#cosmic_phenomena

[phonemantra-blog]

The Hubble telescope captured the galaxy NGC 685, made up of more than 100 million stars, appearing to orbit in the depths of space The average galaxy NGC 685 contains at least 100 million stars. About 58 million light-years from Earth, galaxy NGC 685 appears to be orbiting in the depths of space. The Hubble Space Telescope image, the last of six released as part of Hubble's Galaxy Week, shows the galaxy with its spiral arms dotted with countless pockets of bright blue regions called star clusters. Closer to the center of the galaxy, there are also many twisted red wisps, representing bands of gas and dust where new generations of stars form over eons. [caption id="attachment_69171" align="aligncenter" width="598"] galaxy[/caption] NGC 685: a galaxy home to millions of stars surprised Hubble NASA's accompanying description of the photo of the galaxy NGC 685 says it is located in the constellation Eridanus, measures about 60,000 light-years, and may contain at least 100 million stars. In comparison, the Milky Way is estimated to consist of approximately 100 billion stars. Despite the difference in size and number of stars, both galaxies have an interesting feature: they have a central bar that crosses the cores of the galaxies. In this image of the galaxy NGC 685, this red-flecked bar can be seen stretching horizontally within a small circle of gas and dust. Its intense brilliance is due to the many stars concentrated in a relatively small area. Previous studies have shown that such bars are observed in about two-thirds of spiral galaxies. Gas and other material flows into the galactic cores through these bridges, indicating that the galaxy's "formative period" is over, astronomers say. Although little time has been devoted to studying NGC 685, studying bar galaxies like this one helps astronomers understand how galaxies evolve and whether the process is different for our galaxy.

[galactic-spectre]

I am seriously so proud of this piece! Art Fight attack for @/cosmic_phenomena (on IG) of their OC Wrath!

[phonemantra-blog]

Research shows that some Milky Way star clusters did not form within the galaxy, but appear to have been "stolen" from other galaxies According to recent research in astronomy, most large galaxies arose from the merger of small galaxies. This means that some star clusters currently in the Milky Way may have been inherited from absorbed galaxies, or even "stolen" from neighboring galaxies such as the Magellanic Clouds. The first connections between these clusters and different host galaxies were discovered in the 1990s, but recent research has become increasingly informative, allowing the percentage of clusters stolen and which clusters were "stolen" to be determined. The Milky Way is adjacent to a large number of galaxies. This includes the famous Magellanic Clouds, as well as lesser-known ones such as the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy and the Antlia 2 Dwarf Galaxy. The discovery of streams of ruptured clusters driven by tidal forces has offered a possible explanation for why many star clusters in the Milky Way are similar in age while others are relatively young. Astronomers have suggested that these young clusters formed inside dwarf galaxies. [caption id="attachment_68895" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Milky Way[/caption] Over time, more and more evidence has been collected to support this argument. In 2002, the cluster NGC 5634 was discovered to be in a stream emanating from a dwarf galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius. Its motion and poor metal content also pointed to an origin in a dwarf galaxy. Since then, astronomers have found compelling evidence that several other star clusters are associated with this stream-torn galaxy. Among them: AM 4, Arp 2, Pal 12, NGC 2419, NGC 4147, Terzan 7, Terzan 8, Whiting 1. Meanwhile, other streams of broken dwarf galaxies have been discovered, including the Helm Stream, the Gaia-Enceladus Stream, and the Sequoia Galaxy. More associations with additional star clusters followed. In addition to the galaxies currently undergoing engulfment, astronomers have also suggested that some more intact dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way could have contributed. how did star clusters from other galaxies end up in the Milky Way? In a recent series of papers, astronomers from the Iran University of Science and Technology have studied how various neighboring galaxies of the Milky Way can exchange clusters. In their first work, they built models of dwarf galaxies with star clusters in different orbits around the Milky Way to study how easily their clusters could separate from their host galaxy. They found that the percentage of such clusters varied from 12% to 93%. Clusters were most often "stolen" if they had elliptical orbits that reached the outskirts of their parent galaxies. However, more massive galaxies were better able to hold together their clusters. Based on this range, the paper suggested that at least two clusters could have been stolen from the Fornax galaxy, four from the Large Magellanic Clouds, two from the Small Magellanic Clouds, and fourteen from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. In the second paper, the researchers took a different approach and studied the orbital characteristics of 154 globular star clusters and compared them with the characteristics of 41 dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way and other tidally disrupted systems. They identified 14 clusters associated with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. However, their results disagree with other studies regarding exactly what kind of clusters these are. Five clusters previously associated with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, according to the authors, did not have sufficiently similar parameters to be considered “stolen.” However, they identified four new globular clusters not previously associated with the galaxy as having a high probability of originating in another galaxy, and six others with a lower probability. The study also found six clusters that likely formed in the Large Magellanic Cloud. As a result, their review notes that 29 of the known star clusters have properties similar enough to the dwarf galaxies considered to trace their connection. The authors acknowledge that their models are somewhat oversimplified because they do not fully account for the three-dimensional structure of dwarf galaxies. Thus, they leave it open for future research, which will include further study of the newly identified star clusters. These studies provide more evidence that the Milky Way's star clusters are not its population. They are a combination of clusters from other galaxies and clusters formed within satellite galaxies.

