Category Archives: Astronomy

Welcome to The Curiosity Academy, Stylists new learning hub where you can access workshops, how-to guides, new research and learn the most up-to-date skills from the UKs most in-the-know people.

The only thing more magical than gazing at a velvet-black sky spangled with stars is being able to understand exactly what those sparkly dots are. Stargazing is a time-old tradition and once played a huge part in our society and culture (before we all turned our eyes to the even brighter glow of our smartphones).

If we go back thousands of years, the stars and the night sky were a huge part of life for our ancestors, says Hannah Banyard, an astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich. Many ancient calendars were based on the moon and it was really important for people to look at the phase of the moon to decide when to plant and harvest food.

As the modern worlds progressed, weve lost touch with it, but theres something really inspiring about the night sky, says Hannah. Just looking at it gives you a sense of feeling insignificant and part of something larger all at the same time.

With more time to slow down and stare at the world around us during the pandemic, enthusiasm for stargazing rocketed. Weve definitely seen interest kick up, says Hannah. Lockdown was a good time for people to just stop for a moment and look up at the sky properly for the first time.

Looking at the stars was also a way for people to connect with each other during a time when weve never been so far apart. When you had family all over the country, or the world, that you couldnt see, you could still go outside and look at the same things in the sky. Its a lovely way to bring people together, says Hannah.

If youre baffled when it comes to understanding your asterism from your asteroid, heres Hannahs expert guide to getting into stargazing as a beginner wherever you live, from getting the right equipment to knowing where to point your telescope. Happy star spotting.

You can start stargazing in your garden, if youre lucky enough to have one. If not, head to a park or another place thats as dark as possible.

If you want to look at the stars, rather than the moon, pick a night when the moon isnt really out. Moonlight blocks out the fainter stars, says Hannah. So, youre better off going out when you dont have a bright moon. Its also best to avoid cloudy nights, because the cloud cover will obstruct your view of the stars. You can track the movements of the moon on the Royal Observatorys monthly blog.

When youre stargazing its important to head out at the right time. As we enter into summer the days are getting longer so were getting to a time when we wont get a proper astronomical night, says Hannah. She recommends going stargazing later in the summer months when the brighter stars begin to appear. It does get cold though, so wrap up if youre going to be out for a while.

Its best to lie down when youre stargazing. This means you can see more of the night sky and helps to block out light pollution from things like street lamps or your neighbours windows.

To see stars properly, let your eyes adjust to the dark before you start stargazing. Around 20 minutes is enough to get your eyes used to the darkness.

Try not to look at your phone while youre stargazing because it will disrupt your night vision. Astronomers always use red lights, says Hannah, because it doesnt disrupt your night vision as much. You can switch your phone to red light mode.

Just because you live in a light-polluted city, doesnt mean you cant enjoy a spot of stargazing. Cities are filled with high buildings, which means people just dont look up, says Hannah. If they do, theyll notice lots of things in the night sky from the moon to some of our brighter constellations. The longer you keep looking up the more youll start to see.

The Royal Observatory in Greenwich is opposite Canary Wharf, which gives us so much light pollution, but we can still observe things in the night sky.

If you are stargazing in the city Hannah advises avoiding as many light sources as you possibly can. Turn your back and face away from any light, she says. Going up somewhere higher overlooking the city is also helpful. It means the city lights arent as bright and youre closer to the horizon so you can see more of the sky.

You dont actually need that much equipment at all to stargaze. You can observe the moon and lots of brighter constellations just with the naked eye or a pair of binoculars.

If you are more serious about getting into stargazing you might want to invest in a telescope. People can get quite intimidated when it comes to telescopes, but you dont really need to spend more than 100 on a telescope that will let you see things like the rings of Saturn, Hannah suggests buying a four-inch telescope if youre a beginner.

If you dont want to invest in equipment, try joining one of the many amateur astronomy groups around the country, like The Baker Street Irregular Astronomersin London. Youll find that one or two people in the group will have brought all the big equipment with them and theyre happy to share it and talk you through how to use it, says Hannah. These amateur groups are really, really passionate and more than happy to let other people come along.

The full moon is beautiful to look at just with your naked eye, says Hannah.

If you want to look at the moon in more detail its best to wait until its in a different phase. The full moon can look quite flat up close because theres so much light on it, says Hannah. But if you wait for a crescent moon or a quarter moon, you can look at the craters and the mountains on the moon with a pair of binoculars. Theyre quite easy to make out.

