Posted on Aug 25, 2022 in Alien Life, Astrobiology, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Exoplanets, Extraterrestrial Life, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Science, Space News, Universe
Today’s stories include New Exoplanet Water World Detected to The Strange Case of Eyeball Planets to Is Dark Matter Self-Interacting, and much more.
Maybe the Universe Thinks. Hear Me Out, reports Sabine Hossenfelder for Time. “The resemblance between the human brain and the universe is not entirely superficial; it has been rigorously analyzed in a 2020 study by the Italian astrophysicist Franco Vazza and neuroscientist Alberto Feletti. They calculated how many structures of different sizes are in the human brain’s connectome and in the cosmic web, and reported ‘a remarkable similarity’.”
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first clear evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system. “This observation of a gas giant planet orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away provides important insights into the composition and formation of the planet. The finding, which is accepted for publication in Nature, offers evidence that in the future Webb may be able to detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets,” reports NASA.
Exoplanet Water World Detected, An international team of researchers led by Charles Cadieux, a Ph.D. student at the Université de Montréal and member of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), has announced the discovery of TOI-1452 b, an exoplanet orbiting one of two small stars in a binary system located in the Draco constellation about 100 light-years from Earth.
‘There’s no blank sky any more’–The telescope revealing the secrets of the universe— After the James Webb space telescope sends extraordinary images of Jupiter, astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst explains why it’s so important for The Guardian.
The strange case of eyeball planets. These tidally locked worlds could be the key to finding life in the universe — if they exist, reports Astronomy.
Caltech Scientists Launch What Could Be Humanity’s Best Chance for Finding Signs of Extraterrestrial Life, reports Robert Perkins at CalTech. “As NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover explores Jezero Crater on the red planet, scientists back at at Caltech are eagerly launching into what is quite possibly humanity’s best chance for finding ancient signs of extraterrestrial life to date.
Dark matter could finally reveal itself through self-interactions, reports Paul Sutter for space.com—“One hypothesis for the nature of dark matter is that some of it could be self-interacting, meaning the individual particles interact slightly with one another.”
NASA Recorded The Sound From A Black Hole, And It’s Super Eerie, reports Michelle Starr for ScienceAlert.
How the Webb Telescope Expanded My Universe, reports Dennis Overbye for the New York Times. :As new images of Jupiter and a galactic survey spring forth from NASA’s new observatory, our cosmic affairs correspondent confesses he didn’t anticipate their power. This has been the summer of Webb. Hardly a week has gone by without the news media being graced by another spectacular image or tentative but striking measurement of the infrared universe.”
Webb shows Jupiter’s auroras, tiny moons–-“We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped lead the observations.
Mesmerizing new James Webb telescope photo shows a strange spiral galaxy, reports BGR.com–“The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy is more formally known as NGC 1365. It is located around 56 million light years away from Earth. The galaxy is a star-forming galaxy with an actively feeding supermassive black hole—one akin to our own Milky Way black hole. The galaxy is also “face-on” towards Earth, which gives astronomers a perfect view of its double-barred structure.”
Caltech Scientists Launch What Could Be Humanity’s Best Chance for Finding Signs of Extraterrestrial Life, reports Robert Perkins at CalTech. “As NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover explores Jezero Crater on the red planet, scientists back at at Caltech are eagerly launching into what is quite possibly humanity’s best chance for finding ancient signs of extraterrestrial life to date.”
What Drives Galaxies? The Milky Way’s Black Hole May Be the Key, reports Thomas Lewton for Quanta. Supermassive black holes have come to the fore as engines of galactic evolution, but new observations of the Milky Way and its central hole don’t yet hang together. “Somehow only a thousandth of the matter that’s flowing into the Milky Way from the surrounding intergalactic medium makes it all the way down and into the hole.”
All systems go for Artemis 1 mission to Moon--“Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, the Artemis program is poised to take up the baton of lunar exploration with a test launch on Monday of NASA’s most powerful rocket ever. The goal is to return humans to the Moon for the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972—and eventually to Mars,” reports Lucie Aubourg for Phys.org.
The Latest Webb Observations Don’t Disprove The Big Bang, But They Are Interesting, reports Universe Today. ” Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope have not disproven the big bang, despite certain popular articles claiming otherwise. That said, the latest Webb observations do reveal some strange and unexpected things about the universe, and if you’d like to know more, keep reading.”
Hubble revolutionized astrophysics. James Webb is just getting started reports Big Think. “JWST is only getting started, and astronomers can expect an explosion of new data over the next several years.”
Scientists have traced Earth’s path through the galaxy via tiny crystals found in its crust reports Chris Kirkland and Phil Sutton for The Conversation.
The SLS rocket is the worst thing to happen to NASA—but maybe also the best? reports Ars Technica. “This has been a really tough thing.”
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