Milky Way Galaxy Archives

Earth Is Pummeled by Stardust from a Dead Supernova

April 25, 2016 By Waleed Javed

When people say that we are made of star dust, they are in fact romanticizing. No, all of our composing atoms originated on Earth, even though the Earth is composed of two different planets – the original Earth and Theia. But the remnants of distant stars are far closer than you may even imagine.

While it’s true that any dying star that stops shining right now is too far away for its light to reach us within our lifetimes, that doesn’t mean that the stars we’re still seeing are still in existence. And it certainly doesn’t mean that there is nothing left of them even if they blew up.

Ancient star dust

As you might have surmised from the title, a team of researchers from the Washington University in Saint Louis managed to determine that Earth is pummeled by stardust from a dead supernova. This pummeling is done by specks of intergalactic dust propelled from the exploding star with speeds close to that of light.

The finding comes as a result of a team of researchers discovering tiny deposits of iron-60 isotopes in most of the world’s oceans. The specks of radioactive cosmic dust were very difficult to trace, primarily because of the many shifts in trajectory they suffered as they were slingshot by the gravity and magnetic fields of other celestial bodies.

Isotopes and dating

As for the iron-60 isotopes, the researchers realized that they didn’t come from Earth because iron-60 is only produced in dying stars. It is also with the help of isotopes that scientists were able to figure out that Earth as it is today, as well as the moon, resulted from the head-on collision with a forming planet that was part of our solar system.

Still, once they realized that the dust specks weren’t from Earth, as well that they were radioactive, the team used dating procedures to figure out exactly when the supernova that pushed dust with such force that it’s falling on Earth today exploded, as well as how close it was to our own floating space rock.

Seventeen years of data

By looking at seventeen years of cosmic ray data captured by spectrometers, satellites, and other very expensive imagers, the scientists managed to find fifteen atomic nuclei in the iron-60 or 60Fe particles. And it’s with their help that the team managed to pinpoint the time and place of the exploding supernova.

According to the findings, the supernova was actually pretty close to Earth, and it went up just a few million years ago. While it may seem like a lot, if we consider the distances and times in outer space, that’s quite recent. In fact, it is estimated that our Homo erectus ancestors probably witnessed the explosion in the sky, as it would have been close enough to see with the naked eye.

Image source: Wikimedia

Mice Embryos Develop in Space for the First Time

April 20, 2016 By Waleed Javed

Humanity has dreamt about colonizing space for a very long time. And even though we’re on the right path, it will still take at least a couple of decades until we can realistically achieve something like that. Still, those in charge of preparing us for that momentous event are already setting things up for when we’re ready.

Of course, everything has to go just right, so we need a lot of time preparing for the unexpected and even for the expected. Even the simplest of actions can go wrong in space if not everything is perfectly accounted for. So, performing an experiment to see how it would go, Chinese scientists had mice embryos develop in space for the first time.

China’s SJ-10 satellite

Launched into space of the 6^th of April, the SJ-100 Chinese satellite was packed full with a series of experiments. Except for the embryos about which we’re going to talk in a bit, the small bullet-shaped satellite also contained experiments related to microgravity combustion, microgravity fluid physics, space material, space biotechnology, and space radiation effects.

Aside from looking at how space radiation affects the genetic stability of rat cells and fruit flies, the Chinese team will also test how materials generally used in spacecrafts burn in space so that they can come up with better protection. Of course, the most important experiment was the one involving the mouse embryos.

The satellite will attempt landing sometime next week in a designated spot in Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia, somewhat late considering its reported 15-day life span. In case of the landing going wrong, a team will lead four helicopters to help ground vehicles search for the spacecraft after it lands.

Mammal embryos in space

Now that we have the technical specs out of the way, let’s talk about mouse embryos. About 6,000 were sent up in the satellite inside an enclosed, self-sufficient chamber the size of a microwave oven, and about 600 of them had a high-resolution camera aimed directly at them.

