Lots of little stories this month and just one big one. Unfortunately that big one called BICEP2's results regarding gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background into question. While the results from March may still hold up, at the moment, scientific consensus does not exist because of the possibility of alternative explanations for their observations.
Jupiter's red spot is shrinking. Compared with the earliest known pictures of Jupiter, the red spot is much smaller and the shrinkage seems to be accelerating. This was bound to happen. Storms can't last forever. However, the disappearance of such a definitive identifying marker would still be a sad occasion.
Magnetars can be big. Well, compared to main sequence stars, they're still small, but they can be bigger than originally thought. One was found that was larger than previous theory allowed and the explanation seems to be that the mass can come from a sister star in a binary system. The angular momentum from the additional mass is enough to help the neutron degeneracy pressure hold up the collapsing star and prevent it from becoming a black hole at higher masses than previously thought possible. This was the best theory since the large magnetar was observed. The big news, however, is that they actually observed the sister star and its characteristics match predictions of this theory.
Russia and the U.S. fighting over space. It's nothing like the Cold War, but Russia's recent actions in the Ukraine have resulted in U.S. sanctions on Russia, meaning what were routine cargo lifts to the International Space Station are under conflict. Some sharp words were exchanged and Elon Musk's SpaceX may come to the U.S.'s rescue.
Illustris, a truly ginormous simulation of the Universe from quite early until now, was recently run. In this simulation, dark matter, gravity and the dynamics of stars (from formation to supernovae) were all taken into account. The simulation was successful in re-creating much of the Universe as we see it. Spiral arms in galaxies, large scale galaxy clusters and the interstellar medium all matched the observable Universe to pretty remarkable accuracy. Once they work out the kinks, the team that ran the simulation is even making the hundreds of terabytes available to the public. Get your hard drives ready!
The International Space Station is now broadcasting live. In addition to pretty mind-blowing pictures...well, just be happy with mind-blowing pictures. You can probably do some extra mind-blowing by manipulating some of the pictures, but if you're reading this, sunrise in space probably tickles your fancy just a little.
The exoplanet revolution continues. A new type of exoplanet was discovered. Previously, exoplanets were generally thought to be either small and rocky like Earth or big and gassy like Jupiter. Kepler-10c, however, is big and rocky. With a diameter 2.5x that of Earth and a mass 17x that of Earth, it is the largest rocky object we've observed, putting it in a new class known as Mega-Earths. This challenges our current planet-formation theories, as anything so large should have enough gravity to hold on to a thick atmosphere.
No comments:
Post a Comment