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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

NASA and Salisbury University (SU) in Maryland signed a collaborative Space Act Agreement Thursday, March 28, 2024, opening new opportunities at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Director Dr. Makenzie Lystrup (right) shakes hands with Salisbury University President Dr. Carolyn R. Lepre during the SU Space Act Agreement signing ceremony held in Salisbury, Md., Thursday, March 28, 2024. Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs for SU Dr. Laurie Couch (left) and NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Director David Pierce stand behind them.NASA/Jamie Adkins

The agreement forges a formal partnership to identify research and engineering projects and activities at Wallops designed to provide SU students and professors with experiential, hands-on activities. 

“Our success at NASA, now and in the future, depends on a dynamic network of partnerships focused on our mission operations and growing the next generation of innovators,” said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, center director at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “NASA’s partnership with Salisbury University expands our workforce development ecosystem and provides students with real-world experience in critical aerospace career fields.” NASA Goddard manages Wallops Flight Facility for the agency.

The agreement also lays a framework for expanding internship opportunities at Wallops, mentoring, technical expertise to faculty, and support for job fairs and other career development programs aimed to expand awareness of careers in the aerospace industry. 

“NASA Wallops has long been at the forefront of space exploration, pioneering breakthroughs that have expanded our understanding of the universe and inspired generations of scientists, engineers, and dreamers,” said Dr. Carolyn Ringer Lepre, SU president. “Together, we will leverage our collective expertise, resources, and ingenuity to tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing our world today.” 

Dr. Makenzie Lystrup speaks during the Salisbury University Space Act Agreement signing ceremony held in Salisbury, Md., Thursday, March 28, 2024. The agreement will expand internship opportunities at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, mentoring, technical expertise to faculty, and support for job fairs and other career development programs aimed to expand awareness of careers in the aerospace industry. NASA/Jamie Adkins

Wallops’ conducts upwards of 50 operational science and technology missions worldwide annually launching on orbital and suborbital rockets, scientific balloons, and flying on airborne science platforms. In addition, NASA’s commercial partners like Rocket Lab are increasing launch operations on the facility.  

“Our operations are growing at Wallops underscoring the need for an innovative, skilled workforce to advance our science and technology missions,” said Lystrup. “This agreement is helping us fill a critical workforce need to propel us into the future.”  

For more information on programs at Wallops, visit: 

www.nasa.gov/wallops  

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Details Last Updated Mar 28, 2024 EditorJamie Adkins Related Terms

• Wallops Flight Facility
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Partner with NASA STEM
• STEM Engagement at NASA

An asteroid that slammed into Mars around 2.3 million years ago left one nine-mile wide crater and created 2 billion smaller craters.

The Morris sisters made significant contributions to botany and entomology, but their stories were erased from the history of early American science, both accidentally and by design.

NASA budget constraints could wind down operations of the iconic Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The post An Early End for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Historical astronomical records from China and Japan recorded a supernova explosion in the year 1181. It was in the constellation Cassiopeia and it shone as bright as the star Vega for 185 days. Modern astronomers took their cue from their long-gone counterparts and have been searching for its remnant.

But it took them time to find it because they were looking for the wrong thing.

When a massive star runs out of fuel, it collapses in on itself and then explodes. It leaves behind a dense core where the protons and electrons are crushed into neutrons. It’s called a neutron star, and they’re the smallest and densest stellar objects in the Universe other than black holes.

It took a concerted effort from astronomers over the years to understand SN 1181’s remnant. At first, they couldn’t even find it.

For a time, researchers thought that the pulsar 3C 58 was the remnant. The ancient Chinese and Japanese records were not accurate enough to pinpoint SN 1181’s exact location, and the pulsar was the only known supernova remnant in the area. However, as astronomers studied 3C 58, they determined that it was much too old to be the remnant.

This X-ray image of pulsar 3C58 is from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. At 3500 years old, it’s too old to be the remnant of SN 1181. Image Credit: By NASA – http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap041223.htmlhttp://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/3c58/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4074985

In 2013, an American amateur astronomer discovered a nebula, now named Pa 30, near the region where the Japanese and Chinese saw it. It has an extremely blue central star, and now the name Pa 30 refers to both the star and the nebula.

