40-Year Study Finds Mysterious Patterns in Temperatures at Jupiter

Jupiter [image credit: NASA]

Unexpected patterns and teleconnections. Some new light is shed on the workings of the solar system’s largest planetary atmosphere.
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Scientists have completed the longest-ever study tracking temperatures in Jupiter’s upper troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere where the giant planet’s weather occurs and where its signature colorful striped clouds form, says Subaru Telescope.

The work, conducted over four decades by stitching together data from NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescope observations, found unexpected patterns in how temperatures of Jupiter’s belts and zones change over time.

The study is a major step toward a better understanding of what drives weather at our solar system’s largest planet and eventually being able to forecast it.

Jupiter’s troposphere has a lot in common with Earth’s: It’s where clouds form and storms churn. To understand this weather activity, scientists need to study certain properties, including wind, pressure, humidity, and temperature.

Astronomers surprised by ‘dramatic warming’ at Neptune’s south pole

Neptune

Planetary temperature conundrums are not confined to Earth. Nobody foresaw the observed changes that occurred on Neptune between 2018 and 2020.
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An international team of astronomers have used ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track Neptune’s atmospheric temperatures over a 17-year period, Phys.org.

They found a surprising drop in Neptune’s global temperatures followed by a dramatic warming at its south pole.

“This change was unexpected,” says Michael Roman, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Leicester, UK, and lead author of the study published today in The Planetary Science Journal. “Since we have been observing Neptune during its early southern summer, we expected temperatures to be slowly growing warmer, not colder.”

Huge Comet Discovery

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It’s really big, but its vast orbit won’t bring it past Earth.

Spaceweather.com

June 23, 2021: Astronomers have just discovered a comet so big, it might actually be a minor planet. The object is named 2014 UN271. Astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein found it in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey. It appears to be about 100 km wide, 2 or 3 times bigger than record-breaking Comet Hale-Bopp of the 1990s.

Above: A discovery image and orbit of huge Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein

Now for the bad news. Although 2014 UN271 is falling toward the sun, we may never see it with our naked eyes. At closest approach in early 2031, the behemoth comet will be just outside the orbit of Saturn, too far for naked-eye viewing. Some astronomers are estimating a maximum brightness near magnitude +17, about the same as Pluto’s moon Charon.

It’s still an amazing discovery. 2014 UN271 has an extremely elongated orbit stretching from ~the neighborhood of…

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‘Giant arc’ stretching 3.3 billion light-years across the cosmos shouldn’t exist

The Milky Way in the night sky over Black Rock Desert, Nevada [image credit: Steve Jurvetson / Wikipedia]

Not only that, but it’s likely ‘rotating on a scale never seen before’, says Phys.org. ‘How the angular momentum responsible for the rotation is generated in a cosmological context is one of the key unsolved problems of cosmology.’
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How big is too big? – asks Space.com.

A newly discovered crescent of galaxies spanning 3.3 billion light-years is among the largest known structures in the universe and challenges some of astronomers’ most basic assumptions about the cosmos.

The epic arrangement, called the Giant Arc, consists of galaxies, galactic clusters, and lots of gas and dust.

It is located 9.2 billion light-years away and stretches across roughly a 15th of the observable universe.

Second Earth Trojan Asteroid Discovered

Lagrange points in the Sun–Earth system (not to scale). A small object at L4 or L5 will hold its relative position [Credit: Xander89 @ Wikipedia]

More about Lagrange points here.
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A recently discovered asteroid appears to be an Earth Trojan, orbiting a gravitationally stable area with only one other known occupant, says Sky & Telescope.

Trojans are asteroids gravitationally locked to stable Lagrange points either 60° ahead (L4) or behind (L5) the planets in their orbits around the Sun. 2020 XL5 was found around the L4 point.

Massive Jupiter has more than 9,000 Trojans.

In theory, Trojan orbits would be stable around every planet except Saturn, where Jupiter’s gravity pulls them away.

Why Phi – the Fibonacci resonances of the TOI-451 exoplanets

NASA’s exoplanet hunter (TESS)
[image credit: MIT]

This three-planet system has orbit periods ranging from under two to over sixteen days, obviously another very compact group. Their star is slightly smaller and less powerful than our Sun.

Planets b and c are a fraction of Jupiter’s size, but planet d is vast with a radius of over four Jupiters, or about 45 Earth radii.

Multiple resonances of exoplanets in the TOI-178 system

Credit: NASA

This six-planet system has orbit periods from 1.9~ to 20.7~ days, all much closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun.

It was recently ‘upgraded’ from the three planets discovered in 2018 and 2019.

As usual, the key to understanding the timings of the orbits is to look at the conjunction periods of the neighbour pairs.