The North Star, or Polaris as its known in the astronomy world, is the easiest star to spot in the night sky. Its circumpolar, which means you can see it all year round in the Northern Hemisphere.

To spot it, Hannah suggests looking for The Plough, or The Saucepan as its sometimes called. The Plough is an asterism. This means its not an official constellation, but part of the constellation called Ursa Major or the Great Bear.

Its quite easy to spot because its in a saucepan shape, says Hannah. If you get to the end of the saucepan, the two stars that make up the pan end are Dubhe and Merak. If you draw a straight line between those with your eyes and continue in a straight line to the next star youll see Polaris. Its really, really easy to spot because its so bright.

Once you find Polaris that will face you North because its pretty much directly about the North Pole. This means that once youve found Polaris, youll be able to locate other things in the night sky. If theres something specific you want to look at and you know that North is in front of you, it means to your right will be East, South behind you and West to your left.

Polaris, the North Star, is in the tail of Ursa Minor, which is also known as the Little Bear.

You can see a couple of stars in this constellation with your naked eye, says Hannah. Look for Draco the Dragon, which runs between Ursa Major and around Ursa Minor.

The Summer Triangle is one of my favourite things to spot. You cant miss it, says Hannah. Its made up of three really bright stars. Theyre called Deneb, Vega and Altair.

Whats really beautiful about the Summer Triangle is that if youre somewhere dark enough you can see the stripe of the Milky Way running through it.

It also has a wonderful story behind it in Chinese folklore. The story is about two lovers - Vega and Altair - who are separated by a silver river running between them, which is the Milky Way. The story goes that once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, which is Chinas Valentines Day, the third star, Deneb, becomes a bridge of magpies so the two lovers can meet for one day.

It just shows that when we look up at the sky, its not just what you can see, its also about the culture around the stars and the stories they tell us.

If you decide to invest in a telescope you will be able to make out the constellation of Virgo, which is up in the South at the moment.

Virgo has a really bright star youll be able to spot called, Spica, says Hannah. In Virgo you can also see the Sombrero galaxy. Its a spiral galaxy that youll be able to see side on. It has a bulge in the middle, which is why it looks a bit like a sombrero.

A telescope will also allow you to see the stars different colours. When we look at the stars we just assume theyre all white, but this isnt the case at all.

If you look closer at the Summer Triangle with a telescope you can look for a star called Albireo. Its about halfway between Vega and Altair, says Hannah. If you look with your naked eyeAlbireo will just look like one star, but with a good pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you can make out two stars. One of them is blue and the other is orange. Its part of a double-star system.

A stars colour is due to its temperature. Its the opposite of your kitchen taps, says Hannah. So blue stars are hottest and red stars are the coldest. It goes red, orange, yellow, white, blue from hottest to coldest. For comparison, the Sun is a yellow-white star. Our Sun is actually not a very exciting star, its just the closest one to us.

Another colourful star Hannah suggests looking for is Arcturus. Above Virgo is a constellation called Botes or the herdsman, says Hannah. It really stands out because its got a really bright giant red star called Arcturus. You can see that easily with your naked eye.

If youre prepared to head out at 3am, you will be able to see Jupiter and Saturn in the southeast, says Hannah. They are quite low down on the horizon. You can see those just with your eyes. Theyll be pretty much the brightest things in the sky.

You can find out more about astronomy and stargazing on the Royal Observatory, Greenwich website, including monthly blogs about what you can see in the night sky. Find more e-learning guides on The Curiosity Academy.

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Astronomy: A beginner's guide to stargazing wherever you live - Stylist Magazine

You may not even realize it, but astronomy affects our daily lives in many ways. One of them is the number of discoveries that will make our lives easier and arose because of this science.

To talk about why astronomy is important, the 16th episode of the podcast Du Tilt got Patricia Spinelli, a doctor in astronomical physics and researcher at the Mast (Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences), and Diego Gonlovs, a doctor. Professor of Astrophysics, UFRJ and Communication Coordinator of the Brazilian Astronomical Society. They discussed the matter with reporter Gilherm Tagiroli , In the 16th chapter of our science and technology podcast.

Listen to the entire episode in the player above.

In fact, did you know that GPS and digital photography came out due to astronomy? According to Diego Conewolves, these are two examples of mass consumption devices primarily created to serve science (hear from 19:24).