The cyan region in this image is where modern astronomers think SN 1181’s remnant should be, according to ancient Japanese and Chinese documents. Astronomers were guided by the ancient names and locations of constellations, like Wangliang and Ziwei. (Modern constellations are shown in grey.) The pulsar 3C58 is outside the region, while the white dwarf Pa 30 is inside it. Image Credit: By Bradley E. Schaefer – https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.04807, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=140937093

Eventually, in 2018, French amateur astronomers working with an 8-inch telescope spotted a very hot blue star in the remnant’s center. It had a very odd spectrum, unlike stars in the centers of other remnants. Then, in 2019, astronomers published a paper showing that the nebula had a fierce stellar wind with a high velocity. This was strong evidence that what they were seeing was a supernova remnant.

But where was the neutron star? There was none, and in its place was a white dwarf. That means that astronomers were wrong about what type of supernova SN 1181 was.

SN 1181 wasn’t a core-collapse supernova, the type caused by a massive star that collapses in on itself and then explodes as it runs out of fuel. It was a Type Iax, a supernova created when two white dwarfs merge and explode. Those explosions typically leave no remnants, but in this case, it did. The Type Iax explosion was incomplete, and it’s responsible for the SN remnant’s unusual shape and the fact that the remnant isn’t a neutron star but a zombie star.

The leading image is a composite image of the Pa 30, the name given to the remnant and the star. The data for the image comes from multiple telescopes that capture different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

A composite image of the remnant of supernova 1181, called Pa 30. G. Ferrand and J. English (U. of Manitoba), NASA/Chandra/WISE, ESA/XMM, MDM/R.Fessen (Dartmouth College), Pan-STARRS

X-rays captured by the ESA’s XMM-Newton spacecraft are shown in blue, tracing the nebula’s full extent. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory pinpointed the central source in the middle, the star named WD J005311. With a temperature greater than 220,000 Kelvin, it’s the hottest star known.

The remnant is almost invisible in optical light but is bright in infrared. NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Space Explorer (WISE) captured the infrared, shown in red and pink in the image. The nebula’s radial structure is interesting and has an unusual cause. The lines are heated sulphur glowing in visible light, captured by the ground-based Hiltner 2.4 m telescope at the MDM Observatory. The background stars were imaged with Pan-STARRS.

The ancient Japanese and Chinese who recorded the event had no real idea what they were seeing. They were more like court bureaucrats than astronomers, and they were steeped in astrology, not science. A member of the Japanese imperial court wrote that the supernova was “a sign of abnormality.” Another chronicler wrote that it was an “occasion for making auspicious offerings for a good harvest.”

But modern science shows us that it’s none of those things. Instead, it’s a wondrous object in the distant heavens, the result of forces and energies that the ancients had no idea existed. As a supernova, it forged heavy elements—especially the ones needed for life to appear—and spread them out into space. Its shock waves could’ve even triggered the birth of more stars as it slammed into the interstellar medium.

They couldn’t have known any of this, but from their perspective, they were right about one thing. As a Type Iax supernova that left behind a zombie star, SN 1181 was definitely a sign of abnormality.

The post This Supernova Lit Up the Sky in 1181. Here’s What it Looks Like Now appeared first on Universe Today.

Satellite images taken daily for one year shows a stunning glimpse of what the change of seasons looked like from space.

A super-stretchy hydrogel can stretch to 15 times its original length and return to its initial shape, and could be used to make soft inflatable robots

A super-stretchy hydrogel can stretch to 15 times its original length and return to its initial shape, and could be used to make soft inflatable robots

We know how stars form. Clouds of interstellar gas and dust gravitationally collapse to form a burst of star formation we call a stellar nursery. Eventually, the cores of these protostars become dense enough to ignite their nuclear furnace and shine as true stars. But catching stars in that birth-moment act is difficult. Young stars are often hidden deep within their dense progenitor cloud, so we don’t see their light until they’ve already started shining. But new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope have given us our earliest glimpse of a shiny new star.

