ASTRO SPACE NEWS

Weird, Wild & Breaking News Stories in Space and Astronomy From Around The World 24/7 Weekly With Updates. It's a FREE Service To The Public and ALL Media, It's Safe and Reliable. (Est. 2002)

FEATURED STORIES - October 2020

This news service is emailed weekly to requesting radio stations across Australia. Enquiries for interviews or info Ph: (02) 6585 2260 Mob: 0400 636 363 Email: davereneke@gmail.com 

'Astro' Dave: David Reneke is one of Australia's most well known and respected astronomers and lecturers with links to some of the world's leading astronomical institutions. 

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Astronomers watch black hole destroy a star in deep space

A tidal disruption event occurs when a star gets too close to a black hole. The gravity of the black hole is so intense it will stretch and contort any object that gets near it, akin to a piece of spaghetti.

The blast of light was caught by several telescopes around the world, prompting scientists to look into the anomaly for months to make sure their initial observations were correct.

"A tidal disruption event results from the destruction of a star that strays too close to a supermassive black hole," study co-author and astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Edo Berger added. "In this case the star was torn apart with about half of its mass feeding-or accreting-into a black hole of one million times the mass of the Sun, and the other half was ejected outward."

Finding these events (this one is known as AT2019qiz) is incredibly rare, but it was easier to analyze because it was discovered so early, Kate Alexander, NASA Einstein Fellow at Northwestern University, pointed out.

"This is a unique 'peek behind the curtain' that provided the first opportunity to pinpoint the origin of the obscuring material and follow in real time how it engulfs the black hole," Alexander explained.

"AT2019qiz is the nearest tidal disruption event discovered to date, and hence, incredibly well-observed across the electromagnetic spectrum," Berger added. "This is the first case in which we see direct evidence for outflowing gas during the disruption and accretion process that explains both the optical and radio emissions we've seen in the past. Until now, the nature of these emissions has been heavily debated, but here we see that the two regimes are connected through a single process. This event is teaching us about the detailed physical processes of accretion and mass ejection from supermassive black holes."

Queensland proving popular blast-off site

An Australian company has revealed sky-high plans to launch rockets from far north Queensland as the state's space race heats up.

A launch site at Cape York is part of a space proposal by Sydney-based CosmoVision Global Corporation, which hopes to secure approval to start building a "technology park" by early 2021.

The "space port" will be used to launch rockets weighing more than 400 tonnes and powered by non-toxic fuel, corporation boss Ilya Osadchuk said in statement.

"We can hopefully meet the mandatory requirements for obtaining our licence to set up and operate our space port and launch facility in Cape York," he said.

The proposal is yet to get a green light from state or federal governments or nearby Indigenous groups, or pass essential environmental requirements.

Despite the many necessary approvals, the corporation said it has already secured "international launch vehicles" and has global investors lined up. The operation plans to launch satellites for commercial telecommunications among other uses.

It's not the only space proposal on the cards for Queensland with the state's alternative government - the LNP - a couple of weeks ago revealing plans for a $15 million rocket launch pad near the central city of Bowen if victorious at the October 31 election.

Gilmour Space Technologies would be the anchor tenant of the government-owned facility, and the firm already has contracts with customers who need to launch in an easterly direction.

In mid-September, a 3.4-metre rocket became Australia's first commercial launch to the edge of space, from South Australia. The federal government is investing $7 billion in growing Australia's space capabilities over the next decade. Australian Associated Press

An Australian company has revealed sky-high plans to launch rockets from far north Queensland as the state's space race heats up.

A launch site at Cape York is part of a space proposal by Sydney-based CosmoVision Global Corporation, which hopes to secure approval to start building a "technology park" by early 2021.

The "space port" will be used to launch rockets weighing more than 400 tonnes and powered by non-toxic fuel, corporation boss Ilya Osadchuk said in statement.

"We can hopefully meet the mandatory requirements for obtaining our licence to set up and operate our space port and launch facility in Cape York," he said.

The proposal is yet to get a green light from state or federal governments or nearby Indigenous groups, or pass essential environmental requirements.

Despite the many necessary approvals, the corporation said it has already secured "international launch vehicles" and has global investors lined up.

The operation plans to launch satellites for commercial telecommunications among other uses.

It's not the only space proposal on the cards for Queensland with the state's alternative government - the LNP - a couple of weeks ago revealing plans for a $15 million rocket launch pad near the central city of Bowen if victorious at the October 31 election.

