Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

[publiusr]

All it takes to kill a human is 12Gs, that must have been quite a ride going down through the atmosphere of Jupiter for the probe.

The Excalibur smart artillery round resisted even more g-forces...

 

[NMaude]

Curious Droid put out two months ago about the very long term future of the Voyager space-probes:

Currently, there are at least five manmade objects that are on a one-way journey out of the solar system but where will these go, will they just go on forever, will they crash into a star or planet in the far distant future long after we, our earth and sun has long ceased to exist. In this video, we will see just what is going where and what the future holds for them.

Written researched and presented by Paul Shillito
Images and footage : TWR, NASA, Richard Kruse, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

 

[NMaude]

A video about the mysterious moon, Miranda, orbiting Uranus:

Sure, it's a matter of taste... but many agree that one of the strangest moons in the solar system is the misshapen Miranda, the smallest and innermost of Uranus's five major moons.Discovered by Gerard Kuiper on February 16, 1948, it was named after a heroine from Shakespeare's "The Tempest." However, the Shakespearean Miranda is a young and beautiful woman, while this moon looks like it was pieced together, much like Frankenstein's monster.

This small, lumpy moon, features a surface covered with skewed and intersecting ice slabs, oddly rugged terrains, pockmarked plains, and dark, irregular canyons.How did this deformed landscape come to be? Was the moon bombarded by meteors? Did it survive a massive collision? Is it the result of stretching and squeezing caused by Uranus's gravity? We don't know yet! Or maybe we do..Follow along and let's try to uncover the truth together!--

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Credits: Ron Miller, Mark A. Garlick / MarkGarlick.com ,Elon Musk/SpaceX/ Flickr

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00:00 Intro
0:01 Miranda History And Facts
1:30 The moons of Uranus ( Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Miranda)
6:30 Voyager Discovered Other Moons

 

[Flyaway]

Black Holes Could Be Churning Out Dark Energy, Potentially Solving Cosmological Mystery

The team used data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, which allows us to estimate the size of the universe at different points in time. The researchers combined this data with the known star formation rate in the cosmos at that time and then compared the two.

“We just input that information on star formation to this scenario and we ask: ok, how big is the universe by this scenario? If the black hole production is actually dark energy production and that black hole production is tracked by the star formation rate, then how quickly is the universe growing?” Dr Kevin Croker, from Arizona State University, told IFLScience.

What they found is a nice agreement between the growth of black holes and the expansion of the universe. The death of massive stars creates black holes and the amount of dark energy increases in the universe. This might be just an intriguing correlation, but it has some consequences that make it attractive to the members of the team.

Black Holes Could Be Churning Out Dark Energy, Potentially Solving Cosmological Mystery

An intriguing hypothesis aims to solve three major mysteries of the universe in a single swoop.

www.iflscience.com

Related paper:

Radware Bot Manager Captcha

 

[Flyaway]

Tidally driven remelting around 4.35 billion years ago indicates the Moon is old

Abstract
The last giant impact on Earth is thought to have formed the Moon1. The timing of this event can be determined by dating the different rocks assumed to have crystallized from the lunar magma ocean (LMO). This has led to a wide range of estimates for the age of the Moon between 4.35 and 4.51 billion years ago (Ga), depending on whether ages for lunar whole-rock samples2,3,4 or individual zircon grains5,6,7 are used. Here we argue that the frequent occurrence of approximately 4.35-Ga ages among lunar rocks and a spike in zircon ages at about the same time8 is indicative of a remelting event driven by the Moon’s orbital evolution rather than the original crystallization of the LMO. We show that during passage through the Laplace plane transition9, the Moon experienced sufficient tidal heating and melting to reset the formation ages of most lunar samples, while retaining an earlier frozen-in shape10 and rare, earlier-formed zircons. This paradigm reconciles existing discrepancies in estimates for the crystallization time of the LMO, and permits formation of the Moon within a few tens of million years of Solar System formation, consistent with dynamical models of terrestrial planet formation11. Remelting of the Moon also explains the lower number of lunar impact basins than expected12,13, and allows metal from planetesimals accreted to the Moon after its formation to be removed to the lunar core, explaining the apparent deficit of such materials in the Moon compared with Earth14.

Tidally driven remelting around 4.35 billion years ago indicates the Moon is old - Nature

Lunar rock and zircon ages were reset by a remelting event driven by the Moon’s orbital evolution, reconciling existing discrepancies in estimates for the formation time of the Moon and the crystallization time of its magma ocean.

www.nature.com

 

[Flyaway]

New sources of cosmic X-rays

An international team of astronomers, led by researchers from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw, have identified a new class of cosmic X-ray sources.The results of the study were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

New sources of cosmic X-rays | University of Warsaw

en.uw.edu.pl

Related paper:

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[Flyaway]

Unveiling the ice and gas nature of active centaur (2060) Chiron using the James Webb Space Telescope | Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)

Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is an international journal which publishes papers on all aspects of astronomy and astrophysics

www.aanda.org

Uncovering a Centaur’s Tracks: UCF Scientists Examine Unique Asteroid-Comet Hybrid

