127749338
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
A new study by astronomers of binary stars shows that exoplanets orbiting them (circumbinary planets) will orbit in the same plane as the stars if the two stars are relatively close together. If the stars are farther apart, the planets may have a perpendicular (polar) orbit around them. This study looked at the protoplanetary disks of dust and gas around binaries to draw this conclusion. Extrapolating to fiction, this means Tatooine in Star Wars was coplanar with its host stars.
120779960
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Last week, scientists announced the discovery of a stellar-mass black hole with 70 times the Sun's mass, far heftier than theory predicts they can get. Within days, though, four separate papers have come out casting extreme doubt on the claim. They show that the data weren't processed correctly, and that the black hole is closer to Earth than first assumed, which changes the calculations and makes it a more normal 5 — 20 solar mass object.
104411610
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
A nearby star, HD 186302, was almost certainly born from the same cloud of gas the Sun was 4.6 billion years ago. Astronomers have found it has an almost identical chemical composition as the Sun, is on a similar orbit around the Milky Way, and has the same age (within uncertainties). Interestingly, it's only 184 light years away, implying statistically many more such stars are waiting to be discovered.
103501332
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
The history of the first truly discovered exoplanet is a mess. The first pulsar planet was found in 1992 (after the retraction of a discovery the previous year), and the first one around a Sun-like star in 1995. There was even evidence of one in a spectrum taken in 1917! But the first one actually found is Gamma Cephei Ab, in 1988. Incredibly, that claim itself was retracted in 2002... but then shown again to be real in 2003.
90016391
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Astronomers have found a supermassive black hole barreling out of its home galaxy at 5 million mph. The 3 billion solar mass behemoth formed from the merger of two slightly smaller black holes after two galaxies collided and themselves merged. The resulting blast of gravitational waves is thought to have been asymmetric, causing a rocket effect which launched the resulting black hole away. It's currently 40,000 light years from the galaxy's core.
84745157
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
The European Space Agency is considering a test mission that will use new technology to help clean up the ever-increasing problem of space debris. The spacecraft, called e.Deorbit, will identify, approach, grapple with, and then dispose of errant space junk by deorbiting it, letting it burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Testing could begin as soon as 2023.
82396547
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Two amateur astronomers 2000 km apart confirm that on March 17, 2016, a comet or asteroid impacted Jupiter. The flash of light lasted for about one second, and marked the demise of a chunk of interplanetary debris likely a few tens of meters across. This is the sixth confirmed time such an impact on Jupiter has been seen (counting the fragmented comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 as one event).
82158569
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
It's long been thought that asteroid impacts create pressures high enough to form diamonds. Now, using high-energy lasers and X-ray crystallography, researchers have confirmed that lonsdaleite, a form of diamond, can be made this way.
81534159
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Astronomers made a cosmic twofer. Fast Radio Bursts are mysterious, rapid blasts of radio energy seen randomly on the sky. A quick response allowed astronomers to determine the location and distance to one seen in 2015: An elliptical galaxy six billion light years away, meaning these are huge explosions possibly related to gamma-ray bursts. The observations also revealed material between Earth and this galaxy, identifying half the "missing" baryons predicted by standard models of cosmology.
81404933
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
On Feb. 6, an asteroid roughly 6 meters across burned up over the Atlantic Ocean, exploding like a 10 kiloton bomb. Although this was the largest event since the Chelyabinsk superbolide in 2013 (which injured 1000+ people), there were no witnesses. It happened 1000 km off the coast of Brazil, and was reported by the military, though it's unclear how they detected it.
65087695
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Astronomers have found a new asteroid, 2014 OL339, that is a quasi-moon of the Earth. Discovered accidentally earlier this year, the 150-meter asteroid has an orbit that is more elliptical than Earth's, but has a period of almost exactly one year. It isn't bound to Earth like a real moon, but displays apparent motion as if it did, making it one of several known quasi-moons.
63995025
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Astronomers have found a 5.4 Earth-mass planet orbiting the star Gliese 15A, a red dwarf in a binary system just 11.7 light years away. Other exoplanets candidates have been found that are closer, but they are as yet unconfirmed. This is more evidence that alien planets are common in the galaxy.
60365837
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted a new crater on the surface of Mars, and, using before-and-after pictures, the impact date has been nailed down to less than a day — it happened on or about March 27, 2012. The crater is 50 meters or so in size, and surrounded by smaller craters that may have been caused by smaller impacts due to the incoming meteoroid breaking up. Several landslides were spotted in the area as well, possibly due to the shock wave of the impact.
59544285
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Astronomers have just announced that the exoplanet Beta Pic b — a 10-Jupiter-mass world 60 light years away -— rotates in about 8 hours. Using a high-resolution spectrometer and exploiting the Doppler shift of light seen as the planet spins, they measured its rotation velocity as 28,000 mph. Making reasonable assumptions about the planet's size, that gives the length of its day. This is the first time such a measurement has been achieved for an exoplanet.
59344215
submission
The Bad Astronomer writes:
Using data from the orbiting WISE and Spitzer infrared space telescopes, an astronomer has discovered a brown dwarf that is just 7.2 light years away, making it the seventh closest known interstellar object to the Sun. Not only that, it's cold ; its temperature is likely 240-260 Kelvin, well below the freezing point of water. It's literally as cold as ice.