Gilmour Space Technologies would be the anchor tenant of the government-owned facility, and the firm already has contracts with customers who need to launch in an easterly direction.

In mid-September, a 3.4-metre rocket became Australia's first commercial launch to the edge of space, from South Australia.

The federal government is investing $7 billion in growing Australia's space capabilities over the next decade.

Australian Associated Press

Stellar Explosion Blamed for Mass Extinction Event on Earth 360 Million Years Ago

Between a decline in biodiversity and a series of extinction events, the Late Devonian period was not the most hospitable time on Earth.

And then came one or more supernovae explosions whose resulting ionizing radiation was the final push that spelled the end for armored fish, most trilobites and other life.

In a paper published recently in PNAS, three University of Kansas researchers and their colleagues lay out such a scenario for end-Devonian extinctions.

"For more than a decade, my colleagues and I have been interested in the possibility of ionizing radiation events causing extinction events on Earth," said Adrian Melott, professor emeritus of physics & astronomy at the University of Kansas.

Previous findings had pointed to this final extinction event of the Devonian happening in tandem with a drop in ozone in Earth's stratosphere.

"When I heard about the evidence for ozone depletion at the end-Devonian, it triggered thoughts about the possibility of a chain of nearby supernovae," Melott said.

Previous research had pointed to other possible causes for the ozone depletion, such as global warming, but not astrophysical sources like exploding stars.

However, a fellow KU researcher had findings that suggested otherwise. Brian Thomas, an adjunct researcher in physics & astronomy and professor of physics at Washburn University, had shown that atmospheric warming and the resulting injection of water into the lower stratosphere - suggested as a mechanism to cause the ozone depletion - were just not tenable.

Moreover, another KU researcher, Bruce Lieberman, had further findings that pointed to an astrophysical cause. Lieberman, a professor of ecology & evolutionary biology, had previously emphasized that the end-Devonian extinctions were part of a long period of diversity decline. This prolonged decline is then followed by evidence of pollen malformations, suggesting ionizing radiation as the cause. That left a series of supernovae as the only tenable possibility, Melott said.

The researchers estimate the supernovae that triggered these events to be around 60 light years away. For context, Betelgeuse, a future supernova getting a lot of attention for its recent behavior, is about 600 light years away.

The supernovae that triggered end-Devonian extinction would have been close enough to cause some radiation damage on Earth, but not close enough for life-shattering damage.

"The cosmic rays from such a supernova will produce muons in the atmosphere, which are a very penetrating kind of radiation," Melott said. "They could cause internal damage in large animals and in organisms up to a half-mile down in the ocean."

The major ionization of the lower atmosphere may have led to a lot of lightning, he said, which could start fires and change the climate.

The Moon is the Perfect Spot for SETI

In less than four years, NASA plans to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon as part of Project Artemis. This long-awaited return to the Moon is to be followed by the construction of the Lunar Gateway, the Artemis Base Camp, and a program of "sustainable lunar exploration." The creation of an enduring human presence on the Moon will also create many opportunities for exciting scientific research.

For example, astronomers want to conduct radio astronomy on the far side of the Moon, where telescopes could probe the earliest period of the Universe free of terrestrial radio interference. Taking this a step further, a team of astronomers recently recommended that a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon (or in lunar orbit) could aid in another important area of research: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)!

The proposal was the subject of a white paper that was submitted to the National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032. The team behind it was led by Eric J. Michaud, a mathematics undergraduate at UC Berkeley, and included members from the SETI Institute, the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy at the University of Malta, and Breakthrough Initiatives.

As they explained, the potential for lunar radio astronomy has been recognized since the days of the Apollo Program. Interest became renewed during the early 2000s, at a time when the first steps towards returning astronauts to the Moon were being made (the Constellation Program). With the evolution of NASA's plans during the past decade - "Moon to Mars" and the Artemis Program - now is the time for the necessary planning to occur.

Dr. Pete Worden, the Chairman Breakthrough Prize Foundation and the former director of NASA's Ames Research Center, was a co-author on the paper. As he told Universe Today via email, the need to establish a site for such a telescope is pressing:As such, radio telescopes on Earth are based in parts of the world that have minimal "radio pollution," like deserts and remote areas. But the far side of the Moon may very well be the most "radio-quiet" place in the Solar System. As Michaud explained to Universe Today via email, these advantages include being able to scan:

As they indicate in their study, radio noise could be particularly mitigated if a crater were selected as the site of a surface observatory. Some choice locations include the Saha, Tsiolkovsky, Malapert, and Daedalus craters, all of which have been selected as possible sites by previous lunar radio-astronomy proposals. In such an environment, the crater walls would block out interference coming from orbiters or spacecraft.

