It's been an interesting year for astronomy news.
I could start every year-end article with that line. The sheer number of telescopes and spacecraft poking and prodding the Universe practically guarantees that we'll see a few breakthroughs or at least significant jumps every few months in one field or another.
As I went through the articles I've written and the press releases I've received these past 12 months, it wasn't too hard to find the brain-grabbing headlines, as you'll see below. But I was also struck by how much solid progress is being made in astronomy (and other sciences of course) that weren't big banner stories. Some were about incremental but important discoveries, some about missions that ended, and some that were just interesting and worth reading about.
Because of that, this isn't really a Top Five list. It's more of a "here are a lot of cool stories, and five of them I'll bring special attention to, but hey you should look at a bunch of others as well!"
As for the five, three of them are close to home, one of them is close to home but hearkens to distant unknown realms, and the fifth is about as not close to home as you can get, metaphorically at least.
OSIRIS-REx is a NASA mission that arrived at the 500-meter-wide asteroid Bennu on the last day of 2018. The goal of the mission, among other things, is to survey the surface, do mineralogical studies, and grab some samples that it will eventually return to Earth. The overall goal is to understand asteroids better, what they're made of, their structure, what their environment is like.
Bennu is not a solid monolithic rock, but is instead a rubble pile, a big collection of rocks held together by their own meager gravity. We knew these existed, but we knew very little of their behavior up close. And that's why it was a pretty dang big shock to find out that Bennu is active: It's spitting small rocks into space!
This was unexpected, to say the least. But the images make it pretty clear: Rocks up to 10 centimeters in size were being shot out into space at speeds of up to 3 meters per second! Given that Bennu's surface gravity is something like 1/100,000th of Earth's, that's an appreciable velocity. Some of these bits orbited the asteroid and fell back, but others escaped entirely.
A paper just published posits three mechanisms that might cause this: rocks fracturing due to thermal stress between the hot days and frigid nights on the asteroid's surface, water outgassing from phyllosilicates (clays) in the rocks applying pressure to smaller bits and ejecting them, and micrometeorite impacts dislodging material and blasting them away. It's not clear which of these three is the culprit, or if they're working in some combination.
Asteroids, it turns out, are pretty surprising in many ways; they're certainly not just dead rocks floating around the Sun. Perhaps OSIRIS-REx will get more info on this weird behavior, since it'll be hanging around Bennu until March 2020. Hopefully it'll find other strange stuff, too.
Noteworthy related articles: The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 has left its own target asteroid Ryugu behind, and is heading back to Earth (arriving in 2023) with samples. It got them by firing a cannon at the surface, and also dropped four rovers down to land on the asteroid as well.
On 17 January, 2019, the Moon slipped into the shadow Earth casts into space, creating a total lunar eclipse.
While beautiful, these events are relatively common, and of limited scientific potential. But this one threw a monkey into the wrench: While millions of people watched the event either outside for themselves or in the many livestreams, a small asteroid slammed into the shadowed lunar surface, creating a fireball easily visible in small telescopes!
It was later determined that the interplanetary debris was a 45-kilogram rock roughly the size of a beach ball, and it hit the Moon at a speed of about 61,000 kilometers per hour. The resulting release of energy was equivalent to the detonation of about 1.5 tons of TNT, carving out a crater something like 1015 meters wide. Oof.
Impacts happen on the Moon pretty often, but they're not usually this well characterized; it helped a lot that so many telescopes were trained on the Moon at the time, so that high-quality video could be analyzed. It also happened in the darkest area of the eclipsed surface, so the contrast was high.
My own connection to this impact is that I was out in my driveway doing a live feed on Periscope with my cell phone attached to a small spotting telescope. I was having a hard time keeping the 'scope aimed and the phonecam focused, and I was adjusting the setup right when the impact occurred. I missed seeing it by seconds!
Lesson learned. Next time I'll do more prep and use my big scope, which is easier to control and track. But I'm honestly really glad so many people got to see such a rare and cool event.
Noteworthy related articles: A meteorite hit a house in Uruguay, and the comet 42/P Wirtanen was impacted by some debris that caused it to outburst. Also, getting to the Moon isn't easy; India lost a lander, as did Israel, though China landed a rover on the far side which was seen by LRO from orbit.
