic rays consisting of very high energy particles can be observed hitting the Earth's atmosphere.

Observations can also vary in their time scale. Most optical observations take minutes to hours, so phenomena that change faster than this cannot readily be observed. However, historical data on some objects is available, spanning centuries or millennia. On the other hand, radio observations may look at events on a millisecond timescale (millisecond pulsars) or combine years of data (pulsar deceleration studies). The information obtained from these different timescales is very different.

The study of our very own Sun has a special place in observational astrophysics. Due to the tremendous distance of all other stars, the Sun can be observed in a kind of detail unparalleled by any other star. Our understanding of our own Sun serves as a guide to our understanding of other stars.

The topic of how stars change, or stellar evolution, is often modeled by placing the varieties of star types in their respective positions on the HertzsprungRussell diagram, which can be viewed as representing the state of a stellar object, from birth to destruction.

Theoretical astrophysicists use a wide variety of tools which include analytical models (for example, polytropes to approximate the behaviors of a star) and computational numerical simulations. Each has some advantages. Analytical models of a process are generally better for giving insight into the heart of what is going on. Numerical models can reveal the existence of phenomena and effects that would otherwise not be seen.[27][28]

Theorists in astrophysics endeavor to create theoretical models and figure out the observational consequences of those models. This helps allow observers to look for data that can refute a model or help in choosing between several alternate or conflicting models.

Theorists also try to generate or modify models to take into account new data. In the case of an inconsistency, the general tendency is to try to make minimal modifications to the model to fit the data. In some cases, a large amount of inconsistent data over time may lead to total abandonment of a model.

Topics studied by theoretical astrophysicists include stellar dynamics and evolution; galaxy formation and evolution; magnetohydrodynamics; large-scale structure of matter in the universe; origin of cosmic rays; general relativity and physical cosmology, including string cosmology and astroparticle physics. Astrophysical relativity serves as a tool to gauge the properties of large scale structures for which gravitation plays a significant role in physical phenomena investigated and as the basis for black hole (astro)physics and the study of gravitational waves.

Some widely accepted and studied theories and models in astrophysics, now included in the Lambda-CDM model, are the Big Bang, cosmic inflation, dark matter, dark energy and fundamental theories of physics. Wormholes are examples of hypotheses which are yet to be proven (or disproven).

The roots of astrophysics can be found in the seventeenth century emergence of a unified physics, in which the same laws applied to the celestial and terrestrial realms.[10] There were scientists who were qualified in both physics and astronomy who laid the firm foundation for the current science of astrophysics. In modern times, students continue to be drawn to astrophysics due to its popularization by the Royal Astronomical Society and notable educators such as prominent professors Lawrence Krauss, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Stephen Hawking, Hubert Reeves, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Patrick Moore. The efforts of the early, late, and present scientists continue to attract young people to study the history and science of astrophysics.[29][30][31]

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Astrophysics - Wikipedia

NASA Astrophysics | Science Mission Directorate

In the Science Mission Directorate (SMD), the Astrophysics division studies the universe.The science goals of the SMD Astrophysics Division are breathtaking: we seek to understand the universe and our place in it. We are starting to investigate the very moment of creation of the universe and are close to learning the full history of stars and galaxies. We are discovering how planetary systems form and how environments hospitable for life develop. And we will search for the signature of life on other worlds, perhaps to learn that we are not alone.

NASA's goal in Astrophysics is to "Discover how the universe works, explore how it began and evolved, and search for life on planets around other stars." Three broad scientific questions emanate from these goals.

The National Academies have started work on the 2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics. Please visit the "2020 Decadal Planning" page for additional information about survey.

Astrophysics comprises of three focused and two cross-cutting programs. These focused programs provide an intellectual framework for advancing science and conducting strategic planning. They include:

The Astrophysics current missions include three of the Great Observatories originally planned in the 1980s and launched over the past 28 years. The current suite of operational Great Observatories include the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Additionally, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope explores the high-energy end of the spectrum. Innovative Explorer missions, such as the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, NuSTAR, TESS, as well as Mission of Opportunity NICER, complement the Astrophysics strategic missions. SOFIA, an airborne observatory for infrared astronomy, is in its operational phase. All of the missions together account for much of humanity's accumulated knowledge of the heavens. Many of these missions have achieved their prime science goals, but continue to produce spectacular results in their extended operations.

NASA-funded investigators also participate in observations, data analysis and developed instruments for the astrophysics missions of our international partners, including ESA's XMM-Newton.

The near future will be dominated by several missions. Currently in development, with especially broad scientific utility, is the James Webb Space Telescope. Also in work are detectors for ESA's Euclid mission and hardware for JAXA's XRISM (X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy) to provide breakthroughs in the study of structure formation of the universe, outflows from galaxy nuclei, and dark matter.

Completing the missions in development, supporting the operational missions, and funding the research and analysis programs will consume most of the Astrophysics Division resources.

In February 2016, NASA formally started the top Astro2010 decadal recommendation, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). WFIRST will aid researchers in their efforts to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, and explore the evolution of the cosmos. It will also discover new worlds outside our solar system and advance the search for worlds that could be suitable for life.

In January 2017, NASA selected the new Small Explorer (SMEX) mission IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) which uses the polarization state of light from astrophysical sources to provide insight into our understanding of X-ray production in objects such as neutron stars and pulsar wind nebulae, as well as stellar and supermassive black holes.

In March 2017, NASA selected the Explorer Mission of Opportunity GUSTO (Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory) to measure emissions from the interstellar medium to help scientists determine the life cycle of interstellar gas in our Milky Way, witness the formation and destruction of star-forming clouds, and understand the dynamics and gas flow in the vicinity of the center of our galaxy.

