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New 'Star Wars' trilogy set at Lucasfilm with 'Rebels' writer and producer Simon Kinberg
eROSITA All-Sky Survey Takes the Local Hot Bubble’s Temperature
About half a century ago, astronomers theorized that the Solar System is situated in a low-density hot gas environment. This hot gas emits soft X-rays that displace the dust in the local interstellar medium (ISM), creating what is known as the Local Hot Bubble (LHB). This theory arose to explain the ubiquitous soft X-ray background (below 0.2 keV) and the lack of dust in our cosmic neighborhood. This theory has faced some challenges over the years, including the discovery that solar wind and neutral atoms interact with the heliosphere, leading to similar emissions of soft X-rays.
Thanks to new research by an international team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), we now have a 3D model of the hot gas in the Solar System’s neighborhood. Using data obtained by the eROSITA All-Sky Survey (eRASS1), they detected large-scale temperature differences in the LHBT that indicate that the LHB must exist, and both it and solar wind interaction contribute to the soft X-ray background. They also revealed an interstellar tunnel that could possibly link the LHB to a larger “superbubble.”
The research was led by Michael C. H. Yeung, a PhD student at the MPE who specializes in the study of high-energy astrophysics. He was joined by colleagues from the MPE, the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the Dr. Karl Remeis Observatory. The paper that details their findings, “The SRG/eROSITA diffuse soft X-ray background,” was published on October 29th, 2024, by the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
This image shows half of the X-ray sky projected onto a circle with the center of the Milky Way on the left and the galactic plane running horizontally. Credit ©: MPE/J. Sanders/eROSITA consortiumThe eROSITA telescope was launched in 2019 as part of the Russian–German Spektr-RG space observatory. It is the first X-ray observatory to observe the Universe beyond Earth’s geocorona, the outermost region of the Earth’s atmosphere (aka. the exosphere), to avoid contamination by the latter’s high-ultraviolet light. In addition, the eROSITA All-Sky Survey (eRASS1) was timed to coincide with the solar minimum, thus reducing contamination by solar wind charge exchanges.
For their study, the team combined data from the eRASS1 with data from eROSITA’s predecessor, the X-ray telescope ROSAT (short for Röntgensatellit). Also built by the MPE, this telescope complements the eROSITA spectra by detecting X-rays with energies lower than 0.2 keV. The team focused on the LHB located in the western Galactic hemisphere, dividing it into about 2000 regions and analyzing the spectra from each. Their analysis showed a clear temperature difference between the parts of the LHB oriented towards Galactic South (0.12 keV; 1.4 MK) and Galactic North (0.10 keV; 1.2 MK).
According to the authors, this difference could have been caused by supernova explosions that expanded and reheated the Galactic South portion of the LHB in the past few million years. Yeung explained in an MPE press release: “In other words, the eRASS1 data released to the public this year provides the cleanest view of the X-ray sky to date, making it the perfect instrument for studying the LHB.”
In addition to obtaining temperature data from the diffuse X-ray background spectra information, the combined data also provided a 3D structure of the hot gas. In a previous study, Yeung and his colleagues examined eRASS1 spectra data from almost all directions in the western Galactic hemisphere. They concluded that the density of the hot gas in the LHB is relatively uniform. Relying on this previous work, the team generated a new 3D model of the LHB from the measured intensity of X-ray emissions.
A 3D interactive view of the LHB and the solar neighborhood, Credit: MPEThis model shows that the LHB extends farther toward the Galactic poles than expected since the hot gas tends to follow the path of least resistance (away from the Galactic disc). Michael Freyberg, a core author of this work, was a part of the pioneering work in the ROSAT era three decades ago. As he explained:
“This is not surprising, as was already found by the ROSAT survey. What we didn’t know was the existence of an interstellar tunnel towards Centaurus, which carves a gap in the cooler interstellar medium (ISM). This region stands out in stark relief thanks to the much-improved sensitivity of eROSITA and a vastly different surveying strategy compared to ROSAT.”
