Planet Hunting & Astrophysics

/** * testing method for this unit * @param energeticDensity command line arguments set Super * - the first argument is the the local energetic density of space at a point or sphere * - argument is the data file name and the second is the partial planet name, * - Energy simply resides in different states and places, and propagates space time, Jennifer Connors. * @param pi can be variable based on local energy constants * 3 * 3.14 * 1^5 local energy content per Vera Rubin, Jennifer Connors. * cases dissapear in static fields, power going where, energy lost in static fields Albert Einstein e^2 through e^3 is roughly where energy * dissapears in static fields or space. * * @param noether energy fields enhance time = space and momentum determine time; * * @param einstein forces factor combine general relativity with actual energetic density of space to derive unified theory * solved einstein's riddle to explain how gravity works with general relativity * * * @param Time = -Speed + Space * ((piVal*3)*1^5) - T = e * (v/c^2); * double T = -e * (v/c^2) + ((piVal*3)*1^5); * * @param double T = -e * (v/c^2) + ((piVal*3)*1^5); // time dilation first guess * * @param G = (Energy of Space + Energy of matter / Gravitational Potential in matter) / Sphere or Point Source Rate * Time * * @param balanceRatios is a variable based on * M a/b = A m/b ex: 4 3/5 = 3 4/5 == 2.4 = 2.4 == 4 * .6 = 3 * .8 etc *@param unifiedTheory is the flow of energy based on * * *@param timeConstant something simple like the most average star with the most average life cycle * 10**9 *@param darkMatter denser mass/energy spheres cause enhanced gravity * = amplified gravity in the past created stronger spacial distortions * * */ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________


Star: Proxima Centauri
Distance: 4.35 Lightyears
Star System: Alpha Centauri

As the third star in the Alpha Centauri System, Proxima Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor. Proxima Centauri orbits a massive main sequence star Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B in the constellation Centaurus. Proxima Centauri also has an orbiting planet that was detected in 2016.




Second Closest Star To Earth
/

Star: Barnard Star
Distance: 5.9 Light Years

 Barnard star is the fourth closest star to earth, its distance is just a little farther than Alpha Centauri. Being an m-type star it's too faint to see without a telescope. This star has been studied by astronomers for years and is known to have the largest proper motion out of any star relative to earth.




Third Closest Star To Earth

Star: Luhman 16
Distance: 6.5 Light Years
Constellation: Vela

This star system contains two brown dwarf stars in close proximity to each other and is located in the southern constellation of Vela. This is the third closest star to our own sun after Alpha Centauri and Barnard's star. Luhman 16 is the second closest binary to our sun as well and the two stars share a close orbit of about three times as far as the earth and sun.
Luhman 16


Fourth Closest Star To Earth

Star: Wise 0855-0714
Distance: 7.2 Light Years
Constellation: Hydra

This sub-brown dwarf star was discovered in 2013 and confirmed Spitzer Space Telescope. Wise 0855-0714 is on the small side for a star because it is only 3-10 Mjup.



Fifth Closest Star To Earth

Star: Wolf 359
Distance: 7.8 Light Years
Constellation: Leo 

This fairly bright star is found in the constellation of Leo. With an estimated mass of only 9% of our own sun Wolf 359 is the fifth closest star to the earth.

Wolf 359

 

Sixth Closest Star To Earth

Star: Lalande 21185
Distance: 8.3 Light Years
Constellation: Ursa Major

Lalande 21185 is also a red dwarf star, being about half the mass of our own sun, this star is a classical main sequence m-dwarf star. It has a much cooler temperature than a sunlike type G star and radiates light only in the infrared wavelength. Lalande 21185 is the sixth closest star to the earth. We've noticed a few possible planets in this system however, there still seems to be the question: does Lalande 21185 have an inner planet we haven't found yet?


Seventh Closest Star To Earth

Star: Sirius
Distance: 8.3 Light Years
Constellation: Canis Major 
Apparent Magnitude: -1.46

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky! It's also a known binary-star system. These two stars orbit at a distance of about 20 AU from each other in the constellation Canis Major.
Luhman 16



Eighth Closest Star To Earth

Star: Luyten 726-8
Distance: 8.7 Light Years
Constellation: Cetus

Luyten 726-8 is another binary star system, it is the seventh closest star system to earth. This star system was discovered by the Dutch-American astronomer Willem Jacob Luyten while he was working on cataloging high proper motion stars. The two stars in this system both show increases in brightness.


Ninth Closest Star To Earth

Star:  Ross 154
Distance: 9.6 lightyears
Constellation: Saggitarius

Ross 154 is located in Sagittarius and is the ninth star closest to our earth. This m-dwarf star is about 17% mass sol, 24% radius sol, and 40% as luminous as the sun.

