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Plasma bursts from a magnetar starquake in this artist’s conception, an eruption that can create a gamma ray flare. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith/USRA/GESTAR
Nature’s most magnetic objects, ripped apart in starquakes, can unleash powerful flashes of light
Apr. 8, 2021 , 2:00 PM
On 15 April 2020, a wave of gamma rays, nature’s most powerful kind of light, washed across the Solar System like a storm front. First contact came above Mars, where photons at energies comparable to the radiation from a nuclear bomb peppered a Russian particle detector on NASA’s Mars Odyssey probe. Six minutes later, the burst of light lit up a solar wind probe between the Sun and Earth. Five seconds after that, the signal splashed into specialized detectors on Earth’s surface.
SOFIA Offers New Way to Study Earth s Atmosphere
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COLUMBIA, Md., April 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, directly measured atomic oxygen in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, offering a new way to study one of the least understood regions of Earth s upper atmosphere.
SOFIA, a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, has been used extensively to look at many objects in the universe, from black holes to galaxies and even the Moon.
A decade ago, German researcher Heinz Hübers led a team to improve one of SOFIA s infrared instruments – the German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies, or GREAT – with a new laser technology. He realized that the upgrade would not only help to study the distant cosmos, it could also be used much, much closer to home.
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Scientists Find Gigantic Exoplanet KELT-9b hotter Than 80% Of All Stars
Scientists found that the humongous exoplanet’s daytime temperature hit an alarming 7,800º Fahrenheit or 4,300º Celsius, hotter than the stars and Orb.
NASA’s planet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission’s previously discovered exoplanet dubbed KELT-9 b or HD 195689 b is found to be “hotter than the stars” with record temperatures that exceeded the hottest giant exoplanet Orb. About the size of Jupiter, the humongous exoplanet’s daytime temperature hit an alarming 7,800º Fahrenheit or 4,300º Celsius, particularly so hot according to the scientists, that it literally boiled away in space. “We’re fascinated with the weirdness that nature hands us,” said B. Scott Gaudi, an astronomer at the Ohio State University who helmed the study published in the journal Nature, and recently in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
China Sandstorm 2021: NASA Satellite Image Shows Massive Dust Plume Over Beijing
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A satellite image shows the dust and sand plume over China s northern provinces
Beijing was one of the places affected by the sandstorm
A NASA satellite captured the image of a massive sandstorm that covered northern China on Monday. It is said to be the worst sandstorm to affect the region in a decade.
China s National Meteorological Center issued a warning Monday about the sandstorm, which spread across several northern regions, South China Morning Post (SCMP)
NASA s Aqua satellite captured a natural-color image of the sandstorm. In it, one can see the massive plume of sand and dust traveling thousands of kilometers from the Taklamakan Desert in northwest China toward northern China, NASA Earth Observatory
Comet Catalina Suggests Comets Delivered Carbon to Rocky Planets Source: NASA
Comet Catalina
In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system hurtled past Earth. It briefly became visible to stargazers as Comet Catalina before it slingshot past the Sun to disappear forevermore out of the solar system.
Among the many observatories that captured a view of this comet, which appeared near the Big Dipper, was the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, NASA s telescope on an airplane. Using one of its unique infrared instruments, SOFIA was able to pick out a familiar fingerprint within the dusty glow of the comet s tail - carbon.