Of course, support systems inside were installed in order to provide the embryos with the necessary nutrients for proper development, and the cameras took footage of them every four hours. The team was impressed to see the experiment succeed, with the initial two-cell embryos developing into fully grown blastocysts over the course of eighty hours in space.

This is the first time that a mammal embryo was shown to be able to develop normally in space, making this a very significant breakthrough in the field. Of course, the embryos will be further analyzed upon their return to Earth, and if the scientists manage to get their way and the blastocysts survive the landing, they will even implant some into female rats, having them give birth to the first animals basically conceived in space.

Image source: Wikimedia

The Milky Way Has a Second Supermassive Black Hole

January 16, 2016 By Andreas Petersen

"Supermassive black hole hidden in a cloud of gas"

The supermassive black hole discovered by the Japanese team is hidden behind a cloud of gas.

A team of astronomers from Japan has detected that the Milky Way has a second supermassive black hole that was hidden under a cloud of gas. The discovery could bear great significance in the understanding of supermassive black holes formation.

There was something hidden in a mysterious gas cloud

The team that made the discovery used the Nobeyama radio telescope that is 45-meter long. They were researching a mysterious cloud of gas that appeared in the center of the Milky Way, at a distance of around 200 light years away from Earth.

It turned out that the mysterious cloud was hiding the fact that the Milky Way has a second supermassive black hole in its componence. The cloud attracted the attention of the astronomers in the first place because it appeared to contain different types of gases travelling at various speeds.

The CO-0.40-0.22, as the cloud was named, revealed its secrets after the Japanese team from the National Observatory of Astronomy thought about using two telescopes, instead of one. They linked the data from the 45-m Nobeyama with those gathered by the ASTE telescope situated in Chile, South America.

The Milky Way has a second supermassive black hole

Upon analyzing the data, the researchers discovered that that the CO-0.40-0.22 was shaped as an ellipsis and had two major components in its structure. The first one presented itself with low density but a very broad velocity dispersion (100km/s). The other was very dense, it stretched on ten light years and had a small velocity dispersion. The velocity dispersion can be used to explain the various ranges of speed at which all matter moves.

For a better understanding of the phenomenon, the team of astronomers created computer simulations in order to determine what was causing the high velocity of dispersion. The computer model that was designed showed that the only possible explanation is that the Milky Way has a second supermassive black hole that generates the gravitational pull which influences the velocity of the gases.

The computer simulations showed that the gas clouds were highly influenced by the presence of a gravity force. And there is only one formation that we know of capable of carrying out so much gravitational pull, and that is a black hole.

This discovery could lead to a better understanding of the gravitational phenomenon

The discovery bears great significance to the scientific community since they have not yet found an explanation for the formation of supermassive black holes. There are two different types of black holes, supermassive black holes and intermediate black holes. The latter forms after a star depletes all of its resources and collapses on itself transforming into a gravitational phenomenon. The supermassive black holes are usually found in the center of galaxies which makes the astronomers suggest that they form after a black hole merger.

Tomoharu Oka, one of the members of the team, said that the research is just beginning and they will continue to use the two telescopes to study the phenomenon since black holes are still kind of a mystery in the scientific community.

Image source: www.flickr.com

Milky Way Galaxy 50000 Light Years Larger Than Previously Thought

March 12, 2015 By Cliff Jenkins Scott

A new scientific study indicates that Milky Way Galaxy is bigger than the previous assumptions of astronomers.

Recently, astronomers stated that original estimate size of the Milky Way should be altered. Earlier, scientists believe that the width of Milky Way is nearly 100,000 light years. However, the latest research rebuffs the previous notion with an addition of 50,000 light years.

An international group of researchers re-examined astronomical data through Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The study indicates that the disk of Milky Way is not arranged like a flat plate. It behaves like stagnant water when a pebble is thrown into it. It immediately contract and emits waves from the point of impact.

