Exoplanets Can’t Hide Their Secrets from Innovative New Instrument

Artist's conception of the Kepler-13AB binary star system as revealed by observations including the new Gemini Observatory data. The two stars (A and B) are large, massive bluish stars (center) with the transiting "hot Jupiter" (Kepler-13b) in the foreground (left corner). Star B and its low mass red dwarf companion star are seen in the background to the right.  Credit: Gemini Observatory/NSF/AURA/Artwork by Joy Pollard. Download JPG 4.4MB | TIFF 9.3MB

In an unprecedented feat, an American research team discovered hidden secrets of an elusive exoplanet using a powerful new instrument at the 8-meter Gemini North telescope on Maunakea in Hawai‘i. The findings not only classify a Jupiter-sized exoplanet in a close binary star system, but also conclusively demonstrate, for the first time, which star the planet orbits.

The breakthrough occurred when Steve B. Howell of the NASA Ames Research Center and his team used a high-resolution imaging instrument of their design — named ‘Alopeke (a contemporary Hawaiian word for Fox). The team observed exoplanet Kepler-13b as it passed in front of (transited) one of the stars in the Kepler-13AB binary star system some 2,000 light years distant. Prior to this attempt, the true nature of the exoplanet was a mystery.

“There was confusion over Kepler-13b: was it a low-mass star or a hot Jupiter-like world? So we devised an experiment using the sly instrument ‘Alopeke,” Howell said. The research was recently published in the Astronomical Journal. "We monitored both stars, Kepler A and Kepler B, simultaneously while looking for any changes in brightness during the planet’s transit,” Howell explained. “To our pleasure, we not only solved the mystery, but also opened a window into a new era of exoplanet research.”

“This dual win has elevated the importance of instruments like ‘Alopeke in exoplanet research,” said Chris Davis of the National Science Foundation, one of Gemini’s sponsoring agencies. “The exquisite seeing and telescope abilities of Gemini Observatory, as well as the innovative ‘Alopeke instrument made this discovery possible in merely four hours of observations."

‘Alopeke performs “speckle imaging,” collecting a thousand 60-millisecond exposures every minute. After processing this large amount of data, the final images are free of the adverse effects of atmospheric turbulence — which can bloat, blur, and distort star images.

“About one half of all exoplanets orbit a star residing in a binary system, yet, until now, we were at a loss to robustly determine which star hosts the planet,” said Howell.

The team’s analysis revealed a clear drop in the light from Kepler A, proving that the planet orbits the brighter of the two stars. Moreover, ‘Alopeke simultaneously provides data at both red and blue wavelengths, an unusual capability for speckle imagers. Comparing the red and blue data, the researchers were surprised to discover that the dip in the star’s blue light was about twice as deep as the dip seen in red light. This can be explained by a hot exoplanet with a very extended atmosphere, which more effectively blocks the light at blue wavelengths. Thus, these multi-color speckle observations give a tantalizing glimpse into the appearance of this distant world.

Early observations once pointed to the transiting object being either a low-mass star or a brown dwarf (an object somewhere between the heaviest planets and the lightest stars). But Howell and his team’s research almost certainly shows the object to be a Jupiter-like gas-giant exoplanet with a “puffed up” atmosphere due to exposure to the tremendous radiation from its host star.

'Alopeke has an identical twin at the Gemini South telescope in Chile, named Zorro, which is the word for fox in Spanish. Like 'Alopeke, Zorro is capable of speckle imaging in both blue and red wavelengths. The presence of these instruments in both hemispheres allows Gemini Observatory to resolve the thousands of exoplanets known to be in multiple star systems.

"Speckle imaging is experiencing a renaissance with technology like fast, low noise detectors becoming more easily available," said team member and ‘Alopeke instrument scientist Andrew Stephens at the Gemini North telescope. "Combined with Gemini's large primary mirror, ‘Alopeke has real potential to make even more significant exoplanet discoveries by adding another dimension to the search."

