Hard Science Fiction by Brandon Q. Morris
Where are the very first stars hiding? Space
Jun 28 2020

Where are the very first stars hiding?

Stars like the Sun are made largely from waste – leftover matter ejected billions of years ago during the death of previous star generations. We know this is the case from their content of heavy elements, their metallicity. When the universe was still young, there was only hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium, nothing else. These elements formed the very first stars a long, long time ago. The first stars are called “Population III” stars, while the current generation, which also includes the Sun, is called Population I. Population I was born from the ashes of Population II, just…
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Giant stars prevent the formation of planets Astrophysics
Jun 26 2020

Giant stars prevent the formation of planets

The chance for a young star to raise some planetary offspring apparently depends a great deal on the neighborhood it lives in. This, at least, is one finding that astronomers have discovered with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope. For three years, they observed the open star cluster Westerlund 2 which contains about 5,000 stars, including some real giants, within a relatively small space. Westerlund 2 is only one to two million years old. That makes it an ideal candidate to test theories on planet formation, because all the stars it contains have just started or are just…
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What a rare ring galaxy reveals about cosmic history Astrophysics
Jun 25 2020

What a rare ring galaxy reveals about cosmic history

Ring galaxies like the well-known Cartwheel Galaxy can form for two reasons: First – a spiral galaxy is involved in a collision with another galaxy, which punches through the spiral galaxy, thereby clearing away its center. Second – the bar of a barred spiral galaxy becomes unstable because its rotational velocity becomes too high. Events like these are rare, so ring galaxies themselves are also rare. (more…)
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2019 LD2: the unruly comet Astrophysics
Jun 24 2020

2019 LD2: the unruly comet

Asteroids and comets are generally thought to be different classes of celestial objects. But is the strict distinction really justified? The interstellar visitor ʻOumuamua, for example, was initially thought to be a comet, but didn’t develop either a coma or a tail and was then classified as an asteroid. In the meantime, its trajectory has been calculated so precisely that it must have lost mass – which means it is definitely a comet. The object 2019 LD2 discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) of the University of Hawaii also appears to be some sort of hybrid.…
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How a planet grows up Space
Jun 22 2020

How a planet grows up

AB Aurigae, 520 light-years from Earth in the constellation, Auriga (the charioteer), is far from grown up: the star is a so-called Herbig Ae/Be star, which has not yet started to fuse hydrogen in its core. Despite its youthful age of only a few million years, however, it already appears to be concerned with trying to produce offspring. And so, as humans are wont to do, they don’t look away considerately, but instead direct their eyes (and their telescopes) right at the action, full of curiosity. In doing so, the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (VLT)…
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How common is life in the universe? Life
Jun 21 2020

How common is life in the universe?

The question is basically unanswerable. The well-known Drake equation feigns a certain degree of precision but suffers from the fact that it is nearly impossible to reach agreement on values for any of its seven factors. Right now, we have only one example for intelligent life, and for us to draw conclusions for the entire universe from just our own existence would, indeed, be very human, but would be scientifically problematic. There is, however, an alternative. We could ask what the likelihood would be for life to develop on Earth if we turned back the clock and started over from…
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Salty Mars puddles no place for life Life
May 24 2020

Salty Mars puddles no place for life

On the surface of the Red Planet, normal bodies of water cannot exist for long periods of time under today’s conditions. It’s possible, however, that very salty “puddles” or reservoirs of liquid (“brines” in technical language) could remain stable on or just below the surface for some amount of time, especially during the Mars spring and summer months, when ice deposits thaw. Whether these puddles are suitable for life as we know it, however, remains questionable. In 2018, reports sparked headlines that these brines might have conditions that are friendly to life after all. One factor speaking for this…
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What the cloud layers above Saturn’s hexagon are made of Space
May 23 2020

What the cloud layers above Saturn’s hexagon are made of

Jupiter has its Great Red Spot – Saturn, in contrast, has its enormous hexagon. For a long time, a six-sided structure with a diameter of 29,000 km (18,000 miles) has been rotating around Saturn’s north pole. Thus, the hexagon is considerably larger than Jupiter’s spot, which is only 16,000 km (10,000 miles) across and more than twice as large as the whole Earth. The hexagon was first discovered in 1981 by Voyager 1 (photographed in infrared in the image below). Starting in 2006, the Cassini probe, operated by NASA and ESA, made it possible to take a detailed look…
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