Yan Xu, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observation of China, discussed the research in detail. He notifies that re-analysis of the stream of stars that surrounds the galaxy open new window in the size of Milky Way Galaxy. It reveals that ring of stars that surrounds the galaxy is actually a part of it.

As per the previous assumption, number of stars present in the Milky Way reduces at a speed of 50,000 light years away from the center. In comparison, the ring of stars appears at 60,000 light years after those stars.

The paper is available in detail in the Astrophysical Journal.

‘Fast Radio Burst’ Caught By CSIRO’s Telescope… Set The Trap To Catch Another

January 19, 2015 By Carol Harper

According to a joint press release from The Royal Astronomical Society in the UK on behalf of CAASTRO and CAASTRO The Arc Center of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics, CSIRO’s 64-m Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia has caught “fast radio burst” for the first time.

The first radio burst was found in 2007 by cosmologists working on the Parkes data archive. The first burst lasted just milliseconds. From that point forward, there have been six more flashes that researchers accept are originating from outside our Milky Way galaxy.

Emily Petroff, a Ph.d. student co-supervised by CSIRO and by Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia said, “These bursts were usually found weeks or months or even years after they happened! We’re the first to catch one in real time.”

The burst was just radio – no optical, infrared, UV or X-ray follow up. Mansi Kasliwal, team member from the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif said, “That in itself precludes some likely contenders, for example, long gamma-ray bursts and close-by supernovae.”

Kasliwal said that low-energy gamma-ray bursts, imploding neutron stars and goliath flares from remote magnetars (“most attractive stars in the universe”) can’t be precluded.

By recognizing the characteristics of the radio signals, researchers can decide how far away the source of the burst is. The last burst was dogged to be 5.5 billion light-years away. “That implies it could have given off as much energy in a couple of milliseconds as the Sun does in a day,” said researcher Daniele Malesani of the University of Copenhagen, as per the press release.

The live detection of the burst also left another clue – its polarization. The vibration from electromagnetic waves can be linear or round. The radio burst caught by Petroff was more than 20% circularly polarized. That implies there must be magnetic fields near to the source.

“We have set the trap. Now we simply need to hold up for another burst to fall into it,” Petroff said.

Researchers Found A New Dwarf Galaxy Thousands Times Smaller Than Milky Way Galaxy

December 25, 2014 By Denise Ehrlich

A group of researchers from USA and Russia recognized a Dwarf Galaxy, which is 7 million light years from the Earth and 10,000 times smaller than our Milky way galaxy. The galaxy was named as Kks3 and found in the way of southern constellation of Hydrus by utilizing the Hubble Space Telescope.

As per the astronomers Kks3 does not have the same characteristics like the spiral arms which can be found in our galaxies. Kks3 does not have the required raw materials to create its own particular star and abandons older and paler remnants of stars. Researchers are proposing that larger stars like Andromeda are stripping this tinny galaxy of its raw materials. They are stating it was hard job to discover a little galaxy like this, as they have experienced never-ending collection of cosmic data to inspect.

The small galaxy was discovered by Dimitry Makarov, and Russian astronomers from the Special Astrophysical Observatory. They have found this galaxy while they were mapping out a cluster of galaxies in the Milky Way`s region. After the find Markov said, “Discovering objects like Kks3 is careful work, even with observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope… It might be that there are a colossal number of dwarf spheroidal galaxies out there, something that would have significant outcomes for our thoughts regarding the development of the universe”. The researchers suspected that Kks3 was a part of another bigger galaxy, however later had found that this is a galaxy all alone’s. Kks3 was mapped in August and the researchers found that its stars weights together 23 million times more the Sun. The researchers are confident of discovering more dsph galaxies after the revelation of Kks3. They recommend that more up to date and powerful telescope like James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope will make more revelations.

The researchers are also making this revelation an imperative one, as they think that this will help them understand more about the universe and particularly dark matter. This sort of tiny galaxy is enclosed by the corona of dark matter.

