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Bad Astronomy | An ancient planetary system implies E.T. life may have arisen long ago

incredibly ancient, likely over twice as old as ours. The existence of its planets is surprising, and has all sorts of implications for science and the search for extraterrestrial life.
The star is called TOI-561, a K dwarf (slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun) about 280 light years away. That makes it close, on a galactic scale.
Zoom In
The star TOI-561 (arrowed) is ancient, about 10 billion years old, and has at least three planets orbiting it. Credit: ALADIN / DSS2
It was observed by TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and found to have three planets. TESS observations (using the transit method) give the sizes of the planet, and follow-up observations from ground-based observatories (using the reflex velocity method) give the masses. Those together give the densities of the planets, which allows us to make educated guesses at their compositions.

Mark-garlick , Science-photo-library-getty-images-mark-garlick , Science-photo-library , Exoplanet-survey-satellite , Transiting-exoplanet-survey-satellite , Adam-makarenko , Crash-course-astronomy , Milky-way , Getty-images , Science-photo , Out-there , குறி-பூண்டு

Bad Astronomny | Dark matter axions may be created in neutrons stars

See? Complex.
Dark matter is similar to what we think of as normal matter — the kind we're made of — in that is has mass and therefore gravity. But it doesn't emit light and doesn't interact with normal matter, making it the devil's own game to detect. We have plenty of reasons to think it exists, but we've never been able to directly detect it.
Video of Dark Matter: Crash Course Astronomy #41
A lot of potential dark matter candidates have been eliminated over the years, leaving only ever more exotic possibilities, like subatomic particles that have not yet been discovered.
The leading candidate there is the axion, predicted to exist by current quantum models. They don't emit light, don't interact with normal matter except through gravity, could be extremely abundant in the Universe, and are very elusive. They fit the bill!

Goddard-space-flight-center , Dark-matter , Crash-course-astronomy , Space-flight-center , Millennium-simulation-project , Millennium-simulation , Magnificent-seven , Chandrax-ray , Casey-reed , Penn-state-university , Penn-state

Bad Astronomy | A sextuple star system where all six stars undergo eclipses

Multiple stars are just intrinsically cool: Unlike our Sun, sailing alone through space, multiples are where two or more stars orbit each other in a stable, gravitationally bound system. Half the stars in the galaxy are in multiple systems like that. Most are binaries (two stars orbiting each other) and some in trinaries (three stars). Fewer yet are in higher-order systems.
That's the first thing that makes TYC 7037-89-1 special: It's a sextuplet, a six-star system. It's a little over 1,900 light years away, so a fair distance, but it's bright enough to be detected by TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. TESS scans the sky measuring the brightnesses of stars to look for transiting exoplanets, which make mini-eclipses on their host stars, revealing their presence.

Goddard-space-flight-center , Goddard-space-flight-center-chris-smith , Exoplanet-survey-satellite , Goddard-space-flight-center-phil-plait , Transiting-exoplanet-survey , Multiple-stars , Crash-course-astronomy , Space-flight-center , Space-flight , Chris-smith , Phil-plait

Bad Astronomy | Oph 98: A brown dwarf/planet system 450 light years from Earth

Astronomers have found a pretty weird binary system about 450 light years from Earth: Neither of its components is a star. Instead, one is a brown dwarf, and the other appears to be a planet orbiting it! Even then, the brown dwarf is on the lower end of things. If it were any less massive it would be a planet itself.
The system is called CFHTWIR-Oph 98, but we'll call it Oph 98 for short. It was found a few years ago in ground-based observations using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope's infrared WIRCAM camera (hence the first part of the object's name) in a region of the galaxy where stars are being born which we see in the constellation of Ophiuchus (hence the second name part). It was observed in 2006 and 2012, and identified as a brown dwarf — an object more massive than a planet but too lightweight to ignite sustained nuclear fusion in its core like a star.

Canada , United-kingdom , France , Hawaii , United-states , Canada-france-hawaii-telescope , United-kingdom-infra-red , Thibaut-roger , Brown-dwarfs , Crash-course-astronomy , Milky-way

Bad Astronomy | Anicent Mars was most like present-day Iceland

While there may be scattered pockets of liquid water under the surface, if you want copious liquid water on the surface then you need to time travel, back to, oh, say, 3 billion years ago (better warp extra fast around the Sun or bring a few extra banana peels). Back then there was quite a bit of surface water, the evidence of which is still around today. River channels, lake beds, even hints of ocean shorelines… all these imply that back then Mars had a thicker atmosphere and plentiful water.
Video of Mars: Crash Course Astronomy #15
That immediately makes you think it was warm, but hang on. Huge glaciers can have what's called basal melt, where their bases are under pressure and the ice melts, carving channels underneath them as the glaciers flow. So Mars could have been warmer than it is now, but not necessarily been

