What Is Happening In Astronomy?
One of the things I was deeply involved in for years was amateur astronomy. I went to great pains to build a small temporary building with a 12.5 inch reflecting telescope which I used for many years. I would go out in the yard with a special suit which protected me from the winter cold. Winter was the best time for viewing, because the skies were clearer. I no longer have the telescope or the building for that matter, but I am still interested in the subject. This will explain why I write so many articles about astronomy and today is no exception.
Scientists have been conducting simulations to determine the dynamics of comet impacts on the moon. There are a lot of swirls on the lunar surface and the simulations suggest they may be caused by comets hitting the lunar surface. A planetary geoscientist stated, “We think this makes a pretty strong case that the swirls represent remnants of cometary collisions.” The results of the simulation were published in the journal Icarus. This does make me wonder why comets and meteors hitting the moon would make different marks on the surface.
Remember the Rosetta spacecraft? It is still studying Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and it has discovered something unexpected. There is something going on inside the comet near the nucleus that causes a rapid breakup of water and carbon dioxide molecules. Ultraviolet photons from the Sun hit water molecules in the comet’s coma and ionize them. This knocks out energetic electrons, these electrons hit other water molecules breaking them apart into hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms. This energizes them. They are the atoms which then emit ultraviolet light that is being detected by Rosetta’s instruments. It is always interesting to find out about a new process taking place on objects in space. As we do more investigations of these objects, we are sure to find out more things we didn’t know.
There is going to be a new Top Gun in town and it will be the Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of a mountain in Hawaii. Telescopes are measured by the combined size of their mirrors and this telescope will be the biggest and most powerful one on the planet, when it is built. Unfortunately the United States is at it again, they are proposing to build it on a mountain which is sacred to the Native Hawaiians and they don’t want it built there. The site the scientists want to build on is the summit of Mauna Kea and they are saying it is the most perfect site in the world for a large telescope. The mountain peak is 14,000 feet about sea level and is high above any pollution cause by lights. When using a telescope astronomers need it as dark as possible. The mountain has hundreds of sacred sites on it. As the construction was being started in March 2015, it had to be halted due to protests. Here is the strange thing, there are already 13 telescopes along with their buildings on the mountain. The protesters are using social media to press their case. Native Hawaiians believe Mauna Kea is where the sky father WΔkea married the Earth mother PapahΔnaumoku and they created the Hawaiian Islands.
A team of astronomers at Aarhus University in Denmark has stated they have found Earth-sized extraterrestrial planets orbit their stars in circular patterns, just like the terrestrial planets in our solar system. They have also found many extrasolar gas giants have highly elliptical orbits. Seventy four Earth-sized planets were examined in the study. These planets orbited twenty eight stars. “Twenty years ago, we only knew about our Solar System, and everything was circular and so everyone expected circular orbits everywhere. Then we started finding giant exoplanets, and we found suddenly a whole range of eccentricities, so there was an open question about whether this would also hold for smaller planets. We find that for small planets, circular is probably the norm,” said one of the scientists. It seems a circular orbit is better for life as it supports a more stable climate.
Astronomers think they have found a newly forming solar system around a nearby star which resembles what our early solar system looked like. The images show a ring-like disc of debris surrounding a Sun-like star. This is exactly what has been predicted as to how our solar system formed. It is said it might even have an area similar to our Kuiper Belt, an area which contains dust and icy particles and maybe unknown objects. The star is believed to only be 10 to 20 million years old, far younger than our sun which is nearer to 5 billion years old according to astronomers. There may also be a planet distorting the disc.
Scientists have discovered an enormous lava lake on Io. Io it the fifth of Jupiter’s moons. Io is slightly bigger than our moon, but it is very dynamic. It is the most active body, geologically speaking, in our solar system. It has hundreds of volcanoes. This is why it is covered with sulfur and sulfur dioxide. The largest volcano on Io has been named Loki. Loki was the Norse god associated with fire and chaos. The volcano is about 200 km in diameter. One astronomer talked about how the surface of Io is constantly being reshaped due to this volcanic activity. He said this activity provides clues to the interior structure of the moon and its plumbing. He went on to say, “It helps to pave the way for future NASA missions such as the Io Observer. Io’s highly elliptical orbit close to Jupiter is constantly tidally stressing the moon, like the squeezing of a ripe orange, where the juice can escape through cracks in the peel.”
New research indicates if we want to colonize moons outside of our solar system they will need to be larger and more massive than Mars, at least this is what we are being told by RenΓ© Heller and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Canada. Astronomers are saying exoplanets, planets outside of our solar system probably have exomoons, but we don’t have the technology yet to detect them. The scientists believe since exoplanets have been found which are many times more massive than any planet in our solar system, there are going to be moons which will be many times larger than the ones in our solar system. It is believed massive moons would have the advantage of retaining water and the larger they are the longer they can retain heat in their cores to drive the dynamo that generates a magnetic field. The field would generate a necessary magnetic bubble around the moons called a magnetosphere. A magnetosphere protects a planet from the solar wind and radiation. |