Since the 2001 decadal survey, the way the universe is viewed has changed dramatically. More than 3800 planets have been discovered orbiting distant stars. Black holes are now known to be present at the center of most galaxies, including the Milky Way galaxy. The age, size and shape of the universe have been mapped based on the primordial radiation left by the big bang. And it has been learned that most of the matter in the universe is dark and invisible, and the universe is not only expanding, but accelerating in an unexpected way.

For the long term future, the Astrophysics goals will be guided based on the results of the 2010 Decadal survey New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The priority science objectives chosen by the survey committee include: searching for the first stars, galaxies, and black holes; seeking nearby habitable planets; and advancing understanding of the fundamental physics of the universe.In 2016 the New Worlds, New Horizons: A Midterm Assessment was released.

In 2012 the Astrophysics Implementation Plan was released which describes the activities currently being undertaken in response to the decadal survey recommendations within the current budgetary constraints. The plan was updated in 2014, 2016, and most recently in 2018.

The Astrophysics roadmap Enduring Quests, Daring Visions was developed by a task force of the Astrophysics Subcommittee (APS) in 2013. The Roadmap presents a 30-year vision for astrophysics using the most recent decadal survey as the starting point.

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NASA Astrophysics | Science Mission Directorate

Astro-Physics – Buy Telescopes

Astro-Physics products can be shipped to overseas destinations except for the following countries: Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Astro-Physics is dedicated to the production and development of amateur telescopes and accessories. They strive to produce the highest possible quality telescope components at an affordable price. Astro-Physics builds optics, critical gears, circuit boards, and components including the knobs and fitting from scratch.

Astro-Physics offers a variety of telescope mounts andmount accessories, tube rings and photo / visual accessories.

The German Equatorial mounts Astro-Physics manufactures are: the Mach1GTO, 1100GTO, 1600GTOand 3600GTO. The Mach1GTO is compact, light-weight and portable. The 1100GTO German Equatorial Mount incorporates the design features of the 1600GTO in a smaller, more portable package.The 1600GTO can be used for basic configuration or with the optional Absolute Encoders it can go into demanding astro-imaging. The 3600GTO is the solution for imaging with large instruments or with a combined weight.

Mounting plates are another product of Astro-Physics. They produce an arrangement of dovetail mountings and fixed mountings. Astro-Physics also offer an array of accessories from counterweight shaft options, shaft extension and shaft safety parts, tripod, piers, power supplies and so much more. From the smallest accessory to the largest telescope mount you will find Astro-Physics products to be of the finest quality.

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Astro-Physics - Buy Telescopes

An Epic, Planet-Scale Wave Has Been Hiding in The Toxic Clouds of Venus For Decades – ScienceAlert

Deep in the thick, poisonous clouds wrapped around Venus, the atmosphere is behaving very oddly. A giant, previously unknown planet-scale wall of cloud travels westward around the planet every 4.9 days - and apparently has been doing so since at least 1983.

It can extend up to 7,500 kilometres (4,660 miles) long, stretching across the equator to both the north and south mid latitudes, at relatively low altitudes between 47.5 and 56.5 kilometres. It's a phenomenon that's never been seen anywhere else in the Solar System.

"If this happened on Earth, this would be a frontal surface at the scale of the planet," said astrophysicist Pedro Machado of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal.

"That's incredible."

The planet-scale wave feature. (Javier Peralta/JAXA-Planet C team)

Venus is an extreme sort of place for a rocky habitable zone planet. It's completely shrouded in a thick atmosphere made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide that rotates 60 times faster than the planet itself, producing insane winds.

The atmosphere rains sulfuric acid, and its atmospheric pressure at 0 altitude is almost 100 times greater than Earth's. If that weren't bad enough, it's lander-meltingly hot, with an average surface temperature of 471 degrees Celsius (880 degrees Fahrenheit).

That cloudy atmosphere is a fascinating place, and prone to huge waves. A bow-like structure 10,000 kilometres long that comes and goes in the upper atmosphere is a stationary gravity wave, thought to be generated by the rotating atmosphere blowing up against a mountain on the surface. Anotherplanet-encircling Y-shaped wave in the cloudtops is a wave distorted by Venus' powerful winds.

But there's more. When studying infrared images taken by Japanese Venus orbiter Akatsuki between 2016 and 2018, a team of researchers led by physicist Javier Peralta of the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) spotted a feature that looked a lot like an atmospheric wave, but at an unprecedented altitude.

The new feature is different. It's much deeper than any atmospheric wave ever seen before on Venus, occurring in the cloud layer responsible for the greenhouse effect that makes the surface so scorchingly hot.

Careful analysis, as well as a study of past observations, showed that the feature has been recurrent, but heretofore unnoticed, since at least 1983, since it could only emerge through a collection of observations from a large number of instruments over a period of time.

The planet-scale wave feature. (Javier Peralta/JAXA)

The newly identified feature, the researchers found, can span up to 7,500 kilometres, and circles the planet once every 4.9 days at a velocity of around 328 kilometres per hour (204 miles per hour). That's a little faster than the clouds at this level, which have a rotation period of about 5.7 days.

But it's still unknown what causes it.

"This atmospheric disruption is a new meteorological phenomenon, unseen on other planets. Because of this it is yet difficult to provide a confident physical interpretation," Peralta said.

Numerical simulations, however, reveal that many of the disruption's properties can be seen in a nonlinear atmospheric Kelvin wave. Here on Earth, these are large gravity waves (not to be confused with gravitational waves) that are sometimes 'trapped' at the equator and are affected by the planet's rotation.

Like Earth's Kelvin waves, the Venusian feature propagates in the same direction as the winds that circle the planet - and it has no effect on meridional winds that blow between north and south.

The feature in August 2016 (bottom left) and its evolution from 2016 to 2018 (inset). (Planet-C Project Team, NASA, IRTF)

If the feature is a Kelvin wave, that could have interesting implications. We don't, for instance, understand why Venus' atmosphere rotates so fast. Kelvin waves can interact with other kinds of atmospheric waves, such as Rossby waves.