You can see this image above, which captures the dusty region of the FS Tau system. The bright star just to the right of center is FS Tau A, which is a young star just 2.8 million years old. An infant compared to our Sun’s 4.6 billion years. But the exciting discovery is a bit higher and further right, known as FS Tau B. That line of dust obscuring the protostar is its protoplanetary disk seen edge-on. The light coming from the obscured star isn’t produced by nuclear fusion, but rather the late stages of gravitational collapse.

You can also see that the protostar has begun to produce radiant jets, which are reflected against the dusty nebula as regions of blue light. Because of this reflected light, FS Tau B is classified as a Herbig-Haro (HH) object. HH objects are great for helping astronomers understand the early dynamics of these stars.

FS Tau B is likely in the early stages of becoming a T Tauri star. These are sun-like stars just on the edge of becoming true stars. They can be quite active, with starspots and large flares, but can take 100 million years for one to ignite their cores and settle into a true main-sequence star. As that happens, protoplanets will form within the dusty disk, ready to become full planets in time.

You can find more information about the FS Tau system, as well as high-resolution images and videos, on the ESA Hubble website.

The post Hubble Sees a Star About to Ignite appeared first on Universe Today.

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

NASA will host media to view a milestone RS-25 engine test at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Wednesday, April 3, to certify full production of new engines to help power the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket on Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.

As NASA explores the universe for the benefit of all, NASA Stennis is testing engines and systems that will help launch the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft on future deep space missions. The April 3 test will mark completion of a 12-test series to certify production of RS-25 engines by lead contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, to help power missions beginning with Artemis V.

In addition to the engine hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand, media will have an opportunity to tour the Aerojet Rocketdyne Engine Assembly Facility onsite, to receive a briefing at the Thad Cochran Test Stand (B-2) about upcoming exploration upper stage testing, and to interview NASA officials and others.

The RS-25 hot fire viewing is targeted for early- to mid-afternoon.

Following the hot fire, media also will have a chance to gather onsite to view and participate in the NASA news conference announcing the company, or companies, selected to move forward in development of the lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) that will help Artemis astronauts explore more of the Moon’s surface on future missions. The news conference will be broadcast at 3 p.m. CDT from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Media members interested in attending should:

• Be a U.S. citizen.
• Contact Lacy Thompson at calvin.l.thompson@nasa.gov no later than 12 p.m. on Monday, April 1.
• Provide name as it appears on driver’s license.
• Identify state issuing the license.
• Provide a mobile contact number.

Please note NASA’s media accreditation policy online.

Media members must arrive from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 3, at INFINITY Science Center, the official visitors center for NASA Stennis, and produce valid driver’s license for transport on site. INFINITY is located at 1 Discovery Circle in Pearlington, Mississippi. Long pants and closed-toe shoes are required attire.

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Details Last Updated Mar 28, 2024 EditorNASA Stennis CommunicationsContactC. Lacy Thompsoncalvin.l.thompson@nasa.gov / (228) 688-3333LocationStennis Space Center Related Terms

• Stennis Space Center
• Space Launch System (SLS)

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The SLIM spacecraft, Japan's first successful moon lander, has survived its second long, cold lunar night.

Lego has launched a new solar eclipse education collection featuring special activities to engage students in the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8.

Anyone can be an underachiever, even if you’re an astronomical singularity weighing over four billion times the mass of the Sun. At least the quasar H1821+643 doesn’t have parents to be disappointed in it. But its underachievement could shed light on how quasars, a potent type of black hole, can come to influence entire clusters of galaxies, as described in a new paper from researchers at the University of Nottingham and Harvard.

Using X-ray data from the Chandra observatory, the researchers looked closely at H1821+643 and decided it influenced its local environment much less than expected. Granted, a lot was expected of it – quasars are super powerful black holes that rapidly pull in new material rapidly and eject radiation as well as sometimes emitting powerful streams of particles. In particular, H1821+643 is a quasar located about 3.4 billion light-years away from Earth at the center of a cluster of galaxies. 

Both the quasar and its surrounding galaxy are shrouded in a field of hot gas that showed up as a fuzzy haze in Chandra’s X-ray dataset. That fuzzy haze, which would let astronomers understand what was happening to the gas in the galaxy at large, was massively overwhelmed by the brightness of the X-rays emitted from the quasar itself.

