Innehållsförteckning för No. 66 från All About Space

Planet rings cause of star’s eclipses The world is estimated to be 50-times the mass of Jupiter A massive gaseous exoplanet or brown dwarf that’s up to 50-times bigger than Jupiter and encircled by a ring of dust is the likely culprit for blocking out light from the star it orbits. Using data from the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) and the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT), astrophysicist Hugh Osborn identified that the light from young star PDS 110 in Orion is regularly blocked by a large object. “We found a hint that this was an interesting object in data from the WASP survey,” says Osborn, “but it wasn’t until we found a second, almost identical eclipse in the KELT survey data that we knew we had something spectacular.”…

What are dark stars? They’re not dark Despite their name, these early members of our universe are not dark – they would have blazed brilliantly, lighting up their surrounded area with a luminosity about a billion times brighter than They’re likely to be invisible now Dark stars are unlikely to have survived to what we perceive to be the modern era of the universe – at least in terms of their high luminosity. If they are visible, they could be detected from their gamma ray, antimatter, neutrino emissions. They’re likely to have been the first 'stars' During the early days of our universe, usual stars were unable to form. Instead, dark stars are thought to have come from enormous clouds of hydrogen and helium, ranging between four and 2,000 Astronomical…

Heart of a black hole Peering into the heart of a BLACK HOLE Detecting a black hole isn’t hard, but taking a picture of one is almost impossible. That is, until astronomers set up the Event Horizon Telescope to peer into the unknown Written by Luis Villazon © Babak Tafreshi; Science Photo Library In April this year, more than a thousand computer hard disks were air freighted from seven observatories on three continents to data processing centres in the United States. Between them, these disks carried more than three petabytes of data. That’s more than you would need to store every Hollywood movie ever made, including all the DVD bonus features. But it will be barely enough to create a single blurry image of one of the most elusive objects…

Heart of a black hole Makeup of a black hole telescope These observatories have joined up, like Voltron, to form a single super-telescope Combined Array for Research in millimetre-wave Astronomy (CARMA) Location: Cedar Flat, California, USA Size of array: 23 telescopes, 10.4m-3.5m Owned by: Caltech The CARMA array was used for some of the initial measurements to determine the size of the event horizon at Sagittarius A*. James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Location: Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA Size of telescope: 15m Owned by: East Asian Observatory Operating since 1987, the JCMT is the one of the largest single dish radio telescopes designed to specifically operate at wavelengths shorter than 1mm. Arizona Radio Observatory Submillimetre Telescope Location: Mt. Graham, Arizona, USA Size of telescope: 10m Owned by: Steward Observatory, University of…

New home Investigating an Earth-like world LHS 1140b is slowly becoming a familiar world with the help of ground- and space-based telescopes © Adrian Mann “ Water is the most common molecule… and we’ve found it in lots of places we consider hot and atmosphere-less” Dr Jason Dittmann PRESENT La Silla Observatory Also in Chile, there is the La Silla Observatory, present is the 3.6m telescope fitted with the HARPS spectrograph. The MEarth team required further information, so by observing the stellar ‘wobble’ of LHS 1140 caused by its exoplanet, LHS 1140b was confirmed and its properties determined. HOW LHS 1140B WAS CONFIRMED 1 The beginning LHS 1140b was discovered by the MEarth team in 2014, thus began the analysis. 2 Total eclipse of LHS 1140b The brightness of the…

Virtual Reality How we’re using virtual reality for space Training astronauts Before they go into space, astronauts need to be trained up for the conditions they will face. VR enables astronauts to train in a space-environment such as wearing a headset while on a weightlessness-simulating plane and in NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO). Planning routes on Mars Using VR, scientists are able to create a reconstruction of the Martian surface, which can be worked on collaboratively – for example, to set the course and targets for NASA’s Curiosity rover on the surface of the Red Planet. Guiding astronauts on board the ISS Astronauts complete complicated procedures on board the FSS. VR allows the opportunity for experts on Earth to guide residents of the Earth-orbit habitat – for example, opening…

