Rainbow over Bavaria

Image via Matt Aust – startrails.

Matt Aust captured this rainbow while he was hiking the Kranzhorn Mountain in Germany’s Bavarian Alps on October 9, 2019. He said:

The weather changed every few minutes this day, starting with thick fog, rain, clouds and nothing to see at all. Finally it cleared, and within seconds, I was able to see all the valleys, river and tiny-looking houses from above.

Taking the photo of that rainbow was pure luck. I was on my way back when it was revealed. Grabbed my camera quickly, and as soon as I had taken the photos, it disappeared. It was just a really spectacular sight.

Thank you for sharing your image with us Matt!

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2IZl5b2

Image via Matt Aust – startrails.

Matt Aust captured this rainbow while he was hiking the Kranzhorn Mountain in Germany’s Bavarian Alps on October 9, 2019. He said:

The weather changed every few minutes this day, starting with thick fog, rain, clouds and nothing to see at all. Finally it cleared, and within seconds, I was able to see all the valleys, river and tiny-looking houses from above.

Taking the photo of that rainbow was pure luck. I was on my way back when it was revealed. Grabbed my camera quickly, and as soon as I had taken the photos, it disappeared. It was just a really spectacular sight.

Thank you for sharing your image with us Matt!

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2IZl5b2

Summer Triangle and galactic equator

Tonight, use the Summer Triangle and the constellation Cygnus the Swan to locate the galactic equator – the great circle on the celestial sphere that bisects the glowing band of stars that we call the Milky Way. Sure, it’s autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere, but the three brilliant stars that make up the Summer Triangle still shine in our sky. You’ll find them way up high on October nights.

View the scene from the comfort of a reclining lawn chair, with your feet pointing southward. Although every star that we see with the unaided eye is a member of our Milky Way galaxy, sometimes the term “Milky Way” refers to the edgewise view of the galactic disk, where the combined glow of myriads of far-off suns congregate into a beautiful archway lighting up the great vault of the sky. Click here for a view of the galactic equator passing through the constellation Cygnus via Jim Kaler.

As seen from mid-northern latitudes, the stars Deneb and Vega hang high overhead at nightfall and early evening. Vega, the brightest Summer Triangle star, shines to the west (or right) of Deneb, and Altair, the second brightest, is found roughly halfway between your southern horizon and straight overhead.

The Summer Triangle and Milky Way. Altair shines a bit below center, while fainter Deneb is found at left center and the brightest star of the Summer Triangle, Vega, at upper left of center. Image via NASA/ESA.

As evening deepens, look for a modestly-bright star to pop out between Altair and Vega. That’s Albireo, which depicts the Swan’s eye or beak. The line from Albireo to Deneb shows you the underside of the Swan’s body from head to tail. Three stars cross the body near Deneb to form what is known as the Northern Cross. Go one star farther out on each side of the Northern Cross to finish off the Swan’s wings.

Sky chart of the constellation Cygnus the Swan via IAU.

Extend the Albireo-to-Deneb line in either direction to soar along the galactic equator (plane). Through binoculars, you’ll see that star clouds, star clusters and nebulae abound on this great galactic boulevard! Locate the Summer Triangle first, then the star Albireo, and you’ve got what it takes to find the glowing band of stars that we call the Milky Way.

Bottom line: You can use the Summer Triangle – and the constellation Cygnus the Swan – to locate the edgewise disk of our Milky Way galaxy.

Great Rift: Dark area in the Milky Way

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/33HpLdx

Tonight, use the Summer Triangle and the constellation Cygnus the Swan to locate the galactic equator – the great circle on the celestial sphere that bisects the glowing band of stars that we call the Milky Way. Sure, it’s autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere, but the three brilliant stars that make up the Summer Triangle still shine in our sky. You’ll find them way up high on October nights.

View the scene from the comfort of a reclining lawn chair, with your feet pointing southward. Although every star that we see with the unaided eye is a member of our Milky Way galaxy, sometimes the term “Milky Way” refers to the edgewise view of the galactic disk, where the combined glow of myriads of far-off suns congregate into a beautiful archway lighting up the great vault of the sky. Click here for a view of the galactic equator passing through the constellation Cygnus via Jim Kaler.

As seen from mid-northern latitudes, the stars Deneb and Vega hang high overhead at nightfall and early evening. Vega, the brightest Summer Triangle star, shines to the west (or right) of Deneb, and Altair, the second brightest, is found roughly halfway between your southern horizon and straight overhead.

The Summer Triangle and Milky Way. Altair shines a bit below center, while fainter Deneb is found at left center and the brightest star of the Summer Triangle, Vega, at upper left of center. Image via NASA/ESA.

As evening deepens, look for a modestly-bright star to pop out between Altair and Vega. That’s Albireo, which depicts the Swan’s eye or beak. The line from Albireo to Deneb shows you the underside of the Swan’s body from head to tail. Three stars cross the body near Deneb to form what is known as the Northern Cross. Go one star farther out on each side of the Northern Cross to finish off the Swan’s wings.

Sky chart of the constellation Cygnus the Swan via IAU.

