Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up to Find "Big Baby" Galaxies in the Newborn Universe
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Sols 4382-4383: Team Work, Dream Work
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Right Navigation Camera on sol 4373 — Martian day 4,373 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Nov. 24, 2024, at 08:32:59 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Dec. 2, 2024
Today, after a weeklong holiday break, the team was eager to take a look at Curiosity’s new workspace. After driving 51 meters (about 167 feet) alongside Texoli butte (pictured) we had a whole host of new rocks to examine, and it was one of those curiously perfect planning days where everything falls into place. Our team of geologists here on Earth was busy studying the images our Martian geologist had downlinked to Earth prior to planning, and we scheduled 1.5 hours of science activities on the first sol of this plan. An interesting and varied workspace today saw lots of instruments working together to study the rocks in-depth — teamwork really does make the dream work.
To begin, we are targeting a vertical rock face called “Coronet Lake” near the rover. Coronet Lake has a cluster of nodules on show and we are getting information on the composition of these nodules with APXS and a ChemCam LIBS, as well as a close-up image with our MAHLI instrument. We also have a second MAHLI activity scheduled on a flat rock called “Excelsior Mountain.” Our observant team spotted an interesting-looking rock named “Admiration Point.” This rock may have fallen from the nearby Texoli butte, or could be a meteorite. To test these hypotheses further, we are targeting Admiration Point with a Mastcam mosaic and a ChemCam passive. ChemCam and Mastcam work together again on a target named “Olancha,” an area of rocks that could contain evidence of deformation from when the rocks first formed. Olancha will be targeted with a ChemCam long-distance RMI and a Mastcam mosaic.
Mastcam is finishing off the geological observations here with mosaics of “Angels Camp,” a rock containing veins where water may have once flowed, “Bare Island Lake,” a gray rock containing interesting polygonal ridges, and a trough feature close to Coronet Lake. ChemCam is taking another look back at Gediz Vallis channel to see a transition between light- and dark-toned rocks with a long-distance RMI, and we are rounding off this plan with our standard environmental observations.
As the Geology and Mineralogy theme group Keeper of the Plan for today’s planning, I made sure that this sol was packed full of science activities that the team wanted to schedule. After this busy first sol, Curiosity will be driving about 50 meters (about 164 feet), continuing to make our way out of Gediz Vallis, and we are all very excited to see what the rest of the sulfate-bearing unit has to offer us.
Written by Emma Harris, graduate student at Natural History Museum, London
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 03, 2024 Related Terms
Blogs Explore More
3 min read 4375-4381: A Stuffed Holiday Plan
Article
19 hours ago
3 min read Sols 4732-4735: I’ll Zap You, My Pretty, and Your Pebble Too
Article
20 hours ago
2 min read You Are Now Arriving at ‘Pico Turquino’
Article
1 day ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
All Mars Resources
Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
Rover Basics
Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
Mars Exploration: Science Goals
The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
View the full article
-
By NASA
Scientists find that cometary dust affects interpretation of spacecraft measurements, reopening the case for comets like 67P as potential sources of water for early Earth.
Researchers have found that water on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has a similar molecular signature to the water in Earth’s oceans. Contradicting some recent results, this finding reopens the case that Jupiter-family comets like 67P could have helped deliver water to Earth.
Water was essential for life to form and flourish on Earth and it remains central for Earth life today. While some water likely existed in the gas and dust from which our planet materialized around 4.6 billion years ago, much of the water would have vaporized because Earth formed close to the Sun’s intense heat. How Earth ultimately became rich in liquid water has remained a source of debate for scientists.
Research has shown that some of Earth’s water originated through vapor vented from volcanoes; that vapor condensed and rained down on the oceans. But scientists have found evidence that a substantial portion of our oceans came from the ice and minerals on asteroids, and possibly comets, that crashed into Earth. A wave of comet and asteroid collisions with the solar system’s inner planets 4 billion years ago would have made this possible.
This image, taken by ESA’s Rosetta navigation camera, was taken from a about 53 miles from the center of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on March 14, 2015. The image resolution is 24 feet per pixel and is cropped and processed to bring out the details of the comet’s activity. ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM While the case connecting asteroid water to Earth’s is strong, the role of comets has puzzled scientists. Several measurements of Jupiter-family comets — which contain primitive material from the early solar system and are thought to have formed beyond the orbit of Saturn — showed a strong link between their water and Earth’s. This link was based on a key molecular signature scientists use to trace the origin of water across the solar system.
This signature is the ratio of deuterium (D) to regular hydrogen (H) in the water of any object, and it gives scientists clues about where that object formed. Deuterium is a rare, heavier type — or isotope — of hydrogen. When compared to Earth’s water, this hydrogen ratio in comets and asteroids can reveal whether there’s a connection.