This could have implications for the atmospheric super-rotation. And a Kelvin wave could also help us understand the relationship between Venus' surface topography and the dynamics of its atmosphere.

"Since the disruption cannot be observed in the ultraviolet images sensing the top of the clouds at about 70 kilometres height, confirming its wave nature is of critical importance," Peralta said.

"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."

More observations are currently underway, to see if more light can be shed on this mysterious wall.

The research has been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

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An Epic, Planet-Scale Wave Has Been Hiding in The Toxic Clouds of Venus For Decades - ScienceAlert

Beyond the Fermi Paradox V: What is the Aestivation Hypothesis? – Universe Today

In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project. According to various accounts, the conversation turned to aliens and the recent spate of UFOs. Into this, Fermi issued a statement that would go down in the annals of history: Where is everybody?

This became the basis of the Fermi Paradox, which refers to the high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and the apparent lack of evidence. But despite seventy years of looking, we still havent been able to answer Fermis question, leading to multiple proposals as to why this is. Today, we look at the Aestivation Hypothesis, which argues that aliens are not dead (or non-existent), theyre just resting!

This theory takes its cue from nature, where certain organisms enter a state of prolonged torpor during particularly hot or dry periods. Similar to hibernation in the winter, these organisms will remain in this state until conditions become cooler and wetter. Applied to the Fermi Paradox, the Aestivation Hypothesis asserts that alien civilizations are largely dormant because they are awaiting better conditions.

At the heart of Fermis famous question was a discrepancy that was undeniable in his time, and hasnt changed despite seventy years of research. On the one hand, there is the assumed likelihood that extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) is plentiful throughout the Universe. On the other, theres the lack of hard evidence attesting to their existence.

Assuming that ETIs are likely is not at all farfetched. Based on the sheer size and age of the observable Universe 93 billion light-years in diameter and 13.8 billion years scientists have typically treated the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) as a foregone conclusion. Statistically speaking, the odds are very much in favor of their being millions of civilizations out there.

Dr. Frank Drake illustrated as much in 1961 during a meeting at the Green Bank Observatory. While addressing fellow astrophysicists and SETI researchers, he presented his famous equation for estimating the number of ETIs in our galaxy that we can communicate with at any given time. The Drake Equation, as it came to be known, was expressed mathematically as:

While most of these parameters are subject to varying degrees of uncertainty, the point of the equation is clear. Even when figured for conservatively, the results always indicate that there should be at least a few extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs) in our galaxy that we should be able to communicate with. Unfortunately, despite decades of research and multiple dedicated SETI surveys, Fermis Paradox still holds.

As a result, multiple attempts have been made to resolve the Paradox theoretically. The first and perhaps best known is the Hart-Tipler Conjecture, named jointly for astrophysicist Michael Hart and mathematician/cosmologist Frank Tipler. This theory argues that there is no evidence of intelligent life out there because none exists.

Another is the Great Filter Hypothesis, theorized by Oxford economist Robin Hanson, who argued that while simple life may be very common, advanced life was not. In other words, there exists in the Universe some type of filter that prevents simple life from reaching the advanced stage and become an ETI that we would be capable of communicating with.

The built-in assumption in both of these cases is that ETIs do not exist, hence why we see no evidence of them. But as Carl Sagan famously remarked when addressing the possible existence of alien intelligence, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. As such, many theorists have proposed alternate explanations of how ETIs can exist, but remain undetected by us.

This raises another issue, which is the notion that advanced species will be able to harness increasingly large amounts of energy over time. In his 1964 essay, titled Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations, Soviet/Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev proposed a three-tiered scheme for classifying extraterrestrial civilizations based on the amount of energy they could harness.

This scheme came to be known as the Kardashev Scale and consisted of the following:

Civilizations that fit these Types would be detectable by looking for signs of technological activity (aka. technosignatures). For example, a Type I Civilizations could be detectable through Direct Imaging, where astronomers would look for light reflected by massive clouds of satellites (aka. Clarke Belts) around the planet. A Type II civilization, meanwhile, would be capable of building a megastructure around its home star.

These civilizations would be capable of building what Freedom Dyson described in 1960 (what has since come to be known as a Dyson Sphere). This would allow a civilization to harness all of the energy of its sun while multiplying the amount of habitable space in their system exponentially. A Type III Civilization, meanwhile, could be easily detected by looking for signs of megastructures that encompass an entire galaxy (or parts thereof).

So it possible that the Universe if filled with civilizations ranging from Type I to Type III levels of development, but are not currently engaged in any technological activity? Thats where the concept of aestivation comes into play.

The theory was first suggested by research associates Anders Sandberg and Stuart Armstrong as well as famed astronomer, astrophysicist, and philosopher Milan Cirkovic from the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at the University of Oxford. In their 2017 study titled, That is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie: the Aestivation Hypothesis for Resolving Fermis Paradox, they proposed this as a possible resolution to the Fermi Paradox.

The study was partly based on previous research conducted by Sandberg and Armstrong in a 2013 study where they extended the Fermi Paradox beyond the Milky Way. Titled Eternity in Six Hours: Intergalactic Spreading of Intelligent Life and Sharpening the Fermi Paradox, Sandberg and Armstrong argued that an advanced civilization would be able to colonize a galaxy and even travel between galaxies with relative ease.

Having concluded that in a Universe of about 2 trillion galaxies (according to recent estimates) that has existed for 13.8 billion years, there should be many Type III Civilizations out there (based on the Kardashev Scale). Not only would these species have been able to colonize their respective galaxies in a relatively short amount of time, but have been able to reach the Milky Way by now.

The reason why this is not evidence to us, argued Sandberg and Armstrong, has to do with the Landauers Principle, which is considered by man to be the basic principle of the thermodynamics of information processing. This rule holds that any logically irreversible manipulation of information (aka. computation) must be accompanied by a corresponding entropy increase (loss of heat) for the information-processing apparatus.