Extend the Albireo-to-Deneb line in either direction to soar along the galactic equator (plane). Through binoculars, you’ll see that star clouds, star clusters and nebulae abound on this great galactic boulevard! Locate the Summer Triangle first, then the star Albireo, and you’ve got what it takes to find the glowing band of stars that we call the Milky Way.

Bottom line: You can use the Summer Triangle – and the constellation Cygnus the Swan – to locate the edgewise disk of our Milky Way galaxy.

Great Rift: Dark area in the Milky Way

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/33HpLdx

What’s the source of the ice at the moon’s south pole?

Deep and shadowed Shackleton Crater, near the moon’s south pole, is one location where deposits of water ice have been found. This ice is of interest to scientists and potentially useful to future moon explorers. Image via NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Leonard David’s Inside Outer Space.

We tend to think of the moon as a dusty, bone-dry place, and for the most part, that is true. But the moon does have ice, in particular at the south pole, hidden in shadowed craters. Just how the ice got there has been a bit of a mystery, but now a new study suggests it may have various sources, both ancient and more recent.

The new peer-reviewed findings were published in Icarus on September 30, 2019.

This water ice has much value, both to scientists and future human explorers. According to Ariel Deutsch, lead author of the study and a graduate student at Brown University:

The ages of these deposits can potentially tell us something about the origin of the ice, which helps us understand the sources and distribution of water in the inner solar system. For exploration purposes, we need to understand the lateral and vertical distributions of these deposits to figure out how best to access them. These distributions evolve with time, so having an idea of the age is important.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

Map of known water ice deposits near the lunar south pole, from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Image via NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/AmericaSpace.

The findings suggest that not only is some of the ice much older than the rest, but that there are probably different sources, as well. Older ice could have come from water-bearing comets and asteroids or ancient volcanism. More recent ice deposits might be the result of pea-sized micrometeorites or implantation by solar wind.

So how did the researchers come to these conclusions?

Using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), they looked at the ages of large craters near the moon’s south pole – such as Shackleton Crater – in which ice deposits have been found. The age of the craters can be estimated by counting the number of smaller craters inside the larger ones. Since scientists have a pretty good idea of the rate of impacts over time, they can estimate the ages of different kinds of terrain.

India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft also found evidence for ice deposits on the moon back in 2009. Image via Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)/Discover.

Most of the ice is found in very old craters, formed about 3.1 billion years ago or more. The ice can’t be any older than the craters themselves, or it would have been vaporized during the impacts. This doesn’t mean the ice must be as old as the craters, either, but it must be old since the distribution of the ice deposits on the crater floors is patchy, suggesting that it has been subjected to impacts by micrometeorites over a long period of time.

Deutsch added:

There have been models of bombardment through time showing that ice starts to concentrate with depth. So if you have a surface layer that’s old, you’d expect more underneath.

What was most surprising was ice in smaller, younger craters. This would imply that those ice deposits are also younger, and were created by a different process than the ice in the older, larger craters. As Deutsch noted:

That was a surprise. There hadn’t really been any observations of ice in younger cold traps before.

While spacecraft like LRO have confirmed the ice deposits – and others, like India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission as well – figuring out how different deposits actually formed will probably require return missions. Additional robotic missions will come first, followed, hopefully, by new crewed missions such as NASA’s planned Artemis mission. Knowing exactly where the ice deposits are located, and how much ice there is, will be important for planning future human missions back to the moon.

Future human missions to the moon, like NASA’s planned Artemis mission, will need resources such as the water ice deposits to help sustain a long-term presence. Image via NASA.

Jim Head, a professor at Brown University, explained:

When we think about sending humans back to the moon for long-term exploration, we need to know what resources are there that we can count on, and we currently don’t know. Studies like this one help us make predictions about where we need to go to answer those questions.

Ice on the moon may seem surprising, but it shouldn’t be; Mars has lots of ice, comets and some asteroids have abundant ice, there are many moons in the outer solar system completely covered in an ice crust – with oceans below! – and even Mercury has ice deposits near its north pole, in regions with permanent shadow (since there is no atmosphere to distribute heat from the sunlit areas). Scientists will now be able to compare the origins of the moon’s ice with that of other bodies in the solar system, and for future explorers, it will be a much-needed resource.

Bottom line: Water ice deposits near the moon’s south pole appear to be of different ages and have different sources, according to a new study from Brown University.

Source: Analyzing the ages of south polar craters on the Moon: Implications for the sources and evolution of surface water ice

Via Brown University

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2VMRfvA

Deep and shadowed Shackleton Crater, near the moon’s south pole, is one location where deposits of water ice have been found. This ice is of interest to scientists and potentially useful to future moon explorers. Image via NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Leonard David’s Inside Outer Space.

We tend to think of the moon as a dusty, bone-dry place, and for the most part, that is true. But the moon does have ice, in particular at the south pole, hidden in shadowed craters. Just how the ice got there has been a bit of a mystery, but now a new study suggests it may have various sources, both ancient and more recent.

The new peer-reviewed findings were published in Icarus on September 30, 2019.