Because water with deuterium is more likely to form in cold environments, there’s a higher concentration of the isotope on objects that formed far from the Sun, such as comets, than in objects that formed closer to the Sun, like asteroids.
Measurements within the last couple of decades of deuterium in the water vapor of several other Jupiter-family comets showed similar levels to Earth’s water.
“It was really starting to look like these comets played a major role in delivering water to Earth,” said Kathleen Mandt, planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Mandt led the research, published in Science Advances on Nov. 13, that revises the abundance of deuterium in 67P.
About Kathleen Mandt
But in 2014, ESA’s (European Space Agency) Rosetta mission to 67P challenged the idea that Jupiter-family comets helped fill Earth’s water reservoir. Scientists who analyzed Rosetta’s water measurements found the highest concentration of deuterium of any comet, and about three times more deuterium than there is in Earth’s oceans, which have about 1 deuterium atom for every 6,420 hydrogen atoms.
“It was a big surprise and it made us rethink everything,” Mandt said.
Mandt’s team decided to use an advanced statistical-computation technique to automate the laborious process of isolating deuterium-rich water in more than 16,000 Rosetta measurements. Rosetta made these measurements in the “coma” of gas and dust surrounding 67P. Mandt’s team, which included Rosetta scientists, was the first to analyze all of the European mission’s water measurements spanning the entire mission.
The researchers wanted to understand what physical processes caused the variability in the hydrogen isotope ratios measured at comets. Lab studies and comet observations showed that cometary dust could affect the readings of the hydrogen ratio that scientists detect in comet vapor, which could change our understanding of where comet water comes from and how it compares to Earth’s water.
What are comets made of? It’s one of the questions ESA’s Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko wanted to answer. “So I was just curious if we could find evidence for that happening at 67P,” Mandt said. “And this is just one of those very rare cases where you propose a hypothesis and actually find it happening.”
Indeed, Mandt’s team found a clear connection between deuterium measurements in the coma of 67P and the amount of dust around the Rosetta spacecraft, showing that the measurements taken near the spacecraft in some parts of the coma may not be representative of the composition of a comet’s body.
As a comet moves in its orbit closer to the Sun, its surface warms up, causing gas to release from the surface, including dust with bits of water ice on it. Water with deuterium sticks to dust grains more readily than regular water does, research suggests. When the ice on these dust grains is released into the coma, this effect could make the comet appear to have more deuterium than it has.
Mandt and her team reported that by the time dust gets to the outer part of the coma, at least 75 miles from the comet body, it is dried out. With the deuterium-rich water gone, a spacecraft can accurately measure the amount of deuterium coming from the comet body.
This finding, the paper authors say, has big implications not only for understanding comets’ role in delivering Earth’s water, but also for understanding comet observations that provide insight into the formation of the early solar system.
“This means there is a great opportunity to revisit our past observations and prepare for future ones so we can better account for the dust effects,” Mandt said.
By Lonnie Shekhtman
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Explore More
9 min read Towards Autonomous Surface Missions on Ocean Worlds
Article
31 mins ago
1 min read Coming Spring 2025: Planetary Defenders Documentary
ow would humanity respond if we discovered an asteroid headed for Earth? NASA’s Planetary Defenders…
Article
52 mins ago
5 min read What’s Up: December 2024 Skywatching Tips from NASA
Article
1 day ago
Share
Details
Last Updated Dec 03, 2024 Editor Lonnie Shekhtman Contact Lonnie Shekhtman lonnie.shekhtman@nasa.gov Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Comets Goddard Space Flight Center Planetary Science Planetary Science Division Rosetta Science Mission Directorate The Solar System View the full article
-
By NASA
Hubble Space Telescope Home Hubble Captures an Edge-On… Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts E-books Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Captures an Edge-On Spiral with Curve Appeal
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features spiral galaxy UGC 10043. ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Windhorst, W. Keel
Download this image
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a spiral galaxy, named UGC 10043. We don’t see the galaxy’s spiral arms because we are seeing it from the side. Located roughly 150 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens, UGC 10043 is one of the somewhat rare spiral galaxies that we see edge-on.
This edge-on viewpoint makes the galaxy’s disk appear as a sharp line through space, with its prominent dust lanes forming thick bands of clouds that obscure our view of the galaxy’s glow. If we could fly above the galaxy, viewing it from the top down, we would see this dust scattered across UGC 10043, possibly outlining its spiral arms. Despite the dust’s obscuring nature, some active star-forming regions shine out from behind the dark clouds. We can also see that the galaxy’s center sports a glowing, almost egg-shaped ‘bulge’, rising far above and below the disk. All spiral galaxies have a bulge similar to this one as part of their structure. These bulges hold stars that orbit the galactic center on paths above and below the whirling disk; it’s a feature that isn’t normally obvious in pictures of galaxies. The unusually large size of this bulge compared to the galaxy’s disk is possibly due to UGC 10043 siphoning material from a nearby dwarf galaxy. This may also be why its disk appears warped, bending up at one end and down at the other.