Applied to megastructures like Dyson Spheres, Matrioshka Brains, etc., the level of heat energy and entropy involved would be enormous. Meanwhile, astronomy and cosmology teach us that the Universe is getting steadily cooler over time as star formation slowly dies. At the same time, cosmic expansion causes the wavelength of light to stretch, which causes momentum and energy to be lost.

Eventually, its believed that this will result in the Big Chill (or Big Freeze) scenario, where even the background radiation will cool and the Universe will experience heat death. But from a computational point of view, long before that happens, advanced species could be waiting for the Universe to cool so their megastructures are able to function more efficiently.

According to Sandberg and Armstrong, an advanced civilization could (in principle) perform exponentially more irreversible logical operations by transferring entropy to the cosmological background in the future. In fact, by waiting until the background temperature is significantly lower, they estimate that an additional ten nonillion (1030), or ten quadrillion quadrillion, more computations could be performed.

It is also possible that aestivation is a means for early arrivals to our Universe to skip the long waiting period for other intelligent species to evolve so that when they wake up, theyll have plenty of people to talk to! Considering that life capable of communicating with the cosmos took 4.5 billion years to evolve here on Earth, this makes a fair degree of sense.

Of course, the Aestivation Hypothesis (much like the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation) is based on some assumptions about how ETIs would behave. These include:

In short, the hypothesis assumes that given the age of the Universe enough time has passed for civilizations to emerge that are more advanced than humanity. It is also assumed that they would have become space-faring civilizations, actively colonizing neighboring star systems and possibly even neighboring galaxies.

Lastly, it is assumed that this process would be visible by looking for evidence of megastructures and massive construction processes. This would include smashing up planets for building materials, relocating stars or galaxies, or even consuming gas giants, stars, or (again) entire galaxies to create fuel.

Of course, there are drawbacks and some issues with this hypothesis that have drawn criticism from the astronomical and computational community. For starters, the theory assumes that intelligent civilizations should be plentiful and that not all civilizations will aestivate. If this is the case, then there should be at least a few civilizations that would be still detectable through their technosignatures.

Second, Charles Bennett a physicist, information theorist and Fellow at the IBM Watson Research Center along with Hanson and C. Jess Reidel (of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics) produced a rebuttal paper to the Aestivation Hypothesis in 2019. In it, they argued that Sandberg et al. implicitly assume that computer-generated entropy could only be disposed of by transferring it to the cosmological background.

According to Bennett, Hanson, and Reidel, this is based on a misunderstanding of astrophysics and the physics of computing. While such an argument might apply in the distant future, they argue, it does not apply in the present and renders the aestivation model inaccurate. As they state:

[O]ur universe today contains vast reservoirs and other physical systems in non-maximal entropy states, and computer-generated entropy can be transferred to them at the adiabatic conversion rate of one bit of negentropy to erase one bit of error. This can be done at any time, and is not improved by waiting for a low cosmic background temperature. Thus aliens need not wait to be active.

In the end, the Aestivation Hypothesis is like all other attempts to resolve the Fermi Paradox (and the Drake Equation, for that matter). Far from being a concrete answer, this theory is a thought experiment designed to bring Fermis famous question into focus and perhaps provide some testable assertions. In the end, the ultimate goal is to help refine the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

We have written many interesting articles about the Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) here at Universe Today.

Heres Where Are The Aliens? How The Great Filter Could Affect Tech Advances In Space, Why Finding Alien Life Would Be Bad. The Great Filter, How Could We Find Aliens? The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and Fraser and John Michael Godier Debate the Fermi Paradox.

And be sure to check out the rest of our Beyond Fermis Paradox series:

Astronomy Cast has some interesting episodes on the subject. Heres Episode 24: The Fermi Paradox: Where Are All the Aliens?, Episode 110: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Episode 168: Enrico Fermi, Episode 273: Solutions to the Fermi Paradox.

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Beyond the Fermi Paradox V: What is the Aestivation Hypothesis? - Universe Today

‘Roaming reactions’ study to shed new light on atmospheric molecules – UNSW Newsroom

A detailed study of roaming reactions where atoms of compounds split off and orbit other atoms to form unexpected new compounds could enable scientists to make much more accurate predictions about molecules in the atmosphere, including models of climate change, urban pollution and ozone depletion.

In a paper published today in the journal Science, a team of researchers from UNSW Sydney, University of Sydney, Emory University and Cornell University showed in unprecedented detail exactly what happens during roaming reactions of chemical compounds.

Professor Scott Kable, an atmospheric scientist who is also the head of UNSWs School of Chemistry, likens the study to lifting the hood on roaming reactions and seeing for the first time how the parts fit together. He says the study will give scientists new tools to understand the machinations of reactions in the atmosphere.

Chemical reactions, where atoms are rearranged to make new substances, are occurring all the time in our atmosphere as a result of natural emission from plants and animals as well as human activity, Prof Kable says.

Many of the key reactions in the atmosphere that contribute to photochemical smog and the production of carbon dioxide are initiated by sunlight, which can split molecules apart.

For a long time, scientists thought these reactions happened in a simple way, that sunlight was absorbed and then the molecule explodes, sending atoms in different directions.

But, in the last few years it was found that, where the energy from the sun was only just enough to break a chemical bond, the fragments perform an intimate dance before exchanging atoms and creating new, unanticipated, chemical products known as roaming reactions.

Our research shows these roaming reactions exhibit unusual and unexpected features.

Prof Kable says in an experiment detailed in the paper, the researchers looked at the roaming reaction in formaldehyde (CH2O) and were surprised to see instead, two quite distinct signals, which we could interpret as two distinct roaming mechanisms.

The theoretical and computational work was performed by a team in the US led by Professors Joel Bowman (Emory) and Paul Houston (Cornell). Prof Bowman observed that "detailed modelling of these reactions not only agree with the experimental findings, they provide insight into the motion of the atoms during the reaction".