This water ice has much value, both to scientists and future human explorers. According to Ariel Deutsch, lead author of the study and a graduate student at Brown University:

The ages of these deposits can potentially tell us something about the origin of the ice, which helps us understand the sources and distribution of water in the inner solar system. For exploration purposes, we need to understand the lateral and vertical distributions of these deposits to figure out how best to access them. These distributions evolve with time, so having an idea of the age is important.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

Map of known water ice deposits near the lunar south pole, from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Image via NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/AmericaSpace.

The findings suggest that not only is some of the ice much older than the rest, but that there are probably different sources, as well. Older ice could have come from water-bearing comets and asteroids or ancient volcanism. More recent ice deposits might be the result of pea-sized micrometeorites or implantation by solar wind.

So how did the researchers come to these conclusions?

Using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), they looked at the ages of large craters near the moon’s south pole – such as Shackleton Crater – in which ice deposits have been found. The age of the craters can be estimated by counting the number of smaller craters inside the larger ones. Since scientists have a pretty good idea of the rate of impacts over time, they can estimate the ages of different kinds of terrain.

India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft also found evidence for ice deposits on the moon back in 2009. Image via Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)/Discover.

Most of the ice is found in very old craters, formed about 3.1 billion years ago or more. The ice can’t be any older than the craters themselves, or it would have been vaporized during the impacts. This doesn’t mean the ice must be as old as the craters, either, but it must be old since the distribution of the ice deposits on the crater floors is patchy, suggesting that it has been subjected to impacts by micrometeorites over a long period of time.

Deutsch added:

There have been models of bombardment through time showing that ice starts to concentrate with depth. So if you have a surface layer that’s old, you’d expect more underneath.

What was most surprising was ice in smaller, younger craters. This would imply that those ice deposits are also younger, and were created by a different process than the ice in the older, larger craters. As Deutsch noted:

That was a surprise. There hadn’t really been any observations of ice in younger cold traps before.

While spacecraft like LRO have confirmed the ice deposits – and others, like India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission as well – figuring out how different deposits actually formed will probably require return missions. Additional robotic missions will come first, followed, hopefully, by new crewed missions such as NASA’s planned Artemis mission. Knowing exactly where the ice deposits are located, and how much ice there is, will be important for planning future human missions back to the moon.

Future human missions to the moon, like NASA’s planned Artemis mission, will need resources such as the water ice deposits to help sustain a long-term presence. Image via NASA.

Jim Head, a professor at Brown University, explained:

When we think about sending humans back to the moon for long-term exploration, we need to know what resources are there that we can count on, and we currently don’t know. Studies like this one help us make predictions about where we need to go to answer those questions.

Ice on the moon may seem surprising, but it shouldn’t be; Mars has lots of ice, comets and some asteroids have abundant ice, there are many moons in the outer solar system completely covered in an ice crust – with oceans below! – and even Mercury has ice deposits near its north pole, in regions with permanent shadow (since there is no atmosphere to distribute heat from the sunlit areas). Scientists will now be able to compare the origins of the moon’s ice with that of other bodies in the solar system, and for future explorers, it will be a much-needed resource.

Bottom line: Water ice deposits near the moon’s south pole appear to be of different ages and have different sources, according to a new study from Brown University.

Source: Analyzing the ages of south polar craters on the Moon: Implications for the sources and evolution of surface water ice

Via Brown University

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2VMRfvA

Watch 1st all-female spacewalk

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. Image via NASA.

Two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will make history this week by performing the first ever all-female spacewalk, currently scheduled for Friday, October 18, 2019. Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will venture outside the station to replace a power controller that failed over the weekend. This will be Koch’s fourth spacewalk and Meir’s first.

NASA TV’s live coverage of the spacewalk will begin on Friday at 10:30 UTC (6:30 a.m. EDT), and the spacewalk itself is scheduled to start at 11:50 UTC (7:50 a.m. EDT). Translate UTC to your time.

Watch here.

The spacewalk had been scheduled for October 21. But NASA announced on Tuesday that it would be pushed forward to late this week, and as of this writing, the agency has the spacewalk scheduled for Friday morning.

What would have been the first all-woman spacewalk was controversially postponed in March 2019 because there were not enough medium-sized space suits on the ISS to fit both women.

Learn more about the ISS research, operations, and crew. Image via NASA.

The failure of the power controller – called a Battery Charge/Discharge Unit (BCDU) – has not impacted station operations, safety of the crew, or the ongoing experiments aboard the ISS, according to NASA. The station’s overall power supply, which is fed by four sets of batteries and solar arrays, remains sufficient for all operations, NASA said. However, the faulty power unit does prevent a set of batteries installed earlier this month from providing increased station power.

NASA said in a statement:

The BCDU’s regulate the amount of charge put into the batteries that collect energy from the station’s solar arrays to power station systems during periods when the station orbits during nighttime passes around Earth. Two other charge/discharge units on the affected 2B power channel did activate as planned and are providing power to station systems.

UPDATE: First all-female spacewalk with @Astro_Christina and @Astro_Jessica now no earlier than Friday, October 18 to replace a faulty battery charge-discharge unit. pic.twitter.com/6Zzlp5UWKe

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) October 15, 2019

Bottom line: Watch the first all-female spacewalk.

