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The Space Thread


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Now this is global warming- https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/11/scientists-identify-rain-of-molten-iron-on-distant-exoplanet

 



Scientists identify rain of molten iron on distant exoplanet
Conditions on Wasp-76b in Pisces include temperatures of 2,400C and 10,000mph winds


Wasp-76b is what astronomers call an exoplanet, one that orbits a star outside our solar system. Scientists have discovered that the local weather conditions include 2,400C temperatures, winds in excess of 10,000mph and a steady pelting of iron rain.

The observations of the distant planet’s unusually hostile climate are the first results from a new instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile, which astronomers say will transform our view of worlds far from beyond our own solar system.

Wasp-76b, which is 640 light years away in the constellation of Pisces, is an ultra-hot gas giant. It orbits its star at about 3% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, resulting in scorching surface temperatures and the weird phenomenon of molten iron falling from the sky.

“It’s a kind of world we can’t imagine easily because we don’t have anything like that in our solar system,” said Christophe Lovis, an exoplanet researcher at the University of Geneva and co-author of the paper.

Because the planet is so close in, it is “tidally locked” (like the Moon’s orbit about Earth) and only only ever shows one face, its day side, to its parent star, while its cooler night side remains in perpetual darkness.
On the day side, which is 1,000 degrees hotter, molecules separate into atoms, and iron evaporates into the atmosphere to form metallic clouds. The extreme temperature difference between the day and night sides produces ferocious winds that carry the iron vapour to the cooler night side, where temperatures decrease to about 1,500C and the iron condenses and falls as rain that constantly peppers the planet’s gas surface and vanishes beneath it.

“One could say that this planet gets rainy in the evening, except it rains iron,” said David Ehrenreich, a professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and lead author.

The observations came from a new instrument, the Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (Espresso) that was originally designed to hunt for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. It does this by spotting the dip in starlight that occurs as a planet sails across the face of the star.
For giant planets that are very close to their home star, detecting these transits is an easier task as they block out more light. Scientists have now moved on to more refined observations that look not only at the dip in intensity but how the spectrum of the light is shifted, which can reveal what gases are present in the planet’s atmosphere.

The latest observations go one step further still and compare the gases present in the leading edge of the planet as it passes across the face of the star and the trailing edge.

For Wasp-76b, this revealed iron vapour at the leading edge, where the prevailing 10,000mph wind would be blowing from the day side into the night side. But the signal was absent from the trailing edge, suggesting that all the iron had rained down on the night side by the time the circulating wind came back around.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, are the latest to give new insights into the enormous diversity of planets beyond our own solar system. More than 4,000 exoplanets have now been confirmed and powerful new ground-based observatories under construction, such as the Extremely Large Telescope, and the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch next year, are expected to bring astronomers closer to answering whether any of these have the necessary conditions to support extraterrestrial life.

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  • 3 weeks later...
6 hours ago, Anubis said:

Following on from the Prince Of Darkness thread this is a link to dates and times when the ISS is visible courtesy of NASA’s spotthestation website.

 

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/index.cfm

Watched it at half 8. Got my times mixed up and thought it was half nine. Been cloudy all day and was cloudy at 7 when it first came round so couldnt see anything.  Set off for my now nightly walk just before half 8 - sky as clear as anything, the Moon and Venus looking great, checked the time of the fly over and realised it was any minute. Scanned the sky and there it was - bright white star flying across the night sky. Looked brilliant. Quite humbling to think that's three (?) people flying through space at 17,000 miles an hour. 

 

Hope the sky is clear tomorrow and will get the eldest (6) to watch with me. 

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I watched the 8.30pm show myself from the back garden. I was taken aback at how clearly you can see it and how quickly it moves.

 

I’d phoned my brother and nieces earlier and put them onto it as they love stuff like that. Hopefully they saw it from Bolton.

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24 minutes ago, Anubis said:

The sky not as clear tonight but the ISS still very visible. Also serves as a decent reminder of what it’s really like to be on lockdown for months at a time.

Yeah was brilliant. Really cloudy earlier but the skies cleared a treat. Got the six year out of bed and we watched it together and she was made up. The speed on it goes and the line it takes makes it really stand out. 

 

Are there the many shooting stars? Saw quite a few tonight - didn't realise there were so many, thought they were few and far between. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

A comet that is hurtling towards Earth, prompting hopes for a blazing flyby, appears to have disintegrated, according to astronomers tracking it.

 

Comet Atlas had been forecast to become "really, really stunning" within weeks, as it got closer to Earth.

Astronomers expected that it could be seen moving among the stars before reaching its closest point to us, in May.

 

They spoke hopefully of spotting its greenish hue as it blazed through the solar system, though noted that much was still mysterious about the object, which was first spotted in May.

 

Now, however, the object appears to have broken up and will not make for such a beautiful – or even visible – sight once it actually arrives.


https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/atlas-comet-earth-sky-night-space-2019-y4-a9453611.html?amp

 

 

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3 minutes ago, davelfc said:

A comet that is hurtling towards Earth, prompting hopes for a blazing flyby, appears to have disintegrated, according to astronomers tracking it.

 

Comet Atlas had been forecast to become "really, really stunning" within weeks, as it got closer to Earth.

Astronomers expected that it could be seen moving among the stars before reaching its closest point to us, in May.

 

They spoke hopefully of spotting its greenish hue as it blazed through the solar system, though noted that much was still mysterious about the object, which was first spotted in May.

 

Now, however, the object appears to have broken up and will not make for such a beautiful – or even visible – sight once it actually arrives.


https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/atlas-comet-earth-sky-night-space-2019-y4-a9453611.html?amp

 

 

It took one look at us and killed itself. 

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Guest Pistonbroke

The missus and I saw two shooting stars last night whilst in the garden, but in the words of Billy Bragg we might well have wished on Space hardware. 

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Nice one, Stig. 

august-4-2019-herbig-haro-24.jpg

 

Quote

 

On August 4 in 2001

 

Herbig-Haro 24

 

A partially obscured, newborn star near the center of this image is shooting twin jets into the surrounding gas and dust. The shocks from the collision light up patches of nebulosity collectively called Herbig-Haro 24.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Red Shift said:

Righto. Time on our hands. You’ll LOVE this little app. Apollo 11. The Powered Decent that made history. 12 minutes of your lockdown time is all it takes.

 

can you put the Lunar  Module on the Moon?

 

I’ve had my turn and I’m dead.


https://apps.apple.com/nz/app/apollo-eagle/id315792821

 

The should have called it Apple-O 11.

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