The relative relativity with GPS satellites depends on the triangle of application and digital cameras were perfected by astronomers, precisely because we needed a tool that was sensitive to observe the most distant objects in the universe, he explained.

According to Patricia Spinelli, society does not need to do science with this applied view, but, in the end, technological advances apply to everyone to the extent that astronomy does not seek immediate answers to mankind (ask from 11:50).

We have enough evidence to show that even astronomy contributes to the well-being of people, he said.

Podcasts from Twitter Available at uol.com.br/ Podcasts And on all audio distribution sites. For example, you might ask Du tilt Spotify, Ann Apple Podcasts And no Web light.

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Tip # 16: If you use GPS and take pictures on your phone, thank you Astronomy - 05/21/2021 - The Press Stories

These bibliographies would take months and even years to do, said Jennifer Harbster, head of the science reference section at the Library of Congress. It wasnt like you just found a title and put it in your bibliography. She would annotate it all.

She also compiled bibliographies on general-interest topics, including presidential inaugurations and whether a new decade or century is considered to begin in the year ending in zero or the year ending in 1. Ms. Freitag, along with other authoritative sources, firmly believed that they begin on the 1 that the 21st century, for example, started in 2001, not 2000, despite the many celebrations to the contrary.

As the third millennium loomed, she assembled a pamphlet, Battle of the Centuries (1995), with lively quotations about the dispute over the ages.

Bibliographic work may sound dull at first, she told an internal Library of Congress publication, The Gazette, in 1990, but it can really grow on you, to the extent of becoming a vice.

Ms. Freitag spoke several languages and knew all the proper accents to place on words all the unusual ones for whatever language she was writing in, said Brenda Corbin, the former head librarian at the Naval Observatory. When computers first came along, Ms. Corbin said, Ms. Freitag wasnt happy that they didnt have accent marks, which meant that she couldnt write correctly. She was meticulous.

Ms. Freitag often helped researchers with their writing.

She was one hell of a copy editor, said Mark Littmann, the former longtime director of the Hansen Planetarium in Salt Lake City, who researched some of his popular astronomy works (including Planets Beyond and Totality: Eclipses of the Sun) at the Library of Congress.

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Ruth Freitag, Librarian to the Stars, Dies at 96 - The New York Times

A new study led by researchers at Ohio State University provides the latest evidence intothe formation of the Milky Way galaxy,including the merger with a key satellite galaxy.

The study,published in the journal Nature Astronomy, was conducted by usingrelatively new methods in astronomy.

The researchers were able to identify the most precise ages currently possible for a sample of about a hundred red giant stars in the galaxy.

Also read|British astronomers unveil the most detailed map of Milky Way galaxy

With this and other data, the researchers were able to show what was happening when the Milky Way merged with an orbiting satellite galaxy, known as Gaia-Enceladus, about 10 billion years ago.

"Our evidence suggests that when the merger occurred, the Milky Way had already formed a large population of its own stars," said Fiorenzo Vincenzo, co-author of the study and a fellow in The Ohio State University's Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

Also read|Astronomers discover Milky Way galaxy's smallest black hole dubbed 'Unicorn'

Many of those "homemade" stars ended up in the thick disc in the middle of the galaxy, while most that were captured from Gaia-Enceladus are in the outer halo of the galaxy.

"The merging event with Gaia-Enceladus is thought to be one of the most important in the Milky Way's history, shaping how we observe it today," said Josefina Montalban, with the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham in the UK, who led the project.

By calculating the age of the stars, the researchers were able to determine, for the first time, that the stars captured from Gaia-Enceladus have similar or slightly younger ages compared to the majority of stars that were born inside the Milky Way.

A violent merger between two galaxiesshakes things up, Vincenzo said.

Results showed that the merger changed the orbits of the stars already in the galaxy, making them more eccentric.

Vincenzo compared the stars'movements to a dance, where the stars from the former Gaia-Enceladus move differently than those born within the Milky Way.

The stars even "dress" differently, Vincenzo said, with stars from outside showing different chemical compositions from those born inside the Milky Way.

The researchers used several different approaches and data sources to conduct their study. One way the researchers were able to get such precise ages of the stars was through the use of asteroseismology, a relatively new field that probes the internal structure of stars.

Asteroseismologists study oscillations in stars, which are sound waves that ripple through their interiors, said Mathieu Vrard, a postdoctoral research associate in Ohio State's Department of Astronomy.