The New Horizons spacecraft zipped by Pluto in July 2015, returning amazing detailed images and data of the tiny, icy world. But this was a flyby, and New Horizons continued on into the dark after the encounter.
Projecting its path into the future, astronomers looked for more potential targets for the spacecraft, and discovered 2014 MU69, what's called a Kuiper Belt Object, an icy rock that orbits the Sun past Neptune. The mission was given the green light, and it fired its engine to set course for its frigid destination.
The flyby was on 1 January 2019 (so it counts for this list!), and due to the distance 6.6 billion kilometers from Earth the data transmission rate was low, so we had to wait almost two months to get the high-res images. But it was so worth that wait.
This is a mosaic taken from a distance of about 6,600 km, when the spacecraft was still 6 minutes from closest approach. The shape wasn't unexpected; previous observations had indicated it was double-lobed or possibly binary. MU69 now officially named Arrokoth looks like a contact binary, with two separate objects touching at a single neck region. Weirdly, it looks like the two lobes are actually very flat, which is surprising.
New Horizons is still out there, moving away from the Sun. It's possible it may visit another KBO, but its power source is good for another decade or two, so it will measure the environment of the outer solar system and provide scientists with data for some time to come.
Noteworthy related articles: Where do the big moons of KBOs come from? and a new idea about how one of Neptune's small weird moons formed.
In 2017, astronomers discovered an object moving so rapidly through our solar system that it must have come from another star. Called Oumuamua, it was the first confirmed interstellar visitor ever seen. The question naturally arose: How often do these things pass through?
In late 2019 we got another clue: A second object was discovered, also moving so rapidly there was no way it could've come from our own solar system. Another alien visitor was confirmed.
Named 2I/Borisov (the second interstellar object ever seen, discovered by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov), it was immediately pounced upon by observatories across our planet (and above it). Unlike 'Oumuamua, which was discovered after it had passed the Sun and Earth and was on its way out, 2I/Borisov was discovered while still on its way in, which was critical: For one thing it gave astronomers more time to study it, and for another we could watch it approach the Sun, warm up, and become active.
Sure enough, it was seen to have a gaseous head around it, and a tail, too. As I've written many times before, the weirdest thing about 2I/Borisov is just how ordinary it is. Except for its exceptional speed, it looks exactly like any run of the mill solar system comet! 'Oumuamua was pretty weird; it appears to very elongated, and no outgassing was directly seen from it. It's unclear why 'Oumuamua is so odd.
But 2I/Borisov? It has the same molecules and elements in it as solar system comets, and it behaves in the exact way you'd expect our local artisanal comets do. Remember, this comet formed around another star! Something happened to eject it from its home (maybe a close encounter with a giant planet) and send it into deep space, traveling who knows how many light years hundreds of trillions of kilometers, certainly before zipping past us. Yet for all that, it looks like a twin of any comet of our own.
I love this! It shows us that the basic ingredients, the basic conditions, of environments around other stars are much like they are here. If, like me, you wonder if other Earths dot the sky, if there may be other beings out there looking up in curiosity and awe, then the mundanity if this object is the most exciting thing about it.
2I/Borisov has already passed its closest point to the Sun, and will be nearest Earth late in December (though still nearly 300 million km away). It'll be months before it's too far away to see, so there will be many, many more observations of it to come. And the other lesson here is that it's only a matter of time before we spot more voyagers like it. What will we learn from them?
Noteworthy related articles: Could the weird behavior of Boyajian's Star be due to an evaporating exomoon? and exocomets are raining down on Beta Pictoris.
Nothing in astronomy captures people's attention and wonder like a black hole. Capable of utter destruction yet the engines of the formation of stars in galaxies as well, everything about them is fascinating and weird.
Yet for all the articles written about them, all the observations made of them, all the theoretical calculations made about them, we still have never actually seen one. And you can't. There's a reason we call them black holes.