Via NASA

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2VK9rWU

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. Image via NASA.

Two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will make history this week by performing the first ever all-female spacewalk, currently scheduled for Friday, October 18, 2019. Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will venture outside the station to replace a power controller that failed over the weekend. This will be Koch’s fourth spacewalk and Meir’s first.

NASA TV’s live coverage of the spacewalk will begin on Friday at 10:30 UTC (6:30 a.m. EDT), and the spacewalk itself is scheduled to start at 11:50 UTC (7:50 a.m. EDT). Translate UTC to your time.

Watch here.

The spacewalk had been scheduled for October 21. But NASA announced on Tuesday that it would be pushed forward to late this week, and as of this writing, the agency has the spacewalk scheduled for Friday morning.

What would have been the first all-woman spacewalk was controversially postponed in March 2019 because there were not enough medium-sized space suits on the ISS to fit both women.

Learn more about the ISS research, operations, and crew. Image via NASA.

The failure of the power controller – called a Battery Charge/Discharge Unit (BCDU) – has not impacted station operations, safety of the crew, or the ongoing experiments aboard the ISS, according to NASA. The station’s overall power supply, which is fed by four sets of batteries and solar arrays, remains sufficient for all operations, NASA said. However, the faulty power unit does prevent a set of batteries installed earlier this month from providing increased station power.

NASA said in a statement:

The BCDU’s regulate the amount of charge put into the batteries that collect energy from the station’s solar arrays to power station systems during periods when the station orbits during nighttime passes around Earth. Two other charge/discharge units on the affected 2B power channel did activate as planned and are providing power to station systems.

UPDATE: First all-female spacewalk with @Astro_Christina and @Astro_Jessica now no earlier than Friday, October 18 to replace a faulty battery charge-discharge unit. pic.twitter.com/6Zzlp5UWKe

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) October 15, 2019

Bottom line: Watch the first all-female spacewalk.

Via NASA

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2VK9rWU

New telescope to ‘see inside’ hot Jupiter exoplanets

So far, just over 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed orbiting other stars, with many more waiting to be verified and discovered. Even though they are so far away, scientists have been able to start to obtain clues as to what some of them look like, whether they are large gas giants like Jupiter or smaller rocky worlds like Earth, and what is in their atmospheres. But now a new radio telescope in France will be able to “see inside” some of these exotic worlds by studying their magnetic fields. An active magnetic field would point to a planet having a magnetic dynamo deep inside it, a churning, liquid metallic core.

The telescope will be part of the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a European radio telescope array centered in the Netherlands. The new instrument itself, the New Extension in Nançay Upgrading LOFAR (NenuFAR), is located at the Nançay Radioastronomy Station in France. One of LOFAR’s main tasks is to locate radio signals from the earliest stars in the universe. But it will also look for evidence of magnetic fields around exoplanets. According to astrophysicist Evgenya Shkolnik of Arizona State University in Tempe:

It’s a probe into internal structure that there is no other way to get at right now.

It is expected that LOFAR should be able to make its first detection fairly soon, as Shkolnik noted:

It’s only a matter of time [before a detection], probably months.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

The NenuFAR telescope antennas in France, part of LOFAR. NenuFAR will be able to “see inside” hot Jupiter exoplanets and measure their magnetic fields. Image via Laurent Denis/Station De Radioastronomie De Nançay/Science.

Being able to detect and study the magnetic fields of exoplanets is important because those magnetic fields can provide clues to both how the planet formed and what its potential habitability is. Earth’s magnetic field, for example, protects the surface from deadly cosmic rays and charged particles from the sun. It also helps protect the atmosphere from being stripped away into space, as happened with Mars, which now only has a very weak magnetic field. As Jean-Mathias Griessmeier of the University of Orléans in France said:

This opens up an extra door to study exoplanets at a distance.

Scientists will also be able to compare the magnetic fields of exoplanets with ones in our solar system, to see how alike or different they are. Are the ones around planets in our solar system typical?

Hot Jupiters are gas giant planets that orbit very close to their stars. NenuFAR will be able to “see inside” some of them by studying their magnetic fields. Image via NASA/ESA/J.Bacon/Science Alert.

There are limits to what LOFAR and NenuFAR can do, however. The magnetic fields of most exoplanets would be too faint to detect, due to the immense distances. Even Jupiter’s would be difficult to find, if it were light-years away from us. But for one kind of exoplanet in particular – hot Jupiters – it would be an easier task. Hot Jupiters, gas giants that orbit very close to their stars, should have stronger magnetic fields, due to being buffeted by a stronger stellar wind. This would allow more electrons to be whipped up by the planet’s magnetosphere into a signal potentially a million times stronger than Jupiter’s.

NenuFAR will significantly increase LOFAR’s ability to detect these alien magnetic fields from hot Jupiters, as it is much more sensitive to lower frequencies, from below 85 megahertz (MHz) – the bottom of the FM radio band – down to 10 MHz, below which the ionosphere blocks any signals from space. Eventually, there will be nearly 2,000 of the pyramidal wire-frame antennas involved in the search, most contained within a 400-meter (1,300 feet) core. Magnetic fields from rocky planets like Earth will probably be too weak to be found with the current NenuFAR array however, as they would be below the 10 MHz limit.

