Thursday 18 February 2016

Rotation of cloudy 'super-Jupiter' directly measured

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Astronomers have measured the rotation rate of 'super-Jupiter-class' exoplanet 2M1207b by observing the varied brightness in its atmosphere. This is the first rotation rate measurement of a massive exoplanet using direct imaging. The observations also confirm that the planet's atmosphere has layers of patchy, colorless clouds.
via Science Daily
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Hubble Directly Measures Rotation of Cloudy 'Super-Jupiter'


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Though nearly 2,000 planets have been found around other stars, the light from only a handful of them has ever been collected by the world's most powerful telescopes. Ironically, a lot of them are detected by the shadows they cast, as they pass in front of their parent stars. Follow-up observations measure the planet's feeble, but telltale, gravitational tug on its parent star. Now, Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have been able to pick up the faint infrared glow of a giant planet located 170 light-years away from Earth. Not only is it glowing, but also rhythmically flickering as the planet spins on its axis like a top. The interpretation is that the subtle changes in the planet's brightness are due to a variegated cloud cover of comparatively bright and dark patches coming and going. These measurements have led to an estimate of how fast the planet is spinning through direct observation a first for exoplanet astronomers. The gaseous world completes one rotation approximately every 10 hours, which, coincidentally, is the same rotation rate as Jupiter.


via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/05/

NASA Introduces New, Wider Set of Eyes on the Universe: Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute to Partner on New NASA 'Wide-View' Space Telescope


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After years of preparatory studies, NASA is formally starting an astrophysics mission designed to help unlock the secrets of the universe the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). WFIRST will image large regions of the sky in near-infrared light to answer fundamental questions about dark energy and the structure and evolution of the universe. It will also find and characterize planets beyond our solar system, and as a general-purpose observatory, revolutionize many other astrophysical topics. WFIRST will have a mirror the same size as Hubble's, but it will have a 100 times wider view of space. Slated for launch in the mid-2020s, it will complement the capabilities of NASA's other major astrophysical observatories.


via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/06/

Longest-lasting stellar eclipse: Three-and-a-half year eclipses in binary system

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Astronomers have discovered an unnamed pair of stars that sets a new record for both the longest duration stellar eclipse (3.5 years) and longest period between eclipses (69 years) in a binary system.
via Science Daily
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Dynamical systems theory enhances knowledge of Jupiter's atmosphere

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Scientists use video footage to analyze Jupiter's transport barriers and examine prior conclusions about Jupiter's atmosphere.
via Science Daily
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New clues in the hunt for the sources of cosmic neutrinos

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Incredibly dense and powerful objects beyond our Milky Way Galaxy may prevent the escape of high-energy gamma rays that accompany the production of the cosmic neutrinos detected on Earth by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory buried deep in the Antarctic ice sheet, according to a new article.
via Science Daily
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Hitomi Launches

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On February 17 at 5:45pm JST this H-IIA rocket blasted skyward from JAXA's Tanegashima Space Center located off the southern coast of Japan, planet Earth. Onboard was the ASTRO-H X-ray astronomy satellite, now in orbit. Designed to explore the extreme cosmos from black holes to massive galaxy clusters, the satellite observatory is equipped with four cutting-edge X-ray telescopes and instruments sensitive to photon energies from 300 to 600,000 electron volts. By comparison, visible light photon energies are 2 to 3 electron volts. Following a tradition of renaming satellites after their successful launch, ASTRO-H has been newly dubbed "Hitomi", inspired by an ancient legend of dragons. Hitomi means "the pupil of the eye".

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Footprints of a martian flood

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Water has left its mark in a variety of ways in this martian scene captured by ESA’s Mars Express.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Footprints_of_a_martian_flood