But we can see their impact on the environment around them. Some are actively feeding, matter piling up in huge disks around them before falling over the cliff of infinity, and that material is extremely hot, glowing across the electromagnetic spectrum. The problem is that even though these disks can be light years across, they're so far away from Earth that distance shrinks them to irresolution.
until now. Over the course of four nights in 2017, an array of seven telescopes across the planet were aimed at the heart of M87, a galaxy 55 million light years away in the constellation of Virgo. It's the nearest active galaxy, one with a supermassive black hole equal to 6.5 billion times the Sun's mass, and one that is accreting vast amounts of material. The observations were so difficult and complex it took nearly two years to process them, but when the results were released in April 2019, people across the planet gave out a collective gasp:
That picture is amazing. It's the actual image of material circling the black hole some few dozen billion kilometers out and of course there's that gaping dark hole in the center. That's not the black hole itself! It's where material orbiting the black hole is so close that the light from it can actually orbit the hole a few times before falling in. That region is called the photon sphere, and is about 2.5 times bigger than the event horizon (the point of no return for anything getting too close to a black hole; for M87 the event horizon is about 40 billion kilometers across, roughly eight times the distance of Neptune from the Sun). This area is sometimes called the shadow of the black hole, but I prefer to think of it as the silhouette. Either way, it's just an analogy. But it's where light cannot get out, so it looks like a donut hole.
The image closely matches what we expected to see from a close-up image of a black hole. And it's only the first of its kind: The Event Horizon Telescope, as the array is collectively called, will be aimed at more soon, including Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole in our own galaxy. At just 26,000 light years away it's much closer, but far less massive and therefore smaller; coincidentally the two black holes appear to be about the same apparent size our sky. I can't wait to see that one!
And with this new powerful technology, we'll be seeing a lot more from this array. We've known about black holes for a long time, but there's still a lot about them we don't understand. This image, and the ones that will no doubt follow, will help us wrap our heads around these objects that literally wrap space and time around them.
Noteworthy related articles: Our local supermassive black hole erupted and we don't know why, it also ejected a star right our of the galaxy, and how astronomers measured the staggering 2.3 billion solar mass black hole in a galaxy 100 million light years away.
View original post here:
The top 5 astronomy stories for 2019 - SYFY WIRE
- Astronomy clubs want to help you enjoy the eclipse safely - NPR - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- You Can See a Rare, Bright Comet This Month. Will It Be Visible During the Solar Eclipse? - Smithsonian Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Solar Eclipse Path Map Shows States Where Sun Will Be Blocked Out - Newsweek - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Deep-space astronomy sensor peers into the heart of an atom - Space.com - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Physics and Astronomy Colloquium - Professor Paul Cassak; Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia ... - The University of Iowa - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- United Nations prioritizes discussion of Dark and Quiet Skies - Astrobites - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The burning acid behind ant stings was spotted around two stars - WAPT Jackson - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The oddities known as Centaurs may sprout their tales after jumping to new orbits - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Pair of astronomy brothers to host eclipse viewing event - KAIT - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- How to watch the solar eclipse online - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- How does a black hole get to the center of a galaxy, and does the galaxy revolve around it? - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The eclipse gives astronomy clubs an opportunity to shine - Voice Of Alexandria - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- AI 'for all': How access to new models is advancing academic research, from astronomy to education - Source - Microsoft - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- KU Department of Physics & Astronomy professor receives prestigious NSF award for black hole research - Salina Post - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Inspect impressive Mare Imbrium Astronomy Now - Astronomy Now Online - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The Sky This Week from March 15 to 22: A conjunction of Venus and Saturn - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Pons-Brooks and M31 - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The slightly weird mathematical coincidence behind an eclipse - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- APOD: 2024 March 17 NGC 7714: Starburst after Galaxy Collision - Astronomy Picture of the Day - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- How to Safely View the Eclipse National Radio Astronomy Observatory - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- NOIRLab releases jaw-dropping images, video of remnants from massive star explosion | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- JWST spots oceans' worth of water evaporating from a distant disk - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Radiation is vaporizing a young star's disk in the Orion Nebula - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- APOD: 2024 March 12 A Galaxy Shaped Rocket Exhaust Spiral - Astronomy Picture of the Day - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Best laptops for astronomers and astrophotographers in 2024 - Space.com - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Why astronomers are worried about 2 major telescopes right now - Space.com - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The People Behind Webb | Webb - WebbTelescope.org - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- X-ray image of universe reveals almost 1 million high-energy objects: 'These are mind-blowing numbers' - Space.com - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Galaxy named 'Nube' is almost invisible, baffling astronomers