[phonemantra-blog]

Power 2 GW Shortly before the start of the COP28 event, the United Arab Emirates launched the 2GW Al Dhafra Solar PV solar power plant, which became the world's largest single-site solar farm. [caption id="attachment_83409" align="aligncenter" width="780"] space[/caption] The world's largest solar power plant located in a single space was launched in the UAE The facility is located 35 km from Abu Dhabi and consists of almost 4 million double-sided solar panels. As a result, the station is capable of generating up to 2 GW of power. Thanks to this, the total solar energy capacity in the UAE has now increased to 3.2 GW. Overall, the country wants to increase the capacity of all its renewable energy power plants to 14 GW by 2030. The station was created jointly by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, France's EDF Renewables and China's JinkoPower. The companies say the energy generated will be enough to power 200,000 households.

[phonemantra-blog]

Commissioning will take place in 2026 The warning system for dangerous situations in near-Earth space (ASPOS OKP) should be improved by the end of 2025, and the commissioning of the updated system should take place in 2026, as announced by Roscosmos. “The creation of the third stage of ASPOS OKP should be completed in 2025 with two stages of testing - preliminary and interdepartmental. If they are successfully carried out and the specified requirements for the system are confirmed, a decision will be made to put the modernized ASPOS OKP into operation from the beginning of 2026,” noted the press service of Roscosmos. The complexity of the situation in space is steadily and rapidly increasing, so Roscosmos does not stop working on the development of ASPOS OKP. The warning system for dangerous situations in space will be improved [caption id="attachment_71538" align="aligncenter" width="780"] space[/caption] “The basis of the ASPOS OKP will be the modernized main information and analytical center, which concentrates intelligent systems for processing information about space objects, as well as various optical-electronic means of monitoring OKP located in different parts of our large country and beyond.” ASPOS OKP has been operating since 2016 and includes ground observation points, and a data collection and processing complex. The Russian Federation plans to create an updated automated warning system for dangerous situations in near-Earth space, which will be called the “Milky Way”. It will include 65 telescopes, as well as a space segment.

[phonemantra-blog]

Perhaps astronomers have finally figured out the reason for the Milky Way's misalignment. It turns out that this is due to the halo of dark matter surrounding our galaxy Previously, we imagined our galaxy as a flat disk. However, when studying the shape of the Milky Way in more detail, scientists discovered that its disk was distorted. These features have long remained a mystery, but now astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution have conducted calculations that indicate that the dark matter halo surrounding the Milky Way may be “curved,” causing the edge to widen and the shape of the galaxy to bend. [caption id="attachment_70302" align="aligncenter" width="780"] dark side of the galaxy[/caption] Studying dark matter is challenging for scientists because it doesn't interact with light, making it "invisible." However, this substance makes up about 85% of all matter in the Universe, while ordinary matter makes up only about 15%. The only way to establish the presence of dark matter is its effect on gravity and its interaction with ordinary matter and light. Thus, it was discovered that galaxies rotate so quickly that in some cases the gravitational influence of the visible matter inside them would not be enough to prevent them from flying apart - dark matter is the “gravitational glue” that holds galaxies together. The “dark side of the galaxy” has skewed the Milky Way Thus, the researchers hypothesize that most, if not all, galaxies are wrapped in dark matter halos. In the case of the Milky Way, a halo of dark matter is thought to extend beyond the halo of stars surrounding its disk and core. Last year, the same Harvard team performed calculations that showed that the Milky Way's stellar halo has an elliptical shape, tilted relative to the galaxy's disk. Then scientists assumed that the shape of this dark matter halo would be similar to a stellar halo, but noticeably larger. Now the team has taken the study further, using computer models to calculate how the orbits of stars relate to the tilted halo of dark matter. The simulation showed an almost perfect match to the galaxy, its extended edge and distorted shape. “The tilted dark halo appears quite often in simulations, but no one has examined its effect on the Milky Way,” said Charlie Conroy, team member and professor of astronomy. The results of the study also support the assumption that the Milky Way “grew” as a result of collisions with other galaxies. “The tilted halo indicates that our galaxy experienced a collision and merger with another galaxy,” said Chiwon Jesse Han, leader of the study team. Calculating the shape of the dark matter halo around the Milky Way could reveal not only the history of the evolution of our galaxy but also help us understand the nature of dark matter and reveal some of the properties of the particles that make it up. The findings could also help astronomers study free-floating “blobs” of dark matter that drift between galaxies.