Jupiter, Saturn merging in night sky, closest in centuries

Credit: wcia.com

How to see it, plus videos – here.
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Jupiter and Saturn will merge in the night sky Monday, appearing closer to one another than they have since Galileo’s time in the 17th century, says Phys.org.

Astronomers say so-called conjunctions between the two largest planets in our solar system aren’t particularly rare.

Jupiter passes its neighbor Saturn in their respective laps around the sun every 20 years.

But the one coming up is especially close: Jupiter and Saturn will be just one-tenth of a degree apart from our perspective or about one-fifth the width of a full moon.

They should be easily visible around the world a little after sunset, weather permitting.

Bright Comet Erasmus

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Short video here.

Spaceweather.com

Nov. 21, 2020: Every 2000 years, Comet Erasmus (C/2020 S3) visits the inner Solar System. News Flash: It’s back. Discovered on Sept. 17, 2020, by South African astronomer Nicolas Erasmus, the dirty snowball is plunging toward the sun for a close encounter inside the orbit of Mercury on Dec. 12th. This is what it looks like:

Gerald Rhemann took the picture Friday morning, Nov. 20th, using a 12-inch telescope in Farm Tivoli, Namibia. “The tail is magnificent,” he says. “In fact, I couldn’t fit it in a single field of view. This two-panel composite shows the first 3 degrees–and it keeps going well past the edge of the photo.”

Comet Erasmus is brightening as it approaches the sun. Right now it is 7th magnitude–an easy target for backyard telescopes. Forecasters believe it will more than triple in brightness to 5th magnitude by the time it dips inside the orbit of Mercury…

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Two interacting gas giants orbit sun-like star WASP-148

Super-WASP telescope site, La Palma [image credit: lapalma-island.com]

In nearly six years there are 247 b and 63 c orbits. Since 248:62 is 4:1, it can be seen why the observed ‘acceleration and deceleration’ of the planets might occur.
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Astronomers using the SuperWASP-North telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain, and the SOPHIE spectrograph at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France, have discovered two giant exoplanets circling the G-type dwarf star WASP-148, reports Science News.

WASP-148 is a slowly rotating, inactive G-dwarf star 809 light-years away in the constellation of Hercules.

Also known as TYC 3083-295-1 and 2MASS J16563135+4418095, the star has the same mass and radius as the Sun.

WASP-148 hosts a planetary system composed of at least two giant planets, WASP-148b and c.

Is ‘Planet Nine’ actually a grapefruit-sized black hole?

Credit: NASA

Could there even be more than one black hole? The search for a significant extra planet has drawn a blank so far.
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A coming sky survey will help test a wild idea — that a grapefruit-sized black hole lurks undiscovered in the outer solar system, says Mike Wall @ Space.com.

Over the past few years, researchers have noticed an odd clustering in the orbits of multiple trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), which dwell in the dark depths of the far outer solar system.

Some scientists have hypothesized that the TNOs’ paths have been sculpted by the gravitational pull of a big object way out there, something 5 to 10 times more massive than Earth (though others think the TNOs may just be tugging on each other).

This big “perturber,” if it exists, may be a planet — the so-called “Planet Nine,” or “Planet X” or “Planet Next” for those who will always regard Pluto as the ninth planet.

But there’s another possibility as well: The shepherding object may be a black hole, one that crams all that mass into a sphere the size of a grapefruit.

Unprecedented ground-based discovery of two strongly interacting exoplanets

Their orbits have a ratio of 247:63, whereas 248:62 = 4:1.
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Several interacting exoplanets have already been spotted by satellites.

But a new breakthrough has been achieved with, for the first time, the detection directly from the ground of an extrasolar system of this type, reports Phys.org.

An international collaboration including CNRS researchers has discovered an unusual planetary system, dubbed WASP-148, using the French instrument SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université).

The scientists analyzed the star’s motion and concluded that it hosted two planets, WASP-148b and WASP-148c. The observations showed that the two planets were strongly interacting, which was confirmed from other data.

Nabta Playa: The World’s First Astronomical Site

Nabta Playa

An inventory of Egyptian archaeo-astronomical sites for the UNESCO World Heritage Convention evaluated Nabta Playa as having “hypothetical solar and stellar alignments.” – Wikipedia.
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This 7,000-year-old stone circle tracked the summer solstice and the arrival of the annual monsoon season. It’s the oldest known astronomical site on Earth, says Discover magazine.

For thousands of years, ancient societies all around the world erected massive stone circles, aligning them with the sun and stars to mark the seasons.

These early calendars foretold the coming of spring, summer, fall and winter, helping civilizations track when to plant and harvest crops.

They also served as ceremonial sites, both for celebration and sacrifice.

