Astronomy

Gene therapies for cystic fibrosis have previously struggled to reach the faulty lung cells, but a new approach has succeeded in achieving long-lasting modifications in mice

Minuscule black holes that formed right after the big bang could have had a strange property called colour charge, and spotting them could help unravel the mystery of dark matter

Minuscule black holes that formed right after the big bang could have had a strange property called colour charge, and spotting them could help unravel the mystery of dark matter

The first astronauts to fly Boeing's new Starliner vehicle have spoken of the spacecraft in glowing terms.

NASA is testing how infrared light can transfer far more information than radio frequency communications.

Floating fragments of sea ice spun into intricate patterns as ocean currents carried them south along Greenland’s east coast in spring 2024. The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a moment of this dizzying journey on June 4, 2024.

NASA's Chandra X-ray space telescope has imaged Westerlund 1, the largest and closest super star cluster to Earth, in stunning detail.

Volcanic meteorites from Mars give scientists a glimpse into the planet's structure.

Ariane 6

Ariane 6

At our current level of knowledge, many exoplanet findings take us by surprise. The only atmospheric chemistry we can see with clarity is Earth’s, and we still have many unanswered questions about how our planet and its atmosphere developed. With Earth as our primary reference point, many things about exoplanet atmospheres seem puzzling in comparison and generate excitement and deeper questions.

That’s what’s happened with GJ-3470 b, a Neptune-like exoplanet about 96 light-years away.

Astronomers discovered the planet during a 2012 High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) campaign. The campaign was searching for short-period planets orbiting M-dwarfs (red dwarfs). When it was discovered, it was called a hot Uranus. It doesn’t take an astrophysicist to figure out why that term has fallen out of favour, and now it’s called a sub-Neptune planet.

GJ-3470 b is about 14 times more massive than Earth, takes 3.3 days to complete one orbit, and is about 0.0355 AU from its star.

New research presented at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society and soon to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters shows that the planet’s atmosphere contains more sulphur dioxide than expected. The lead researcher is Thomas Beatty, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

“We didn’t think we’d see sulphur dioxide on planets this small, and it’s exciting to see this new molecule in a place we didn’t expect since it gives us a new way to figure out how these planets formed.”

Thomas Beatty, University of Wisconsin, Madison

GJ-3470 b’s atmosphere is well characterized among exoplanets. The JWST has aimed its powerful spectroscopic eyes at the planet and revealed more detail than ever. Spectroscopy examines the light from its star as it passes through the planet’s atmosphere, revealing its chemical constituents.

Sub-Neptunes like GJ-3470 b are the most common type of exoplanet detected. Astronomers have detected carbon and oxygen in two of them, TOI-270d and K2-18b, which are important scientific results. But in GJ-3470 b’s atmosphere, astronomers also detected water, methane, and, more significantly, sulphur dioxide (SO2).

“The thing is, everybody looks at these planets, and often everybody sees flat lines,” said Beatty. “But when we looked at this planet, we really didn’t get a flat line.”

Finding SO2 was a surprise because GJ-3470 b is the smallest and coolest exoplanet to have the compound in its atmosphere. Image Credit: Beatty et al. 2024

This is the coldest and lightest exoplanet with sulphur dioxide in its atmosphere. The finding is significant in the effort to understand the different ways that planets form and evolve. The sulphur dioxide probably comes from chemical reactions in the atmosphere, as radiation from the nearby star tears hydrogen sulphide molecules apart, freeing the sulphur, which then bonds to oxygen, forming sulphur dioxide.

The amount of sulphur dioxide is also surprising. There’s about one million times more SO2 than expected.

“We didn’t think we’d see sulphur dioxide on planets this small, and it’s exciting to see this new molecule in a place we didn’t expect since it gives us a new way to figure out how these planets formed,” said Beatty, who worked as an instrument scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope before joining the UW–Madison faculty. “And small planets are especially interesting because their compositions are really dependent on how the planet-formation process happened.”

Astronomers found sulphur dioxide in WASP-39b, a hot Jupiter. But it’s 100 times more massive and two times hotter than GJ-3470 b. It forms the same way on both planets.

This image shows what the powerful JWST found in WASP-39b’s atmosphere. It was the first exoplanet where carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide were detected. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)

“On both planets, SO2 is produced through photochemistry on the planetary daysides: light from the star hits the top of the atmosphere and breaks apart sulfur-bearing molecules, and then the sulfur-atom wreckage from those photon/molecule collisions recombines with other molecules in the atmosphere and forms into SO2,” Beatty told Universe Today.

Beatty and his co-researchers tried to identify the pathways that could create SO2 through recombination. But the planet’s coolness led to dead ends.

“Identifying the correct recombination pathways was an important part of understanding SO2 on WASP-39b – but these predicted effectively zero SO2 on a planet as cool as GJ 3470b,” Beatty told Universe Today. It turns out that the atmospheric metallicity allows it to happen.

“As a part of these observations, we determined that the high metallicity of GJ 3470b’s atmosphere (it’s about 100x more metal-rich than WASP-39b) can drive SO2-producing reactions at much lower temperatures,” Beatty explained in an email exchange. “Put another way, we realized that all of the ambient water and carbon dioxide in GJ-3470 b’s atmosphere make the recombination process to form sulphur dioxide much more efficient than on larger giant exoplanets like WASP-39b.”