Naturally, a telescope on the lunar surface presents some drawbacks as well. For example, the observatory would require a lander mission to deliver it to the surface, which is more complex than sending missions to orbit. Here, Michaud and his colleagues use the Israeli Space Agency's Beresheet and ISRO's Vikram lunar lander (part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission) as examples, both of which crashed-landed on the surface. 

Another drawback is that a lander would not be able to draw solar energy during the 14-day long lunar night, which means it would have to come with a large battery pack. Communications would also be a challenge since the far side of the Moon is never on a direct line-of-sight with Earth. China's Chang'e-4 mission deals with this by relaying its communications to the Queqiao orbiter, which orbits the Moon at the Earth-Moon L2 point.

On the other hand, a lunar telescope deployed in orbit of the Moon would be cheaper to launch and could also support a larger antenna - since the weightlessness of orbit would do away with the need for a supporting structure. But of course, such a mission has its own share of disadvantages, such as the fact that RFI might be more of an issue on the farside.

The nature of the Moon's gravitational field also means that most lunar orbits are inherently unstable, which results in orbital decay. Fortunately, Michaud and colleagues indicate that there are several "frozen orbits" where an orbiter could remain stable for years. As Michaud explains, lots of work needs to happen before a lunar SETI observatory can be realized:

In the meantime, Dr. Worden claims that NASA and the international astronomical community are off to a great start with Project Artemis and the Artemis Accords. Not only are these facilitating a return to the Moon, but they've also established a framework for partnerships between nations and between the private and public sectors. This, Dr. Worden explains, will be essential to establishing the infrastructure and support needed: 

Astronomy - Why Is It So?

You know, people still don't completely understand what's going on upstairs. This week I thought I'd cover some of the more common things I'm asked by readers. Ready? Let's go!

What is the difference between astronomy and astrology? Believe it or not, this is the most asked question I hear. Many people don't understand the difference. Astrology is a practice of using the locations of the planets to look into a person's personality or predict the future. It's not a science.

By contrast, astronomy is the scientific study of the universe. Astronomers observe the objects in the night sky to try to determine their composition and learn more about the origin and structure of the universe.

Do I need an expensive telescope to enjoy astronomy? Many people hesitate to get involved with astronomy because they believe it requires expensive equipment. The only thing you really need to enjoy the night sky is your eyes, a dark viewing location, and some patience.

To get a better look at things, a pair of 10x50 binoculars can provide a really good view. They collect much more light than the human eye and bring much dimmer objects clearly into view. You can even see Jupiter's moons with binoculars. A simple camera tripod to steady the binoculars is also a good idea, since your arms can get tired very quickly.

Why can't I see very many stars at night? You won't if you live near a big city. The reason for this is light pollution. Dust and water vapour in the atmosphere reflects the bright city lights back down towards the ground. Welcome to light pollution!

To truly appreciate the night sky, you must get as far away from city lights as possible. I can't think of many better sights than the band of the Milky Way stretching across a dark West Australian sky.

Where does space begin? Wow, this is a tricky one, but we now have an answer. Earth's atmosphere just gradually thins out as you move farther away from the Earth. US aviation officials have decreed space starts at 100 kilometres high. You could drive there in one hour at highway speeds.

Why is the sky blue? This is another question that gets asked a lot. The blue colour of the sky during the day is caused by scattered sunlight. The white light from the Sun is composed of all the colours of the rainbow. During the day, the air scatters the blue light from the Sun more that the red light making the sky appear blue to our eyes.

People ask how come we can't see the Moon's far side? The Moon is our most misunderstood celestial object.  This is because the Moon rotates around on its own axis in exactly the same time it takes to orbit the Earth, meaning the same side is always facing the Earth.

Why do we have two daily tides? Of course, we know tides on Earth are caused by the Moon. There are two bulges in the Earth, one on the side facing the Moon, and the other on the opposite side facing away. The bulges move around the oceans as the Earth rotates, causing high and low tides around the globe.

The Moon has much weaker gravity than Earth. Did you know you'd weigh just a sixth of your weight on Earth! And moonquakes are real too. Yep, Lunar astronauts used seismographs on their visits to the Moon and found that small moonquakes occurred several kilometres beneath the surface, causing ruptures and cracks.

