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[James Webb Space Telescope Finds A Dusty Skeleton In This Starburst Galaxy's Closet] The dwarf galaxy NGC 4449 is the star of the show in the James Webb Space Telescope's latest cosmic portrait. Located 12.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs, NGC 4449 has much in common with our very own Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the satellite galaxy orbiting the Milky Way. Both are small and irregular in shape and each has a distinctive bar running through its center. However, whereas the LMC has one extreme region of star formation, which is the 30 Doradus region famously known as the Tarantula Nebula, NGC 4449 has enhanced star-forming rates across its length and breadth. Indeed, there's so much star formation going on that NGC 4449 is described as undergoing a "starburst." Related: James Webb Space Telescope spots most distant and oldest black hole collision ever seen. Starbursts happen when the molecular hydrogen gas that fills a galaxy is stirred up by a gravitational interaction, or a collision, with another galaxy. NGC 4449 is part of the M94 Group of about two dozen galaxies, so it has several neighbors with which to interact. Indeed, in 2012. a professional-amateur collaboration led by David Martinez-Delgado of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Germany and featuring the work of several notable amateur astrophotographers, as well as observations by the eight-meter Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, found evidence for just such an interaction. The team resolved a stream of stars pulled out of a smaller galaxy that had met its demise by being consumed by NGC 4449. Though the small galaxy was ripped apart by the larger NGC 4449, it hasn't been going quietly. Gravitational tidal forces resulting from it being so close to NGC 4449 have created turbulence in the molecular gas across NGC 4449, causing large pockets to gravitationally collapse and form numerous young star clusters. Those star clusters, among other features, are visible in the JWST's latest image, constructed with a combination of data from its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Operating at different infrared wavelengths (0.6 microns to 5 microns and 5 microns to 28 microns, respectively), they reveal different types of features in the galaxy. The near-infrared view of NGC 4449 looks substantially different to the mid-infrared view. It’s important to note that all the colors are false colors standing in for the infrared wavelengths. Source: https://lnkd.in/ewpVSQu5 #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #SpaceNews

Scientists and engineers at the CU Boulder will soon take part in an effort to collect a bit of stardust—the tiny bits of matter that flow through the Milky Way Galaxy and were once the initial building blocks of our solar system. The pursuit is part of NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission to explore our solar neighborhood—decoding the messages in particles from the sun and beyond our cosmic shield. Since 2018, a team from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder has led the development of one of the mission's 10 scientific instruments. This week, the team carefully loaded the instrument, known as the Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX), onto a delivery truck. The instrument, which is shaped like a large drum and weighs 47 pounds, will travel to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. There, engineers will begin the process of installing IDEX onto the IMAP spacecraft. IDEX is the first IMAP instrument to arrive in Maryland. Over the two-year mission, IDEX will detect and analyze in great detail the composition of hundreds of interstellar dust particles. These particles flow into our solar system from the vast expanses of space between stars, or the interstellar medium. IDEX will also detect thousands of interplanetary dust particles shed from comets and asteroids. Interstellar grains are spread so thin that the instrument may only collect a few hundred of them during its lifetime. But each small speck of interstellar dust holds a treasure trove of information. "These dust particles were born in supernova explosions, most of them have been altered as they traveled in interstellar space, but they're still the closest material we have for understanding the original building blocks of the solar system," said Mihály Horányi, principal investigator for IDEX and a professor in LASP and the Department of Physics at CU Boulder. "Detecting and analyzing them in space opens a new window to the universe." IMAP, which is led by Princeton University, is slated to launch in spring 2025 and will journey roughly 1 million miles to a point in space between Earth and the sun called Lagrange Point 1. During the mission, IDEX will open its roughly 20-inch-wide aperture to capture dust zooming by, a bit like a humpback whale scooping up krill. The instrument will record how fast these particles are traveling and from where and what they're made of. Raquel Arens, who works on mission operations for IDEX, explained that the instrument is the result of years of work from a team of professionals and students at LASP—including a lot of late nights and early mornings. “What we as a team and LASP have accomplished is amazing," said Arens, a professional research assistant at LASP. #CUBoulder #LASP #IDEX #NASA IDEX with its door open at LASP. (CU Boulder)

Finally I see magneto hydrodynamics being discussed! All those lines create magnetic Fractal structures throughout the universe. every magnetic field, even the ones inside us, are all part of the universes magnetic moment evolution. The next step, which I'm waiting for now, is to link this with the theories I've all linked together.