STARGAZER This month’s planets Saturn is easy pickings for astronomers this month, while Venus continues to dazzle for early risers Planet of the month Saturn Constellation: Ophiuchus Magnitude: 0.1 AM/PM: PM Saturn is on display through this month, and pops into view as soon as twilight darkens the sky. Saturn lies in the southern part of the ‘forgotten sign of the zodiac’, Ophiuchus, which hangs above the southern horizon, scraping the treetops and roofs. To the naked eye on these light summer evenings, Saturn will look like a yellow-white star some 70 degrees over to the far left of Jupiter – which is higher in the sky – between the ‘Teapot’ of Sagittarius and the claws of Scorpius. Saturn is famous for its beautiful system of rings, and, before its…

STARGAZER How to… Make the most of summer astronomy The months of June and July mean very short nights and no true darkness… You’ll need: • Star chart • Binoculars • Telescope • Deck chair Everyone looks forward to the summer. Sunshine, warmth, time off from work and long hours of daylight, but this can be frustrating if you would really like to see the stars and feel that there is nothing worth staying up for. However, there are indeed sights worth staying up for, even if the sky doesn't get truly dark. Don't forget that there are events such as meteors and meteor showers and other atmospheric phenomena, which can be seen once the sky is dark enough. Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are also a favourite and appear when a…

STARGAZER Deep sky challenge Nebulae and clusters of Scorpius and Sagittarius Summer skies are stuffed full of amazing objects for your telescope if you are prepared to stay up late © ESO; NASA; STScl Summer in mid-northern latitudes gives us short nights, which are never truly dark which can wreak havoc on your viewing plans. However, they are dark enough to see some real celestial wonders. The Milky Way arcs almost from north to south at this time and brings with it all kinds of deep-sky gems, including open star clusters, globular star clusters and nebulae on which to feast your eyes. Down near the southern horizon you will find the constellations of Scorpius and Sagittarius which are packed with many such objects. For example, there is open star cluster…

Early Earth was spinning doughnut A new study suggests our planet may have looked very different following a past high-speed collision It's news that would have Homer Simpson salivating, but astronomers are now theorising that Earth may once have looked like a giant hot doughnut. A new study suggests that a violent collision between two planet-sized bodies results in a doughnut-shaped mass of steaming vaporised rock. But what is perhaps just as intriguing is that astronomers say our own planet may have taken on this form about 4.5 billion years ago. According to researchers Sarah Stewart, a planetary scientist at the University of California Davies, and Harvard graduate Simon Lock, collisions between objects moving and spinning relatively fast form a completely new structure. Rather than create a disc of solid…

Gravitational waves are detected for the third time Colliding black holes provide further evidence of the ripples through space and time Scientists searching for ripples in the fabric of space and time An are artists celebrating impression after of the the Laser secondary supermassive black hole of Cygnus A Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) made its third detection. Caused by two black holes colliding to form a larger black hole, the discovery follows the first direct observation of gravitational waves in September 2015 and the second in December that same year. This latest detection was made on 4 January, with the black hole having a mass some 49 times that of our Sun. It is more than three billion light years away, making it the farthest detected so far. By comparison,…

Dark Stars Making our Sun’s darker cousin Formed not long after the Big Bang, these brilliant members of the early universe aren’t your conventional star The early universe After the birth of the cosmos, some 13.8 billion years ago, the universe expanded. Within less than a second, temperatures were extremely high and a soup of particles made up the observable cosmos that we see today. Some 70,000 years after the Big Bang, dark matter supposedly dominates. The first ‘stars’ It’s thought that dark stars began with a mass similar to our Sun. Eventually, they grew to millions of times its mass, before the true first stars burst into existence. They would have been surrounded by enormous clouds of hydrogen and helium, hundreds of thousands of kilometres across. Dark matter annihilation…

HOLLYWOOD SPACE What your favourite movies got scientifically right and wrong Written by Jonathan O’Callaghan The Martian What happens: Powerful storms on Mars Why it’s not possible: The atmosphere of Mars is too thin to support strong winds At the start of Andy Weir’s book The Martian, and the accompanying 2015 movie, our hero Mark Watney is left stranded on Mars. The culprit is a strong storm, which throws him away from his crew and their departing spacecraft. While it made for a dramatic opening, sadly this moment is very much just fiction. The atmosphere of Mars is about one per cent as dense as ours, which means wind power is dramatically reduced. In fact, it’s estimated that the strongest winds on Mars are comparable to someone blowing on your…