Jupiter has a powerful magnetic field – invisible to the human eye – that is probably similar to that of many other Jupiter-like exoplanets. Image via NASA/Space Answers.

It shouldn’t be too long before the first detections are made, perhaps just a matter of months as Shkolnik said, since NenuFAR has already been active since July. Currently, 60% of the array’s antennas are operational, and 80% of the hardware is expected to be in place by the end of the year, pending further funding. Right now, 80% of the €15 million needed to build and operate the array, from government funders, universities, and local authorities, has been secured.

NenuFAR will focus on a dozen or so known hot Jupiters, in days-long observing runs. It will be joined by other observatories, such as the Owens Valley Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA) in California, which will have 352 antennas when it is completed next year. This array isn’t as sensitive as NenuFAR, however, and it will scan the entire sky instead of just looking at selected known hot Jupiters, in the hope that it will detect rare large bursts of signals generated by coronal mass ejections hitting a planet’s magnetic field. Detecting and analyzing the magnetic fields of rocky exoplanets like Earth will have to wait for similar telescopes based in space or on the far side of the moon in order to escape Earth’s ionosphere, which blocks radio emissions lower than 10 MHz.

NenuFAR, and similar future telescopic arrays that follow it, will provide another significant step in understanding how exoplanets form and evolve, and how similar – and different – they are to planets in our own solar system.

Bottom line: A new radio telescope will soon let scientists “see inside” hot Jupiter exoplanets and measure their magnetic fields for the first time.

Via Science

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2IVp8Wa

So far, just over 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed orbiting other stars, with many more waiting to be verified and discovered. Even though they are so far away, scientists have been able to start to obtain clues as to what some of them look like, whether they are large gas giants like Jupiter or smaller rocky worlds like Earth, and what is in their atmospheres. But now a new radio telescope in France will be able to “see inside” some of these exotic worlds by studying their magnetic fields. An active magnetic field would point to a planet having a magnetic dynamo deep inside it, a churning, liquid metallic core.

The telescope will be part of the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a European radio telescope array centered in the Netherlands. The new instrument itself, the New Extension in Nançay Upgrading LOFAR (NenuFAR), is located at the Nançay Radioastronomy Station in France. One of LOFAR’s main tasks is to locate radio signals from the earliest stars in the universe. But it will also look for evidence of magnetic fields around exoplanets. According to astrophysicist Evgenya Shkolnik of Arizona State University in Tempe:

It’s a probe into internal structure that there is no other way to get at right now.

It is expected that LOFAR should be able to make its first detection fairly soon, as Shkolnik noted:

It’s only a matter of time [before a detection], probably months.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

The NenuFAR telescope antennas in France, part of LOFAR. NenuFAR will be able to “see inside” hot Jupiter exoplanets and measure their magnetic fields. Image via Laurent Denis/Station De Radioastronomie De Nançay/Science.

Being able to detect and study the magnetic fields of exoplanets is important because those magnetic fields can provide clues to both how the planet formed and what its potential habitability is. Earth’s magnetic field, for example, protects the surface from deadly cosmic rays and charged particles from the sun. It also helps protect the atmosphere from being stripped away into space, as happened with Mars, which now only has a very weak magnetic field. As Jean-Mathias Griessmeier of the University of Orléans in France said:

This opens up an extra door to study exoplanets at a distance.

Scientists will also be able to compare the magnetic fields of exoplanets with ones in our solar system, to see how alike or different they are. Are the ones around planets in our solar system typical?

Hot Jupiters are gas giant planets that orbit very close to their stars. NenuFAR will be able to “see inside” some of them by studying their magnetic fields. Image via NASA/ESA/J.Bacon/Science Alert.

There are limits to what LOFAR and NenuFAR can do, however. The magnetic fields of most exoplanets would be too faint to detect, due to the immense distances. Even Jupiter’s would be difficult to find, if it were light-years away from us. But for one kind of exoplanet in particular – hot Jupiters – it would be an easier task. Hot Jupiters, gas giants that orbit very close to their stars, should have stronger magnetic fields, due to being buffeted by a stronger stellar wind. This would allow more electrons to be whipped up by the planet’s magnetosphere into a signal potentially a million times stronger than Jupiter’s.

NenuFAR will significantly increase LOFAR’s ability to detect these alien magnetic fields from hot Jupiters, as it is much more sensitive to lower frequencies, from below 85 megahertz (MHz) – the bottom of the FM radio band – down to 10 MHz, below which the ionosphere blocks any signals from space. Eventually, there will be nearly 2,000 of the pyramidal wire-frame antennas involved in the search, most contained within a 400-meter (1,300 feet) core. Magnetic fields from rocky planets like Earth will probably be too weak to be found with the current NenuFAR array however, as they would be below the 10 MHz limit.

Jupiter has a powerful magnetic field – invisible to the human eye – that is probably similar to that of many other Jupiter-like exoplanets. Image via NASA/Space Answers.