UCF researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to reveal one-of-a-kind attributes of (2060) Chiron, a distant “centaur” in space sharing properties of both a comet and an asteroid, giving clues to our Solar System’s origins in a newly published study.

www.ucf.edu

Uncovering a Centaur’s Tracks: UCF Scientists Examine Unique Asteroid-Comet Hybrid
UCF researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to reveal one-of-a-kind attributes of (2060) Chiron, a distant “centaur” in space sharing properties of both a comet and an asteroid, giving clues to our Solar System’s origins in a newly published study

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bfr8dQQjQ4

 

[Flyaway]

NASA Explains Gamma-Ray Bursts:

View: https://youtu.be/Sc7Qd08ugQw?si=JIlKB-BoV8HBml4j

 

[Flyaway]

Trappist-1b atmosphere:

View: https://youtu.be/R8gPKu0dl20?si=T76QtevJrG9m-0kk

 

[NMaude]

It would appear that a massive planet may've disrupted the early Solar system, from Anton Petrov:

Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about a proposition that a lot of weirdness in the solar system can be explained by a planetary flyby 4.5 billion years ago
Links:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.04583https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.04583&v=0JdYbw5gbog
Planet Nine: • Planet Nine Like Object Identified, B...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFU08fYL_xc&t=0s
• New Strong Evidence for Existence of ...

• Planet 9 Update: It May Not Exist Acc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcrVKacgif0&t=0s
Jumbos: • Never Before Seen Bizarre Objects in ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TApFtxuJwQ&t=0s
Ancient supernova: • Signs of Nearby Supernovae Affecting ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD-TFRkFLoY&t=0s
#planet #solarsystem #astronomy

0:00 Unexplained parameters in the solar system and Planet Nine
3:30 New explanation based on JWST and planetary flybys
5:40 Results and intriguing explanations
7:40 Conclusions and what this means

 

[Flyaway]

New article in the journal Science with results from the Juno Europa flyby showing a surprisingly thick crust.

The findings join a recent parade of discouraging results for the moon. Earlier this year, other readings from Juno suggested radiation emanating from Jupiter would create less oxygen in Europa’s ocean than previously thought. Additionally, efforts to spot plumes from the moon’s surface with the JWST space telescope have come up empty, casting doubt on geysers potentially spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope. Most recently, several modeling studies presented earlier this year at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference suggested the forces pulling on the moon’s rocky interior wouldn’t be strong enough to cause it to fracture, preventing the formation of features like hydrothermal vents.

From that article though.

The new thickness measurements come with caveats, however. Each of MWR’s six antennas targets a different frequency. Using them, the researchers looked for the reflections of microwaves penetrating the crustal surface, indicating layers of ice. But seeing those reflections meant making assumptions about the composition and temperature of Europa’s ice and the background thermal radiation it would emit.

It’s possible the assumptions they made are wrong, says Natalie Wolfenbarger, a planetary scientist at Stanford University who works on Clipper’s ice-penetrating radar. “When you do this model-based retrieval, there are some inherent ambiguities.”

https://www.science.org/content/art...e-jupiter-s-moon-europa-complicates-hunt-life

 

[NMaude]

A new video about recent studies suggesting the Moon is older than previously believed, from NASASpaceNews:

Discover how scientists uncovered the Moon’s fiery volcanic past and revised its age to 4.43–4.51 billion years! Using zircon crystals as nature’s timekeepers, researchers found that the Moon’s crust melted and reformed multiple times due to intense tidal forces and volcanic eruptions. These groundbreaking findings not only solve long-standing mysteries about the Moon but also reveal new insights about the early Solar System and Earth’s evolution. Watch the full video for all the details and fascinating science behind this discovery!

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Revised Chronology of the Moon’s Formation
02:53 Evidence and Mechanisms of Intense Volcanic Activity
05:21 Resolving Geological and Geochemical Contradictions
07:22 Outro
07:38 Enjoy

Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158...

 

[NMaude]

A new study indicates that a previously unknown asteroid impact 2.5 millions years ago helped her in the current ice-age (We're in the midst of an interglacial period), from Anton Petrov:

Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the Eltanin crater
Links:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...doi/10.1126/science.241.4861.63&v=QX_2sLdHN5k
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/200...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...bs/2002AGUFMOS22C0286F/abstract&v=QX_2sLdHN5k
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/a...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ey.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jqs.2571&v=QX_2sLdHN5k
ingomar200 • Eltanin Asteroid Tsunami.mov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeAeGJK1qKA&t=0s
Acidification: • Asteroid That Killed Dinosaurs Turned... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD3UDpamaZA&t=0s
#impact #eltanin #iceagehttps://www.youtube.com/hashtag/iceage

0:00 Strange impact that started the ice age and how we found it
2:05 Impact hypothesis and evidence for the impact
5:00 Effects of the impact and connection to ice ages
9:00 Conclusions and additional questions