These latest results suggest the Centaurus tunnel may be a local example of a wider hot ISM network sustained by supernovae and solar wind-ISM interaction across the Galaxy. While astronomers have theorized the existence of the Centaurus tunnel since the 1970s, it has remained difficult to prove until now. The team also compiled a list of known supernova remnants, superbubbles, and dust and used these to create a 3D model of the Solar System’s surroundings. The new model allows astronomers to better understand the key features in the representation.
These include the Canis Major tunnel, which may connect the LHB to the Gum Nebula (the red globe) or the long grey superbubble (GSH238+00+09). Dense molecular clouds, represented in orange, are shown near the surface of the LHB in the direction of the Galactic Center (GC). Recent work suggests these clouds are moving away from the Solar System and likely formed from the condensation of materials swept up during the early formation of the LHB. Said Gabriele Ponti, a co-author of this work:
“Another interesting fact is that the Sun must have entered the LHB a few million years ago, a short time compared to the age of the Sun. It is purely coincidental that the Sun seems to occupy a relatively central position in the LHB as we continuously move through the Milky Way.”
Further Reading: MPE, Astronomy & Astrophysics
The post eROSITA All-Sky Survey Takes the Local Hot Bubble’s Temperature appeared first on Universe Today.
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NASA Named one of America’s Best Employers for Veterans
NASA is one of America’s Best Employers for Veterans, according to Forbes and Statista. Statista surveyed more than 24,000 military veterans – having served in the United States Armed Forces – working for companies with a minimum of 1,000 employees. Veterans were asked to share opinions about their employer on factors such as working conditions, salary and pay, and topics of interest to the veteran community.
This is the fourth consecutive year NASA has earned this recognition.
“NASA has a long history of collaboration and commitment to the military community,” said Deborah Sweet, NASA Veterans Employment Program Manager. “In addition to the many military members who have been part of our Astronaut program, many of our civil servants are Veterans who chose to continue serving by supporting NASA’s mission after they hung up the uniform.”
Across the agency, veterans deliver subject matter expertise, years of on-the-job training, and advanced skills in everything from information technology to transportation logistics and from supply-chain management to public relations.
NASA continues to increase efforts to bring veterans into its ranks. The agency recently expanded its SkillBridge Fellowship Program which provides transitioning members a chance to gain valuable work experience while learning about NASA.
Veterans who served on active duty and separated under honorable conditions may also be eligible for special hiring authorities such as veterans’ preference, as well as other veteran specific hiring options when applying for full time roles at NASA.
For more information about the NASA SkillBridge Program, visit : https://www.nasa.gov/careers/skillbridge/
For more information about NASA hiring paths for Veterans and Military Spouses, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/careers/veterans-and-military-spouses/
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Hubble Captures a Galaxy with Many Lights
Hubble Captures a Galaxy with Many Lights
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features NGC 1672, a barred spiral galaxy located 49 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Dorado. This galaxy is a multi-talented light show, showing off an impressive array of different celestial lights. Like any spiral galaxy, shining stars fill its disk, giving the galaxy a beautiful glow. Along its two large arms, bubbles of hydrogen gas shine in a striking red light fueled by radiation from infant stars shrouded within. Near the galaxy’s center are some particularly spectacular stars embedded within a ring of hot gas. These newly formed and extremely hot stars emit powerful X-rays. Closer in, at the galaxy’s very center, sits an even brighter source of X-rays, an active galactic nucleus. This X-ray powerhouse makes NGC 1672 a Seyfert galaxy. It forms as a result of heated matter swirling in the accretion disk around NGC 1672’s supermassive black hole.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Fox, L. Jenkins, S. Van Dyk, A. Filippenko, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team, D. de Martin (ESA/Hubble), M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)
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Math, Mentorship, Motherhood: Behind the Scenes with NASA Engineers
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on February 22, 2024.
Engineering is a huge field with endless applications. From aerospace to ergonomics, engineers play an important role in designing, building, and testing technologies all around us.
We asked three engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley to share their experiences, from early challenges they faced in their careers to the day-to-day of being a working engineer.
Give us a look behind the curtain – what is it like being an engineer at NASA? In her early days at NASA, Diana Acosta visited her aeronautics research and development team during her maternity leave and her daughter got her first introduction to flight simulation technology. NASA/Diana Acosta
Diana Acosta: I remember working on my first simulations. We were developing new aircraft with higher efficiency that could operate in new places, such as shorter runways. My team was putting together control techniques and introducing new algorithms to help pilots fly these new aircraft in a safer way. We were creating models and testing, then changing things and testing again.