[phonemantra-blog]

Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that already had a high concentration of metals a billion years after the Big Bang. Early galaxies contain mostly hydrogen and helium, but this distant galaxy is anomalously rich in metals The universe is becoming more metallic over time: in its younger days, it was composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. But recently, researchers discovered a galaxy that was well ahead of this trend and, a billion years after the Big Bang, had accumulated a high content of metals. Almost all atoms heavier than helium originate in stars, the “forges of the cosmos,” which transform primordial materials into the many different elements we see today. These "forges" process the finite amount of hydrogen and helium in the Universe. As a result, the total supply of hydrogen decreases over time, while the proportion of heavier elements (which astronomers call "metals" regardless of their actual metallic properties) increases. When astronomers look back and observe the early stages of the universe, they expect to see mostly pure hydrogen and helium. [caption id="attachment_68900" align="aligncenter" width="780"] galaxy[/caption] This prediction is generally supported by observations, and when looking at galaxies created in the first 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, researchers most often observe clouds of gas that contain almost no metals. However, a collaboration led by Jianhao Huyang of the University of South Carolina recently discovered a contradiction to this convention: their observations of a hazy galaxy created a billion years ago showed a metal fraction higher than predicted for such a young source by more than two orders of magnitude. Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that set the trend for a high proportion of metals before anyone else Huyang and his colleagues made this discovery by observing a distant quasar called SDSS J002526.84-014532.5, which has a redshift of 5.07. Between the Earth and this source, there is a galaxy with a redshift of 4.74. As light from a quasar passes through the diffuse gas of a galaxy on its way to our telescopes, certain wavelengths of radiation are preferentially absorbed by the molecules and atoms they encounter along the way. By measuring the relative amount of this absorption, the researchers were able to determine which elements were trying to block the path of light and how dense they were. They discovered that the galaxy contains significant amounts of carbon, oxygen, magnesium, and other heavy elements. Just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang, this galaxy already had a greater relative amount of carbon and oxygen than our own Sun, which was born many billions of years later. Models of early galaxy formation predict a significantly lower proportion of metals, even taking into account the large uncertainties of described but not yet seen first-generation stars. Like many unexpected discoveries, the authors of the present study cannot yet explain what could lead to such a significant content of heavy elements. They acknowledge that this may be because looking at this particular direction may have passed through a patch of "developed" gas, and the galaxy as a whole may be as metal-poor as expected. However, in this case, they will not be able to explain how the light passed through such a small area with exactly the composition data obtained. It may be time to reconsider models of the chemical evolution of early galaxies, or there may be something special about this particular galaxy that remains hidden.

[phonemantra-blog]

Galactic archeology reveals the dramatic history of Andromeda. The formation of the galaxy was more intense than that of the Milky Way, with several periods of intense star formation caused by galactic collisions A study led by scientists from the University of Hertfordshire has revealed the dramatic history of Andromeda, our closest neighboring galaxy. An international team of astrophysicists has determined details of the galaxy's history through galactic archaeology, an approach that studies the chemical composition of stars and the development of their host galaxy to reconstruct its past. Scientists examined the elemental composition of Andromeda, and the gas and dust content of planetary nebulae formed from the discarded outer layers of dying low-mass stars. [caption id="attachment_68817" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Milky Way[/caption] The analysis showed that the formation of Andromeda was more dramatic and powerful than the formation of our Galaxy. After the intense burst of star formation at the time of the galaxy's creation between 2 and 4.5 billion years ago, another burst occurred, most likely caused by the so-called "wet merger" - the merger of two gas-rich galaxies that provokes intense star formation. Andromeda's history turns out to be more dramatic than that of the Milky Way Scientists, based on the position and movement of individual stars within the galaxy, have long assumed that Andromeda was formed by the merger of two galaxies. Professor Kobayashi's research sheds light on the nature and consequences of such a merger using the chemical composition of stars and explains how stars and elements formed throughout Andromeda's history. [caption id="attachment_68818" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Milky Way[/caption] Professor of Astrophysics Kobayashi, from the Center for Astrophysics Research at the University of Hertfordshire, said: “This is a fantastic example of how galactic archeology can provide new insights into the history of the universe. By analyzing the chemical enrichment of different generations of stars in Andromeda, we can bring its history to life and better understand its origins." Professor Kobayashi's theoretical model predicts two different compositions of stars in the two components of Andromeda's disk. One composition contains ten times more oxygen than iron, and the other contains approximately equal amounts of oxygen and iron. These simulations are supported by spectroscopic observations of planetary nebulae and observations of red giants by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The new study continues Professor Kobayashi's work on the origin of elements in the Universe. As he explains: “Oxygen is one of the so-called alpha elements created by massive stars. Other alpha elements include neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, argon, and calcium. Oxygen and argon have been measured using observations of planetary nebulae, but Andromeda is so distant that measuring other elements, including iron, will require JWST." In the coming years, JWST and large ground-based telescopes will continue to observe Andromeda, confirming new results.

