Space

A Neptunian planet named NGTS-4b has been found in what should be a 'Neptunian Desert' using the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) observing facility, designed to search for transiting planets on bright stars. NGTS-4b is so small other ground surveys wouldn't have spotted it. But small is relative. Though NGTS-4b is 20% smaller than Neptune, that is about 3 times the size of Earth, and 20 times our Earth in mass. It has been nicknamed the 'Forbidden' planet by researchers and is hotter than Mercury at 1,000 degrees Celsius. It orbits around the star in only 1.3 days - the equivalent…

A quark star is a hypothesized type of object more dense than a Neutron star but not dense enough to form a black hole. Long ago theorized, could such an object be observed via, and even made possibly through, gravitational waves? This is not a likely outcome since the conditions it would take to create such an object would be very rare however it is just barely possible. Read on and consider with me what well established theories and laws of physics say about what the LIGO collaboration reportedly observed. Theories posited by Steven W Hawking and Jacob Bekenstein in particular regarding…

Gravitational wave astronomy in space, that is the goal of the LISA Collaboration.  LISA stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.  This collaboration is having a very early meeting in Florida and at that meeting there will be certain public talks broadcast on YouTube.  I will embed those here. With perhaps a translation for the perplexed later.   If you find gravitational wave astronomy i.e. as done by the LIGO collaboration interesting, then you will love what LISA will do.  The Gravitational Wave Astronomical Revolution Presented by Public Talk by…

First, this is totally harmless. Tiny and far away, shrouded with dust and gas. They can only see it using radio waves that go through the dust. And the photo of course changes nothing, we've know it is there for a long time away. This is a screenshot from the press conference: And over four separate days: Short summary here Click to watch on YouTube A good summary: Click to watch on YouTube The EU version of the press conference is here: Click to watch on YouTube This is another article I did to support people we help in the Facebook Doomsday Debunked group, that find us because they get…

Published in 1979 in Astronomy and Astrophysics, it had a worldwide impact, especially since this type of object was still highly theoretical. It was not an artist's view but an image based on the then supposed physical properties of a black hole and its gas disc, such as its rotation rate and temperature, and on Einstein's general theory of relativity.  Luminet envisioned it as a black circle, which had not yet become known as the shadow of the black hole, in the center of a luminous accretion disc, with one side clearly brighter than the other. This is because there are two…

An international team of over 200 scientists has captured the first direct images of a black hole. They accomplished this remarkable feat by coordinating the power of eight major radio observatories on four continents, to work together as a virtual, Earth-sized telescope. In a series of papers published today in a special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, the team has revealed four images of the supermassive black hole at the heart of Messier 87, or M87, a galaxy within the Virgo galaxy cluster, 55 million light years from Earth. All four images show a central dark region…

The Image presented at a press conference today by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration is the result of collaboration between numerous scientists around the world lead by EHT director Shep Doeleman.  They were able to do this using the technique known as very long baseline interferometry (VLBI).   This technique creates an instrument with the highest possible angular resolution ( smallest angle of separation between objects where we can distinguish the features). Using this technique astronomers were able to see the details of an object light years away.  First they…

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow. The EHT links telescopes around the globe to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. The EHT is the result of years of international collaboration and offers scientists a…

Media hyped black hole images will show a whole lot of nothing.  Look at the simulations put out by the research team showing what they expect to find, nothing, at least at the location of the black hole.   Which is just fine.  A black hole is a region of space time from which light cannot escape.  The escape velocity for their gravitational field exceeds the speed of light.  In relativistic terms their effect on space time is such that falling towards the center of the black hole is as inevitable as the flow of time in the forward direction. As such the base…

The Israeli private non-profit backed Beresheet mission illustrates the change occurred in space exploration in the second half of the 20-teens.  So far in 2019 Space X announced private plans for a lunar flyby mission, China has landed a rover on the moon, Israel has sent a mission to the moon on a SpaceX rocket, Canada wants to join in on the new lunar program of the United States of America.   The last entity proposing a lunar mission on that list is not in the lead.  Lunar exploration has gone from an activity done only by the largest most powerful nations to an…