Iceland , Antarctica , Michael-thorpe , Rice-university-rivers , Rice-university , Crash-course-astronomy , Aeolis-mons , Gale-crater , Jezero-crater , Red-planet , ஐஸ்லாந்து , அண்டார்டிகா

Bad Astronomy | Magnetic fields can draw energy out of a black hole's spin

lot a lot.
A new paper has come out showing how magnetic fields can be used to extract huge amounts of energy from a black hole, and may power some astrophysical phenomena we see around them. It’s not exactly easy, and it’s not like you’ll be able to charge up your phone or heat your house with this technique (more like you’d vaporize them down to their constituent subatomic particles which would then be accelerated outwards at very near the speed of light
*), but it’s still extremely cool.
Video of Black Holes: Crash Course Astronomy #33

Aurore-simonnet , Goddard-space-flight-center , Goddard-space-flight-center-aurore-simonnet , Goddard-space-flight-center-jeremy-schnittman , Black-holes , Crash-course-astronomy , Space-flight , Jeremy-schnittman , Space-flight-center , Bad-astronomy , Magnetic-fields , Energy

Bad Astronomy | A new nebula, StDr 56, has been discovered, but what is it?

Zoom In
StDr 56, a possible planetary nebula in the constellation of Triangulum. It’s about the same size as the full Moon on the sky. Credit: Robert Pölz, Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner
See? I told you. Absolutely breathtaking.
But... what
is it?
The quick version is, I don't know. The slightly more lengthy version is, it's a nebula, and probably a planetary nebula, but I have never seen one like this, and there are some baffling aspects of it I cannot explain.
StDr 56 was discovered by amateur astronomers Marcel Drechsler and Xavier Strottner, who comb through surveys of the sky looking for planetary nebulae (or PNe) — winds of gas that flow from stars like the Sun when they die, blown when the star turns into a red giant. Eventually the outer layers blow away entirely, revealing the core of the star: a hot dense white dwarf. Ultraviolet light from the white dwarf excites the gas, causing it to glow.

Austria , Astrophotographer-robert , Xavier-strottner-robert , Marcel-drechsler , Xavier-strottner , White-dwarfs , Planetary-nebulae , Crash-course-astronomy , Milky-way , Bad-astronomy , Planetary-nebula

Bad Astronomy | Neutrinos play a huge role in exploding stars

Stars generate energy in their cores, fusing lighter elements into heavier ones. This is how a star prevents its own gravity from making it collapse; the heat generated inflates the star, creating pressure that holds it up.
The most massive stars take this energy production process to the extreme; while lower mass stars like the Sun stop after fusing helium into carbon and oxygen, massive stars continue on, fusing elements all the way up to iron.
However, once a mighty star's core is iron, a series of events takes place that actually removes energy from the core, allowing gravity to dominate. The core collapses, setting up a huge blast of energy that is so immense it blows away the outer layers of the star, creating an explosion we call a supernova.

Arizona , United-states , A-loll-arizona-state-university , Crab-nebula , Hubble-space , Arizona-state-university , High-mass-stars , Crash-course-astronomy , Bad-astronomy , Supernova , Quantum-mechanics

Bad Astronomy | A solar flare in 774 AD changed Earth's atmospheric chemistry

bad.
It was first discovered by an analysis of tree rings, of all things. Scientists found that the level of carbon-14, an isotope of carbon, was much higher in rings from that year than usual. Some years later, looking at air samples from ice cores, scientists saw that there were elevated levels of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 as well.
The common factor in all these elements is that they are created when extremely high-energy subatomic particles hit Earth's air and ground. They slam into the nuclei of atoms and change them, creating these isotopes. The only way to get particles at energies like this is from space, where powerful magnetic fields in exploding stars, for example, can accelerate the particles to such high speeds. We call these isotopes

Quebec , Canada , Crash-course-astronomy , க்வீபெக் , கனடா , செயலிழப்பு-நிச்சயமாக-வானியல் ,

Bad Astronomy | Dark matter may be primordial black holes according to new research

It's
possible that dark matter is made of tiny black holes created at the very beginning of time by nucleation from bubbles of false vacuum that created baby universes containing sub-lunar masses of matter during an infinitesimally brief period of cosmic hyperinflation.
If so, a team of scientists think, this could solve several nagging puzzles about the Universe, including dark matter, gravitational wave sources, and an odd observation made of the Andromeda Galaxy.
See? It's a lot. To be clear, I'm pretty skeptical, to say the least, but it's a fun idea based on a series of fun ideas, so let's tackle them one piece at a time.

Katie-mack , Goddard-space-flight-center-jeremy-schnittman , Dark-matter , Crash-course-astronomy , Space-flight , Jeremy-schnittman , Andromeda-galaxy , கேடீ-மேக் , இருள்-விஷயம் , செயலிழப்பு-நிச்சயமாக-வானியல் , இடம்-விமானம் , அன்ரோமேடா-விண்மீன்