Earth.com - Earth.com - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Giant Star Seen 150 Days Before it Exploded as a Supernova - Universe Today - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- UH astronomer named to prominent national astronomical society | University of Hawaii System News - University of Hawaii - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The Art of SeeingStates of Astronomy - Announcements - E-Flux - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Pluto isn't really a planet, but it might be Arizona's official state planet - Arizona Mirror - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Did You Know? Stars Near and Far Reveal Their Secrets to CSUN Scientists - California State University, Northridge - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Top 10 space stories of 2023 - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- How we found the Milky Way's bar: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The best telescope to use with a smartphone - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- JWST releases 19 awe-inspiring images of spiral galaxies - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Learning Shines Brightly at SuperKnova National Radio Astronomy Observatory - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The Crafoord Prize 2024 goes to three ERC grantees for their pioneering contributions to astronomy and mathematics ... - European Research Council - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The Moon's south pole is likely not the safest place for manned missions - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The moon could be perfect for cutting-edge telescopes but not if we don't protect it - Space.com - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- February Astronomy: Spot the Milky Way and the Zodiacal Light While the Skies Are Darkest - Coachella Valley Independent - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- You can stream an asteroid whizzing past Earth this weekend - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Chinese Astronomy at the Royal Observatory | Royal Observatory | Things to do in London - Time Out London - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Astronomers in Chile to scour universe with car-sized mega camera - - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Dark Matter Might Help Explain How Supermassive Black Holes Can Merge - Universe Today - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- How far away is the sun? They went on a perilous journey to find out. - National Geographic - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Scientists spotted an asteroid hours before it burned up over Germany - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- XRISM Unveils the Invisible: A New Era in X-Ray Astronomy - SciTechDaily - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- New Astronomy Finding Uncovers the Mystery of Star Formation at the Edge of Galaxies - SBU News - Stony Brook News - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The Future Of Astronomy Lies In Artificial Intelligence - Forbes - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The 'Super Bowl of Astronomy' begins next week in New Orleans - Space.com - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Scientific American proposes policing the language of astronomy to make it beautiful and elegant, as well as ... - Why Evolution Is True - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- 'Blob-like' home of farthest-known fast radio burst is collection of seven galaxies - Northwestern Now - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Astronomers revealed mysterious star formation by hearts of molecular clouds - Tech Explorist - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Spectroscopic sizing of interstellar icy grains with JWST - Nature.com - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Kip Thorne and the mind-bending science of Interstellar | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Here There Be DRAGNs National Radio Astronomy Observatory - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Unistellar's latest smart telescopes take the hassle out of backyard astronomy - Engadget - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- 20 of the best places to view the 2024 total solar eclipse - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Northern Arizona astronomy: How old is our third generation sun? - Grand Canyon News - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Evidence builds that Kamo'oalewa is a chunk of the Moon accompanying Earth - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The Sky This Week from January 5 to 12: Visitors to the Scorpion - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- AAS 243 NRAO Press Announcement - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Your guide to the sky in 2024 - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The best binoculars for astronomy in 2024 - Popular Science - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Are we visible to alien astronomers? This study makes the case - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Mystery of Star Formation Revealed by Hearts of Molecular Clouds - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Astronomers Solve the Mystery of Giant Radio Circles - AZoQuantum - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Early Evolution of Planetary Disk Structures Seen for the First Time - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- XRISM's Revolutionary Insights into X-Ray Astronomy - AZoQuantum - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Vatican's chief astronomer talks about stars, beauty, truth - Aleteia - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Explore the cosmos in EAC Payson Campus astronomy workshops - Payson Roundup - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Neptune is more of a greenish blue than is commonly depicted - NPR - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- First Yale Gravitational Wave Symposium sparks research innovation | Department of Physics - Yale University - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The best expensive telescopes for those ready to splurge - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Dinosaurs and a touch of astronomy | Education | paysonroundup.com - Payson Roundup - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Astronomical Illusions: New Images Reveal What Neptune and Uranus Really Look Like - SciTechDaily - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Book Review: Things That Go Bump in the Universe, by C. Rene James - The New York Times - December 16th, 2023 [December 16th, 2023]