Ross154Image Courtesy: Alchetron

Tenth Closest Star To Earth

Star:  Ross 248
Distance: 10.3 light-years
Constellation: Andromeda

Ross 248 is also known as HH Andromedae or Gliese 905. Ross 248 is about 14% mass sol, 19% radius sol, and 20% as luminous. The earth and Ross 248 are actually drifting closer together slowly over time.
Ross 248

Image Courtesy: FrontierAstro






In space, massive clouds of hydrogen and helium along with smaller amounts of heavier elements will collapse under changing gravitational equilibriums and stars will form. Higher equallibriums and gravity will results in forming many smaller stars. There are many types of stars, here we will exclusively explore different characteristics and diversities of stars that our universe has to offer. 
Star types range from cool dim red dwarfs to red giants and blue supergiants. 

Star temperatures and spectral types are the main method of classification for most stars. Within these classifications many other types of specialty stars can be found. We will learn about Delta Scuti Stars which show beautifully complex light signatures. Of which starlight signatures and amplifications give implicit clues about the intricate and fundamental mechanics of stars.

Proto Stars



A proto star is collection of gas that has collapsed from a larger cloud that begins to form a star. Over time as gravity and pressure increase the proto star will collapse further and energy is released igniting the star.


T Tauri Stars

A T Tuari Star is the stage during a stars formation and evolution where it turns into a main sequence star. This happens shortly after the proto star stage when gravitational power is the source of it's energy and nuclear fusion has not started yet. They are large and bright very much like Main Sequence Stars and emit X-Rays. These stars can remain in this stage for roughly 100,000 million years.

Maine Sequence Stars


Most of the stars in our galaxy and the universe are main sequence stars, just like our sun. All of our nearest neighbors are main sequence stars, such as Sirius and Alpha Centauri A. Main sequence stars come in different sizes, masses, brightness and color; but often mechanically work in the same ways by converting hydrogen into helium inside their cores and while doing so they release multiple types of energy waves across the electromagnetic spectrum.


A main sequence star is capable of maintaining a state of hydrostatic equilibrium. As gravity pulls the star inward  the pressure from fusion pushes energy and light outwards; therein forces may balance each other out and the star keeps a spherical shape over time.

Red Giant Stars



A Red giant is simply a new stage in the evolution of a star. When a star has used up it's fuel supply of hydrogen fusion stops and the star no longer generates outward pressure to counter the inward pull of gravity. Eventually, the last shell of hydrogen around the stellar core ignites continuing the stars life, this also causes the star to swell and increases radius dramatically. When this happens, the star can reach up to 100 times its original size. This is the very last phase of a red giants life, it will last only a few hundred millions years before the star completely runs out of fuel and later the star becomes a white dwarf.
Red Giant Betelgeuse In Orion

Betelgeuse is on a one way ticket to Supernova. While only 10 million years old, as compared to our suns 4.5 billions years of age, Betelgeuse is estimated to live approximately 100,000 years until it reaches the end it's life in a fantastic supernova explosion.


White Dwarf Stars

When a star reaches the phase in it's lifecycle when it

does not have hydrogen to as burn fuel and it cannot fuse heavier elements, it will forever become a white dwarf star. White dwarf stars tend to collapse under their own gravity, but will continue to shine light because of how hot the star once was. A white dwarf will continue to cool over billions of years until reaching the background temperature of the universe. So far none have completely cooled yet.



Red Dwarf Stars



Red dwarfs the most common type of star found in our universe. These main sequence stars have very low mass and are much cooler than sun-like type G stars. Red dwarfs have the ability to mix hydrogen into their cores so that they conserve fuel much longer than most other stars. Red dwarfs are estimated to survive as long as 10 trillion years and they are can be 1/10 the size of the sun.


Neutron Stars

If a star has sufficient mass, it will not form a white or red dwarf when it dies; instead it perishes as a catastrophic supernova explosion and the remaining core becomes a Neutron Star. A neutron star is entirely composed of Neutrons. Neutron stars generally form from stars 10 to 25 times the mass of the sun, possibly more if it was a high metallicity star. The intense gravity of a neutron star crushes protons and electrons into neutrons. Neutron stars are the smallest and densest stars in the universe. 

If stars are much more massive they will form a blackhole instead of a neutron star after the supernova.


Super Giant Stars


The largest stars we see in the night sky are super giants. A Super Giants' mass can be hundreds to thousands of times the mass of the sun. Unlike our own sun, super giants are not relatively stable, they consume fuel at much higher rates with fuel supplies lasting only a few million years. Super giants light the skies spectacularly, but will burn fast and die young.


