Ideas, Inventions And Innovations
Heavy Metal Vapors Unexpectedly Found in Comets Throughout Our Solar System and Beyond A new study by a Belgian team using data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has shown that iron and nickel exist in the atmospheres of comets throughout our Solar System, even those far from the Sun. A separate study by a Polish team, who also used ESO data, reported that nickel vapour is also present in the icy interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. This is the first time heavy metals, usually associated with hot environments, have been found in the cold atmospheres of distant comets.
Science
51Â minutes
NASAâs Chandra X-ray Observatory official Instagram page recently shared a beautiful image of a galaxy NGC 1097 in the sky which is located in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace). Ever since its posting, the image has received over 19,000 likes and 60 comments.
The caption for the image states, âright #now Chandra is gazing at a #galaxy in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace). Nearby in the sky is galaxy NGC 1097. A distinctive ring around this galaxy s centre is sparkling with new #star formation due to an inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy. The ring is roughly 5,000 light-years acrossâ. Check it out:
“This is a great discovery!” said ESO team member Themiya Nanayakkara in fall of 2018 about the discovery that almost all of the sky is invisibly glowing with Lyman-alpha emission from the early Universe. “Next time you look at the moonless night sky and see the stars, imagine the unseen glow of hydrogen: the first building block of the universe, illuminating the whole night sky.”
Lyman-alpha Emission –“
First Building Block of the Universe”
An unexpected abundance of Lyman-alpha emission that covers nearly the entire field of view in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) region was discovered by an international team of astronomers using the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).