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NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has been busy. Clocking in over 5000 exoplanet candidates‚ the researchers who manage the telescope’s data have enlisted an army of volunteer classifiers to sift through its data to confirm whether these planets exist. In a new paper in Astronomy &; Astrophysics‚ some researchers from Brazil think they have found three planets that almost certainly do – and they happen to orbit stars that are very similar to our own Sun. The planets were located in two separate star systems‚ known as TOI-2141 and TOI-1736‚ respectively. TOI-2141 is located about 250 light years away; while it is slightly older than our Sun‚ it’s almost exactly the same size. TOI-173 is 290 lightyears away and about the same age and temperature as our Sun. However‚ it is slightly larger and has more heavy elements‚ which could significantly impact the formation of planets. It’s also a binary star system‚ which we will get into later. There are several categories that exoplanets are slotted into. The planetary candidates in TOI-2141 and TOI-1736 fall into two distinct ones – “Super-Jupiters” and “mini-Neptunes‚” since many of the categories use planets in our home system as a basis.  Fraser discusses TESS’s mission and what was discovered during it – though new discoveries are still happening from its data all the time. TOI-2141 contains only one planet – a mini-Neptune named TOI-2141b. Its surface temperature is 450 degrees Celsius‚ and its orbital period of a little more than 18 days means it’s likely tidally locked to its parent star. It’s about three times Earth’s surface diameter‚ weighs in at a whopping 24 times our planet’s mass‚ and appears to have a rocky core with an atmosphere potentially filled with gaseous water. It also seems to be the only planet in the system‚ at least as far as we can tell‚ with the limited observational time devoted to it. TOI-1736 is a much more chaotic system. The researchers found two planets in the system‚ around the larger of the two stars in the binary pair. Both planets were found to be close enough to their host star that interaction from its binary companion was minimal‚ which‚ if it wasn’t‚ could massively complicate the planet’s orbits.  One planet‚ known as TOI-1736b‚ is also classified as a mini-Neptune‚ with a diameter two and a half times that of Earth and a mass about 13 times as large. It’s closer to its parent star than TOI-2141b‚ orbiting every 7.1 days. That also means it’s hotter‚ with an expected surface temperature of up to 800 degrees Celsius.  TESS has captured the imagination of many a planet-hunter. Its neighboring planet‚ TOI-1736c‚ is absolutely massive. A “super-Jupiter” is nine times larger than Jupiter itself‚ making it large enough to have almost become a star in its own right. However‚ it didn’t and ended up in the habitable zone of TOI-1736. While the planet is a gas giant and doesn’t have any solid surface to stand on‚ it presumably has a series of moons‚ much like Jupiter. One of those could potentially sport liquid water on its surface. There’s also a third potential planet in the TOI-1736 system‚ but observations with TESS and a 1.93m telescope at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence didn’t last long enough to be able to confirm it. More data is needed‚ especially in exoplanet hunting‚ as with most science-related things. There will undoubtedly be plenty more coming from both TESS and other sources shortly. Learn More:LNA – Discovery of Two Planetary Systems Around Sun-like StarsE. Martioli et al. – TOI-1736 and TOI-2141: Two systems including sub-Neptunes around solar analogs revealed by TESS and SOPHIEUT – TESS Finds a Super-Earth and two Mini-Neptunes in a Single SystemUT – The Most Common Exoplanets Might be “Mini-Neptunes” Lead Image:Artistic representation of the TOI-1736 planetary system‚ with out-of-scale depictions of the planets TOI-1736c (on the left) and TOI-1736b (in the center). Image credit: Leandro de Almeida. The post Astronomers Find Two Planetary Systems Around Sun-Like Stars appeared first on Universe Today.