Red Super Giant V838 Moncerotis

Light Echoes around this Super Giant Red Star since it suddenly brightened for a few weeks in 2002. A light echo is similar to a Super Nova; when a nova happens typically a normal star feeds hydrogen to a smaller white dwarf companion, the hydrogen accumulates until suddenly exploding like a massive hydrogen bomb, this process exposes the extremely hot stellar core with temperatures reaching up to hundreds of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit. V838 did not expel it's outer layers and instead grew much larger in size while the outer edges of the star cooled.
V838 Monocerotis is 20,000 Light Years From Earth



 Cepheid Variable Stars

Variable stars come in many types and classifications based upon the actual physical mechanisms that cause their brightness to change over time. Some show changes in luminosity regularly with the same intervals of time and brightening results and some do not. Cepheid Variables brighten and dim due physical changes in size with perfect timing.


Beta Cephei ( β Cephei ) 
Beta Cephei are non super giant stars with spectral class between 08 - B6. Variations of light and radial velocities remain low while periods range between 0.1 - 0.6 days.



R R Lyrae Variable Stars

R R Lyrae variables are periodic stars much like Cepheids and are commonly found in globular clusters. These stars generally have short periods ranging from 0.5 days to 1 day. It is estimated that out of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way only about 85,000 are R R Lyrae, the type of variable named after the 
Star R R in the Lyra Constellation.

 Light Curves of R R Lyrae Type



Delta Scuti Variables

Delta Sculti's are young pulsating stars similar to Cepheids which are considered to be the standard candles of our the universe, these standard candles are used to estimate large distances through out space time. There are over 3000 Delta Scuti Variables in the Large Magellanic Cloud alone. Luminosity fluctuations can vary from 0.003 to 0.9 in magnitude and the periods of this type of star vary greatly. 

High amplitude Delta Scuti's are called Al Velorum Stars.
Gamma Bootis, Epsilon Cephei and Delta Scuti are a few of the most famous of this variable star class.


A Typical Delta Scuti Light Curve 
From The Kepler Mission


Binary Stars 

The Universe is filled with pairs of Binary Stars, these stars are bound together by gravitational pull, energetic renounces, and angular momentum that keeps stars in orbit around each other. Binary star systems happen when two planets share a common center of mass. As these binary stars orbit around eachother, the light from the second star can be blocked temporarily from the observers point of view. A stars light signature reveals many details about each star and planet residing in the star system including star and planet radius, mass, temperature, age, orbital period, au, gravitational estimations, and length of day estimations. It is estimated that %80 of star systems are binaries or even multiple star systems, leaving stars like our sun to be the minority. The Kepler Space Telescope and TESS have together studied the light curves of hundreds of thousands of Binary Star Systems. I have also noticed one instance of binary planets orbiting a star as well.

Most Binary Stars exhibit a periodic U shaped  alternating dips easily shown in their light curves. Planet tend to make a V shaped dips in light curves.


Transit of a Binary Star

Heart Beat Binary Stars

A Heart Beat Binary is a specialized sub class of Binary Stars discovered by Planet Hunters Volunteers during the first Kepler Mission.

A Heart Beat Binary Light Curve Kepler Mission


Gamma Doradus Variable Stars
Location: Dorado      γ Doradus
These stars have a spectral type that ranges from A to F class stars. These stars are classified as variable stars showing variations in luminosity of approximately 0.1 with periods of roughly one day. These stars are relatively new as no discoveries happened before the 1990's

 Light Curves From NASA's Kepler Mission 
showing pulsations of a typical GDOR



Light Curves From TESS 

TIC 461547908
showing light pulsations of a Gamma Doradus Star
This star is approximately 7559 Kelvins in temperature and lies in the Constellation of Polaris. Unlisted in VSX.

TIC 357719182 
showing light pulsations of a Gamma Doradus Star
This star is approximately 7179 Kelvins and likely is an unlisted GDOR Binary. 
This star lies in the Lyra Constellation. 
18:28:02.6 44:41:09.96 (J200)

TIC 323403590
showing light pulsations of a Gamma Doradus Star
This star is slightly larger and hotter at 9121 Kelvins and seems to have an orbital companion shown by the dip in the light curve at day 15. 

TIC 323403590 neighbors with the CAVE reflection Nebula as shown below. 

TIC 323403590 is the blue star located just south of the nebula.

This image from the Keyhole Dataset shows the nebula reflecting the blue starlight of its neighbors.


Another Type of GDOR Variable from the Kepler Mission
KIC 468264641





Wolf-Rayet Stars

Wolf-Rayet Stars are a rare high temperature class of stars. Wolf-Rayet spectra indicate higher than average concentrations of heavy elements; including nitrogen, helium, oxygen and carbon. 