Fraser describes what quasars are.

To study the effects of the quasar on the location gas population, the researchers had to remove the effects of its own X-rays, leaving only the light emitted from the gas itself. They found that the gas is significantly less hot than might be expected given its proximity to such a forceful quasar, showing that the quasar itself isn’t outputting as much energy as might otherwise be expected.

Counterintuitively, the Chandra data shows that the density of gas around the quasar is higher. At the same time, the temperature is cooler than areas of the galaxy that are further away from the center. If the quasar were emitting the typical series of outbursts, they would have expected there to be not as much gas close to the quasar itself, as the outbursts would have blown it away and that what gas there was close in would be heated to extraordinarily high temperature by those same outbursts.

Without those outbursts, though, the local environment appears to be rife for star formation. The authors estimate that gas equivalent to about 3,000 times the mass of our Sun cools below the point where it emits X-rays every year. Some of that cooling gas is formed into about 120 solar masses worth of new stars yearly, while the black hole itself swallows up another 40 solar masses. What happens with the thousands of solar masses of gas left over after those two processes is anyone’s guess.

Here’s a fund, speculative video from Fraser about whether our own supermassive black hole could become a quasar.

However, the quasar itself isn’t cooling the gas surrounding it. At least not much. This process can happen when photons emitted from the black hole run into the electrons of the surrounding gas, resulting in an energy transfer that increases the energy of the photon but decreases the energy of the electron – hence causing the gas to cool down. While that process might be ongoing near H1821-643, the authors calculate that it would only explain a small percentage of the cooling of the gas they observed.

In short, much is still unknown about this seemingly unique quasar system. Studying it further can help scientists understand the influence these massive singularities can have on their immediate surroundings and physical properties more generally. At least, no matter what H1821-643’s physical properties might be, it won’t be getting chewed out by its parents.

Learn More:
NASA / CXC – NASA’s Chandra Identifies an Underachieving Black Hole
Russell et al. – A cooling flow around the low-redshift quasar H1821+643
UT – What Is A Quasar?
UT – This New Map of 1.3 Million Quasars Is A Powerful Tool

Lead Image:
Image of the H1821-643 quasar.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Nottingham/H. Russell et al.
Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA
Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

The post This Black Hole is a Total Underachiever appeared first on Universe Today.

An Atlas-Centaur launched at 5:22 p.m. EST on March 27, 1969, to send Mariner 7 on its way to Mars. Mariner 7 joined its sister spacecraft, Mariner 6, on a journey that carried them within 2,000 miles of the red planet that summer. Mariner 6 was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 24 and investigated the Martian equatorial area while Mariner 7 concentrated on the south polar cap.

NASA

55 years ago, on March 27, 1969, an Atlas-Centaur rocket launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending Mariner 7 on its way to study Mars. Mariner 7 was the second Mars probe; Mariner 6 launched Feb. 24, 1969, to investigate Mars’ equator. Mariner 7 made a close flyby of Mars just five days after Mariner 6. Scientists were able to instruct it to take additional pictures of the south pole, which had piqued their interest during Mariner 6’s flyby.

The Mariner program launched 10 missions to explore Mercury, Venus, and Mars through flybys or orbits. These missions proved that interplanetary exploration was workable with small, low-cost spacecraft, laying the groundwork for all the deep space exploration missions that followed.

Image Credit: NASA

College students attend the 2023 Mission Concept kickoff event at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in May 2023. At the event students work with officials from NASA and branches of the U.S. military to learn more about creating CubeSat mission launch proposals.NASA EDGE

Eight university teams have been selected to work with NASA and the U.S. military to improve their small satellite proposals, ultimately increasing the possibility of flying their technology in space, and potentially launching their own careers in the space industry.

NASA’s CSLI (CubeSat Launch Initiative) is partnering with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force for the 2024 Mission Concept Program. Running from May through August, the program will provide students with systems engineering training for spacecraft development. The partnership aims to prepare students to work in the space industry while simultaneously enhancing small satellite expertise among faculty at U.S. universities.