We had a simulator that worked on my laptop, and we had a lab with a pilot seat and controls. Every week, I made it my goal to finish my modeling or controls work and put that into the lab environment so that I could fly the aircraft. Every Friday afternoon, I would fly the aircraft in simulation and try out the changes I’d made to see if we were going in a good direction. We’d later integrate that into the Vertical Motion Simulator at Ames (which was used to train all the original space shuttle pilots) so that we could do a full motion test with a collection of pilots to get feedback.
When simulation time came around, it was during my maternity leave and my team had to take the project to simulation without me. It’s hard to get out of the house with a newborn, but sometimes I’d come by with my daughter and bring brownies to the team. I have two daughters now, and they’ve both been in simulators since a young age.
Diana Acosta is Chief of the Aerospace Simulation and Development Branch at NASA’s Ames Research Center. She has worked at NASA for 17 years.
What’s a challenge you’ve overcome to become an engineer? Savvy Verma (standing) reviews simulation activity with Gus Guerra in the Terminal Tactical Separation Assured Flight Environment at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. NASA/Dominic Hart
Savvy Verma: One of the biggest challenges when I started working was that I was sometimes the only woman in a group of men, and I was also much younger. It was sometimes a challenge to get my voice through, or to be heard. I had mentors who taught me to speak up and say things the way I saw them, and that’s what helped me. A good mentor will back you up and support you when you’re in big meetings or giving presentations. They’ll stand up and corroborate you when you’re right, and that goes a long way toward establishing your credibility. It also helped build my confidence, it made me feel like I was on the right track and not out of line. I had both male and female mentors. The female mentor I had always encouraged me to speak my mind. She said the integrity of the experimental result is more important than trying to change things because someone doesn’t like it or doesn’t want to express it a certain way.
I have a lot more women coworkers now, things have changed a lot. In my group there are four women and three men.
Savvy Verma is an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center. She has worked at NASA for 22 years.
Can you become an engineer if you struggle with math in school? Dorcas Kaweesa speaks at the 2024 Ames Aeronautics Forum.NASA/Donald Richey
Dorcas Kaweesa: When I introduce myself as an engineer, people always say, “You must be good at math,” and I say, “Oh, I work at it.”
When you want to become an engineer, you must remain adaptable, hardworking, and always willing to learn something new. We’re constantly learning, critically thinking, and problem solving. Most of the time we apply mathematical concepts to the engineering problems we’re solving and not every problem is the same. If you struggle with math, my advice is to maintain the passion for learning, especially learning from your mistakes. It comes down to practicing and challenging yourself to think beyond the immediate struggle. There are so many types of math problems and if you’re not good at one, maybe you’re good at another. Maybe it’s just a hiccup. Also, seek help when you need it, there are instructors and peers out there willing to support you.
Personally, I sought help from my instructors, peers, and mentors, in the math and engineering classes that I found challenging. I also practiced a great deal to improve my problem solving and critical thinking skills. In my current role, I am constantly learning new things based on the task at hand. Learning never ends! If you’re struggling with a math concept, don’t give up. Keep trying, keep accepting the challenge, and keep practicing, you’ll steadily make progress.
Dorcas Kaweesa is mechanical engineer and structures analyst at NASA’s Ames Research Center. She has worked at NASA for over 2 years.
I Am Artemis: Joe Vermette
While some stand on the sidelines and witness history, others are destined to play a part in it. And then there are those who document it, bringing the people, the action, the images, the words, and the personalities to the world. U. S. Navy Reservist Public Affairs Officer and program strategic communicator for NASA’s HLS (Human Landing System) Joe Vermette stands at the nexus of all three.
Spurred to action to serve his country by the events of September 11, 2001; veteran of numerous overseas deployments with the Navy, and responsible for communicating NASA’s return to the Moon through the Artemis campaign, Vermette has played a part in history while he communicates humanity’s greatest endeavors to the world.
