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Showing posts from July, 2021

She Changed Astronomy Forever. He Won the Nobel Prize For It.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/opinion/pulsars-jocelyn-bell-burnell-astronomy.html Source: By Ben Proudfoot, The New York Times.  Excerpt: [see video] In 1967, [Jocelyn] Burnell made a discovery that altered our perception of the universe. As a Ph.D. student at Cambridge University assisting the astronomer Anthony Hewish, she discovered pulsars —  compact, spinning celestial objects  that give off beams of radiation, like cosmic lighthouses. 

Exoplanet Articles in Eos/AGU

Unveiling the Next Exoplanet Act , by  Heather Goss .  Excerpt: ...our  August issue is all about exoplanets —what we know and what awaits us over the launch horizon. Who gets the first peek through James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)? In March, the proposals selected for the first observing cycle were announced. Meet the slate of scientists who will be pointing the telescope at other worlds, and read what they hope to learn in “ Overture to Exoplanets ." ...In “ The Forecast for Exoplanets Is Cloudy but Bright ,” we learn the immense challenge posed by exoplanet atmospheres, when researchers are still struggling to understand the complex dynamics of clouds on our own planet. ...And in “ Exoplanets in the Shadows ,” we look at the rogues, the extremes, and a new field being coined as necroplanetology. See also  Oddballs of the Exoplanet Realm . 

‘Hubble is back!’ Famed space telescope has new lease on life after computer swap appears to fix glitch

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/hubble-back-famed-space-telescope-has-new-lease-life-after-computer-swap-appears-fix Source: By  Daniel Clery .  Excerpt: The iconic but elderly Hubble Space Telescope appears to have been resurrected again after a shutdown of more than a month following a computer glitch. Science has learned that following a switch from the operating payload control computer to a backup device over the past 24 hours, Hubble’s operators have re-established communications with all the telescope’s instruments and plan to return them to normal operations today.... 

Exploding stars may have assaulted ancient Earth

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/exploding-stars-may-have-assaulted-ancient-earth Source: By  Daniel Clery , Since Magazine.  Excerpt: ...Over the past 2 decades, researchers have found hundreds of radioactive atoms, trapped in seafloor minerals, that came from an ancient explosion marking the death of a nearby star. Its fusion fuel exhausted, the star had collapsed, generating a shock wave that blasted away its outer layers in an expanding ball of gas and dust so hot that it briefly glowed as bright as a galaxy—and ultimately showered Earth with those telltale atoms. Erupting from hundreds of light-years away, the flash of x-rays and gamma rays probably did no harm on Earth. But the expanding fireball also accelerated cosmic rays—mostly nuclei of hydrogen and helium—to close to the speed of light. These projectiles arrived stealthily, decades later, ramping up into an invisible fusillade that could have lasted for thousands of years and might have affected the atmosphere—and li