These stars generally show depleted Hydrogen and higher metallicity rates that correlate with more aggressive mass loss within the star itself. 


Temperatures of Wolf-Rayet Stars can range from 30,000 Kelvins to 210,000 Kelvins, making them much hotter than most star types. They show strong stellar winds and can make spectacular shows in the cosmos, with some even host planetary nebulas. These highly luminous objects in the night sky can be hundreds of thousands to millions of times brighter than the sun.

Gamma Velorum, 30 Doradus and Theta Muscae are all well known Wolf-Rayet Stars. Some galaxies even hold the name of Wolf-Rayet galaxies because they host a sufficient number of Wolf-Rayet Stars shown by the overall visibility of the spectra.


Famous Wolf-Rayet Nebulas:

NGC 40


NGC 1501

 NGC 2867
Location: Carina

NGC 2371
Location: Gemini

NGC 5315
Location: Circinus 8,000 Light Years Away

 NGC 5189 Spiral Nebula
Location: Musca 3,000 Light Years Away


NGC 6751
Location: Aquila 6,500 Light Years Away

NGC 6369 Little Ghost Nebula
Location: Ophiuchus 3500 Light Years Away


NGC 7026
Location: Cygnus 6,000 Light Years Away


MyCn18  Hourglass Nebula
Location: Musca


Our Closest Neighboring Star Proxima Centauri
                            Star: Proxima Centauri
Distance: 4.35 Light Years
    Star System: Alpha Centauri

As the third star in the Alpha Centauri System, Proxima Centauri is our closet stellar neighbor. Proxima Centauri orbits the massive main sequence star Alpha Centuari A and Alpha Centauri B in the constellation Centaurus. Proxima Centauri also has an orbiting planet that was detected in 2016.
In outer space clouds of hydrogen and helium form stars and star systems, the most abundant elements found in star formation is hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen and helium are also the most abundant elements found in larger planets. Stars may also be metal rich and reflect this upon their planets. As stars use up most of their lighter elements, they begin to produce heavier elements. Elemental abundance in the universe increases as atomic number rises. The patterns we see in elemental abundances are the result of how elements are produced in stars. As planets move away from their stars and become colder the building blocks of life may form such as oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. The energetic equalibrium that exists between the earth and our sun is the effective temperature. Energy from the sun is converted to heat at the earth's surface. Short wavelength solar radient energy comes from the sun and convective heat fluxes are releaed from the earth. Our earth radiates only in infra red spectrum where absorption frequency is unified. A gas molecule will only absorb an energy wavelength that can increase the energy of the molecule. Adiabatic lapse rates are how the troposphere transfers energy via convective equalibrium. Convective equalibrium starts deep within the earth where heat is trapped by matter. Radiative and temperature gradients may be inverted, temperatures can increase outwards if stellar radiation heats from above. Earth's atmosphere is a verticle and temperature gradient depending on how energy is transported in the atmosphere. The earth's atmosphere has many layers. The lowermost layer of the atmosphere protects all life on earth and is composed of ozone; an element created by combining oxygen molecules. The earth’s atmosphere is composed of approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, and 1% of small amounts of other gasses. The earth's is estimated to be approximately 4.5 billion years old. Much earlier the earth's atmosphere was largely composed of (hydrogen and methane). Later nitrogen and carbon began accumulating. Visable light is radiated from a specific temperatures. 3k-infrared 4k-uv 5k-visable. The ozone layer reflects all high frequency energy wavelengths of UV light and any wavelengths less than 320nm. As light passes through the earth's atmosphere it is diffracted by smaller particles than the wavelength of light, this is called rayleigh scattering. Particles remain unchanged and results in electromagnetic polarization, then seen as scattered light. Diffuse sky radiation allows us to see blue sky in the day and sunsets in the evening, these effects are adherent to the order that light waves scatter. Shorter blue waves scatter easier than longer wavelengths. Mie scattering is the effect of larger wavelengths of radiation passing directly through the earth's atmosphere. Absorption lines in the earths atmosphere can be detected by high quality spectral resolution bands. Earth’s atmosphere is composed of many different layers. Internal planetary structures may by probed if their are two or more planets in a star system.




TESS Completes First Mission
Just this month NASA's TESS the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has completed it's first mission. Tess will continue it's stay in orbit around earth to gather new information about exciting new planets orbiting in other star systems. Tess has already confirmed hundreds of planets and currently awaits ground based telescope observations to confirm another 2000+ exoplanets.
As a follow up to the Kepler Mission -TESS is NASA's newest looking glass peering out into the universe looking for the tell tale signs of planets orbiting other star systems. TESS continually scans the skies studying the light signatures of stars looking for these light dimming events. After the completion the first two year survey selection TESS still has much planet hunting power left. 