Lastly, you won't believe it but during the 1950's the USA considered detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon. True! It was to be meant as a show of strength at a time the US thought they were lagging behind in the space race. Strange huh?

Astronomers discover planets more suitable for life than Earth

Astrobiologists from the United States and Germany have announced that there are planets in space that are more suitable for life than Earth.

According to Astrobiology magazine, scientists have collected comprehensive information on temperatures, humidity and other factors on 4.5 thousand exoplanets and chose 24 of them, which are larger, older, warmer and possibly wetter than Earth. They also orbit slowly changing stars that are longer than our Sun's lifespan.

Researchers believe that on such planets, which they codenamed "highly inhabited", life has more chances to evolve into higher forms than on Earth.

All the 24 planets are located more than 100 light years from Earth, and in the future it will be possible to study them using the NASA "Джеймс Уэбб" and LUVIOR telescopes, as well as the European Space Agency's PLATO.

Professor Dirk Schultz-Makuch, head of the research team, says, "With the advent of new space telescopes, we will get more information, so it is important to choose the right targets. Because we have to focus on certain planets with promising conditions for complex life. It is important not to limit the search to Earth. Again, because there may be more habitable planets than ours. "

It should be noted that the research team chose planetary-stellar systems with Earth-like planets, such as G-type stars that resemble the sun, which have a relatively short age of less than 10 billion years, and long-lived dwarf stars of class that are 20-70 billion years old. And since life on Earth appeared about four billion years later, the fuel for many sun-like stars may have run out before complex life forms emerged.

Based on this, life on planets orbiting the stars, which are cooler, less massive and brighter than our sun, have more time to evolve, as according to the researchers from 5 to 8 billion years, after which their geothermal heat depletes and their protective magnetic field disappears.

According to the researchers, life is developing easier in conditions of high humidity and temperature five degrees Celsius higher than on Earth. They base this on the biodiversity of tropical forests, compared to the cold and dry regions of the Earth.

The researchers point out that the term "highly inhabited" planets does not mean the existence of life on them, but rather that their conditions are suitable for the complex development of life.

European Space Agency finalises plans to 'explore the moon properly'

European space officials will this week unveil detailed plans for a series of ambitious missions aimed at returning humans to the moon in the next few years.

Projects will include construction of crew quarters for an orbiting lunar space station, making the power and propulsion units for America's Orion spacecraft, and designing and building a sophisticated communication and refuelling unit, known as Esprit, to serve astronauts on the lunar surface. These missions will be carried out jointly with Nasa and the Japanese and Canadian space agencies.

Planning for the programme - known as Gateway - has been going on for years, but now final contracts with European aerospace companies are about to be signed and will be announced at this week's International Astronautical Congress. "The decisions have been made and now the lunar spaceport is go," said David Parker, head of robotics for the European Space Agency (Esa) and a key figure in the Gateway programme.

The aim of the programme was to get the first astronauts to the moon by 2024, he added. "That is a challenging deadline, but we are up for it."

Parker said the first sets of astronauts who will fly to the moon were very likely to include a European. Britain's Tim Peake, an Esa astronaut who spent six months on the International Space Station that orbits Earth, has already indicated he would like to take part.

The aim of the Gateway programme is to open up the moon to scientific scrutiny in the same way that Antarctica was opened up in the second half of the last century. "The moon is like an eighth continent," Parker said. "It's an astronomical museum that has been soaking up the history of our solar system for more than 4 billion years. When we went there with Apollo, we basically went to the museum gift shop, grabbed a few souvenirs and came home. Now we are going to explore it properly."

One key aim of Gateway will be to explore the moon's south pole for the presence of frozen water. Evidence from robot probes suggest that ice exists there and finding it would have a crucial bearing on the construction of future lunar colonies. Separating water into its constituent elements of oxygen and hydrogen by electrolysis could then provide fuel and air for astronauts.

The main vehicle used to ferry astronauts to the moon will be the Orion spacecraft, which is scheduled to make its uncrewed maiden flight on Nasa's giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket next year. Esa has already provided the power and propulsion units for the first Orion flight and is set to build a further five units.

Esa officials have also agreed contracts to build the main crew module for Gateway, which will operate as a smaller version of the International Space Station but sweeping around the moon, not the Earth. Over the next decade it will be used as a research centre and a staging post for missions to the lunar surface.

The hope is that exploration will be fully under way by the end of the decade, said Parker. "By then, we will have had 30 years working on the International Space Station. We'll get back to the moon during this decade and spend 15 to 20 years doing everything that needs to be done to explore the moon. Then we can think about the next step: going to Mars."