"That allows us to get very precise ages for the stars, which are important in determining the chronology of when events happened in the early Milky Way," Vrard said.

The study also used a spectroscopic survey, called APOGEE, which provides the chemical composition of stars- another aid in determining their ages.

"We have shown the great potential of asteroseismology, in combination with spectroscopy, to age-date individual stars," Montalban said.

This study is just the first step, according to the researchers.

"We now intend to apply this approach to larger samples of stars and to include even more subtle features of the frequency spectra. This will eventually lead to a much sharper view of the Milky Way's assembly history and evolution, creating a timeline of how our galaxy developed," Vincenzo said.

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Astronomers discover how the Milky Way galaxy was formed - WION

Astronomy, one of the oldest science subjects, represents the intrinsic curiosity and the shared intelligence of mankind. One of the most common phrases used by academic papers in Astronomy and Astrophysics is that we need more data and will know more with better equipment in the future. Undoubtedly, more advanced telescopes and deeper detections will uncover a whole perspective of the universe.

While we are grateful for the technology we have today and look forward to an even brighter future, we should also appreciate and feel amazed by the glorious contributions our ancestors made to science thousands of years ago without any better equipment. More importantly, those ancient records and findings still hold a deep impact on modern science.

Although the system of modern astronomy in the western world is believed to be built on Greek findings, the earliest recorded discoveries of astronomical objects of all humans originated in the eastern world, the oriental land of Ancient China.

For example, some of the most popular objects among ancient sky observers were comets.As early as 168 B.C., Chinese ancestors did a fabulous illustration of comet observations. Out of many scrolls discovered in 1973 from the Mawangdui Silk Texts, one specifically describes astronomical and meteorological phenomena, including 29 drawings of comets with different morphologies (Figure 1). Scientists estimate that, in order to produce such a figure, those anonymous observers might have kept a full record of ~100 comets. If our ancestors saw comets with naked eyes as frequently as us nowadays, the observations may take ~1000 years and several generations of consistent documentation!

Although our ancestors didnt understand the physical nature of astronomical objects as well as we do now, their astonishing records are significantly meaningful to modern astronomy.

Although many comets follow periodical trajectories, they lose a small part of their compositions each time they reach close to the sun. Therefore, the dynamics and morphology of comets change over time. No. 29 in Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of an active comet. In this case, the active comet ejects so much gas and dust that it starts whirling on its axis, which is extremely rare nowadays. Moreover, in 648 A.D., at the beginning of Tang dynasty in China (or Byzantine era in Rome), some observers already studied the relation between the tail of the comet and its location to the sun in the Book of Jin. After 900 years, the same relation was also discovered by European astronomers.

Up till now, historians have found evidence of amazing astronomical observations carried in all ancient civilizations. What makes ancient China stand out is not just the early timing but also the scientific accuracy.

The New Book of Tang, a work of official history covering the entire Tang dynasty, records comprehensive activities of the well-known comet Halley from March 22, to April 28 in the year of 837 A.D.. During this period, the writing documents the observed time, location, length, shape and change of Halley every day until it disappeared. Although comet Halley was visible to the entire world at that time, historical records in other regions of the world are much more general, serving for a more poetic goal than scientific. In fact, the first scientific documentation in Europe as complete as the one in the New Book of Tang only occurred in 1456.

Another important parameter in scientific studies is time. Since ancient Chinese used both lunisolar and sexagesimal calendars, the dates of astronomical events are very precise. Moreover, historians also use the evolution of Chinese characters and languages to further confirm the time of the discovered tablets, scrolls, papers etc. Therefore, it is surprisingly accurate to convert the dates of 29 observations on Halley across 2200 years from different Chinese dynasties, to the modern calendar we use now.

Thanks to these detailed ancient records with precise dates, astronomers were able to revise the trajectory of Halley in 1982 after combining all previous observations dated back to 240 B.C.. They concluded that the period of Halley is not a constant but floating between 76 and 79 years.

Other than comets, ancient Chinese have made countless significant scientific contributions to modern astronomy:

The earliest record of a supernova explosion in 185 A.D. (Han dynasty of China) supports the recent X-ray observational results on supernova remnant RCW 86 in 2006;

The thorough sky maps (Figure 2) made in 320 A.D. (Jin dynasty of China) led to an early estimate of axial precession without any modern equipment;

Six different theories had emerged independently in China to probe the structure of the Universe, including Xuan Ye Shuo proposed before 648 A.D.. This theory suggests that stars and the Milky Way are made of gas and floating in the endless universe, which is surprisingly close to what modern astronomy suggests!