Target: Milky Way The supermassive giant at the centre of our galaxy, Sagittarius A* is the prime focus Sagittarius A* It’s difficult for astronomers to observe the centre of our galaxy due to the dust between it and us. In order to peer into its black hole – Sagittarius A* – we need to use radio wavelengths – the spectrum that the Event Horizon Telescope operates in Space-time The fabric of the universe is comprised of three-dimensional space fused with time Magnetic field Further evidence for possibly entangled magnetic field lines was reported in early 2015, when an X-ray flare some 400 times brighter than usual erupted from Sagittarius A*…

New Home IS THIS NEW PLANET OUR HOME? An exoplanet located a short 40 light years away has been hailed as the most Earth-like world discovered so far, but could we survive on its surface? Written by Lee Cavendish © Tobias Roetsch As you stand looking at the sky on a cold winter’s night, you can make out the constellation of Cetus, the Sea Monster, and in particular its brightest star named Deneb Kaitos. In a patch slightly above this star, 40 light years away, is a faint, small red dwarf called LHS 1140. This is the stellar parent of newly-discovered world, LHS 1140b, a super-Earth that's suspected to harbour life. The parent star, LHS 1140, is around 20 per cent the size and less than one per cent as…

Virtual Reality Destination Mars Using Microsoft HoloLens, NASA is able to walk on the surface of the Red Planet and make plans to conquer it 1. Real Mars data Looking through the HoloLens, users are able to ‘stand’ on Mars and look at a real surface from data gathered by Mars orbiters and the Curiosity rover. Using VR, you’ll be able to stand next to the Martian spacecraft. 2. Taking a buddy to the Red Planet Ff you decide to experience the surface of the Red Planet with a friend or two, you’ll be able to see them on the surface next to you as an avatar – no matter where they are in the world. 3. Useful for science Teams of scientists are able to collaborate on the surface…

STARGAZER Moon tour Mare Orientale Catch a fleeting glimpse of one of the Moon’s most incredible features © NASA Most of the lunar features we visit on our tours are pretty obvious and easy to see – huge pit-like craters, long chains of jagged mountains, vast dark seas, etc. This month’s target is much more challenging and much harder to see. In fact, you’ll only be able to glimpse it for a couple of days. Why? Because our target this month is a feature usually invisible from the Earth. Mare Orientale and its surrounding rings of mountains form one of the largest, most dramatic features on the Moon. If it was on the Earth-facing side of our celestial companion it would dominate its face, and would quite possibly have affected…

STARGAZER Choosing your targets From the Moon through to noctilucent clouds, make the most of the lighter months Sitting in a deck chair on a warm summer night with binoculars and a star chart can take you on a fascinating journey through the heavens. A little planning can go a long way to help you make the most of what's available on any given night. Check to see what the phase of the Moon is, or if there are likely to be any meteors to be seen. There is a goldmine of information waiting for you, including reports of the visibility of noctilucent clouds or which planets are in the sky and where to look for them. 1 Ensure that you’re prepared If you are not sure what can be…

Me & My Telescope Me & My Telescope Send your astrophotography images to space@spaceanswers.com for a chance to see them featured in All About Space Amin Ghavamian Kelardasht District, Mazandaran Province, Iran “During a night in spring, I travelled to the high mountains of northern Iran. In this photo, you can see a collection of objects in the night sky. The Milky Way, Moon, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn together created a beautiful composition. This panoramic image, which I shot using my Canon 50D DSLR camera and at an exposure time of 13 seconds, is comprised of 12 photos stitched together.” Mohammad Mireskandari Markazi Province, Iran “Using my Nikon D7000 camera as well as a Tokina lens, I captured the constellation of Orion. Despite a initial fight with light pollution, which…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE © ESO; S. Fandango ALMA’s eerie green glow Lit up in green, the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) appears to fit in with its alien landscape, also known as the Atacama Desert, the driest non-polar desert in the world. The radio telescopes that make up the array are being used to understand the origins of our universe. Of course, the eerie green glow isn’t evidence of alien activity, it’s a warning function on the ALMA telescopes, which blink when the array is in use. This picture was captured using a ten-second exposure, during a time when a green flash occurred and spread throughout the image, creating a stark contrast between the neon green of the dishes and the rich, deep blue of…