It shouldn’t be too long before the first detections are made, perhaps just a matter of months as Shkolnik said, since NenuFAR has already been active since July. Currently, 60% of the array’s antennas are operational, and 80% of the hardware is expected to be in place by the end of the year, pending further funding. Right now, 80% of the €15 million needed to build and operate the array, from government funders, universities, and local authorities, has been secured.

NenuFAR will focus on a dozen or so known hot Jupiters, in days-long observing runs. It will be joined by other observatories, such as the Owens Valley Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA) in California, which will have 352 antennas when it is completed next year. This array isn’t as sensitive as NenuFAR, however, and it will scan the entire sky instead of just looking at selected known hot Jupiters, in the hope that it will detect rare large bursts of signals generated by coronal mass ejections hitting a planet’s magnetic field. Detecting and analyzing the magnetic fields of rocky exoplanets like Earth will have to wait for similar telescopes based in space or on the far side of the moon in order to escape Earth’s ionosphere, which blocks radio emissions lower than 10 MHz.

NenuFAR, and similar future telescopic arrays that follow it, will provide another significant step in understanding how exoplanets form and evolve, and how similar – and different – they are to planets in our own solar system.

Bottom line: A new radio telescope will soon let scientists “see inside” hot Jupiter exoplanets and measure their magnetic fields for the first time.

Via Science

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2IVp8Wa

Spacecraft spies river relic on Mars

Topographic view of Nirgal Vallis. November 16, 2018. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

These new images from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, released October 10, 2019, show an ancient, dried-up river system that stretches out for nearly 435 miles (700 km) across the surface of Mars, making it one of the longest valley networks on the planet. This ancient valley system, named Nirgal Vallis, was once filled with running water that spread across Mars. The area lies just south of the planet’s equator, and scientists think it was been shaped by a mix of flowing water and impacts from rocks from space smashing into the Martian surface.

You can see evidence of both of these mechanisms in these images. For example, in the image below, see the impact craters, some large and some small, can be seen speckled across the ochre, caramel-hued surface, and a tree-like, forked channel cuts prominently through the center of the frame.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

The dried-up river valley on Mars named Nirgal Vallis. November 16, 2018. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

Nirgal Vallis in context. The area outlined by the bold white box indicates the area imaged by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera on November 16, 2018. Image via NASA MGS MOLA Science Team.

According to a statement from ESA:

Nirgal Vallis is a typical example of a feature known as an amphitheater-headed valley. As the name suggests, rather than ending bluntly or sharply, the ends of these tributaries have the characteristic semi-circular, rounded shape of an Ancient Greek amphitheater. Such valleys also typically have steep walls, smooth floors, and, if sliced through at a cross-section, adopt a ‘U’ shape. The valleys pictured here are about 200 meters (656 feet) deep and 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) wide, and their floors are covered in sandy dunes; the appearance of these dunes indicates that martian winds tend to blow roughly parallel to the valley walls.

We see valleys like this often on Earth, including valleys found in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and on the islands of Hawaii. Mars also hosts a few of them, with Nanedi Valles and Echus Chasma joining Nirgal Vallis as clear examples of this intriguing feature. Both of these features also resemble terrestrial drainage systems, where meandering, steep-sided valleys – thought to have been formed by free-flowing water – have carved their way through hundreds of kilometres of martian rock, forging through old volcanic plains, lava flows, and material deposited by strong martian winds over time.

Perspective view of Nirgal Vallis. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

Scientists say that valleys such as Nirgal Vallis, which are ubiquitous in the low-latitude regions surrounding the martian equator, indicate that these areas once experienced a far milder, wetter and more Earth-like climate.

If you’ve got 3D glasses, check out this image, which shows Nirgal Vallis, a dried-up river valley on Mars, in 3D. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

Bottom line: Images from the ESA Mars Express show traces of an ancient river valley on Mars.

Via ESA

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2psFAq0

Topographic view of Nirgal Vallis. November 16, 2018. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

These new images from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, released October 10, 2019, show an ancient, dried-up river system that stretches out for nearly 435 miles (700 km) across the surface of Mars, making it one of the longest valley networks on the planet. This ancient valley system, named Nirgal Vallis, was once filled with running water that spread across Mars. The area lies just south of the planet’s equator, and scientists think it was been shaped by a mix of flowing water and impacts from rocks from space smashing into the Martian surface.

You can see evidence of both of these mechanisms in these images. For example, in the image below, see the impact craters, some large and some small, can be seen speckled across the ochre, caramel-hued surface, and a tree-like, forked channel cuts prominently through the center of the frame.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

The dried-up river valley on Mars named Nirgal Vallis. November 16, 2018. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

Nirgal Vallis in context. The area outlined by the bold white box indicates the area imaged by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera on November 16, 2018. Image via NASA MGS MOLA Science Team.

According to a statement from ESA:

Nirgal Vallis is a typical example of a feature known as an amphitheater-headed valley. As the name suggests, rather than ending bluntly or sharply, the ends of these tributaries have the characteristic semi-circular, rounded shape of an Ancient Greek amphitheater. Such valleys also typically have steep walls, smooth floors, and, if sliced through at a cross-section, adopt a ‘U’ shape. The valleys pictured here are about 200 meters (656 feet) deep and 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) wide, and their floors are covered in sandy dunes; the appearance of these dunes indicates that martian winds tend to blow roughly parallel to the valley walls.