A total of 34 universities applied for the 2024 session. A mix of NASA, Air Force, and contractor personnel reviewed the proposals, selecting universities based on the educational impact, university program impact and development, minority outreach and support, and relevance to NASA or the Department of Defense. Three of this year’s awardees – University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University, and Tarleton State University – are Minority Serving Institutions. This year’s selections are:

• University of Central Florida, Orlando
• University of Mississippi, Oxford
• Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
• University of North Dakota, Grand Forks
• Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana
• Northeastern University, Boston
• West Virginia University, Morgantown
• Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Texas

The teams will meet at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a four-day kickoff meeting in May, followed by seven weeks at the Air Force’s University Nanosatellite Program facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where three students will serve as interns with the Space Dynamics Laboratory.

During the program, the students will work with small satellite experts for continuous feedback and guidance to help improve university proposals and increase those teams’ potential of being selected to fly to space as part of NASA’s CSLI or the Air Force’s nanosatellite opportunities.

Final presentations will take place in Albuquerque and, although not required, participants are encouraged to attend the Small Satellite Conference in Logan, Utah, in August. Both programs will make final selections for future flights in 2025.

The 2024 Mission Concept Program provides funding for all travel, including kickoff, final event, and in-person reviews, allowing faculty and students to formulate teams without straining university resources.

NASA uses CSLI as one if its ways to attract retain students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. This strengthens NASA’s and the nation’s future workforce. The initiative promotes and develops innovative technology partnerships among NASA, U.S. industry, and other sectors for the benefit of all.

Visit NASA’s CSLI website for more information:

https://go.nasa.gov/3PEP2Q6

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was designed to examine the Sun, but as a side benefit, it has been the most successful comet hunter ever built. Since early in the mission, citizen scientists have been scanning through the telescope’s data, searching for icy objects passing close to the Sun. An astronomy student in Czechia has identified 200 comets in SOHO data since he started in 2009 at the age of 13. He recently spotted the observatory’s 5,000th comet.

“Prior to the launch of the SOHO mission and the Sungrazer Project, there were only a couple dozen sungrazing comets on record – that’s all we knew existed,” said Karl Battams, who is the principal investigator for the Sungrazer Project, the citizen science project that was launched after so many comets started showing up in the data. “The fact that we’ve finally reached this milestone – 5000 comets – is just unbelievable to me.”

SOHO moves around the Sun on the sunward side of Earth, where it enjoys a clear, uninterrupted view of the Sun, by slowly orbiting around Lagrange point L1.  That means it has been observing the Sun 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without interruptions since shortly after it launched in 1995. With this view, SOHO can easily spot the kind of comet that’s known as a sungrazer – so named because of their close approach to the Sun. Many of these comets don’t survive their close pass to the Sun.

Many congratulations to Hanjie Tan (@HonkitTan) for making that 5,000th discovery! Hanjie has been discovering comets with the Sungrazer Project since he was 13yrs old, and is now pursuing for his PhD studying asteroids! pic.twitter.com/wa51ZlVnjm

— Karl Battams (@SungrazerComets) March 27, 2024

Hanjie Tan is the student who discovered the 5,000th comet. Inspired by his many years of searching for comets, Tan is now an astronomy PhD student in Prague, Czechia, studying comets and asteroids. The small comet that he spotted is part of the ‘Marsden group’ of comets, named after the British astronomer Brian Marsden, who first recognized the group based on SOHO observations. Marsden group comets are thought to be pieces shed by the much bigger Comet 96P/Machholz, which SOHO observes as it passes close to the Sun every 5.3 years.

“The Marsden group comets represent only about 1.5% of all SOHO comet discoveries,” said Tan in an ESA press release, “so finding this one as the 5000th SOHO comet felt incredibly fortunate. It’s really exciting to be the first to see comets get bright near the Sun after they’ve been travelling through space for thousands of years.”

Artist’s impression of the SOHO spacecraft studying the Sun. Credit: NASA/ESA.