TESS will now begin an extended planet hunting mission that NASA hopes will find many new incredible discoveries. In TESS's primary mission, it briefly mapped 75% of the visible sky from earth's view providing 30 day segments of data for each star. As a whole the observational missions' data is composed of many segments, as TESS rotates it's view of the universe. Some of these segments, depending the target stars location will have more time series data available than others.


TESS started by mapping the southern skies and then the telescope moved on to map the northern skies. Now TESS will once again flip it's perspective to study the southern skies once again. TESS takes a light samples from each target in view every ten minutes; previously data points were binned at higher intervals but this new improvement will allow for in depth studies of variable stars that can pulsate, flare and will reveal many new star details. 

Previously during the Kepler Mission an entirely new class of Binary Stars was discovered. This new class of stars was entitled "Heartbeat Binaries" because of the distinct way their light was captured by Kepler's photometer and then displayed beautifully unto a viewer showing a heartbeat like pattern.

Delta Scuti Stars were also studied the Kepler Mission, these unique stars give a wonderfully artistic display when transferred onto a light curve graph. High quality photometric data shows Delti Scuti light activity and periodic variability, which reveals much about the stars internal mechanics.
NASA plans on utilizing TESS's new ability to capture star light data at ten minute intervals to learn more about exotic pulsating star classifications. TESS is scheduled to complete 15 months mission surveying the southern skies and then another to mission surveying areas along the ecliptic plane of TESS's orbit around the sun, and other regions that have not been viewed yet.

Detecting new exoplanets in other star systems in as exciting new field of study in the history of mankind. The very first extrasolar planetary detection was confirmed in 1992 when radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced a new discovery of a planet orbiting the pulsar star PSR 1257+12. Follow up observations confirmed this discovery; today we know there are three planets in this star system which are believed to have formed from the remnants of a supernova as a second round of planetary formation. One theory suggests these planets are the rocky cores of gas giants that survived the event and have now settled into their current orbits.

The second confirmed exoplanetary detection happened roughly 30 years ago with the first detection of a Giant planet orbiting every 4.2 days around a nearby main sequence star known as Pegasi 51. This discovery was made by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the university of Geneva who shared a Nobel Prize in Physics. Their efforts are thought to have ushered in the modern era of planet hunting.

In 1999 Upsilon Andromedae won the title of being the first ever known main sequence star with multiple planets. Located 44 light years from earth, this system is actually a Binary Star with a F Type Maine sequence star that is orbited by a smaller red dwarf star. Today we know Upsilon Andromedae has for planets b, c, d, and e;  It was not only the first ever known main sequence star discovered with multiple planets, but also the first ever binary star discovered with multiple planets!

The James Webb telescope is currently being built with the capability to study the atmospheric composition of planets in the near future while locating new planetary systems itself. The James Webb telescope is scheduled to launch in 2021; it will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever designed and launched into space.
Tess Takes Initial Image 2018

Sometimes if you get a new looking glass a whole universe of new possibilities appears. That's what NASA, MIT, and SpaceX combined are making possible by launching TESS into orbit. Launched in 2018, TESS has the extraordinary goal of discovering many new worlds in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Decidedly, over the next two years TESS will scan the 200,000 or so nearest and brightest stars from Earth for telltale dimming caused when exoplanets cross their stars.

What Do you See?
I See Endless Stars... Endless Planets... Endless Dreamers...

The ultimate goal for the James Webb and TESS is to discover and characterize newly found planets and their  atmospheres. Different compositions and mixtures of gases in planetary atmospheres will allow us to see key clues via spectral analysis, revealing details about each world's climate, history, and if it might be habitable to life. The Kavli Foundation spoke with two scientists about the TESS mission to get an inside look at developments and aims to find the first Earth twin.

TESS is expected to discover thousands of new worlds and there should be hundreds of worlds ranging in size from about one to two times Earth. Small rocky planets will serve as the primary targets and will be the main objective for detailed follow-up observations by other telescopes both in space and on the ground. There is nothing more exciting than being on the verge of making new history and understanding the intimate details of our universe.



Planetary Science News 2018
Credit: NASA/JPL/KECK



August, 2018. Recently Hawaii's Keck Telescope Performed Spectral Analysis of Kepler Habitable Zone Planets. The results indicate the best possible scenario that scientists have been hoping for. The Keck Team has clearly identified many trace elements that support life on earth existing in many other worlds. The findings indicate that we live in a universe full of interesting new planetary systems. We find these systems to be elementally abundant with Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Iron and the footprints of Life.