We see valleys like this often on Earth, including valleys found in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and on the islands of Hawaii. Mars also hosts a few of them, with Nanedi Valles and Echus Chasma joining Nirgal Vallis as clear examples of this intriguing feature. Both of these features also resemble terrestrial drainage systems, where meandering, steep-sided valleys – thought to have been formed by free-flowing water – have carved their way through hundreds of kilometres of martian rock, forging through old volcanic plains, lava flows, and material deposited by strong martian winds over time.

Perspective view of Nirgal Vallis. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

Scientists say that valleys such as Nirgal Vallis, which are ubiquitous in the low-latitude regions surrounding the martian equator, indicate that these areas once experienced a far milder, wetter and more Earth-like climate.

If you’ve got 3D glasses, check out this image, which shows Nirgal Vallis, a dried-up river valley on Mars, in 3D. Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

Bottom line: Images from the ESA Mars Express show traces of an ancient river valley on Mars.

Via ESA

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2psFAq0

Improving cancer screening: what does the latest review recommend?

Screening people for cancer saves thousands of lives every year. And these programmes will play a vital role in achieving NHS England’s ambition to diagnose 3 in 4 cancers early by 2028.

But there’s room for improvement.

After a difficult period for cancer screening programmes in England, former National Cancer Director Sir Mike Richards was tasked with reviewing the programmes in 2018. And the findings have been published today.

Many newspapers picked up on recommendations to make screening ‘fit with busy lives’, which could involve offering cancer screening during lunch breaks and on weekends.

But the review also includes vital, but perhaps less headline-grabbing recommendations aimed at making sure cancer screening programmes are managed and delivered in the best possible way for people across the country.

Here’s a run-down of some of the key findings and what they could mean for screening.

Who’s responsible for cancer screening?

The short answer is, it’s complicated. At the minute, no single organisation is responsible for delivering cancer screening in England – responsibility is shared by NHS England and Public Health England.

And while both organisations have important roles in the running of screening programmes, the division has created confusion and contributed to delays in new tests being introduced.

This has been particularly evident in the bowel cancer screening programme and the introduction of a new, more sensitive test: the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT). The UK National Screening Committee recommended that FIT replace the old test back in November 2015, but it’s only just been introduced in June this year – more than a year later than planned.

And delays like this make a difference, because FIT isn’t just a more sensitive test, it’s easier for people to do. We’ve estimated that for every month the introduction of FIT was delayed in England, 26,000 extra people didn’t take part in the programme.

To avoid delays like these, something has to change. It needs to be much clearer who’s accountable for cancer screening and there must be more transparency around how they’re managed.

Richards’ review recommends reuniting responsibility for screening programmes under one organisation. And as screening is delivered by the health service, the only feasible recommendation is for that organisation to be NHS England and Improvement.

While there’s a lot that still needs to be worked out, having one organisation responsible for screening should mean patients will benefit from new technologies like FIT earlier.

Looking to the future

Screening is becoming more intelligent and sophisticated as our knowledge and technology improve. Which means we can be more targeted in the way we screen.

But at the moment, decisions about how to improve or introduce new targeted programmes are made separately to those for our national cancer screening programmes. Which means no single body has oversight for all the changes that could be made to screening offered in the NHS.

What’s targeted screening?

Targeted screening programmes aim to identify people who may be at higher risk of developing certain diseases based on their genetics, lifestyle and environmental factors, as well as their previous screening results.

This information will be used to tailor screening for those who have a higher risk of developing cancer.

And with an increasing number of targeted screening programmes on the horizon, this makes for a complex and unclear decision-making process.

Richards wants this to change. His review recommends a single advisory body that would make recommendations for both population and targeted screening. This would mean targeted screening is given the same weight as population-based screening, and it would get national funding.

The recommendation should help to guarantee fair access to screening across the country and provide greater quality assurance to targeted programmes, which would be a big step in the right direction.

Improving IT

A number of screening errors made headlines in 2018, and most were due to IT system failures. But it’s not just errors that Richards is worried about – the current IT system isn’t flexible enough to cope with changes aimed at making screening more sophisticated.

And it’s holding programmes back.

Take cervical screening for example. Right now, NHS England isn’t able to change how often women who test negative for the human papillomavirus (HPV) are invited for screening. And one of the main reasons is because the IT system can’t support the shift.

It’s not the first time the IT system has been criticised, the Department of Health and Social Care called it “not fit for purpose” back in 2011. But Richards’ review outlines what should happen next.

Richards has recommended that the organisation responsible for digital transformation in the NHS (NHSX) map out how a new IT system would be delivered.

One thing is clear – a change to the IT system couldn’t come soon enough.

What next?

Right now, Richards’ review is just a set of recommendations. And it’s not entirely clear what happens next.

But with around 11.5 million people invited to take part in cancer screening in England each year, it’s crucial that NHS England acts swiftly.

We’re asking the Government to formally respond to the review’s findings and recommendations. And NHS England will need to set clear timelines for when they will act on the recommendations. And how.