First proposed by French astronomer Antoine Labeyrie in 1970, speckle imaging is based on the idea that atmospheric turbulence can be “frozen” when obtaining very short exposures. In these short exposures, stars look like collections of little spots, or speckles, where each of these speckles has the size of the telescope’s optimal limit of resolution. When taking many exposures, and using a clever mathematical approach, these speckles can be reconstructed to form the true image of the source, removing the effect of atmospheric turbulence. The result is the highest-quality image that a telescope can produce, effectively obtaining space-based resolution from the ground — making these instruments superb probes of extrasolar environments that may harbor planets.

The discovery of planets orbiting other stars has changed the view of our place in the Universe. Space missions like NASA’s Kepler/K2 Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have revealed that there are twice as many planets orbiting stars in the sky than there are stars visible to the unaided eyes; to date the total discovery count hovers around 4,000. While these telescopes detect exoplanets by looking for tiny dips in the brightness of a star when a planet crosses in front of it, they have their limits.

“These missions observe large fields of view containing hundreds of thousands of stars, so they don’t have the fine spatial resolution necessary to probe deeper,” Howell said. “One of the major discoveries of exoplanet research is that about one-half of all exoplanets orbit stars that reside in binary systems. Making sense of these complex systems requires technologies that can conduct time sensitive observations and investigate the finer details with exceptional clarity.”

“Our work with Kepler-13b stands as a model for future research of exoplanets in multiple star systems,” Howell continued. “The observations highlight the ability of high-resolution imaging with powerful telescopes like Gemini to not only assess which stars with planets are in binaries, but also robustly determine which of the stars the exoplanet orbits.”

Source: Gemini Observatory

Media Contacts:

Peter Michaud
Public Information and Outreach Manager
Gemini Observatory, Hilo, HI
email: pmichaud@gemini.edu
Desk: (808) 974-2510
Cell: (808) 936-6643

Alyssa Grace
Public Information and Outreach Assistant
Gemini Observatory, Hilo, HI
email: agrace@gemini.edu
Desk: (808) 974-2531

Science Contacts:

Steve B. Howell
Space Science and Astrobiology Division
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
email: steve.b.howell@nasa.gov
Desk: (650) 604-4238
Cell: (520) 461-6925

Andrew Stephens
Instrument Scientist
Gemini Observatory, Hilo, HI
email: astephens@gemini.edu
Desk: (808) 974-2611

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Newly Discovered Giant Planet Slingshots Around Its Star

This illustration compares the eccentric orbit of HR 5183 b to the more circular orbits of the planets in our own solar system. Animation credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko. Vimeo

Three times the mass of Jupiter, a first-of-its-kind planet swings around its star on bizarre path

Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers have discovered a planet three times the mass of Jupiter that travels on a long, egg-shaped path around its star. If this planet were somehow placed into our own solar system, it would swing from within our asteroid belt to out beyond Neptune.

Other giant planets with highly elliptical orbits have been found around other stars, but none of those worlds were located at the very outer reaches of their star systems like this one.

“This planet is unlike the planets in our solar system, but more than that, it is unlike any other exoplanets we have discovered so far,” says Sarah Blunt, a Caltech graduate student and first author on the new study publishing in The Astronomical Journal. “Other planets detected far away from their stars tend to have very low eccentricities, meaning that their orbits are more circular. The fact that this planet has such a high eccentricity speaks to some difference in the way that it either formed or evolved relative to the other planets.”

The planet was discovered using the radial velocity method, a workhorse of exoplanet discovery that detects new worlds by tracking how their parent stars “wobble” in response to gravitational tugs from those planets.

However, analyses of these data usually require observations taken over a planet’s entire orbital period. For planets orbiting far from their stars, this can be difficult: a full orbit can take tens or even hundreds of years. 

The California Planet Search, led by Caltech Professor of Astronomy Andrew W. Howard, is one of the few groups that watches stars over the decades-long timescales necessary to detect long-period exoplanets using radial velocity. 