Moon discovered around third largest dwarf planet The Hubble Space Telescope has helped detect a new member of our Solar System A dwarf planet within the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the Solar System has been found to have a moon. The discovery was made by three NASA telescopes including Hubble, and it means that the majority of the known dwarf planets larger than 600 miles (965 kilometres) across are now known to have a companion. Called 2007 OR10, the body is currently the third largest dwarf planet that scientists are aware of and it is not only 1,529 kilometres (950 miles) across but three times further from the Sun than Pluto. Images show the moon, which measures between 241 kilometres and 402 kilometres (150 and 250 miles) in…

Dark Stars DARK STARS These cosmic creators, powered by dark matter, could be responsible for our existence along with the appearance of today’s universe Written by Amanda Doyle © Tobias Roetsch A star dies. A sudden flash of light signifies the end in a supernova explosion. “ The standard scenario for the formation of the first stars does not rely on dark matter annihilation” Eric Zackrisson This, however, is only part of the life cycle of stars, as the rich material created during the death throes of the star is ejected into space by the supernova. When the next generation of stars form, they sweep up the leftovers of the supernova, and thus accrete the metals that the dying star produced – metals being the term that astronomers use for…

Focus on MARS’ TROJANS POSSIBLE REMAINS OF DESTROYED PLANET The asteroids that follow the Red Planet around its orbit could be fragments of a smashed-up world © Alamy; Fahad Sulehria; NASA “This detection implies that these bodies are fragments from a planet, it is possibly leftover mantle from Mars” Analysis of the composition of two Trojans that trail in the wake of the Red Planet suggests that they could be fragments of a mini-planet that were eviscerated in a violent collision. Some of this planet could have been incorporated into the material that became Mars. Trojans are distinct from asteroids usually found in the asteroid belt, which starts some 101 million kilometres past Mars, stretching toward Jupiter. These chunks of space rock orbit the Sun, but are trapped in gravitational…

Virtual Reality Exploring space using VIRTUAL REALITY Collaborating with tech-giants including Microsoft, NASA is now able to conquer the universe without needing to leave the Earth – and you can come along for the ride Written by Libby Plummer Virtual reality (VR) is bringing space closer to armchair astronauts than ever before. Not only is it opening up the galaxy to those of us that will never make it beyond the Kármán line, it’s also helping astronauts train for the harsh environment of microgravity and scientists for their projects. Just recently, a virtual recreation of the International Space Station (ISS) was launched on the Oculus VR headset. Mission: ISS, which was made in collaboration with NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, is the work of Los Angeles-based visual effects…

STARGAZER Meade LightBridge Mini 130 Whether you’re on a budget, or are being pestered by your children for a telescope, this easy to use and assemble Dobsonian is ideal for the whole family “ For the price, the exterior is exquisite, giving an edge over other tabletop reflectors” It might be small, but this telescope is a worthy purchase for those looking to get into astronomy. If you have children that have been pestering you for a scope for some time, but you are worried about their interest in the night sky being a fad, then the LightBridge Mini is worth a look since it won’t create much of a dent in your bank balance. We would go as far as saying that this edition to the Meade Instruments range…

STARGAZER In the shops The latest books, apps, software, tech and accessories for space and astronomy fans alike Binoculars Visionary B4 Series 10x50 Cost: £69.99 (approx $93) From: Optical Hardware Ltd It’s often said that the best introduction to the night sky is through binoculars. They’re lightweight, easy to use and generally inexpensive, much like Visionary’s B4 range of binoculars. Nice and compact, they fit snugly into your hands and their rubber eyecups provide excellent eye relief. The Moon and Jupiter offered some excellent viewing on which to test Visionary’s B4 10x50 binoculars. Although we couldn’t discern the bands on Jupiter, its Galilean moons were obvious, strung out either side like pearls. Meanwhile Earth’s Moon was breathtaking with bright plains and darker mare, with the binocular’s BAK4 prisms offering nicely…

Pete Conrad The maverick astronaut who became known to many as the Comeback Kid © NASA When Charles ‘Pete’ Conrad went through NASA’s selection process for its first group of astronauts, he ended up being dropped, his suitability for long-duration flight firmly under question. It had nothing to do with his struggles with dyslexia, even though the reading disorder had led to him flunking most of his 11th grade exams and being labelled lazy by teachers who had little knowledge of the lifelong condition. Rather, it had everything to do with his unorthodox approach to the agency’s numerous medical tests. Believing the examinations to be degrading, he adopted a dismissive attitude to them. On being shown a blank card by psychologists, he stared briefly before telling them: “It’s upside down.”…