How Leaky Galaxies Brought the Universe out of Darkness?

October 11, 2014 By June Harris

About 400 million years ago, the universe was very dark until the first star producing galaxies started to make ultraviolet light, which ultimately brightened up the cosmos.

Thousands of years after the Big Bang, the cosmic scattered protons and electrons started to cool and developed the first atom of hydrogen. The fact ultimately resulted in the creation of hydrogen walls along with the clouds of cosmic dust, which has the ability to absorb ultraviolet radiation. This averted light from fleeing and blotched the dark ages of the universe.

With the passage of time, these radiations become too strong that it re-ionized the hydrogen. It actually happens when the photons gather enough energy in order to break up the electrons from the hydrogen atoms, which resulted in lighting up the previously dark universe. The astronomers think that, the radiation that broke electrons come from stellar births, but they are not sure about that.

Sanchayeeta Borthakur, an astronomer from the Johns Hopkins University stated that, “The galaxies contains star forming regions that are wrapped with cold gases so the radiation won’t come out. If we want to know that how the radiation gets out of the galaxy, we need to learn the mechanisms that ionized the universe.”

It seems that the newly discovered galaxy might provide some hints concerning how the early universe lighted up. Borthakur along with his colleagues have recently discovered a densely packed galaxy that imitates the events that lit up the early universe.

J0921+4509, a newly discovered galaxy, which researchers believed to possess similar characteristics needed to lighten up the early universe. It is actually emitting photons with an energy that ionize hydrogen atoms. This galaxy also enables over 20% of its ultraviolet radiation to leak through the dust clouds causing it to emit strong levels of ultraviolet light and providing hints to astronomers on how the earliest galaxies of the universe may have likely behaved.

J0921+4509 is located 2.9 million years away from the Milky Way galaxy. It generates stars in a compact region similar to the rate of budding galaxies of earliest times. Moreover, the galaxy whips around 50 stars having the same mass as the sun every year that is 33 times more than the number of stars that the Milky Way produces for the same period.

Black Hole Swallowing Gas Faster Than Previously Thought Possible

October 10, 2014 By Marlene R. Litten

Space scientists and researchers belonging to University of Strasbourg recently made an attempt to observe a black hole named as P13. This black hole is present in NGC7793- a galaxy which has been estimated at almost 12 Million light years from our planet. They suggest that this black hole would be really large in size as its brightness is 100 times greater than that of the sun. Further these scientists have joined their heads because of the latest finding about this black hole. These findings suggest that the black hole P13 is ingesting the surrounding gases much faster than the expected rate. This research by Dr Soria has been published in journal Nature.

According to the statement by Dr Roberto Soria from ICRAR- International Centre for Radio Astronomy research, “It was generally believed the maximum speed at which a black hole could swallow gas and produce light was tightly determined by its size. So it made sense to assume that P13 was bigger than the ordinary, less bright black holes we see in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.”

Nevertheless, It has also been reported that the amount of gases a black hole can eat is not fixed and there is no hard and fast rule for that. The star which is behaving as donor to P13 is 20 times heavier than our sun having one side always larger than the other. Through these observations and findings, Dr Soria thinks that we can measure the time the black hole and the donor star takes to rotate around each other. It was found to be 64 days. Moreover findings also helped to identify the shapes of the orbits along with the velocity of their rotations. Through these calculations the fact was established that the black hole would be 15 times less than the mass of the sun.

The interesting point of this research is that scientist estimated the amounts of gases being ingested through Hotdogs because it was the humorous choice for measurement of matter because they don’t possess any standard weight. Nevertheless the Self Nutrition Data suggests that their approximate weight is one tenth of one pound.

The researchers identified that P13 is eating up the gases from its donor 10 times larger than what was expected. It is eating up almost around the weight of 100billion billion hotdogs per minute. Through this it can be assumed that black hole P13 is taking up 5 quadrillion gas each minute.