The effects of space weather extend out across our entire Solar System, but this is a simulation of where everything starts: the sudden, violent, emergence of a ‘flux rope’ out of the Sun’s magnetic field and into the solar wind. In the process flux ropes may bring along millions of tons of plasma from the solar surface to be released into space, known as a Coronal Mass Ejection, CME. This flux rope simulation was produced using one of a suite of models available via ESA’s Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre, employed by space weather forecasters and researchers. This simulation was made using the COCONUT coronal ‘magnetohydrodynamic’ (MHD) model – developed by a Katholieke Universiteit Leuven team and newly presented in Astronomy and Astrophysics. It simulates the initial moments of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) within a realistic MHD representation of the solar corona and wind derived from observed magnetograms, with results matching established CME dynamics. CMEs are the largest eruptive processes in our Solar System. They can accelerate outwards at velocities of hundreds of kilometres per second or more. If they line up with Earth then our planet’s magnetic environment is altered in turn, potentially affecting satellites in orbit and power and communications infrastructure on the ground. Just like terrestrial weather forecasting, the basis of space weather forecasting is to ingest observation data into detailed software models. The challenge in the case of space weather is that the models have to cover the entire Solar System, starting – as seen here – just above the Sun’s surface, into the wider heliosphere and covering CMEs and interactions with the magnetic field of Earth (and other planets). “These are all different models with different physics and different data going in and out of these models,” explains ESA space environment and effects engineer Gregoire Deprez. “The goal with our Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre is to have all of them coupled together, working in a chain, accessible through a single web portal. They’re made to run and talk together, with data moving on from one through to the next. We have a whole chain of models that start from the Sun, the solar magnetosphere then propagated down to Earth or your spacecraft of interest.” #SpaceWeather #FluxRope #CMEs #ESA

[X-ray Spacecraft Reveals Odd 'Cloverleaf' Radio Circle In New Light] XMM-Newton, a European Space Agency and NASA-operated space telescope, has imaged a vast cosmic "Cloverleaf" to uncover its mysterious origins. ORCs were discovered in 2019 when the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) picked up on the aptly named ORC-1. Since then, radio surveys of the cosmos have become sensitive enough to detect a further seven ORCs, one of which is the Cloverleaf, the subject of XMM-Newton's observations. The power needed to create such a structure is immense, leading astronomers to ponder about what events could be violent enough to create ORCs. Thanks to the observations XMM-Newton, researchers think the Cloverleaf's creation event was a collision between two groups of galaxies. A multitude of computer simulations have attempted to reconstruct the births of ORCs and have been able to recreate the shapes of these strange formations. Yet, none have recreated the intensity of the expansive radio emissions that define an ORC. Bulbul realized, however, that ORCs hadn't been studied in X-ray light before. The scientist reasoned such a study may constitute the missing piece of the puzzle. Together with Max Plank Institute postdoc Xiaoyuan Zhang, she set scanning data from the Extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (eROSITA) in search of such ORC-related emissions. The duo found data of an X-ray emission that seemed to be linked to the Cloverleaf ORC gathered during just 7 minutes of eROSITA observing time. Though this was a tiny amount of data, however, it was enough to prompt Bulbul to gather a larger team and get five and a half hours of telescope time with XMM-Newton. X-ray emission from the Cloverleaf seen by XMM-Newton shows the distrubution of gas within a group of galaxies embedded in the ORC. This is sort of like a chalk outline at a crime scene. By observing how this gas has been disturbed, the team could see that galaxies within the Cloverleaf were actually once part of two separate groups that drew together, collided and merged. The X-ray emission also revealed the temperature of gas in the region, placing it at around around 15 million degrees Fahrenheit (8.3 million degrees Celsius). The greater the masses of galaxies involved in galactic pile-ups like this one, the greater the gravitational influence of the merger and the faster the gas gets dragged in. All of that, in turn, increases the temperature of infalling gas, meaning the temperature of this material can give scientists a clue as to how many galaxies were involved in the merger. Source: https://lnkd.in/e8qNB2a8 #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #spacenews

Designing low earth orbit constellations for global network coverage is not easy, and can have significant negative impacts on astronomy if left unchecked. But the benefits could be revolutionary for life on earth, especially those in rural regions. I am working on a research project now that aims to address some of these challenging questions. Glad to have been asked some of my thoughts on the topic for this article! https://lnkd.in/egm7h2sx