The Universe’s very first stars had an important job. They formed from the primordial elements created by the Big Bang‚ so they contained no metals. It was up to them to synthesize the first metals and spread them out into the nearby Universe. The JWST has made some progress in finding the Universe’s earliest galaxies. Can it have the same success when searching for the first stars? Finding the Universe’s first galaxies is an extremely difficult task and one of the main motivations behind building the JWST. Light from these ancient objects is red-shifted into the infrared‚ which the JWST excels at sensing. By performing deep-field observations in the infrared‚ the space telescope has located some of the earliest galaxies. The JWST has the power to see the most ancient galaxies in the Universe‚ as shown in this image of its first deep field. Image Credit: NASA‚ ESA‚ CSA‚ and STScI But the first stars are more ancient than the first galaxies. The first stars formed roughly 50 to 100 million years after the Big Bang‚ and their light brought an eventual end to the Universe’s Dark Ages. Astrophysicists think that these stars were extremely large‚ with up to 1000 solar masses. The new study is titled “The detection and characterization of highly magnified stars with JWST:Prospects of finding Population III.” It’ll be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The lead author is Erik Zackrisson from the Department of Physics and Astronomy‚ Uppsala University‚ Sweden. “Due to the lack of efficient coolants and fragmentation in the chemically unenriched gas at these early epochs‚ the resulting metal-free (a.k.a. Population III) stars are believed to be characterized by extremely high masses (characteristic masses ~ 10 – 1000 solar masses)‚” the authors write. To see these early‚ massive stars‚ the JWST will need some help from gravitational lensing. “Gravitational lensing may render individual high-mass stars detectable out to cosmological distances‚ and several extremely magnified stars have in recent years been detected out to redshifts z ~ 6‚” the authors explain. At z ~ 6‚ the light has taken over 12.7 billion light-years to reach us. Gravitational lensing takes advantage of situations where a massive foreground object‚ like a galaxy cluster‚ is between us and an object we want to observe. As the light from the target passes by the foreground object—called a gravitational lens—the light is magnified. That makes the otherwise invisible object visible. This illustration shows a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing‚ which is used by astronomers to study very distant and very faint objects. Note that the scale has been greatly exaggerated in this diagram. In reality‚ the distant galaxy is much further away and much smaller. Image Credit: NASA‚ ESA &; L. Calcada The first stars are at about z=20 in terms of redshift‚ and the JWST should be able to see that light if it can make use of gravitational lensing. If it can‚ then the powerful telescope will start to give us observational evidence for a period of time in the early Universe that so far we understand mostly through theory: the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). During the EoR‚ the Universe was dominated by a dense‚ obscuring fog of hydrogen gas. When the first stars formed‚ their ultraviolet light reionized the gas‚ allowing light to travel. This is a critical step in the life of the Universe‚ so finding some of the ancient Pop III stars that were responsible is an important goal. These first stars are compelling in other ways‚ too‚ and they shaped our Universe. They were massive‚ millions of times brighter than the Sun‚ and lived for a short time compared to a star like our Sun. They either exploded as supernovae or collapsed into black holes. The ones that became black holes swallowed gas and other stars and became the Universe’s first quasars. Astrophysicists think that these quasars grew through accretion and mergers to become the supermassive black holes that anchor the centers of galaxies like our Milky Way. Artist’s impression of an active supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the early universe. The Universe’s early Pop III stars are likely the progenitors of SMBHs. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva The ones that exploded as supernovae also played an important role. They forged the elements heavier than hydrogen and helium‚ then spread those metals back out into space when they exploded. The stars that came later contained some of these metals‚ and the metals also formed rocky bodies. Prior to Population III supernovae‚ there were no rocky planets and certainly no possibility of life. So these massive‚ ancient stars‚ whether they ended as supernovae or black holes‚ helped set the stage for the Universe we see around us today. If the JWST is successful‚ there won’t be any pretty pictures of these stellar ancestors. Instead‚ there will be data. Untangling that data and determining if there are Pop III stars in it is a complex task. This effort pushes the space telescope and the scientists working with it to their limits. This artist’s illustration shows several Population III stars‚ which are all far more massive and far more bright than our Sun. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team For one thing‚ it’s difficult to determine metal-enriched stars from metal-poor Pop III stars spectroscopically. One reason is that most of these massive stars are likely in binary pairs‚ and that complicates the light signal. Another reason is that if the stars are still relatively young‚ they can be surrounded by nebulous hydrogen‚ and that also makes the light signals difficult to interpret. If the JWST can find some of these stars‚ then the ground-breaking telescope—already an astounding success—is even more successful. It‚ and the people that operate it‚ are methodically ticking off the boxes on its list of scientific objectives. The post Can Webb Find the First Stars in the Universe? appeared first on Universe Today.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket successfully launched and landed today at the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas‚ with an uncrewed science and goodwill payload onboard. This was the 24th New Shepard flight and 13th payload mission today from Launch Site One in West Texas. This marked the first flight since September of 2022 when the uncrewed NS-23’s booster suffered an in-flight anomaly; however‚ the escape system jettisoned the capsule‚ which was able to land safely. With the success of NS-24‚ Blue Origin hopes to soon restart its commercial passenger flights. “We look forward to flying our next crewed flight soon‚” said Erika Wagner‚ senior director of emerging market development for Blue Origin‚ at the end of the launch broadcast. Watch the liftoff and landing below. Liftoff occurred at 10:43 Central Time‚ with the capsule reaching about 106 km (66 miles) at its highest point.  The 33 science experiments on board experienced about three minutes of microgravity before the capsule safely touched down under three parachutes — with a retrorocket to cushion the landing — approximately 10 minutes after launch. Returning to ?. #NS24 pic.twitter.com/kebApFAl8K— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) December 19‚ 2023 The rocket booster touched down vertically about seven minutes after launch‚ on a landing pad 3.2km north of the launch pad. The first launch attempt for the mission was scrubbed on Monday due to a ground system issue. But today’s countdown and launch went smoothly. Booster touchdown. #NS24 pic.twitter.com/Z4keYXzlby— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) December 19‚ 2023 The payloads on board included research from NASA‚ academia‚ research institutions‚ and commercial companies‚ as well as student experiments from classrooms in Maine‚ New Mexico‚ and Kansas. New Origin said New Shepard has now flown more than 150 payloads to space. Also on board were about 38‚000 postcards as part the company’s Postcards to Space program. Each postcard will be returned to its creator stamped “Flown to Space.” To send a postcard on future mission‚ see the company’s Club for the Future website. “A special thank you to all of our customers who flew important science today and the students who contributed postcards to advance our future of living and working in space for the benefit of Earth‚” said Phil Joyce‚ Senior Vice President‚ New Shepard‚ in a press release. “Demand for New Shepard flights continues to grow and we’re looking forward to increasing our flight cadence in 2024.” When will New Glenn fly? Meanwhile‚ Blue Origin is hoping to finally deliver on their next big project‚ the massive New Glenn rocket which will be capable of bringing satellites and other large payloads to orbit and beyond. But the rocket is years behind schedule. Initially‚ Jeff Bezos said that New Glenn would be ready to launch by 2020‚ but the latest estimate is that the first launch is expected to take place no earlier than August 2024. NASA and Blue Origin announced in February 2023 that the first launch of New Glenn will carry NASA’s EscaPADE spacecraft to Mars. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission is a small planetary science mission that will use two spacecraft to measure plasma and magnetic fields around the Mars. With simultaneous observations from two locations in orbit‚ scientists hope to learn more about the processes that strip away atoms from the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere on the Red Planet. In rocketry‚ size definitely matters. Image: Blue Origin New Glenn will reach a towering height of 95 meters (313 ft) which will dwarf any other commercially available vehicle. And it will be capable of delivering 45 metric tons‚ almost 100‚000 pounds‚ into space. But if New Glenn can’t get off the ground by late 2024‚ it will miss the launch Mars launch window‚ and the mission will have to be delayed until 2026. Mars launch windows typically come every 26 months. ESCAPADE was originally scheduled to launch as a secondary payload NASA’s Psyche mission which blasted off on a Falcon Heavy rocket in October‚ but NASA removed ESCAPADE from the launch because it would not provide the mission with the proper trajectory. The post Blue Origin’s New Shepard Completes 24th Flight; New Glenn Hopefully on the Horizon appeared first on Universe Today.

The most elusive particle in physics.

There may be a lot of unknown singers or guitarists lurking in your record collection. Continue reading…