The exploration of astronomy has been deeply embedded in Chinese culture and history. , the word for universe in Chinese, means space and time. The theoretical support of this definition first appeared in 1907 as Albert Einstein developed the concept of general relativity. However, the word itself was invented before 200 B.C.. Ever since, it has reminded humans that the story of the universe has no boundaries in time or space.

The life expectancy of humans can be ignored compared to the vastness of the universe. However, looking back in history, the curiosity for the universe from various minds always remains the same beyond the boundaries of time and space. With sincere affection, we are just humans that look up into the same starry sky with numerous wonders regardless of time, location, country, or any other difference. Meanwhile, every inch of the starlight embraces us all equally.

Thanks to all the valuable ancient documents, we can now take a glance at the same sky our ancestors looked up to. Those diligent and rigorous scientists in the early days of human civilization made unimaginable contributions to the history of astronomy. They composed a lore of time, marking the glory of human intelligence and devotion like the brightest star.

Reference: 4000 ans Dastronomi Chinoise by Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud

Edited by Gloria Fonseca Alvarez

Featured image credit: Pixabay

About Wei Vivyan YanI am a PhD candidate at Dartmouth College, where I study AGNs and their host galaxies. My research focuses on origin and evolution of AGN obscuration. Before then, I did my undergraduate at University of Science and Technology of China. Outside of astronomy, I am currently writing my first fiction novel. I also enjoy traveling and outdoor activities.

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Beyond the Boundaries of Time and Space - Astrobites

20 May 2021, 18:10

It's time to find out whether or not you and your crush actually belong together.

Conan Gray has just set up a brand new website that reveals EXACTLY how compatible you are with the person you fancy.

We all have crushes. From the celebrities we idolise growing up to the hotties we interact with on a daily basis, it's perfectly normal to fall head over heels for people. Whether you spend your life fantasising about a future with Harry Styles or can't stop thinking about how much you like your classmate, no one is immune to the all-encompassing power of a crush.

Are you compatible with your crush though? 'Heather' singer Conan Gray has just created a test that reveals the answer.

To find out if you and your crush belong with each other, all you have to do is visit Conan's new Astronomy website. The site then asks you to enter the name of you and your crush before consulting the Gods to reveal what percentage you and your crush are compatible. It also gives you a phrase like: "definitely a spicy pair" or "you're two worlds apart".

TAKE THE CRUSH COMPATIBILITY QUIZ HERE

Why has Conan Gray created a crush compatibility quiz you ask? No. Don't worry. He's not giving up music anytime soon. In fact the Astronomy website is designed to promote his new single 'Astronomy' which, as Conan told Coup De Main is "about that slow, painful, often denial inducing process of growing apart from somebody."

Fingers crossed that you and your crush have more luck than Conan and the subject of 'Astronomy'.

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Conan Gray's Astronomy test reveals how compatible you are with your crush - PopBuzz

A couple weeks ago I got a text: Go up to your roof NOW!

If you were outside around 9:30 p.m. on May 4, you may have seen a mysterious string of lights traveling through the night sky. The next day, The Seattle Times reported that it was one of 60 SpaceX Starlink satellites launched earlier that day.

There are roughly 20,000 satellites tracked by the US government, said James Lowenthal, professor of astronomy at Smith College. That includes satellites that are operating, which is about 2,000, the satellites that are defunct, thats another few thousand, and then many pieces of satellites that have been destroyed. Two satellites crash into each other and turn into 2,000. Plus, probably trillions of very small pieces, as small as a milometer, which cannot be tracked.

Astronomers, like Professor Lowenthal, are quite concerned by the rapidly growing number of satellites. Not just because of the crowding and space garbage theyre creating, but because their lights could change the night sky as we know it forever.

Many of those objects that are up there are reflecting sunlight back down to the Earth on the night side and they appear as streaks of light in the night sky, said John Barentine, director of conservation for the International Dark Sky Association.

The streaks are ruining images astronomers capture for research and they are artificially brightening the night sky, making it more difficult to see things like stars and planets.

Youre not immune no matter where you go on Earth, Barentine said. This is a completely different animal and you cant just go further away from a city to get away from this effect.