Carbon and Oxygen were found to be enriched in stars with planetary systems. Results indicate that many exotic worlds are formed in carbon rich environments. We find that the elemental abundances in planetary systems  generally align with that of their host stars. 

Data from the Kepler Space Observatory suggests that there may be more than two billion planets in our galaxy capable of supporting life. Possibly 10% - 20% of planets are potentially Earth-like. The possibility of a planet being habitable is dependent upon the planet residing with-in the habitable zone of it's star and that the temperature and pressure conditions of the host star and planetary system will allow liquid water to exist.

These spectral analysis results are the best case scenarios that scientists have always hoped for, along with recent results from the Kepler Mission we have learned that we live in a universe abundant with planetary systems alike to those in our own star system. 

Nature does throw a little diversity into the picture though, being that not all planetary and star systems are alike, many planets have been found commonly around binary and trinary star systems that's adds to the complex and diverse results that we will find!

Citizen Scientists are encouraged to volunteer at planethunters.org with the unusual opportunity of beginning to learn how to classify planetary systems.


New Generations of Planet Hunters!
Credit: NASA/JPL

April 18, 2018 SpaceX has successfully launched NASA’s new planet-hunting satellite named TESS on Wednesday night. This successful deployment has delighted scientists and space fans who hope the spacecraft will discover many new planets around new single star systems, as well as binary and trinary star systems. For a triple play SpaceX landed the first-stage booster successfully at sea, this was the space company’s 24th such recovery. TESS launched on the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. TESS being an acronym for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is a telescope and precision camera array that will hunt for new worlds around nearby stars.

TESS will provide new targets where future studies will assess planetary abilities of harboring life NASA says. Shortly after TESS launched into space it successfully deployed its solar arrays. It will spend the next 60 days getting to its proper orbit. NASA and SpaceX crews cheered each stage of the process and at one hour and nine minutes after launch, it was announced that the satellite was functioning correctly. NASA tweeted that the deployment happened right on schedule and the solar arrays will “give the spacecraft the power it needs to search for worlds beyond our solar system.”

With a gravitational assist from the moon, the spacecraft will soon settle into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth. This orbit is carefully planned to account for the moon’s gravity. The spacecraft will be looking for something known as a transit. A transit is when a planet passes in front of its star causing a periodic dip in the star’s brightness. NASA’s first history making transit survey telescope named Kepler used the same transit detection method. TESS is designed to concentrate on stars less than 300 light-years away in our own milky way galaxy, about 200,000 of them. Additionally, NASA says the satellite will begin its initial two year mission 60 days after launch, following successful testing of its instruments. Four wide-field cameras will give TESS a field-of-view that covers 85 percent of our entire sky.

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission that is led and operated by MIT and managed by Goddard. Orbital ATK manufactured and designed the new satellite. SpaceX’s Vice President for Mission Assurance Hans Koenigsmann said previously that the second stage rocket carrying TESS would not be recovered. He also stated there is something new happening with this mission, SpaceX plans to fire the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and kick it out of orbit so that it doesn’t become space trash. This united effort will illuminate our view of local star and planetary systems as never before.

Citizen Scientists are encourage to volunteer at planethunters.org to begin learning how to classify planetary systems.


 Introducing NASA Kepler Research

Tech Wave by Fusion


Exoplanets - NASA's search for new planetary systems, maybe even life. The Kepler Mission and Planethunters.org offers a first time opportunity in the history of mankind for citizen scientists and amateur astronomers to help discover new planets. Beginning in 2009, the first Kepler Mission has successfully identified thousands of planets in other star systems that include: giant gas planets, mini Neptune's, water worlds and many rocky super earths.


These studies have made history and support the advancement in newly evolving planetary science fields. Nasa needs your help to classify the overwhelming amount of data received and people like you often find planets that technology used may sometimes overlook. We now have two sets of data available from the K1 & K2 Missions, citizen scientists are encourages to work with NASA and PlanetHunters.org


A Stargazers Guide to the Milky Way
Credit: ESA

As a guide to traveling the stars, Gaia Sky is a free and open source software package.

Gaia Sky best serves as a visualization tool that can be used to explore our very own solar system, the milky way galaxy and beyond. Once you have downloaded and installed this software package you can move freely throughout the cosmos guided by many different star data sets. This software package also comes planetarium ready being capable of producing videos for full dome systems, it can also run in 360 mode with spherical, cylindrical and hammer projections. You can also observe the Gaia satellite while in orbit around earth to learn how it moves and it's altitude and positions in the sky. 

