Astronomy

The FAA is holding a virtual public meeting this evening (June 17) about the potential environmental impact of SpaceX's Starship operations in Florida, and you can participate.

Boeing Starliner has seen its one-week test mission in space double to about two weeks. That allowed time for an incredible aurora show during thruster testing on June 15.

Many years ago, there was a viral YouTube video called “History of the entire world, i guess,” which has been an endless source of internet memes since its release. One of the most prominent is also scientifically accurate—when describing why animals couldn’t start living on land, the video’s creator, Bill Wurtz, intones, “The Sun is a deadly laser.” 

Early in planetary development, the X-ray and ultraviolet radiation level of a planet’s host stars could sterilize the entire planet’s surface, even if it is in the so-called “habitable zone.” To narrow down the search for potentially habitable planets, the team at the Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton telescopes took a look at stars that had planets in their habitable zone and analyzed them for whether the star’s radiation itself might preclude life as we know it from developing there.

Over ten observational days on Chandra and 26 on XMM-Newton, scientists observed 57 stars close enough to Earth to have their exoplanets explored by the next generation of exoplanet-hunting telescopes, such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory. While not all of them had known exoplanets, at least some did. 

YouTube Video detailing the research.
Credit – Chandra X-ray Observatory YouTube Channel

However, those exoplanets were typically much larger than Earth, even if they were in the habitable zone. It is much easier to detect giant planets orbiting close to their stars using modern date exoplanet detection techniques like transiting and astrometry. A press release from Chandra notes how many more rocky exoplanets the size of Earth are likely hiding around these stars, but our limited detection methods are not yet capable of finding them.

That isn’t to say we can’t learn much about their host stars, though, and that is where the data from the paper presented to the 244 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, comes in. Watching the X-ray emissions of these local stars allowed the team to narrow down what stars to look at for potentially habitable exoplanets, thereby allowing the future powerful planet hunters to focus their observational time on candidates that are more likely to produce results.

Fraser details the path towards detecting 100 million exoplanets over the next thirty years.

Some of the stars in the study were indeed promising, with X-ray exposure similar to, or even less than, that of Earth when life began forming here billions of years ago. The data measured several aspects of the star’s output, including their brightness, how much energy those X-rays pack, and how powerful the star’s flares are. All of those could significantly impact the ability of life to form on any orbiting planets.

Fifty-seven stars is a relatively small sample size. Still, the proof of concept for how Chandra and XMM-Newton can be used to scout potential systems for habitability can be scaled up before any long-term observing mission for the new planet finders—no doubt they will be shortly as HWF and other missions get closer to fruition.

However, Chandra itself is facing budgetary challenges, causing many in the media to speculate that it might soon go “dark.” XMM-Newton itself is almost a quarter century old at this point, and a new joint X-ray mission, XRISM, is facing its own technical challenges, with a stuck door limiting it from observing in some of its potential wavelengths.

With luck, X-ray astronomy will continue to evolve over the next few decades. Part of that mission might be leading the scouting team for one of the most important astronomical searches humanity is currently undergoing.

Learn More:
Chandra Press Room – Coming in Hot: NASA’s Chandra Checks Habitability of Exoplanets
UT – Chandra’s X-ray Vision Combined With JWST Reveals Even More Details About the Universe
UT – A Collection of New Images Reveal X-Rays Across the Universe
UT – Chandra and JWST Join Forces in a Stunning Series of Images

Lead Image:
Illustration of hot exoplanet.
Credit – NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

The post Which Stars are Lethal to their Planets? appeared first on Universe Today.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken its first look at China's Chang'e 6 spacecraft on the moon's far side.

Not content with shapes in two or three dimensions, mathematicians like to explore objects in any number of spatial dimensions. Now they have discovered shapes of constant width in any dimension, which roll like a wheel despite not being round

Not content with shapes in two or three dimensions, mathematicians like to explore objects in any number of spatial dimensions. Now they have discovered shapes of constant width in any dimension, which roll like a wheel despite not being round

Tribalism can be toxic, yet we need more of it if we are to meet today’s global challenges, argues one anthropologist. His research reveals how to create a “teratribe”

Tribalism can be toxic, yet we need more of it if we are to meet today’s global challenges, argues one anthropologist. His research reveals how to create a “teratribe”

“I feel that my larger purpose at NASA, which I've felt since I came on as an intern, is to leave NASA a better place than I found it." — Mallory Carbon, Management and Program Analyst, NASA Headquarters

In order to explain the presence of these heavier elements today, it’s necessary to find phenomena that can produce them. One type of event that fits the bill is a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the most powerful class of explosion in the universe.

A robot named Musashi with a human-like "skeleton" and "musculature" can perform basic driving tasks – but this isn’t the safest approach to autonomous transport

A robot named Musashi with a human-like "skeleton" and "musculature" can perform basic driving tasks – but this isn’t the safest approach to autonomous transport

Meteoroids are difficult objects for aerospace and geophysics researchers like us to study, because we can’t usually predict when and where they will hit the atmosphere. But on very rare occasions, we can study artificial objects that enter the atmosphere much like a meteoroid would.

By combining two approaches to quantum computing into one device, Google has been able to simulate the behaviour of magnets in detail - and found discrepancies with our current understanding of certain magnet systems

By combining two approaches to quantum computing into one device, Google has been able to simulate the behaviour of magnets in detail - and found discrepancies with our current understanding of certain magnet systems

A young star that astronomers have studied for decades has been found to be part of a duo, encircled by a disk of material within which planets may have just begun coalescing.

Why is the sky near

A low-mass star races through the Milky Way at over a million miles per hour, a journey that began with either the supernova explosion of a vampire star or an encounter with black holes.

Australian conservationists introduced juvenile cane toads ahead of invasions to help prepare native monitor lizards

A new study with data from the James Webb Space Telescope found that galaxies may have started forming spirals far earlier than astronomers previously thought.

The post Spiral Galaxies May Be a Dime a Dozen in the Early Universe appeared first on Sky & Telescope.