Professor Meredith Jordan from University of Sydney says the experiments and theory results suggest roaming reactions straddle the classical and quantum worlds of physics and chemistry.

"Analysing the results with the incredible detail in both experiments and simulations allowed us to understand the quantum mechanical nature of roaming reactions. We expect these characteristics to be present in all roaming reactions, she says.

The results of this study will provide theoreticians with the data needed to hone their theories, which in turn will allow scientists to accurately predict the outcomes of sunlight-initiated reactions in the atmosphere.

Prof Kable says the study could also benefit scientists working in the areas of combustion and astrophysics, who use complex models to describe how molecules interact with each other in gaseous form.

The paper, titled Rotational resonances in the H2CO roaming reaction are revealed by detailed correlations is published online by the journal Science.It can be accessed here.

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'Roaming reactions' study to shed new light on atmospheric molecules - UNSW Newsroom

From the Italian Renaissance to the stars: an exciting approach to fulfilling GEs > News > USC Dornsife – USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts…

Two pioneering, new general education courses come online for this fall, offering students a richer, broader way to learn and to acquire diverse academic skills. [7 min read]

The ItalianRenaissance has long been considered the bastion of powerful Renaissance men, such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, whoseachievements have traditionally defined the period. A new general education (GE) course will challenge this premise by exploring gender, religion, sexuality and race through both art and literature.

The course is one of two new integrated GE online courses being offered this fallby USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences as part of a pilot program that brings faculty experts together from different fields to give students an in-depth exploration of topics from more than one disciplinary perspective. These pioneering courses aim to teach students innovative ways of thinking.

Several years of planning have gone into the design of the courses, which are part of a larger effort by USC Dornsife to provide exciting educational opportunities for all students.

The courses will not be taught every year, so if students are interested, they are advised to enroll now.

The Italian Renaissance: a new perspective

Margaret Rosenthal, professor of Italian, comparative literature and English, and Lisa Pon, professor of art history, offer the literary and visual immersion into Renaissance Italy. Their eight-unit paired course unfolds in twice weekly three-hour classes;each professor will teach 80 minutes back to back with a break in between each class.

Pon will teach the arthistory/visual culture part of this integrative GE, Art, Power and Identity in Renaissance Italy (AHIS 304m),while Rosenthal will teach Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy (ITAL 350g).

Rosenthal and Pon describe the integrative GE as two courses in synergy that will offer a fuller and richer picture of the period.

Professor Rosenthal is going to look at poetry and texts, and Im going to look at pictures and think about spaces, Pon says.

Everything taught in Professor Rosenthals class is going to be built upon and expanded by my class and vice versa, Pon says.

By taking this pair of courses, students will learn to harness a number of different skills from discovering how to look at different types of evidence, exploring texts, looking at hand-held objects, thinking about what it means to read a picture all of which will help to set them up academically for the rest of their degree.

Challenging traditional perspectives

Rosenthal notes that women played a strong role in Renaissance literature, through their participation in literary salons and as patrons of literature and the arts, while both sexes during this period challenged restrictive and traditional notions about gender,religion, race and sexuality.

Students will study Michelangelos love poems to a young male aristocrat as well as his intense, spiritual sonnets to an aristocratic woman poet from Rome, in which he shares with her all of his spiritual doubts and worries about salvation as a result of his desires for same-sex love.

Well also look at a courtesan poet who is selling her body for financial gain but also having a lot of difficulty with her male patrons, Rosenthal says. She wants to assert herself, and we see moments when they want to either honor her or take her down as a scapegoat for the plague of Venice because shes becoming too powerful in Venetian society.

Course work will range from creative writing projects, in which students are invited to emulate a celebrated writer of the period, to mapping the journey of four teenage boys who traveled from Japan to Rome to see the Pope in 1580.

Incorporating new voices

Pon says she finds it exciting to expand thinking about the Renaissance beyond its traditionally acclaimed figures mostly white, male and privileged to incorporate other voices and experiences.

When we discuss popes andmilitary heroes, we also read love poems, letters and essays by courtesans, widows andnuns, she and Rosenthal wrote in their course description. When we consider the lives of Catholics, we will also study thevaried experiences of pagans, Jews, Muslims, and Moors.

So why is it useful to study the Italian Renaissance?

One reason is because it was a period in which a certain society was coming to terms with the fact that they were far more multicultural than they maybe wanted to admit, Pon says. To try to capture that, and improve our understanding of it, is a way for us to better comprehend and deal with our own time.

To that end, Rosenthal plans to start the course with Boccaccio's Decameron, a collection of stories written about individuals escaping an epidemic of bubonic plague, which she plans to connect with the current pandemic.

Pon thinks the fact that the course reflects issues we are currently dealing with, such as gender equality, Black Lives Matter and the pandemic, makes the course particularly approachable.

Its a way for students to understand and have tools for the world theyre living in now, she says.

Representing physics and astronomy through the arts

Vahe Peroomian, associate professor (teaching) of physics and astronomy, will teach The Physical World and the Universe (110Lxg) and Dana Milstein, assistant professor (teaching) of writing, will teach Representations of Physics and Astronomy in the Arts (111xg), as an integrative course which marries basic, conceptual physics and astronomy with a visualization of the sciences and the arts.

Peroomian and Milstein say its very rare, and possibly even unique, to find an integrative course of the type that USC Dornsife is offering that is co-taught as one course and that offers equal weight and relevancy in both physics and humanities or social sciences.

Peroomian points out that the course is much greater than the sum of its parts.

You can take the physics 100 course or the astro 100 course separately, you can take any visualization course or any humanities GE course, but each will give you their own silo, without really broadening and applying that knowledge, he says.

Because were going to be teaching this course together in the classroom at the same time and bouncing ideas off each other, were going to be talking about ideas that we couldnt even cover had a student taken these two courses separately with separate professors.

