Into The Cosmic Heart, IC 1850 © Aleix Roig

Love, Pluto (ft. Charon) l NASA New Horizons

Andromeda over the Swiss Alps Image Credit: Dzmitry Kananovich

Perihelion to Aphelion

Credits: Richard Jaworski

IC 4628: The Prawn Nebula ©

Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1

The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.

So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.

So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.

Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.

And the probe is working again.

From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.

Boo! Did we get you? 🎃

This solar jack-o-lantern, captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in October 2014, gets its ghoulish grin from active regions on the Sun, which emit more light and energy than the surrounding dark areas. Active regions are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere.

The SDO has kept an unblinking eye on the Sun since 2010, recording phenomena like solar flares and coronal loops. It measures the Sun’s interior, atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output, helping us understand our nearest star.

Grab the high-resolution version here.

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NASA Hubble Space Telescope - The ‘Swan Nebula’

HOW DO ASTRONOMERS DETECT EXOPLANETS AND DETERMINE IF THEY COULD SUPPORT LIFE??

Blog#335

Wednesday, September 27th, 2023

Welcome back,

On March 21, NASA announced the confirmation of the 5,000th planet outside our Solar System. From scorching-hot gas giants nestled near their parent star to rocky worlds that may host water on their surface, there’s a variety for scientists to study.

But finding these strange new worlds is a science in itself.

We’ve only been able to definitively detect planets of any kind for a few decades, and even at that, there are challenges in detecting such a small object at that distance in even the most powerful telescopes.

Inverse spoke with Marie-Eve Naud, an exoplanet researcher and outreach coordinator for the University of Montreal’s Institute for Research on Exoplanets, to tell us more about how astronomers find these worlds and the considerations for each method.

While there are numerous methods, the ones cited below are the most common.

THE TRANSIT METHOD

Astronomers have discovered most exoplanets using the transit method, notably with NASA's Kepler telescope launched in 2009. This method observes planets as they pass in front of their stars, causing a slight dimming of starlight, which photometers can detect. This approach works best in space due to minimal atmospheric interference, favored by missions like ESA's Cheops and NASA's TESS.

To confirm exoplanets, multiple transits are necessary to rule out sunspots or dust as causes of light fluctuations. Typically, two or three transits are required to gather substantial data.

Once a planet is detected, astronomers can estimate its radius, while mass is often determined through the radial velocity method. The combination of mass and radius helps classify a planet as rocky or gaseous, impacting its potential habitability.

Factors like proximity to an active star and radiation levels also affect habitability assessments, as seen with TRAPPIST-1's uncertain habitability despite hosting seven Earth-sized planets in its habitable zone.

RADIAL-VELOCITY METHOD

The radial velocity method is commonly used to discover planets, particularly with instruments like HARPS at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla 3.6m telescope in Chile.

Planets and stars both orbit around their center of mass. A star with a planet exhibits a slight motion. Multiple planets can lead to complex motions.

This method involves analyzing the star's spectrum. When the star approaches, its light shifts towards red due to compression. When it moves away, the light shifts towards blue.

The planet's motion slightly affects the star's spectrum, creating a "barcode" of the star.

The first detection of a planet around a Sun-like star using this method was in 1995 when Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor found 51 Pegasi b. Prior to that, in 1992, planets were detected around pulsar PSR B1257+12, using changes in the pulsar's radio signal. This showcases the diverse scientific approaches to discovering distant worlds.

Originally published on www.inverse.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, September 30th, 2023)

"WHAT IS THE BLOCK THEORY??"