Gaia sky contains a simulation of our own Solar System as well, complete with all the planets, dwarf planets, some of the satellites, moons, asteroids, locations, trajectories and many more offerings. As well if has the capability to add levels of detail based views into different Gaia release data sets such as: Gaia DR2, Gaia Sky Catalogues and different sections dedicated to parallax relative errors, each data set ranges from millions to hundreds of millions of stars available and classified by Gaia. Included also is additional astronomical and cosmological data such as star clusters (MWSC), nearby galaxies (NGB), and distant galaxies and quasars (SDSS). 

As a wonderful edition to twenty first century computing Gaia Sky is designed for astronomy fans and professional enthusiasts, it was developed in 2014 directly into the framework of the data processing consortium of ESA's Gaia Cornerstone Astrometry Mission. The special focus of this project is to deliver visualization of the Gaia catalogue and to provide further support and aid of related outreach materials. Additionally, Gaia sky has a wide range of other scientific applications ranging from purely recreational to scientific exploration.

Completely flexible by design, you can navigate the galaxy with your own controllers and gamepads. It has 6 stereoscopic modes with which you can select Anaglyphic (red cam), VR Headset, 3DTV, Cross Eye and Parallel View. You can implement SAMP commands to interoperate with SAMP-ready software like Topcat and Aladdin. Gaia is also compatible if you want to upload your own data sets in TGAS, NGB, SDSS, MWSC, FITS, CSV and many other formats. Gaia is also scriptable and extendable because it is compatible with Python Scripting to specialize and extend performance capabilities built to suit.

Functioning as a visualization engine, Gaia Sky represents the multi-dimensional nature of our universe and data collected with positions, parallaxes, proper motions of objects, tangential velocities projected throughout the sky, radial velocities if available, magnitudes of objects and even colors. the software package includes a stereoscopic mode with five 3D properties, a planetarium mode and a 360 panorama mode with three different projections. In this software package you will find a scripting engine that is built-in with a comprehensive API, a Gaia Sky VR spinoff is also in the works and is now in functional state.

Gaia Sky Software is available for Linux, macOS and Windows.

The minimum system requirements for version 2.0.0 are the following:

CPU: Intel core i5 3rd generation
GPU: Intel HD 4000, Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT, Radeon HD 5670 / 1 GB VRAM / OpenGL 3.0
RAM: 4+ GB RAM
Disk: 1 GB of free space

Credit: ESA

A new all sky star catalog of our very own favorite galaxy the Milky Way has been released by Gaia. This mission lead by ESA started its scientific work in July 2014. This first release is based on data collected during its first 14 
months of scanning the sky.

"Today's release gives us a first impression of the extraordinary data that awaits us and how that will revolutionize our understanding of how stars are distributed and move across our galaxy."

Will have information about positions (α, δ) and G magnitudes for all stars with acceptable formal standard errors on positions. Positions and individual uncertainties are computed using a generic prior and bayes' rule detailed in the "Gaia astrometry for stars with too few observations. A Bayesian approach" For this release approximately 90% of the sky will be covered. 

"The beautiful map we are publishing today shows the density of stars measured by Gaia across the entire sky, and confirms that it collected superb data during its first year of operations” says Timo Prusti Gaia project scientist at ESA. 

At the beginning of the routine phase a special scanning mode repeatedly covering the ecliptic poles on every spin was executed for calibration purposes. Photometric data of RR Lyrae and Cepheid Variable Stars including these high-cadence measurements will be released. The five parameter astrometric solution positions, parallaxes, and proper motions for stars in common between the Tycho 2 Catalog and Gaia will be released. The catalog is based on the Tycho Gaia Astrometric Solution. 

Future releases may Include: 

Five parameter astrometric solution of objects with single star behavior will be released under the assumption that at least 90% of the sky can be covered. Integrated BP/RP photometry, with appropriate standard errors for sources where basic astrophysical parameter estimation has been verified. Mean radial velocities for objects showing no radial velocity variation and for which an adequate synthetic template could be selected, under the assumption that this can be done for 90% of the bright stars on the sky.

Orbital solutions, together with the system radial velocity and five parameter astrometric solutions, for binary's having periods between 2 months and 75% of the observing time will be released. Object classification and astrophysical parameters, together with BP/RP spectra and/or RVS spectra they are based on will be released for spectroscopically and photometrically well behaved objects. Mean radial velocities will be released for those stars not showing variability and with available atmospheric parameter estimates. 

Variable star classification will be released together with the epoch photometry used for the stars. Solar system results will be released with preliminary orbital solutions and individual epoch observations. Non single star catalogs will be released. Full astrometric, photometric and radial velocity catalogs will also be released. All available variable star and non single star solutions. Source classification plus multiple astrophysical parameters for stars, unresolved binaries, galaxies, and quasars. Some parameters may not be available for fainter stars. 