Students will read articles and writings that they never would be exposed to in a pure science GE class and seeing concepts that they wouldnt see in a humanities or an arts GE course, Peroomian explains.

The integrative course, Milstein says, emerged from the idea of human imagination.

While we dont always have the technology or the knowledge to understand our universe and astrophysics, what we do have is imagination, she notes. Scientists use that to help develop very complex, sophisticated ways of creating theories about the way the universe works that they cant even confirm.

For me, that mirrors how musicians, artists, photographers and movie makers also use their imagination to think about space, Milstein says. So, our course is really about the human mind and the human experience and trying to see what the commonalities are and how we have these overlaps, these synchronicities.

Acquire new skills

Milstein says the course doesnt focus uniquely on gaining expertise on the subject matter: Its also a model for how they want students to approach learning from their freshman year onwards.

This is really a course that teaches students how to inquire, how to discover, how to experience, and how to fail forward, she says.

Students on the course will learn a wealth of skills, including how to compose music, how to take photographs, how to do presentations, and how to not only conduct experiments, but also design them.

If students are looking for a class where theyre active agents in designing their learning, taking ownership of it and then transferring it out to real world practice, thats what they will get from this course that theyre not going to get anywhere else, she says.

One of the topics students will explore is the night sky, looking at scientific principles and exploring how humanists and social scientists have approached the same topic.

Peroomian will teach students how to create a star trails picture to visualize the rotation of the Earth and understand how the ancients misinterpreted that as the Earth being the steady and unchanging center of the universe and everything revolving around us.

Milstein will provide the humanities complement, exploring the lifecycle of the stars, the concept of relating to how stars are formed and how we understand our spatial placement with them. Students will read creative works by poet Adrienne Rich, look at how different cultures have mapped the stars and build their own digital map.

We really want to touch on all the learning points to be able to help students expand their minds, Milstein says. In a year from now, they may not remember anything about astrophysics or what Adrienne Rich or Isaac Newton had to say about the universe, but they will still have a trace of these skills that are going to carry over into their other fields and even their interaction with their family members and their friends and ultimately their careers.

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This Is How It All Ends – The New York Times

One is the Big Crunch. We know the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. That is to say, space itself is expanding: Galaxies, stars and all other things in the cosmos move farther and farther apart. Its possible that the expansion will eventually slow, stop and reverse itself, like a ball thrown up in the air that then comes back down. And then? Catastrophe. High-energy particle jets and radiation from stars condense and ignite a conflagration. Nuclear explosions tear through stellar atmospheres, ripping apart the stars and filling space with hot plasma, Mack says. At this point, things are really very bad. You can tell shes enjoying this.

Alternatively, the expansion keeps on going until everything attenuates and fades into nothingness. This cosmic endgame is the one known as heat death. Youve heard of entropy: the inexorable tendency toward disorder described by the second law of thermodynamics. Its entropy that does us in. This scenario is a slow and agonizing one, Mack says, marked by increasing isolation, inexorable decay and an eons-long fade into darkness. Everything tends toward equilibrium, and equilibrium means death. Stars burn out, galaxies fade into darkness, even black holes evaporate. This notion has been with us since the development of thermodynamics in the 19th century. H. G. Wells visualized it this way in The Time Machine: It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. The darkness thickened. All else was rayless obscurity. A horror of this great darkness came on me.

Other possibilities involve dark energy, a still poorly understood business that seems to be the dominant component of our universe. A dark-energy apocalypse could tear apart the very fabric of reality, rendering any thinking creatures in the cosmos helpless as they watch their universe being ripped open around them, Mack says. Some paths to destruction arise from theories that involve parallel universes lurking in extra dimensions. A so-called ekpyrotic scenario imagines collisions of branes, three-dimensional universes ordinarily invisible to one another. At the fringes, the cosmological theories with the best jargon and cleverest names are often the most speculative.

Forty years ago, when much of this science was new, the physicist Freeman Dyson complained that some of his colleagues felt it was disreputable to study our universes destiny. He urged them to do it anyway. If our analysis of the long-range future leads us to raise questions related to the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, he wrote, then let us examine these questions boldly and without embarrassment.

This might seem like the wrong time for a book peering billions of years into the future to examine the ultimate doom and destruction. We have doom and destruction of our own to worry about, arriving faster and faster. These days many people wake up wondering if well make it past November. Plague is rampant. The Arctic Circle is on fire. Still, I found it helpful not reassuring, certainly, but mind-expanding to be reminded of our place in a vast cosmos. Mack puts it this way: When we ask the question, Can this all really go on forever?, we are implicitly validating our own existence, extending it indefinitely into the future, taking stock and examining our legacy.

It seems safe to say, though, that any meaning and purpose will have to be found in ourselves, not in the stars. The cosmic end times will bring no day of judgment, no redemption. All we can expect is the total obliteration of whatever universe remains and any intelligence that still abides there.

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This Is How It All Ends - The New York Times

Ben Collins The Stig Top Gear | Surrey – Surrey Life

PUBLISHED: 11:50 07 August 2020 | UPDATED: 14:58 07 August 2020

Ben Collins

Ben Collins was The Stig on Top Gear for eight years. Image: Dickie Dawson

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Surrey life began for me in 2002 when I got lost driving over the hogs back on my way to an interview. Sat nav was still a futuristic vision, one that only led you to the first few digits of a post code, and the former secret military base I was looking for wasnt on there.

The picturesque villages around Godalming with their pretty red brick buildings and ornate greens came as something of a surprise being so close to London. There was no time to savour the view because I was in danger of being late so I thumped through the gears to reach my destination.

As an aviation buff, Dunsfold Aerodrome was a heavenly facility with its history as a World War 2 fighter base and subsequently where the Harrier Jump Jet was developed. Past the security gates and a knackered Hawker Hunter jet fighter there were some large, tired iron sheds that turned out to be the grandly renamed Top Gear studios. A dilapidated portable office overlooked the figure-8 section of tarmac that was to become home for the next eight years.

