Space

Missing member of planetary development discovered in the Kuiper belt Space

Missing member of planetary development discovered in the Kuiper belt

Beyond the orbit of Neptune, at approximately 30 to 50 astronomical units (AU, distance from the Earth to the Sun) from our central star, there are numerous small, medium, and large objects. They form the Kuiper belt – the waste dump for our Solar System, because the matter in this region couldn’t coalesce to form a proper planet. If current theory for planetary development is correct, the belt must contain bodies of all possible sizes. (more…)
No ninth planet after all? Space

No ninth planet after all?

Since around the start of this millennium, astronomers have been actively searching for a planet somewhere out beyond the orbit of Neptune. When Pluto was demoted to a minor planet, “Planet X” became “Planet IX.” At the same time, however, more evidence has been discovered that suggests it does exist. According to the data, a ninth planet should have a mass approximately ten times the mass of the Earth and should orbit the Sun with a semi-axis between 400 and 1500 astronomical units (distance from the Sun to the Earth). Scientists have derived its existence from the discovery of…
Heavy stars die in a cocoon Space

Heavy stars die in a cocoon

When it’s time for particularly heavy stars to die, they don’t go without a lot of fireworks. If a star that has run out of fuel has a mass greater than 25 times the mass of the Sun, its core will collapse and form a neutron star or a black hole, and gigantic jets of matter will be emitted at its poles. These jets penetrate through the outermost layers of the star and generate so much gamma radiation that astronomers can observe these jets as flashes (Gamma Ray Bursts, GRBs). (more…)
Gigantic patterns in the clouds of Venus – and how they are formed Space

Gigantic patterns in the clouds of Venus – and how they are formed

Venus is often called “Earth’s hot sister.” It is called “sister” because it is similar to our home planet in size and shape. But its atmosphere is characterized by extreme pressure and high temperatures. On the surface, temperatures can reach up to 460 °C (860 °F). The planet needs 243 Earth days to make one revolution about its axis, while Earth needs only one day, but the Earth always takes its atmosphere along with it like a good, well-behaved planet. On Venus, however, a fast, 360 km/h (224 mph) easterly wind roars at an altitude of 60 kilometers (37…
A cosmic beacon from the dawn of the universe Space

A cosmic beacon from the dawn of the universe

The Hubble Space Telescope has succeeded in imaging an especially bright quasar from the dawn of the universe. As astronomers report in a paper, J043947.08+163415.7 is 12.8 billion light-years away. That also means that we can see 12.8 billion years into the past. When the light that is reaching us today was emitted from the quasar, the universe was still in its epoch of reionization. (more…)
Our Milky Way is weird – but a catastrophe will soon straighten everything out Space

Our Milky Way is weird – but a catastrophe will soon straighten everything out

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is, we must unfortunately admit, rather an oddball specimen of a spiral galaxy. The black hole at its center is underdeveloped (it is too light by a whole order of magnitude), it is surrounded by a (too) low mass halo of stars with extremely low metal content, and it has an unusually large companion, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But there is some good news, as astronomers report in a recent paper: in just 2.4 billion years (the universe is currently 13.8 billion years old), a gigantic collision will even out these odd…
Do we live on the skin of a bubble in an extra dimension? Space

Do we live on the skin of a bubble in an extra dimension?

Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden have developed an interesting model of the universe. They describe and support their idea in a paper that uses the principles of string theory (according to which all matter is made up of tiny, vibrating strings) and simultaneously incorporates the phenomenon of dark energy (which is considered as a possible cause for the expansion of the cosmos). According to their model, our universe is being carried along on the skin of a kind of bubble that is expanding in another dimension. Space and the bubble are far from the same thing; effectively we…
A sapphire- or ruby-like planet? Space

A sapphire- or ruby-like planet?

55 Cancri e, HD219134 b, and WASP-47 e are three rocky planets – and they have something else in common: they might belong to a new class of super-Earths, according to arguments laid out by scientists from the University of Zurich and the University of Cambridge in a new paper. The astronomers looked at how planets are formed in protoplanetary disks. If they are formed, like the Earth, at a reasonable distance from their central star, then heavy elements, such as iron, magnesium, and silicon, condense. If, however, the protoplanet has an orbit that is very close to its…