Science News Review

Busy Week in Astro-News

Apr 4 at 6:06pm by Aileen

The annual meeting of the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast this week has produced some cool news items on the astronomical discoveries of the past year. First up, we have some interesting findings in our own neighborhood with research focusing on our sun. An international team announced that they’d discovered the source of the solar wind.

The solar wind consists of electrically charged particles that flow away from the sun in all directions. The scientists working with the Hinode mission and the UK’s Extreme Ultraviolet imaging Spectrometer to determine that the sun’s magnetic fields create bright regions of activity on the solar surface. The edges of these bright regions emit hot gas at high speeds. The magnetic fields connect even in separated regions, and this connection (or collision) allows hot gas to escape from the sun’s gravitational field as solar wind.

In another presentation astronomers reported findings specific to the sun’s magnetic fountains. To model the fields that provide the solar wind engines computer simulations were combined with the Hinode mission probe data. Being able to make predictions about the sun’s dynamic magnetic fields and the particle fountains comprising the solar wind should allow for more precise prediction of satellite and on-earth electronic systems disruption.

Farther from home, astronomers have discovered smallest black hole ever. It’s in the Milky Way binary system known as XTE J1650-500 in the southern constellation Ara. NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer [RXTE] satellite discovered the system in 2001, and astronomers examining the date discovered that it harbors a black hold at the very limits of minimum size according to theory. It’s just 15 miles across and its mass is just 3.8 times greater than our sun.

Further still from home, the Hubble space telescope revealed a rare view of the early stages of an exploding supernova occurring in the NGC 2397 spiral galaxy. In addition to showing an early stage view of the supernova SN 2006bc. This has allowed astronomers to investigate stars that may go supernovae and their distinguishing characteristics.