It was here that I met the orchestrator of the program, Andy Wilman, as he shuffled out of his car bearing a clutch of folders. He ushered me into a Ford Focus and I lapped the circuit while he timed me on a stop watch. It was a hot day and the brakes did well not to catch fire. As for my progress I was none the wiser on whether I had passed muster until I received a call booking me for my first job on the program as a character called The Stig.

Not far away was another mecca of speed at Brooklands aerodrome and racing circuit near Weybridge, a venue that features heavily in my book about Aston Martin. Brooklands was built to gargantuan proportions to accommodate the fastest machines in the world back in 1907 but it was so well designed that with a little preservation we could have been using it today to host the worlds fastest motor races.

Watching Aston Martin come full circle over a century since it began in Lionel Martins mews garage and tracing the outlandish characters who developed the succession of superlative designs ever since has really changed my perception of British engineering and its adaptability. You can see that today with Surrey-based F1 teams like McLaren manufacturing advanced PPE equipment.

The story of Aston Martin is about their pursuit of perfectionism and I hope that it will inspire the next generation of budding engineers to dive in, think out of the box and keep innovating. If I promise to behave myself, perhaps they will let me have a go in their latest creations.

My Life in books

The book I loved as a child...

I resisted every adult campaign to convert me into a literate member of society. I escaped their clutches by discovering the Garfield series by Jim Davis and my passion for pithy, entertaining yarns began.

The book that inspired me as a teenager

Contact by Carl Sagan. With his total command of complex Astro-Physics he was still able to makethe subject relatable to an ignoramus like me as his story ripped through space, while weaving athrilling narrative about mankinds first contact with Extra Terrestrials.

The book Ive never finished

Theres a long list. The Enid Blyton series that I escaped through numerous windows. And, shamefully, Lord of the Rings a capital sin which leaves me damned to face a horde of Orks in the afterlife.

The book that moved me the most

Chickenhawk by Robert Mason relates his Vietnam War experiences as a Huey pilot and by the end of his descriptions of basic training you feel like you could fly one yourself. His sense of irony hits you deep in the pit in your stomach.

The book Im reading now...

Jack Reacher: A Wanted Man. Reacher is fixing more problems with an elbow strike to the temple and has picked up my thirst for a serial where I left off with Bernard Cornwells Sharpe series.

- ASTON MARTIN: Made in Britain by Ben Collins, published in hardback by Quercus on October 15 Ben will be speaking at this years Guildford Book Festival on Friday 9th October. Please check details on http://www.guildfordbookfestival.co.uk

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Ben Collins The Stig Top Gear | Surrey - Surrey Life

Mega Science On The Cover: Class XI Maharashtra Physics Text Shows Gravitational-Wave Detection By LIGO – Swarajya

School textbooks come in a variety of forms some engage and spark curiosity, others make it all about the information.

It's a full spectrum, really.

Its clear which approach the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research, Pune, intends to take.

The front page of the latest edition of the state boards Class XI physics textbook features a mega-science project of our times.

The cover shows the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) with a snapshot of gravitational waves detected in the event of a black hole merger.

It's a common refrain in India that textbooks carry outdated subject matter. Featuring real-world contemporary scientific work on the cover of the textbook sets a different example.

Somak Raychaudhury, director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, tweeted saying: "This is probably the best way to communicate to high school students what kind of facilities would be available for them if they study the subject well."

Explaining its cover, the textbook says: Since ages, mankind is awed by the sheer scale of the universe and is trying to understand the laws governing the same.

Today we observe the events in the universe with highly sophisticated instruments and laboratories such as the LIGO project seen on the cover.

The cover is designed by Vivekanand S Patil.

LIGO And Gravitational Waves

LIGO is an observatory in the United States of America that hunts for traces of extraordinary cosmic events that happened a long time ago, in the form of gravitational waves.

The idea of gravitational waves originated in Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.

It remained a prediction for a century until it was confirmed in 2015 by LIGO gravitational waves were detected from 1.3 billion years ago after two spiralling black holes crashed into each other.

Some 50 different gravitational waves have been detected in the last five years.

Future projects like the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer promise to help refine our gravitational-wave view of the universe.

India is set to get its own gravitational-wave observatory too, as part of the international LIGO network. Not incidentally, it will be established in Maharashtra, whose school board is behind the textbook.

LIGO-India will be a collaborative effort; several Indian research institutions will work together with LIGO, US, and the international network to catch ripples in the fabric of space and time caused by spectacular events such as the collision of black holes or neutron stars unfolding in the universe.

The planned Indian initiative had received an in-principle nod from the government of India in 2016. Work has been underway since then in the form of identifying the site, acquiring the land, and building the observatory. The Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology are chiefly driving this work, which is expected to be completed by 2025.

Among the research institutions leading this scientific effort are the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune; Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar; and Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore.

A network of gravitational wave-observatories will expand our sight of the universe and enable us to see things not observable by the more conventional electromagnetic telescope.

While gravity observatories get built here on Earth, gravitational-wave detection in the future will happen even from space (the LISA project) and, if a more adventurous proposal is accepted, the Moon.

Read: Explained: The Idea Of An Observatory On The Moon To Detect Gravitational Waves

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Mega Science On The Cover: Class XI Maharashtra Physics Text Shows Gravitational-Wave Detection By LIGO - Swarajya

Scientists May Have Just Found The Youngest Neutron Star Ever – Forbes

At the core of all type II supernova explosions, a remnant of the original star is expected to ... [+] exist. SN 1987A, the closest supernova to Earth in generations, may have just had the first signature of its remnant spotted, and it appears to be a non-pulsing neutron star.

33 years ago, a supernova occurred just 168,000 light-years from Earth.