The SOHO mission has now been operational for almost 30 years. It’s almost been lost twice and is now flying without the use of its gyroscopes, which help it point precisely. Engineers have figured out a way to work around the issue. It’s longevity has not only provided an incredible treasure trove of data about the Sun, but it also has allowed the spacecraft to become the most prolific discoverer of comets in astronomical history.

Related: 22 years of the Sun from SOHO

Launched in 1995, SOHO studies the Sun from its interior to its outer atmosphere, providing unique views and investigating the cause of the solar wind. During the last three decades, SOHO has become the most prolific discoverer of comets in astronomical history.

“A huge congratulations to EVERYONE who has ever contributed to Sungrazer,” Battams said on Twitter. “Hanjie may have found #5000, but it took 24-years of combined volunteer ‘amateur’ scientist efforts to find the other 4,999. This was a team effort, and I’m so thankful to all who have helped!”

The post Someone Just Found SOHO's 5,000th Comet appeared first on Universe Today.

SpaceX will try again to launch another batch of its Starlink internet satellites after at least a one-day delay.

Measuring the distance to far away objects in space can be tricky. We don’t even know the precise distance to even our closest neighbors in the Universe – the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. But, we’re starting to get to the tools to measure it. One type of tool is a Cepheid Variable – a type of star that varies its luminosity in a well-defined pattern. However, we don’t know much about their physical properties, making utilizing them as distance markers harder. Finding their physical properties would be easier if there were any Cepheid binaries that we could study, but astronomers have only found one pair so far. Until a recent paper from researchers from Europe, the US, and Chile shows measurements of 9 additional binary Cepheid systems – enough that we can start understanding the statistics of these useful distance markers.

Like traditional stars, binary Cepheid systems result when two stars orbit around each other. In this case, both of those stars must be Cepheids – meaning they are massive compared to our Sun and much brighter. In addition, their luminosity must vary in a repeatable pattern so that we can track it consistently.

All of those features can vary a lot if two stars change in luminosity but at different rates and phases around each other. It’s difficult to parse out which star is waxing, which is waning, and which direction they are moving in, both compared to us and each other. Long periods of observation are required to fix some of those variables, and that is precisely what the new paper describes.

The researchers looked at nine sets of Cepheids that were believed to be binary systems but hadn’t yet been confirmed due to the difficulty of separating the two stars from each other. They pulled data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) database, a variable star observation project run by the University of Warsaw for over 30 years. In so doing, they could confirm, for the first time, that each of these suspected binaries contained two separate stars.

Those nine binary systems were located in the Small and Large Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way. One located in the Milky Way is by far the closest, at only 11 kiloparsecs (about 3000 light-years) away. The researchers also had good luck because of the length of orbital periods of the binaries they studied – most were over five years, and a shorter observational data set might not have caught them. 

Understanding how these systems exist and where they are is just the first step. Using them for more helpful science is the next. The most obvious way to do so is to increase our understanding of Cepheids. Despite being one of the most commonly used distance markers in the Universe, we know surprisingly little about how they form, what they’re made of, or their life cycle. Closely studying a binary system, where the stars interact, could help shed light (figuratively in this sense) on some of those properties.

Calibrated Period-luminosity Relationship for Cepheids
Credit – NASA

As the authors point out in their paper, this is part of a long-term ongoing project – they were also part of the team that confirmed the original Cepheid binary system back in 2014. OGLE continues to collect more data, as are other sky surveys, and there are likely more Cepheid binaries out there. Every new discovery will help improve our statistical understanding of these critical distance markers – we just need to take the time to find them first.

Learn More:
Pilecki et al. – Cepheids with giant companions II. – Spectroscopic confirmation of nine new double-lined binary systems composed of two Cepheids
UT – What are Cepheid Variables?
UT – Polaris is the Closest, Brightest Cepheid Variable. Very Recently, Something Changed.
UT – Astronomers Rule Out One Explanation for the Hubble Tension

Lead Image:
RS Puppis , one of the brightest known Cepheid variable stars in the Milky Way galaxy
Credit – NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team

The post Astronomers Only Knew of a Single Binary Cepheid System. Now They Just Found Nine More appeared first on Universe Today.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon spacecraft has sent back images after surviving its second lunar night – generally these periods are so cold they destroy spacecraft electronics