[phonemantra-blog]

Astronomers are proposing to change the names of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, satellites of our galaxy, due to the controversy surrounding them, to recognize the contribution of the indigenous communities that observed these “clouds” long before Ferdinand Magellan The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are two astronomical objects named after Fernando Magellan, the Portuguese explorer whose crew was the first to circumnavigate the world. Magellan and his crew carried out an incredible journey and exploration, but they were also slave owners and killed indigenous people in Argentina, Guam, and the Philippines during their expeditions.  For these reasons, astronomers are asking why these two celestial objects should be named after a colonizer, slave trader, and murderer, especially since there is precedent for renaming space objects after the name has become unethical. [caption id="attachment_68117" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Astronomers[/caption] “Renaming is not a new trend in astronomy. In 2018, the International Astronomical Union renamed Hubble's Law to the Hubble-Lemaitre Law to recognize the scientific contributions of Georges Lemaitre. Renaming the LMC and MMC would also acknowledge the contributions of the indigenous communities that identified and observed them long before Magellan,” said Professor Mia de los Reyes of Amherst College, who was the first to propose changing the name of the Magellanic Clouds. Astronomers propose renaming the Magellanic Clouds to reflect indigenous history and culture Magellan was not an astronomer and was not the first to see or describe these "clouds". People in the Southern Hemisphere have observed them for tens of thousands of years, given their names, and the stories associated with them predate the records of the Magellanic Secretary. Magellan's descriptions were not even the first to reach Europe. Italian and Arab sailors reported them at least a decade before Magellan's expedition. The original name of Arrokoth, the most distant object visited by the spacecraft, was originally Ultima Thule, the name of a distant fictional land on old maps. But this name was associated with the Third Reich and was renamed. In 2020, the International Astronomical Union and NASA decided to abandon nicknames for celestial bodies associated with colonialism, racism, and other forms of discrimination. The organizations have called for scientific designations for several objects with offensive nicknames - such as the nebula NGC 2392, which was nicknamed by the colonial term "Eskimo". A group of astronomers calling for the LMC and IMC to be renamed argues that asking for neutral scientific names should not be controversial. A petition was recently created to rename the JWST telescope due to James Webb's name's ties to the US government's massacres of LGBT civilian employees in the 1950s and 1960s when James Webb was NASA administrator. This petition led to an investigation, but in this case, however, despite sports and controversies in the astronomical community, it was decided to leave the name unchanged. “Almost all the astronomers we spoke to supported the renaming; most of the opposition we received was from a small number of members of the vocal public. I received letters telling me to return to scientific research,” said Mia de los Reyes.

[phonemantra-blog]

Although this discovery solves the mystery of the strange behavior of just one star - J1023, astronomers will continue to study it PSR J1023 is a special type of pulsar with strange behavior. It is located approximately 4,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sextant and orbits another star. For a long time, the pulsar actively pulled matter from its satellite, which accumulated in the disk around the pulsar and slowly approached it. Since this process of accumulation of matter began, the pulsar began to switch between the two modes. In "high" mode it emits X-rays, ultraviolet and visible light, while in "low" mode it is less bright at these frequencies and emits more radio waves. The pulsar can stay in each mode for a few seconds or minutes and then switch. These switchings have puzzled astronomers. [caption id="attachment_51015" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Astronomers[/caption] Astronomers used 12 telescopes to study 1 pulsar “Our work was aimed at understanding the behavior of this pulsar. We used more than ten ground-based and space-based telescopes,” says Francesco Coti Zelati, co-author of the paper. Over two nights of the year, the telescopes observed the system making more than 280 switches between high and low modes. “We found that the mode switching is due to a complex interaction between a stream of high-energy particles flying away from the pulsar and matter moving towards the pulsar,” says Koti Zelati. In the low-brightness mode, matter moving towards the pulsar is ejected in a narrow stream perpendicular to the disk. Gradually, this matter is getting closer to the pulsar, and, as it approaches, it falls under the influence of radiation from the pulsating star, heating up at the same time. The system is in high brightness mode and glows brightly in x-ray, ultraviolet and visible light. And when the amount of heated matter in the disk decreases, the star returns to a low-brightness mode.