'Rogue Planet' With Same Mass As Earth Discovered Drifting In Milky Way Without A Star

Astronomers have recently found a 'rogue planet', which is about the same mass as Mars or Earth, drifting in the Milky Way. 'Rogue planets' are those planets that leave the gravitational embrace of the solar system and drift through the interstellar space forever. A team of scientists from the OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) and KMTN (Korean Microlensing Telescope Network) have now discovered a low-mass rogue planet, which has no stars near it and its distance from Earth still remains unknown.

According to the study that presented the discovery, the 30 authors who are listed as contributors for the work, said that they believe that in the early days of a solar system, some low-mass planets will be ejected from the star's gravitational grip. The astronomers said that things can be chaotic in the early days and gravitational interactions between the star and all the planets can sometimes send small planets out into space to fend themselves.

Finding the 'rogue planets' in the vast darkness of space requires an innovative approach, i.e., gravitational lensing. The scientists said that in this case, the low-mass planet acts as the lens and depending on how much the light from the distant star is affected by the foreground object, astronomers can learn quite a bit. The authors explained that a relatively tiny object like a low-mass planet does not bend much light, and not for too long, either.

'Strong evidence' for 'rogue planet' population

Past studies have shown that there could be billions or even trillions of free-floating planets in the Milky Way. In the recent study, the astronomers have listed the ways these rogue planets can end up orphaned. The ways include planet-planet scattering; dynamical interactions between giant planets that lead to orbital disruption of smaller, inner planets; interactions between the stars in binary or trinary systems and star clusters; stellar fly-bys; and the evolution of the host star past the main sequence.

The newly-discovered rogue planet has been named 'OGLE-2016-BLG-1928'. It was discovered in a micro-lensing event which lasted only 41.5 minutes. The astronomers, in the study, informed that only four other small rogue planets similar to this have been found before, each one in a short timescale micro-lensing event. Together, these events provide "strong evidence for a population of rogue planets in the Milky Way," the scientists said.

Astronomers Directly Image Planet 63 Light-Years Away

The last few decades of astronomical surveys have revealed several thousand exoplanets in the cosmos, but very few have ever been seen directly. We can only infer the presence of most exoplanets from their gravity or ability to block starlight. However, researchers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile recently turned it toward a star 63 light-years away called Beta Pictoris to hunt for a gas giant (Beta Pictoris c), and they snapped an image of it.

Our current level of technology makes it almost impossible to image exoplanets directly. Compared with stars, planets are so dim that we usually can't resolve them in the halo of light. Beta Pictoris c joins a list of less than two-dozen extrasolar worlds (including Pictoris b) that scientists have spied directly, and some of those are still highly contentious.

Scientists were able to get this new image thanks to all the interest in the Beta Pictoris system over the years. Beta Pictoris c and its sibling world Beta Pictoris b are less than two million years old. Pictoris b was discovered via direct imaging, which again, is quite rare. However, anomalies in its radial velocity prompted astronomers to look closer. Radial velocity analysis is a less common way of detecting exoplanets that relies on using telescopes to detect small wobbles in stars caused by the gravity of their planets. Just last year, a team discovered Beta Pictoris c while attempting to explain those anomalous radial velocity readings.

The newly imaged Beta Pictoris c alongside Beta Pictoris b.

As a result of this planet-hunting endeavor in Beta Pictoris, scientists had an excellent data set describing the motion of these exoplanets. That's exactly what the ExoGRAVITY team, led by astronomer Mathias Nowak of the University of Cambridge, needed to get started. Nowak's effort uses the GRAVITY interferometer on the VLT to study exoplanets, and the wealth of data on Beta Pictoris helped the team know just where to look for Beta Pictoris c. All four VLT telescopes scanned the alien solar system, feeding data into a "virtual telescope" that combines them for a sharper image. And that's how we ended up with an image of Beta Pictoris c, one of the first exoplanets studied via both direct imaging and radial velocity.

There are still some mysteries to unravel in Beta Pictoris, though. The light from Beta Pictoris c is six times fainter than Pictoris b. However, Pictoris c is eight times the mass of Jupiter, so how big is Pictoris b? We thought it was just a little larger than Pictoris c, but it's going to take more research to figure out exactly what's going on here. That won't be a problem - with two visible exoplanets, Beta Pictoris will be a target for plenty of astronomers. 

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