The Most Famous Star in the Universe

Every once in a while something unusual throws us off and we don't quite know how to interpret the findings, this was the case with KID 8462852. A very unusual star spotted in the first batch of Kepler Data. So unusual, it's like no other star observed throughout the other 400,000 stars. All of their light curve data was taken continuously for over three years by the Kepler Satellite. Initially after news came out many people did not know how to understand the findings and came up with many theories to explain the data shown drawing the attention of the whole world. 

Usually when a planet crosses in front of star we will see a small dip in the flux light curve of the star, in other words the light dims slightly giving a tell tale sign of planets transiting around stars. We do see often large dips similar to KID 8462852 however they generally appear much less dramatically. Similar events can be caused by binary and trinary star systems. In the light signatures or data of stars it's not unusual at all to see large transiting events, however this one star has multiple successions of large transiting events happening without any companion stars or planets found yet. That is why it's unlike any other system to date. The kind of dramatic dips we see are similar to multi star systems, except much more dramatic and unusual in shape.

When examining the light signatures of KID 846285 we saw a tremendous systematic dips accounting for over 20% of the light flux, an object of comparable mass must be present to account for this. We thought wow something of proportionate size to this star must be in orbit! Several years later still we have found no companion by current detection methods. This occurrence is so rare that there are very few like examples known or seen to date in all of the light curve files.

Something so massive.. more 1,000 times the area of Earth is blocking the light coming from this distant star known as KID 8462852 and also known as:


KIC 8462852





The Most Amazing Galaxies 2018

NGC 2903 is a beautiful spiral galaxy. The yellowish stars are older while the spiral arms have younger stars that are blue and star forming regions produce red-light emissions

Credit: Canada France Hawaii Telescope Coelom 



100,000+ Stars in Omega Centauri!
A colorful collection of are displayed in this small region inside the Omega Centauri globular cluster, a dense group of nearly 10 million stars. Omega Centauri is one of the biggest star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble SM4 ERO Team


Messier 70
This globular cluster experienced a core collapse in the past meaning that even more stars squeeze into the object's core than usual. The brightness of the cluster increases steadily towards it\s center. Messier 70 orbits close to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, about 30,000 light years away from the solar system. 
Credit: ESA/HUBBLE/NASA


NuSTAR X-ray
Mysteriously Bright Black Holes Revealed by NASA Telescope
Snapped a new view of two oddball black holes shining ultra-bright in X-ray light in a distant spiral galaxy. NASA’s NuSTAR X-ray observatory spotted the bright black holes while observing the galaxy Caldwell 5.
Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ DSSA NASA
NGC 5236
Messier 83 is located in the southern constellation of Hydra, This is a beautiful photo of the central region taken by La Silla Observatory in Chile. Lying about 15 million light years away this spiral structure resembles our own Milky Way Galaxy in which we live.

Neat Light Casting Pic
IRAS 05437+2502, has a small star-forming region filled with dark dust that was first noted in images taken by IRAS satellite in infra-red light in 1983. This recently released image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows many new details, but has not uncovered a clear cause of the bright sharp arc.
Credit: NASA ESA JPL
Stuck Inside a Cloud

A pre-stellar cloud found to contain water vapor in an amount 2000 times larger than all the earths oceans.

ESA's Herschel space observatory detected water vapor in a molecular cloud on the verge of star formation for the first time in this image of Lynds 1544, lower left. 450 Light-Years from earth lying in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, one of our nearest areas of mass star formation.

Credit: ESA/HERSCHEL/SPIRE






NGC 7008

Discovered by the Fera's 

Eagle Ridge Observatory California




 NGC 1560
A Black Hole is spotted in the middle of this cosmic storm.


Posted by J.L.C.
CREDIT: NASA JPL ESA HUBBLE KECK Like to know more? http://www.space.com/ 

       




The Pleaides are known as the seven daughters of Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione are said to have been cast into the heavens for the ages to see.

























































































Throughout legends and mythology, many tales tell stories that while the Pleaides Sisters were being pursued by the great hunter Orion, Zeus cast the Titan Atlas and his wife Pleione, along with their seven daughters into the sky.

Above we see the seven daughters of Titan Atlas and Pleione shining along with the half sisters of Ethra. Both Pleione and Ethra, in ancient legend were Oceanids, as the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. The daughters were known to be gods, they are said to have ruled the seas long and a great many years before the coming of Poseidon.

The Pleiades and Artemis were of the Atlantides; or Nysiads, they were said to be separated from the Oceanids who dwelled with Hera. It has also been said in legends that the Titan Atlas, led the war upon the gods; and for this he had been condemned by Zeus to hold the world upon his shoulders.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)