These megaliths — large, prehistoric monuments made of stone — may seem mysterious in our modern era, when many people lack a connection with, or even view of, the stars.

Astronomers unveil the magnetic field of the solar corona

During a total solar eclipse, the Sun’s corona and prominences are visible to the naked eye [image credit: Luc Viatour / https://Lucnix.be ]

There’s an interesting time-series animation of the solar corona here. Clear differences in the corona at solar minimum compared to maximum were observed by the globetrotting researchers.
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While the world has been dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have been hard at work studying the solar corona, the outermost atmosphere of the sun which expands into interplanetary space, reports Phys.org.

This stream of charged particles radiating from the surface of the sun is called the solar wind and expands to fill the entire solar system.

The properties of the solar corona are a consequence of the sun’s complex magnetic field, which is produced in the solar interior and extends outward.

A new study by IfA graduate student Benjamin Boe, published Wednesday, June 3rd in the Astrophysical Journal, used total solar eclipse observations to measure the shape of the coronal magnetic field with higher spatial resolution and over a larger area than ever before.

Why astronomers now doubt there is an undiscovered 9th planet in our solar system

Credit: NASA

Looks like game over for the Planet Nine idea. Unavoidable observational biases may be at least partly to blame.
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Planet Nine is a theoretical, undiscovered giant planet in the mysterious far reaches of our solar system, says The Conversation (via Phys.org)

The presence of Planet Nine has been hypothesized to explain everything from the tilt of the sun’s spin axis to the apparent clustering in the orbits of small, icy asteroids beyond Neptune.

But does Planet Nine actually exist?

Solar gravitation puzzle

Browsing twitter recently I ran across this short video of a solar flare shot a few days ago.

The largest solar feature I've seen this minimum is raining Earth-sized gobs of plasma on the surface. Shot yesterday afternoon from my backyard, about an hour of activity sped up. #astrophotography #space #opteam pic.twitter.com/Y72I37zswR

— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) May 5, 2020

After asking for some clarification on frame rate I was really intrigued.

50 frames with 90 seconds between each

— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) May 6, 2020

Corey S. Powell: The next 10 years will be a remarkable era of space exploration

In 2025, the Japanese-European BepiColombo probe will carry out the most detailed exploration of Mercury. (Here you see it examining its own antenna, preparing for the mission ahead.) https://t.co/4pomSLfyok pic.twitter.com/Z3wf6iwg9b

— Corey S. Powell (@coreyspowell) March 17, 2020

Ten things we’ve learned about the sun from NASA’s SDO this decade

The linked article contains more video material and images.
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In February 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory—SDO—is celebrating its 10th year in space, reports Phys.org.

Over the past decade the spacecraft has kept a constant eye on the sun, studying how the sun creates solar activity and drives space weather—the dynamic conditions in space that impact the entire solar system, including Earth.

Since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO has collected millions of scientific images of our nearest star, giving scientists new insights into its workings.

SDO’s measurements of the sun—from the interior to the atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output—have greatly contributed to our understanding of our closest star.

SDO’s images have also become iconic—if you’ve ever seen a close up of activity on the sun, it was likely from an SDO image.

SDO’s long career in space has allowed it to witness nearly an entire solar cycle—the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity.

Here are a few highlights of SDO’s accomplishments over the years.

Does the Radcliffe wave discovery offer new evidence of a 26-million-year cycle of extinction on Earth?

Visualization of the Radcliffe Wave. The wave is marked by red dots. The Sun is represented by a yellow dot to show our proximity to this huge structure. Courtesy of Alyssa Goodman/Harvard University

Scientists have previously reported evidence for a 26-million-year cycle of extinction on Earth, but the idea has remained controversial and unexplained. Now the discovery of the Radcliffe Wave may offer an explanation, but has anyone so far said so?

The team also found the wave interacts with the Sun. It crossed our path about 13 million years ago and will again in another 13 million years. What happened during this encounter is also unknown.

“There was no obvious mass extinction event 13 million years ago, so although we were crossing a sort of minefield back then, it did not leave an obvious mark,” Alves said. “Still, with the advent of more sensitive mass spectrometers, it is likely we will find some sort of mark left on the planet.”

13+13 = 26 (million). Can such a mark be found?
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From the article, ‘Something Appears to Have Collided with the Milky Way and Created a Huge Wave in the Galactic Plane’:

NASA’s TESS satellite claims its first Earth-size exoplanet in the habitable zone

Having one side of the planet constantly facing the star due to tidal locking could make habitability tricky though. There are three known planets in the system.
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From Wikipedia:
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface.

Scientists confirmed the find, called TOI 700 d, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and have modeled the planet’s potential environments to help inform future observations.