Great results from the last x-ray space telescope. Researchers using data taken by the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) have observed with unprecedented detail the N132D supernova remnant located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) about 160000 light-years from Earth, and the structure around the supermassive black hole (SMBH) of the galaxy NGC 4151, 62 million light-years away. XRISM is a mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in collaboration with NASA and ESA, that was launched into space on September 7, 2023. After a time of tests and calibrations, its instruments analyzed N132D and measuring the speed of the plasma around it, the researchers could determine that, contrary to prior assumptions, it is shaped like a doughnut and not as a spherical shell. Another important result came from the study of the distribution of matter falling into NGC 4151's SMBH from 0.001 to 0.1 light-years, which showed a sequence of structures. It begins with a disk where gas moves at a speed a few percent of the speed of light, followed by a transition region where it moves at speeds of "merely" thousands of km/s and which astronomers call “the broad line region (BLR), and finally a torus. The findings will be published in the Astronomical Society of Japan and The Astrophysical Journal. https://lnkd.in/dKXEi_fc #physics #physicsnews #astrophysics #astronomy #xrism #supernova #supernovae #n132d #blackhole #smbh #ngc4151 #jaxa #nasa #esa #blr

The saying goes "Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars" - but what if you're shooting for all the above? 🌌 Learn more about the 30th anniversary of the "First Light" images taken by our 3.5-meter telescope at the Starfire Optical Range and how it's pushed the fold for modern astronomy below. #AFResearchLab | #AFRLSpace | #StarfireOpticalRange

https://lnkd.in/dChii_Bj Scientists at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research based at the University of Western Australia. They are working on an infrared laser base-station network for satellites to avoid the data chokepoint at low-earth orbit level. The team did a successful demo last month. University of Western Australia, Perth, with the help of other major facilities located in Australia and New Zealand. To provide a more efficient method for the transmission of data compared to the existing use of radio and microwave frequencies, which are already at the edge of their capacity. Development of ground and mobile stations using off-the-shelf technology and incorporating optical telescopes for infrared laser data transmission and receiving. This advancement promises to revolutionize space communications by providing faster and more reliable data transmission. By enabling higher data throughput and reducing reliance on limited radio frequencies, it will support the growing demand for satellite services, enhance global connectivity, and facilitate advancements in various fields such as remote sensing, weather forecasting, and space research. The scalable and cost-effective nature of this technology could democratize access to space communications, benefiting both developed and developing regions worldwide. what do you say.

Aging Hubble Telescope Moves To 'One-Gyro' Operations: The 34-year-old Hubble Space Telescope is now operating with its final two working gyroscopes, necessitating a switch to a less productive "one-gyro" mode to extend its operational life. This contingency plan will reduce Hubble's productivity by over 12%, limit its ability to track fast-moving objects, and decrease the portion of the sky it can observe. That said, NASA expects it to keep functioning through 2035. Science.org reports: Normally, Hubble measures its location in space with a system that includes three gyroscopes -- rapidly spinning wheels that can sense forces in three directions. But in a 4 June press conference, NASA officials said one of the telescope's three remaining gyroscopes is on the fritz. The agency is now invoking a contingency plan: a "one-gyro" mode that keeps the other functioning gyroscope in reserve. The mode will reduce the telescope's productivity by more than 12% but preserve its ability to observe for years to come, Mark Clampin, NASA's astrophysics division director, said at the press conference. "We believe this is our best approach to support Hubble science through this decade and into the next." Hubble's gyroscopes, which spin at 19,200 revolutions per minute, are extremely precise but finicky. The agency has flown a total of 22 gyroscopes across various servicing missions and is now down to the last two of the six currently onboard. In one-gyro mode, Hubble must rely on its less precise star trackers and other sensors to verify its position, a slower process that leads to reduced productivity. "It will take us more time to slew from one target attitude to the next, and to be able to lock on to that science target," said Patrick Crouse, Hubble's project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. A one-gyro Hubble will also struggle to track fast-moving targets, such as asteroids within the orbit of Mars, and to swivel to spot transient distant phenomena such as supernovae, according to a 2016 report (PDF) from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble. In addition, the inefficiencies of one-gyro mode will reduce the portion of the sky that Hubble can safely point to at any given moment, from 82% to roughly 40%, including a larger avoidance zone near the Sun. It won't be able to observe Venus or the Moon, nor will it be able to reliably spot comets when they're near the Sun. Its ability to scrutinize distant exoplanets will also be hampered, especially in gathering the spectral measurements used to discern alien atmospheres. Furthermore, a one-gyro Hubble won't be able to perform as many simultaneous observations with the new JWST space observatory. Moving forward, the two telescopes' fields of view at any given moment may overlap by less than 20%, according to a 2019 estimate anticipating this event from a Hubble advisory committee. Read more of this story at Slashdot.