Topic: Constellation Hydra

NASA’s TESS Satellite discovers Hot Planet, Leads to finding more Worlds

August 2, 2019 |

Greenbelt, MD – NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a hot planet that has pointed the way to additional worlds orbiting the same star, one of which is located in the star’s habitable zone. If made of rock, this planet may be around twice Earth’s size.

The new worlds orbit a star named GJ 357, an M-type dwarf about one-third the Sun’s mass and size and about 40% cooler that our star. The system is located 31 light-years away in the constellation Hydra. In February, TESS cameras caught the star dimming slightly every 3.9 days, revealing the presence of a transiting exoplanet — a world beyond our solar system — that passes across the face of its star during every orbit and briefly dims the star’s light.

This diagram shows the layout of the GJ 357 system. Planet d orbits within the star’s so-called habitable zone, the orbital region where liquid water can exist on a rocky planet’s surface. If it has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, GJ 357 d could be warm enough to permit the presence of liquid water. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA detects Gravitational Waves from Two merging Neutron Stars

October 17, 2017 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – For the first time, NASA scientists have detected light tied to a gravitational-wave event, thanks to two merging neutron stars in the galaxy NGC 4993, located about 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra.

Shortly after 5:41am PDT (8:41am EDT) on August 17th, 2017, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope picked up a pulse of high-energy light from a powerful explosion, which was immediately reported to astronomers around the globe as a short gamma-ray burst. The scientists at the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detected gravitational waves dubbed GW170817 from a pair of smashing stars tied to the gamma-ray burst, encouraging astronomers to look for the aftermath of the explosion.

An artist’s impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars. (R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope discovers shadow moving across Young Star

January 10, 2017 |

Written by Felicia Chou
NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – Searching for planets around other stars is a tricky business. They’re so small and faint that it’s hard to spot them. But a possible planet in a nearby stellar system may be betraying its presence in a unique way: by a shadow that is sweeping across the face of a vast pancake-shaped gas-and-dust disk surrounding a young star.

The planet itself is not casting the shadow. But it is doing some heavy lifting by gravitationally pulling on material near the star and warping the inner part of the disk. The twisted, misaligned inner disk is casting its shadow across the surface of the outer disk.

These images, taken a year apart by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, reveal a shadow moving counterclockwise around a gas-and-dust disk encircling the young star TW Hydrae. The two images at the top, taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, show an uneven brightness across the disk. Through enhanced image processing (images at bottom), the darkening becomes even more apparent. These enhanced images allowed astronomers to determine the reason for the changes in brightness. The dimmer areas of the disk, at top left, are caused by a shadow spreading across the outer disk. (NASA, ESA, and J. Debes (STScI))

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope takes ghostly images of three Nebulas for Halloween

November 2, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – In the spirit of Halloween, scientists are releasing a trio of stellar ghosts caught in infrared light by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. All three spooky structures, called planetary nebulas, are in fact material ejected from dying stars. As death beckoned, the stars’ wispy bits and pieces were blown into outer space.

“Some might call the images haunting,” said Joseph Hora of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, principal investigator of the Spitzer observing program. “We look to the pictures for a sense of the history of the stars’ mass loss, and to learn how they evolved over time.”

This trio of ghostly images from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the disembodied remains of dying stars called planetary nebulas. Exposed Cranium Nebula (left) | Ghost of Jupiter Nebula (middle) | Little Dumbbell Nebula (right) (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA Hubble Space Telescope takes image of Colliding Galaxies

June 23, 2013 |

Greenbelt, MD – This striking NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, which shows what looks like the profile of a celestial bird, belies the fact that close encounters between galaxies are a messy business.

This interacting galaxy duo is collectively called Arp 142. The pair contains the disturbed, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2936, along with its elliptical companion, NGC 2937 at lower left.

Interacting GAlaxies Arp 142. (NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spies Spiral Galaxy near the Constellation of Hydra

November 26, 2012 |

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD -The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the spiral galaxy ESO 499-G37, seen here against a backdrop of distant galaxies, scattered with nearby stars.

The galaxy is viewed from an angle, allowing Hubble to reveal its spiral nature clearly. The faint, loose spiral arms can be distinguished as bluish features swirling around the galaxy’s nucleus. This blue tinge emanates from the hot, young stars located in the spiral arms. The arms of a spiral galaxy have large amounts of gas and dust, and are often areas where new stars are constantly forming.

NASA’s Hubble Telescope Eyes a Loose Spiral Galaxy. (ESA/NASA/Hubble)

«Read the rest of this article»

© 2006-2021 Clarksville, TN Online is owned and operated by residents of Clarksville Tennessee.
» We are Hosted by Compu-Net Enterprises; In Partnership with Discover Clarksville and Discover Paris