Like most full-color Hubble images, this image is a composite, made up of several individual snapshots taken by Hubble at different times, each capturing different wavelengths of light. One notable aspect of this image is that the two sets of data that comprise this image were collected 23 years apart, in 2000 and 2023! Hubble’s longevity doesn’t just afford us the ability to produce new and better images of old targets; it also provides a long-term archive of data which only becomes more and more useful to astronomers.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Nov 21, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Spiral Galaxies Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Galaxies
Galaxy Details and Mergers
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
View the full article
-
By NASA
Hubble Space Telescope Home NASA’s Hubble Finds… Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts E-books Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 5 Min Read NASA’s Hubble Finds Sizzling Details About Young Star FU Orionis
An artist’s concept of the early stages of the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) outburst, surrounded by a disk of material. Credits:
NASA-JPL, Caltech In 1936, astronomers saw a puzzling event in the constellation Orion: the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) became a hundred times brighter in a matter of months. At its peak, FU Ori was intrinsically 100 times brighter than our Sun. Unlike an exploding star though, it has declined in luminosity only languidly since then.
Now, a team of astronomers has wielded NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope‘s ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the interaction between FU Ori’s stellar surface and the accretion disk that has been dumping gas onto the growing star for nearly 90 years. They find that the inner disk touching the star is extraordinarily hot — which challenges conventional wisdom.
The observations were made with the telescope’s COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) and STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph) instruments. The data includes the first far-ultraviolet and new near-ultraviolet spectra of FU Ori.
“We were hoping to validate the hottest part of the accretion disk model, to determine its maximum temperature, by measuring closer to the inner edge of the accretion disk than ever before,” said Lynne Hillenbrand of Caltech in Pasadena, California, and a co-author of the paper. “I think there was some hope that we would see something extra, like the interface between the star and its disk, but we were certainly not expecting it. The fact we saw so much extra — it was much brighter in the ultraviolet than we predicted — that was the big surprise.”
A Better Understanding of Stellar Accretion
Originally deemed to be a unique case among stars, FU Ori exemplifies a class of young, eruptive stars that undergo dramatic changes in brightness. These objects are a subset of classical T Tauri stars, which are newly forming stars that are building up by accreting material from their disk and the surrounding nebula. In classical T Tauri stars, the disk does not touch the star directly because it is restricted by the outward pressure of the star’s magnetic field.
The accretion disks around FU Ori objects, however, are susceptible to instabilities due to their enormous mass relative to the central star, interactions with a binary companion, or infalling material. Such instability means the mass accretion rate can change dramatically. The increased pace disrupts the delicate balance between the stellar magnetic field and the inner edge of the disk, leading to material moving closer in and eventually touching the star’s surface.
This is an artist’s concept of the early stages of the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) outburst, surrounded by a disk of material. A team of astronomers has used the Hubble Space Telescope’s ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the interaction between FU Ori’s stellar surface and the accretion disk that has been dumping gas onto the growing star for nearly 90 years. They found that the inner disk, touching the star, is much hotter than expected—16,000 kelvins—nearly three times our Sun’s surface temperature. That sizzling temperature is nearly twice as hot as previously believed. NASA-JPL, Caltech
Download this image
The enhanced infall rate and proximity of the accretion disk to the star make FU Ori objects much brighter than a typical T Tauri star. In fact, during an outburst, the star itself is outshined by the disk. Furthermore, the disk material is orbiting rapidly as it approaches the star, much faster than the rotation rate of the stellar surface. This means that there should be a region where the disk impacts the star and the material slows down and heats up significantly.
“The Hubble data indicates a much hotter impact region than models have previously predicted,” said Adolfo Carvalho of Caltech and lead author of the study. “In FU Ori, the temperature is 16,000 kelvins [nearly three times our Sun’s surface temperature]. That sizzling temperature is almost twice the amount prior models have calculated. It challenges and encourages us to think of how such a jump in temperature can be explained.”
To address the significant difference in temperature between past models and the recent Hubble observations, the team offers a revised interpretation of the geometry within FU Ori’s inner region: The accretion disk’s material approaches the star and once it reaches the stellar surface, a hot shock is produced, which emits a lot of ultraviolet light.
Planet Survival Around FU Ori
Understanding the mechanisms of FU Ori’s rapid accretion process relates more broadly to ideas of planet formation and survival.