And while these recommendations should help to make screening more flexible and future-proof, they rely on having enough NHS staff in place. Unless the Government provides long-term funding for vital NHS cancer staff, our screening services won’t be fit for the future.

Corrie Drumm is a policy advisor at Cancer Research UK 

What about Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Sir Mike Richards was asked to review screening programmes in England, but several of the recommendations will be of interest to other nations.

The recommendation to establish a single advisory body to consider both population and targeted screening is relevant because the National Screening Committee looks at screening across the UK. At the moment it’s not clear if the recommended single advisory body will be UK wide or England only.

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog https://ift.tt/2P1WB59

Screening people for cancer saves thousands of lives every year. And these programmes will play a vital role in achieving NHS England’s ambition to diagnose 3 in 4 cancers early by 2028.

But there’s room for improvement.

After a difficult period for cancer screening programmes in England, former National Cancer Director Sir Mike Richards was tasked with reviewing the programmes in 2018. And the findings have been published today.

Many newspapers picked up on recommendations to make screening ‘fit with busy lives’, which could involve offering cancer screening during lunch breaks and on weekends.

But the review also includes vital, but perhaps less headline-grabbing recommendations aimed at making sure cancer screening programmes are managed and delivered in the best possible way for people across the country.

Here’s a run-down of some of the key findings and what they could mean for screening.

Who’s responsible for cancer screening?

The short answer is, it’s complicated. At the minute, no single organisation is responsible for delivering cancer screening in England – responsibility is shared by NHS England and Public Health England.

And while both organisations have important roles in the running of screening programmes, the division has created confusion and contributed to delays in new tests being introduced.

This has been particularly evident in the bowel cancer screening programme and the introduction of a new, more sensitive test: the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT). The UK National Screening Committee recommended that FIT replace the old test back in November 2015, but it’s only just been introduced in June this year – more than a year later than planned.

And delays like this make a difference, because FIT isn’t just a more sensitive test, it’s easier for people to do. We’ve estimated that for every month the introduction of FIT was delayed in England, 26,000 extra people didn’t take part in the programme.

To avoid delays like these, something has to change. It needs to be much clearer who’s accountable for cancer screening and there must be more transparency around how they’re managed.

Richards’ review recommends reuniting responsibility for screening programmes under one organisation. And as screening is delivered by the health service, the only feasible recommendation is for that organisation to be NHS England and Improvement.

While there’s a lot that still needs to be worked out, having one organisation responsible for screening should mean patients will benefit from new technologies like FIT earlier.

Looking to the future

Screening is becoming more intelligent and sophisticated as our knowledge and technology improve. Which means we can be more targeted in the way we screen.

But at the moment, decisions about how to improve or introduce new targeted programmes are made separately to those for our national cancer screening programmes. Which means no single body has oversight for all the changes that could be made to screening offered in the NHS.

What’s targeted screening?

Targeted screening programmes aim to identify people who may be at higher risk of developing certain diseases based on their genetics, lifestyle and environmental factors, as well as their previous screening results.

This information will be used to tailor screening for those who have a higher risk of developing cancer.

And with an increasing number of targeted screening programmes on the horizon, this makes for a complex and unclear decision-making process.

Richards wants this to change. His review recommends a single advisory body that would make recommendations for both population and targeted screening. This would mean targeted screening is given the same weight as population-based screening, and it would get national funding.

The recommendation should help to guarantee fair access to screening across the country and provide greater quality assurance to targeted programmes, which would be a big step in the right direction.

Improving IT

A number of screening errors made headlines in 2018, and most were due to IT system failures. But it’s not just errors that Richards is worried about – the current IT system isn’t flexible enough to cope with changes aimed at making screening more sophisticated.

And it’s holding programmes back.

Take cervical screening for example. Right now, NHS England isn’t able to change how often women who test negative for the human papillomavirus (HPV) are invited for screening. And one of the main reasons is because the IT system can’t support the shift.

It’s not the first time the IT system has been criticised, the Department of Health and Social Care called it “not fit for purpose” back in 2011. But Richards’ review outlines what should happen next.

Richards has recommended that the organisation responsible for digital transformation in the NHS (NHSX) map out how a new IT system would be delivered.

One thing is clear – a change to the IT system couldn’t come soon enough.

What next?

Right now, Richards’ review is just a set of recommendations. And it’s not entirely clear what happens next.

But with around 11.5 million people invited to take part in cancer screening in England each year, it’s crucial that NHS England acts swiftly.

We’re asking the Government to formally respond to the review’s findings and recommendations. And NHS England will need to set clear timelines for when they will act on the recommendations. And how.

And while these recommendations should help to make screening more flexible and future-proof, they rely on having enough NHS staff in place. Unless the Government provides long-term funding for vital NHS cancer staff, our screening services won’t be fit for the future.

Corrie Drumm is a policy advisor at Cancer Research UK 

What about Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Sir Mike Richards was asked to review screening programmes in England, but several of the recommendations will be of interest to other nations.

The recommendation to establish a single advisory body to consider both population and targeted screening is relevant because the National Screening Committee looks at screening across the UK. At the moment it’s not clear if the recommended single advisory body will be UK wide or England only.

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog https://ift.tt/2P1WB59