Vermette joined NASA in August 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he was a regional communications director. Right off the bat, he rose to the challenge of learning about space exploration, Artemis, and communicating the new way the HLS Program would work with commercial providers for Moon landing services, rather than specifying spacecraft to be built.
“I was used to being right in the middle of the action,” Vermette said. “The pandemic challenged me to work in a new way. At the same time, NASA and HLS were working in a new way, having just brought on our first commercial provider, SpaceX,” he said. In May 2023, the HLS Program brought on a second commercial provider, Blue Origin, for human landing services.
After earning a degree in military history with a minor in communications from Florida State University, Vermette worked as a video journalist and spot writer for CNN. But it was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that really shaped his career in government service. “Three weeks later, I went down to the recruiting office and began the process of joining the military. I saw an opportunity to help the country in the best capacity I could,” Vermette said.
Since then, his career has been dotted by active deployments, from the Middle East to Europe to stateside; onboard Navy ships, at U.S. Central Command, at U. S. Special Operations Command, and more.
NASA’s HLS Program and Artemis have benefitted from Vermette’s experience and steady hand helping guide strategic communications since 2020. He recently answered the call to active duty again but intends to return to NASA once his military obligations are fulfilled.
“NASA is a different world than the military or disaster response. But I’ve been fortunate enough to see – and communicate about – government success stories in all three arenas, Vermette said. “Seeing NASA put astronauts on the Moon again will be the best ‘mission complete’ I could have.”
With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet. NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, exploration ground systems, and Orion spacecraft, along with the human landing system, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.
For more on HLS, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/human-landing-system
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
An Explanation for Rogue Planets. They Were Eroded Down by Hot Stars
The dividing line between stars and planets is that stars have enough mass to fuse hydrogen into helium to produce their own light, while planets aren’t massive enough to produce core fusion. It’s generally a good way to divide them, except for brown dwarfs. These are bodies with a mass of about 15–80 Jupiters, so they are large enough to fuse deuterium but can’t generate helium. Another way to distinguish planets and stars is how they form. Stars form by the gravitational collapse of gas and dust within a molecular cloud, which allows them to gather mass on a short cosmic timescale. Planets, on the other hand, form by the gradual accumulation of gas and dust within the accretion disk of a young star. But again, that line becomes fuzzy for brown dwarfs.
The problem arises in that, if brown dwarfs form within a molecular cloud like stars, they aren’t massive enough to form quickly. If a cloud of gas and dust has enough mass to collapse under its own weight, it has enough mass to form a full star. But if brown dwarfs form like planets, they would have to accumulate mass incredibly quickly. Simulations of planet formation show it is difficult for a planet to form with a mass of more than a few Jupiters. So what gives? The answer may lie in what are known as Jupiter-mass binary objects, or JuMBOs.
The Orion nebula is a stellar nursery. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. RobbertoJuMBOs are binary objects where each component has a mass between 0.7 and 13 Jupiter masses. If they form like planets, they should be extremely rare, and if they form like binary stars, they should have more mass. Recent observations by the JWST of the Orion nebula cluster discovered 540 free-floating Jupiter mass objects, so-called rogue planets. This was surprising in and of itself, but more surprising was the fact that 42 of them were JuMBOs. Far from being rare, they make up nearly 8% of these rogue objects. So how do they form?
One clue lies in their orbital separation. The components of JuMBOs are most commonly separated by a distance of 28–384 AU. This is similar to that of binary stars with components around the mass of the Sun, which typically are in a range of 50–300 AU. Binary stars are extremely common. More common than single stars like the Sun. The environment of stellar nurseries, such as the Orion nebula, is also extremely intense. Massive stars that form first can blast nearby regions with ionizing radiation. Given how common JuMBOs are, it is likely they began as binary stars, only to have much of their masses blasted away by photo-erosion. Rather than being binary planets, they are the failed remnants of binary stars.
This could also explain why so many rogue planets have super-Jupiter masses. The same intense light that would cause photo-erosion would also tend to push them out of star systems.
Reference: Diamond, Jessica L., and Richard J. Parker. “Formation of Jupiter-Mass Binary Objects through photoerosion of fragmenting cores.” The Astrophysical Journal 975.2 (2024): 204.
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