This new image of the supernova remnant SN 1987A was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in ... [+] January 2017 using its Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Since its launch in 1990 Hubble has observed the expanding dust cloud of SN 1987A several times and this way helped astronomers to create a better understanding of these cosmic explosions.

Dubbed SN 1987A, it was the closest supernova directly observed since 1604.

In 1604, the last naked-eye supernova to occur in the Milky Way galaxy happened, known today as ... [+] Kepler's supernova. Although the supernova faded from naked-eye view by 1605, its remnant remains visible today, as shown here in an X-ray/optical/infrared composite. The bright yellow "streaks" are the only component still visible in the optical.

We first detected the neutrinos from it, and then, hours later, the explosive light.

When neutrinos from the supernova explosion SN 1987a arrived on Earth, they passed through enormous ... [+] tanks of matter lined with photomultiplier tubes, creating a signal based on neutrino interactions. This marked the birth of neutrino astronomy beyond the Sun, a science that has advanced tremendously over the past few decades.

Originating from the Large Magellanic Cloud, it was briefly visible to human eyes.

The remnant of supernova 1987a, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud some 165,000 light years away. ... [+] It was the closest observed supernova to Earth in more than three centuries, and reached a maximum magnitude of +2.8, clearly visible to the naked eye and significantly brighter than the host galaxy containing it.

For years, scientists examined this cataclysms afterglow, observing the bright, expanding gaseous shells.

For the past 33 years, astronomers have used the best tools available at humanity's disposal to ... [+] track the evolution of both the inner and outer components of the remnants of the famous, close supernova, SN 1987A. The inner, dusty core has remained mysterious, but the outer, expanding gaseous layers have revealed telling details for a long time.

But inside, embedded within dusty clouds, a remnant core must exist.

This montage shows the evolution of the supernova SN 1987A between 1994 and 2016, as seen by the ... [+] NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The supernova explosion was first spotted in 1987 and is among the brightest supernovae within the last 400 years. The outward-moving shockwave of material continues to collide with earlier ejecta, leading to brightening events at later times.

SN 1987A was a type II supernova: a blue supergiant exploding at its life cycles end.

The stars within the Tarantula nebula, part of the complex containing the remnant of SN 1987A, also ... [+] contain the enormous star cluster 30 Doradus, which contain some of the brightest, most massive blue supergiant stars known to humanity. Many of them will end their lives in type II supernovae, giving rise to neutron star or black hole remnants.

These explosions always create either neutron stars or black holes, but none had yet been discovered.

The anatomy of a very massive star throughout its life, culminating in a Type II Supernova when the ... [+] core runs out of nuclear fuel. The final stage of fusion is typically silicon-burning, producing iron and iron-like elements in the core for only a brief while before a supernova ensues. We believe that core-collapse supernovae produce a continuous spectrum of neutron stars to black holes, with no other realistic options for the core's remnant.

Many anticipated a central pulsars presence: analogous to the Crab Nebula.

Five different combined wavelengths show the true magnificence and diversity of phenomena at play in ... [+] the Crab Nebula. The X-ray data, in purple, shows the hot gas/plasma created by the central pulsar, which is clearly identifiable in both the individual and the composite image.

But not all neutron stars pulse; some simply emit high-temperature radiation.

The Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array, as photographed with the Magellanic clouds ... [+] overhead. A large number of dishes close together, as part of ALMA, helps bring out many of the faintest details at lower resolutions, while a smaller number of more distant dishes helps resolve the details from the most luminous locations. This has resolved features in dust clouds 168,000 light-years away to unprecedented detail.

ALMA, a high-resolution radio telescope array, just revealed a telling, critical signature.

Features in the central dusty core of the SN 1987A remnant, color coded by temperature, reveals a ... [+] hot source of radiation shrouded in dust. Based on the inferred temperature and flux from the source, it should be a very young, hot neutron star seen in an earlier stage than any ever discovered thus far.

ALMA saw a hot blob in the dusty center of SN 1987As remnant.

Extremely high-resolution ALMA images revealed a hot blob in the dusty core of Supernova 1987A ... [+] (inset), which could be the location of the missing neutron star. The red color shows dust and cold gas in the center of the supernova remnant, taken at radio wavelengths with ALMA. The green and blue hues reveal where the expanding shock wave from the exploded star is colliding with a ring of material around the supernova.

Its located exactly where the observed explosion would kick a remnant core.

This WolfRayet star is known as WR 31a, located about 30,000 light-years away in the constellation ... [+] of Carina. The outer nebula is expelled hydrogen and helium, while the central star burns at over 100,000 K. In the relatively near future, this star will explode in a supernova, enriching the surrounding interstellar medium with new, heavy elements, and likely imparting a significant kick to the stellar remnant left behind.

Black holes cant heat dust sufficiently; a very young neutron star is required.

Neutron stars are small objects, perhaps just 25-to-40 km across, but containing more mass than even ... [+] the Sun; they're like one giant atomic nucleus. In the early stages of life, they can be tremendously hot, with temperatures greater than even the hottest, bluest stars, but only emitting small amounts of overall luminosity, as their radiating surface area is tiny.

Its the youngest neutron star ever discovered: 33 years old.

The Cassiopeia A supernova remnant was not visible to the naked eye, but astronomers have determined ... [+] that it occurred in the 2nd half of the 17th century based on the remnant's properties. There is a neutron star that has been found at the center, but it's some ~320 years older than the remnant of SN 1987A.

As its evolution continues, we may even someday directly see it pulsing.

As the core region of the SN 1987A remnant continues to evolve, the central dusty region will cool ... [+] off and much of the radiation obscured from it will become visible, while the central remnant will continue to cool and evolve as well. It's conceivable, when this occurs, that periodic radio pulses will become observable, revealing whether the central neutron star is a pulsar or not.

Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words. Talk less; smile more.

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Scientists May Have Just Found The Youngest Neutron Star Ever - Forbes