But the satellite operators arent doing anything illegal. There are currently no regulations that address who can put what into space.

Outer space is kind of like the wild west in terms of how it is governed under international law, Barentine said. There is an international treaty called The Outer Space Treaty that was signed by the original members of the United Nations in the late 1960s. It has not really been updated since. It prohibits nuclear weapons in space and it really doesnt envision private, commercial uses of space as we are seeing now. As long as were abiding by that treaty, operators can get away with pretty much anything.

The satellite operators have to clear their launches with the FAA and the FCC, but there are no environmental impact studies required, and no limitations. So astronomers are pushing for regulations, a molasses slow process that will take years. Meanwhile, private companies like SpaceX are racing to own the near-Earth space.

Its everyones sky, Lowenthal said. Nobody has a right, especially a single corporation, in my view, to decide that its OK to change the sky for everybody. The sky is a piece of nature, the sky is like the trees or the forest, and this is not just a problem for professional astronomers, this is a problem that effects everybody. It would be like saying, well, this private industry is going to take away all the sunsets. Is that OK? I mean, sunsets arent worth anything, are they? Just because people look at them, nobody actually uses them.

Why Seattle entrepreneurs are incorporating Mercury retrograde into their businesses

Aparna Venkatesan, professor of physics and astronomy at University of San Francisco, says there are cultural implications to consider. Indigenous people use the night sky for navigation and as a guide to planting. Several religions follow the moon and sky traditions. Lighting up the dark sky also disrupts the natural rhythms of animals and creatures.

Given the history of westward expansion and colonization on Earth, its been painful that astronomers are now on the receiving end of what so many indigenous peoples were, which is a kind of claim first, ask later,' Venkatesan said.

Lowenthal says its ironic that the technology the satellites use is based on Newtonian physics.

Newtonian physics is based on naked eye observations of the sky, made by Kepler, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and thousands of years of astronomers before them, including indigenous peoples around the world naked eye observations that led to our understanding of gravity and orbits. For the last hundred years, weve had ground-based telescopes doing the same thing, only at an accelerating pace, and looking further and further back into space and back into time to understand the basic workings of nature, Lowenthal said.

What is the universe made of? Is there life elsewhere on other planets? All of it is based fundamentally on ground-based astronomy and all of that is now threatened by the satellite technology that is enabled by those observations, he continued. We would not be able to launch those satellites if we didnt know how gravity worked and if we hadnt been able to build GPS, which depends on general relativity, which depended on observations of the cosmos. So we are in the middle of blinding ourselves to further study.

SpaceX has been voluntarily meeting with astronomers for two years, and says it is working on dimming the lights on their satellites. But the company has no plans to stop launching. SpaceX did not reply to my request for comment.

Listen toRachel Belles James Beard Award nominated podcast, Your Last Meal, featuring celebrities like Rainn Wilson and Greta Gerwig. Follow @yourlastmealpodcaston Instagram!

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Outer space is like the wild west: Astronomers worry SpaceX satellites could change the night sky forever - MyNorthwest.com

It has recently come to light that astronomers at an observatory in the Tibetan Pleatue have spotted the brightest light particle, gamma-ray photons up to 1.4 peta-electron volts (PeV) being emitted from the Milky Way galaxy.

Moreover, China's Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), key national science and technology infrastructure facilities, has also discovered a dozen of ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic accelerators within the Milky Way, reports Eureka Alert.

SEE ALSO: Rare Supernova Explosion Discovered By Indian Astronomers Traced To Hottest Set Of Stars Wolf-Rayet

The details of the study titled Ultrahigh-energy photons up to 1.4 petaelectronvolts from 12 -ray Galactic sources has been published in the Journal Nature. The LHAASO International Collaboration led by the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, completed the study.

For the purpose of the study, astronomers made use of data from LHAASOs first year of operation through which they detected over 530 photons with energies above 100 teraelectronvolts and up to 1.4 PeV from 12 ultrahigh-energy -ray sources with a statistical significance greater than seven standard deviations.

SEE ALSO: Astronomers Discover A Six-Star System Using NASAs TESS

For the uninitiated, LHAASO is a national scientific and technological infrastructure facility that focuses on cosmic ray observation and research. It is located 4,410 meters above sea level on Mt. Haizi in Daocheng County, Sichuan Province. LHAASO's major scientific goal is to explore the origin of high-energy cosmic rays, the evolution of the universe, the motion and interaction of high-energy astronomical celestials, and the nature of dark matter. LHAASO aims to extensively survey the universe (especially the Milky Way) for gamma-ray sources.