“Our revised model based on the Hubble data is not strictly bad news for planet evolution, it’s sort of a mixed bag,” explained Carvalho. “If the planet is far out in the disk as it’s forming, outbursts from an FU Ori object should influence what kind of chemicals the planet will ultimately inherit. But if a forming planet is very close to the star, then it’s a slightly different story. Within a couple outbursts, any planets that are forming very close to the star can rapidly move inward and eventually merge with it. You could lose, or at least completely fry, rocky planets forming close to such a star.”
Additional work with the Hubble UV observations is in progress. The team is carefully analyzing the various spectral emission lines from multiple elements present in the COS spectrum. This should provide further clues on FU Ori’s environment, such as the kinematics of inflowing and outflowing gas within the inner region.
“A lot of these young stars are spectroscopically very rich at far ultraviolet wavelengths,” reflected Hillenbrand. “A combination of Hubble, its size and wavelength coverage, as well as FU Ori’s fortunate circumstances, let us see further down into the engine of this fascinating star-type than ever before.”
These findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The observations were taken as part of General Observer program 17176.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contacts:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Abigail Major, Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Share
Details
Last Updated Nov 21, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Stars Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Exploring the Birth of Stars
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hubble Focus: The Lives of Stars
This e-book highlights the mission’s recent discoveries and observations related to the birth, evolution, and death of stars.
View the full article
-
By NASA
Artist’s concept of a young, newly discovered planet, exposed to observation by a warped debris disk. Credit: Robert Hurt, Caltech-IPAC. The discovery
A huge planet with a long name – IRAS 04125+2902 b – is really just a baby: only 3 million years old. And because such infant worlds are usually hidden inside obscuring disks of debris, it is the youngest planet so far discovered using the dominant method of planet detection.
Key facts
The massive planet, likely still glowing from the heat of its formation, lies in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, an active stellar nursery with hundreds of newborn stars some 430 light-years away. The cloud’s relative closeness makes it a prime target for astronomers. But while the cloud offers deep insight into the formation and evolution of young stars, their planets are usually a closed book to telescopes like TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. These telescopes rely on the “transit method,” watching for the slight dip in starlight when a planet crosses the face of its host star. But such planetary systems must be edge-on, from Earth’s vantage point, for the transit method to work. Very young star systems are surrounded by disks of debris, however, blocking our view of any potentially transiting planets.
A research team has just reported an extraordinary stroke of luck. Somehow, the outer debris disk surrounding this newborn planet, IRAS 04125+2902 b, has been sharply warped, exposing the baby world to extensive transit observations by TESS.
Details
While the warped outer disk is a great coincidence, it’s also a great mystery. Possible explanations include a migration of the planet itself, moving closer to the star and, in the process, diverging from the orientation of the outer disk – so that, from Earth, the planet’s orbit is edge-on, crossing the face of the star, but the outer disk remains nearly face-on to us. One problem with this idea: Moving a planet so far out of alignment with its parent disk would likely require another (very large) object in this system. None has been detected so far.
The system’s sun happens to have a distant stellar companion, also a possible culprit in the warping of the outer disk. The angle of the orbit of the companion star, however, matches that of the planet and its parent star. Stars and planets tend to take the gravitational path of least resistance, so such an arrangement should push the disk into a closer alignment with the rest of the system – not into a radical departure.
Another way to get a “broken” outer disk, the study authors say, would not involve a companion star at all. Stellar nurseries like the Taurus Molecular Cloud can be densely packed, busy places. Computer simulations show that rains of infalling material from the surrounding star-forming region could be the cause of disk-warping. Neither simulations nor observations have so far settled the question of whether warped or broken disks are common or rare in such regions.
Fun facts
Combining TESS’s transit measurements with another way of observing planets yields more information about the planet itself. We might call this second approach the “wobble” method. The gravity of a planet tugs its star one way, then another, as the orbiting planet makes its way around the star. And that wobble can be detected by changes in the light from the star, picked up by specialized instruments on Earth. Such “radial velocity” measurements of this planet reveal that its mass, or heft, amounts to no more than about a third of our own Jupiter. But the transit data shows the planet’s diameter is about the same. That means the planet has a comparatively low density and, likely, an inflated atmosphere. So this world probably is not a gas giant like Jupiter. Instead, it could well be a planet whose atmosphere will shrink over time. When it finally settles down, it could become a gaseous “mini-Neptune” or even a rocky “super-Earth.” These are the two most common planet types in our galaxy – despite the fact that neither type can be found in our solar system.
The discoverers
A science team led by astronomer Madyson G. Barber of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published the study, “A giant planet transiting a 3 Myr protostar with a misaligned disk,” in the journal Nature in November 2024.
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.