Astronomers can’t piece together a planet’s formation history without a complete account of its atmospheric constituents. With a complete list, they can start to tell the story of its formation. “Discovering sulfur dioxide in a planet as small as GJ 3470 b gives us one more important item on the planet formation ingredient list,” said Beatty.

But there’s more to the planet’s story than the SO2 and other atmospheric chemicals. It follows a polar orbit, which is a strong clue that the planet has been bullied out of its original orbit. It’s also extremely close to its star and has likely lost much of its atmosphere, blown away into space by the star’s powerful stellar wind. It may have lost 40% of its atmosphere.

“That migration history that led to this polar orbit and the loss of all this mass — those are things we don’t typically know about other exoplanet targets we’re looking at,” Beatty said. “Those are important steps in the recipe that created this particular planet and can help us understand how planets like it are made.”

The post Sulphur Makes A Surprise Appearance in this Exoplanet’s Atmosphere appeared first on Universe Today.

Taking a combination of short and long strides as you walk increases the amount of energy used by the body

Taking a combination of short and long strides as you walk increases the amount of energy used by the body

The presence of sulfur dioxide around a hot Neptune exoplanet with an evaporating atmosphere could help us understand how it formed.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed an unusually large and highly luminous galaxy at a record-breaking 290 million years after the big bang

Hubble has mapped the outflow "burps" of a nearby feeding supermassive black hole-powered quasar for the first time, measuring speeds of 6.5 million mph, around 8,500 times the speed of sound.

Scientists have revealed key properties of radioactive promethium, a rare earth element with poorly understood applications, using a groundbreaking new method.

Myths and legends surround the origins of these numbers

NASA has postponed a scheduled EVA today (June 13), as the two astronauts slated for the spacewalk were already putting on their suits.

A little known periodic comet graces northern hemisphere summer skies.

Short summer nights present a tough dilemma for nighttime astronomy: to stay up late, or wake up early? Summer 2024 gives you at least one reason to opt for the former, as periodic Comet 13P/Olbers graces the evening sky.

The History of the Comet

The comet was first spotted on the night of March 6th, 1815 by astronomer Heinrich Olbers (of Olbers’ Paradox fame) observing from Bremen, Germany. The orbit was later described by Carl Gauss and Friedrich Bessel as just shy of 74 years, about five years off of the present value.

A sketch of Comet 13P Olbers from 1887 by William Robert Brooks. Credit: Public Domain The Comet’s Orbit

Comet 13P/Olbers is on a 69 year orbit, which takes it from a perihelion 1.175 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun just outside of the Earth’s orbit, out to an aphelion of 32.5 AU out beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Perihelion for the comet occurs June 30th, 2024 at 1.175 AU from the Sun and 1.919 AU from the Earth.

The orbit of Comet 13P Olbers. Credit: NASA/JPL A Synopsis of the Current Apparition

In 2024, Comet 13P Olbers loiters low to the west this summer for northern observers at dusk. This is because it’s approaching Earth along our line of sight. The comet will seem to hang about 20-30 degrees above the horizon on summer evenings for mid-latitude northern hemisphere observers.

The location of the comet in the evening sky in mid-June. Credit: Stellarium

Here’s our look at what to expect from the comet month-by-month. Unless otherwise noted, ‘Passes near’ means a closest approach of less than one angular degree:

June

17-The orbital path of the comet is edge on as seen from our point of view, and the comet may exhibit a spiky anti-tail.

19-Passes into the constellation of the Lynx.

28-Passes near the +4.3 magnitude star 31 Lyncis.

The celestial path of the comet through September 1st. July

5-Passes near the +4th magnitude star 10 Ursae Majoris. (note: 10 Uma is one of the several ‘stray stars’ littered across the sky that found themselves on the wrong side when constellation borders were formalized in 1922. Thus, the star calls Ursa Major its home constellation, though it’s now located in the Lynx(!)

9-Crosses into the constellation Ursa Major.

11-Crosses back into the Lynx.

13-Crosses into the constellation Leo Minor.

20-Passes closest to Earth, 1.876 AU distant.

28-Crosses back into the constellation Ursa Major.

The observed and projected light curve for Comet 13P Olbers. Credit: Weekly Information on Bright Comets. August

13-Crosses into the constellation Coma Berenices.

14-Passes in front of the open star cluster Melotte 111.

16-Passes 1.3 degrees from the +4.3 magnitude star Gamma Coma Berenices.

19-Passes near the +10th magnitude galaxy NGC 4565.

21-Passes three degrees from the North Galactic Pole.

25-Passes near the +9th magnitude galaxy Messier 65 (the Black Eye Galaxy).

September

1-May drop back down below +10th magnitude.

Observing a comet like 13P Olbers is as simple as sweeping the suspect target field at low power, and looking for a tiny ‘fuzz ball’ that’s out of place. Binoculars work great in the regard. Visually, binocular comets in the +6th to +10th magnitude range look lots like a bright globular cluster that stubbornly refuses to snap into focus. It was for this very reason that French astronomer Charles Messier established the first rough deep sky catalog in 1774, to mark the ‘false comets’ in the sky.

One thing’s for sure: we’re definitely due for the next naked eye ‘Great Comet’ for the 21st century… in the meantime, be sure to hunt down comet 13P Olbers on its 2024 apparition.

The post Catching Comet 13P Olbers This Summer appeared first on Universe Today.

Despite a mission glitch, NASA’s lunar radio experiment ROLSES (carried to the Moon on the Odyssesus lander in February) obtained a unique "view" of Earth.

The post Short-lived Experiment Marks Start of Radio Astronomy from the Moon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.