The findings of this study are different from the traditional understanding of the Milky Way, thereby, shedding light on a whole new world of UHE gamma astronomy. The report states that these new observations will push people to reanalyze the mechanism around how high-energy particles are generated in the Milky Way.

Image used is for representation purpose only

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Astronomers Detect The Highest Energy Light Ever That Could Change Laws Of Physics! - Mashable India

Recently here on the blog I wrote about the globular cluster NGC 6397, a collection of a hundreds of thousands of stars in a compact ball, orbiting the Milky Way and currently about 8,000 light years from Earth.

I wrote about it because a pair of astronomers ran statistical models on the way the stars are orbiting in the cluster, and claimed there's a pretty good chance that there's a swarm of stellar-mass black holes in the cluster core, with a total mass of 1,0002,000 times the Sun's, meaning there could be anywhere from many dozens to a couple of hundred black holes there.

However, a new paper was just published by a different group of astronomers, basically saying the first paper is wrong. They say that not only are there unlikely to be any black holes in the cluster core, it's unlikely for there to be many black holes in the cluster at all. This means they are completely contradicting the other paper. They also say that the claims of a black hole swarm in the first paper are contradicted for "reasons that have been understood theoretically for many decades." Oof. Strong words!

The problem has to do with the structure and evolution of the cluster. Massive stars born when the cluster first forms explode as supernovae relatively quickly, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes. There could have been several hundred black holes in NGC 6397 a few million years after it formed.

Because they're more massive than most stars, when a black hole passes a star (which happens pretty often; clusters like this are pretty tightly packed) the black hole will tend to lose orbital energy and sink to the center, while the star gains energy and moves outward (this is called dynamical friction). The next few steps get complicated, but as the black holes settle into the core, they capture each other to become binaries, orbiting each other. If a star passes them that star gets a decent kick from the orbital energy of the two black holes orbiting each other and importantly the black hole binary does as well. This kick sends the black hole binary out of the core and sometimes out of the cluster entirely.

What this winds up doing is inflating the core of the cluster, making it larger as stars get kicked away from the center. However NGC 6397 does not have an inflated core. In fact the core is compact, which can only happen if there are no black holes there at all.

However, the first paper does rather convincingly show that there appears to be a population of dark objects there in the core of the cluster. If they're not black holes, what are they?

The new paper claims they're white dwarfs, the low-mass cores of stars like the Sun after they die and eject their outer layers. White dwarfs have masses around the mass of the Sun, while black holes are much more massive (at least 3-5 times the Sun's mass and generally much more), so you don't get the same percolation problem as you do with black holes. That allows the core to be compact yet still have dark objects in it.

The astronomers used models of cluster star populations to show that a thousand or so white dwarfs do the trick well, and generating that many over the current life of the cluster is expected (it likely started with 400,000 or so stars many billions of years ago, so plenty of time to create lots of white dwarfs).

I'll admit this paper looks pretty tight. It's succinct and shows it's very unlikely any black holes are in the cluster core (their best model shows only one black hole remaining, with a mass of roughly 10 times the Sun's). I'll note that in the first paper they were hoping to find an elusive intermediate black hole, one with 100 to 100,000 times the Sun's mass. But the second paper shows this isn't really possible either, for the same reason there are no black hole swarms there. If there are any black holes in NGC 6397 they're probably in the cluster's suburbs and not downtown.

This doesn't mean other clusters may not have a core-dwelling intermediate mass black hole, or a swarm of smaller ones. But in those cases you need to look at globular clusters with more inflated cores, which means they haven't undergone the process of losing all their black holes, so they still retain them.

Globular clusters may naively seem like they'd be simple structures, with so many stars so close together; over billions of years they'd settle down into stable orbits and what you're left with is a relatively uncomplicated system.

But that's not the case at all! These are complex structures, still evolving and changing even today, ten or more billion years after they first formed. It's clear there's still much to understand about them... which is true for everything in astronomy, really. If we think something is simple it probably means we're missing something important.

More here:

Wait: Do black holes *really* swarm in the core of globular cluster NGC 6397? - SYFY WIRE

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Celebration of International Astronomy Day with Canon Europe's space-themed craft kits - Africanews English