astronomy – Page 4 – आवारा मुसाफिर

ESO telescope captures surprising changes in Neptune’s temperatures

April 11, 2022690 Views

An international team of astronomers have used ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track Neptune’s atmospheric temperatures over a 17-year period. They found a surprising drop in Neptune’s global temperatures followed by a dramatic warming at its south pole. “This change was unexpected,” says Michael Roman, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Leicester, UK, and lead author of the study published today in The Planetary Science Journal. “Since we have been observing Neptune during its early southern summer, we expected temperatures to be slowly growing warmer, not colder.” This composite shows thermal images of Neptune taken between 2006 and 2020. The first three images (2006, 2009, 2018) were t...

अंतरिक्ष विज्ञान

New planet detected around star closest to the Sun

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

February 12, 2022759 Views

A team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile have found evidence of another planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Solar System. This candidate planet is the third detected in the system and the lightest yet discovered orbiting this star. At just a quarter of Earth’s mass, the planet is also one of the lightest exoplanets ever found. “The discovery shows that our closest stellar neighbour seems to be packed with interesting new worlds, within reach of further study and future exploration,” explains João Faria, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Portugal and lead author of the study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Su...

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Second alien moon identified is much like the first: big and strange

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

January 13, 2022541 Views

For only the second time, astronomers have detected what appears to be a moon orbiting a planet in another solar system. Just like the first time, this one has traits suggesting that such moons may differ greatly from those populating our solar system. Data obtained by NASA's Kepler space telescope before it was retired in 2018 indicated the presence of a moon 2.6 times the diameter of Earth orbiting a Jupiter-sized gas giant about 5,700 light-years away from our solar system in the direction of the Cygnus and Lyra constellations, scientists said on Thursday. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). An artist's rendering shows a moon with a diameter roughly 2.6 times that of Earth orbiting a large gas giant planet in another sola...

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1,000-Light-Year wide bubble surrounding Earth is source of all nearby, young stars

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

January 13, 2022250 Views

The Earth sits in a 1,000-light-year-wide void surrounded by thousands of young stars — but how did those stars form? In a paper appeared in Nature on Wednesday, astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) reconstruct the evolutionary history of our galactic neighborhood, showing how a chain of events beginning 14 million years ago led to the creation of a vast bubble that’s responsible for the formation of all nearby, young stars. “This is really an origin story; for the first time we can explain how all nearby star formation began,” says astronomer and data visualization expert Catherine Zucker who completed the work during a fellowship at the CfA. The paper’s central figure, a 3D spacetime a...

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AstroSat helps spot rare UV-bright stars in a massive cosmic dinosaur in the Milky Way

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

January 22, 2021554 Views

Astronomers exploring the massive intriguing globular cluster in our Galaxy called NGC 2808 that is said to have at least five generations of stars have spotted rare hot UV-bright stars in it. These stars whose inner core is almost exposed, making them very hot, exist in the late stages of evolution of a Sun-like star. It is not clear how these stars end their lives as not many of them are detected in these fast-evolving phases, making their study crucial. A false colour image of the globular cluster NGC 2808 obtained using AstroSat/UVIT. The stars as seen using far-UV (FUV) filter are shown in blue colour, and the yellow colour is used to show the stars observed in near-UV (NUV). Motivated by the fact that old globular clusters referred to as dinosaurs of the universe present excel...

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Spectacular Geminid meteor shower will enthral skygazers tonight

UPENDRA SWAMI

December 13, 2020561 Views

In the last of this year’s celestial fireworks, a spectacular meteor shower will enthral skygazers on the night of December 13 and early hours of December 14. The Geminid meteor shower, which peaks this year on the late night of December 13, is the most intense meteor shower of the year, Director of M P Birla Planetarium in Kolkata and well-known astrophysicist Debiprasad Duari said in a statement on Saturday. It is considered to be most dazzling, active and dependable display of the fireballs in our sky. This is the one major shower that provides good activity prior to midnight as the constellation of Gemini is well placed from 22:00 onward. The Geminids are often bright and intensely colored. Due to their medium-slow velocity, persistent trains are not usually seen. These mete...

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तारों को निहारते रहें सारी रात

UPENDRA SWAMI

November 17, 20201189 Views

क्या बात है जब होटल का कमरा केवल रुकने का ठिकाना भर न रहे बल्कि रात भर तारों को निहारते रहने का भी अड्डा बन जाए। चिली में एल्की डोमोस ऐसी ही जगह है आंखों-आंखों में रातें गुजारने की बातें आपने फिल्मी गीतों में बहुत सुनी होंगी लेकिन इस बार जिस जगह हम आपको ले चल रहे हैं, वहां वाकई आपकी रातें केवल तारों को निहारते हुए ही गुजरेंगी। आखिरकार समूची दुनिया में तारों से लकदक आसमान को निहारने के लिए इससे बढ़िया जगह कोई नहीं। यहां रात वाकई तारों की सेज पर गुजरती है। हम बात कर रहे हैं दक्षिण अमेरिका में चिली के कोकिंबा क्षेत्र में स्थित एल्की घाटी की। यहीं पर है एल्की डोमोस जो दुनिया के कुल सात खगोलीय होटलों में से एक है और दक्षिणी गोलार्ध में अपनी किस्म का अकेला। इस होटल के कमरे आम कमरों जैसे नहीं बल्कि सात भूगणितीय गुंबद हैं। ये ऐसे इसलिए हैं ताकि आपको तारों भरी रात का सबसे शानदार नजारा मि...

खबरनामाघटनाएंचिली

Chile’s night sky protectors seek legal defense for the stars

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 26, 20201019 Views

On the open expanses of Chile’s high-altitude Atacama desert, bright stars pierce an ink-black firmament, a lure for stargazers looking for wonder and astronomers seeking signs of life on distant planets. Chile’s arid northern deserts have attracted massive investment in telescopes in recent years and the country is home to nearly half the world’s astronomical observatories. Parabolic antennas of the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimeter Array) project are seen at the El Llano de Chajnantor in the Atacama desert, Antofagasta, Chile in a File Photo. ESO/Babak Tafreshi (twanight.org)/Handout via REUTERS Now, under threat from light pollution coming from urban sprawl and development, Chile’s environmental defenders are starting a fight to keep the skies dark, with legal muscl...