The data needed to make the discovery of the new planet were first provided by W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. In 1997, the team began using Keck Observatory’s High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) to take measurements of the planet’s star, called HR 5183.

“The key was persistence,” said Howard. “Our team followed this star with Keck Observatory for more than two decades and only saw evidence for the planet in the past couple years! Without that long-term effort, we never would have found this planet.”

In addition to Keck Observatory, the California Planet Search also used the Lick Observatory in Northern California and the McDonald Observatory in Texas.

The astronomers have been watching HR 5183 since the 1990s, but do not have data corresponding to one full orbit of the planet, called HR 5183 b, because it circles its star roughly every 45 to 100 years. The team instead found the planet because of its strange orbit. 

“This planet spends most of its time loitering in the outer part of the solar system in this highly eccentric orbit, then it starts to accelerate in and does a slingshot around its star,” explains Howard. “We detected this slingshot motion. We saw the planet come in and now it’s on its way out. That creates such a distinctive signature that we can be sure that this is a real planet, even though we haven’t seen a complete orbit.”

The new findings show that it is possible to use the radial velocity method to make detections of other far-flung planets without waiting decades. And, the researchers suggest, looking for more planets like this one could illuminate the role of giant planets in shaping their solar systems.

Planets take shape out of disks of material left over after stars form. That means that planets should start off in flat, circular orbits. For the newly detected planet to be on such an eccentric orbit, it must have gotten a gravitational kick from some other object. 

The most plausible scenario, the researchers propose, is that the planet once had a neighbor of similar size. When the two planets got close enough to each other, one pushed the other out of the solar system, forcing HR 5183 b into a highly eccentric orbit.

“This newfound planet basically would have come in like a wrecking ball,” says Howard, “knocking anything in its way out of the system.”

This discovery demonstrates that our understanding of planets beyond our solar system is still evolving. Researchers continue to find worlds that are unlike anything in our solar system or in solar systems we have already discovered.

“Copernicus taught us that Earth is not the center of the solar system, and as we expanded into discovering other solar systems of exoplanets, we expected them to be carbon copies of our own solar system,” Howard explains, “But it’s just been one surprise after another in this field. This newfound planet is another example of a system that is not the image of our solar system but has remarkable features that make our universe incredibly rich in its diversity.”

The study, titled, “Radial Velocity of an Eccentric Jovian World Orbiting at 18AU,” was funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, Tennessee State University and the State of Tennessee, the Beatrice Watson Parrent Fellowship, the Trottier Family Foundation, and Caltech. Other Caltech authors include: BJ Fulton, a staff scientist at IPAC; former postdoctoral scholar Sean Mills (BS ’12); Erik Petigura, a former postdoctoral scholar now based at UCLA; and Arpita Roy, R.A. & G.B. Millikan Postdoctoral Scholar in Astronomy.

Source: W.M. Keck Observatory

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About HIRES

The High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) produces spectra of single objects at very high spectral resolution, yet covering a wide wavelength range. It does this by separating the light into many “stripes” of spectra stacked across a mosaic of three large CCD detectors. HIRES is famous for finding exoplanets. Astronomers also use HIRES to study important astrophysical phenomena like distant galaxies and quasars, and find cosmological clues about the structure of the early universe, just after the Big Bang.

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About W.M. Keck Observatory

The W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes are the most scientifically productive on Earth. The two, 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes atop Maunakea on the Island of Hawaii feature a suite of advanced instruments including imagers, multi-object spectrographs, high-resolution spectrographs, integral-field spectrometers, and world-leading laser guide star adaptive optics systems. The data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the Native Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. 

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The Latest Look at "First Light" from Chandra

More Animations

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured many spectacular images of cosmic phenomena over its two decades of operations, but perhaps its most iconic is the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.

Located about 11,000 light-years from Earth, Cas A (as it's nicknamed) is the glowing debris field left behind after a massive star exploded. When the star ran out of fuel, it collapsed onto itself and blew up as a supernova, possibly briefly becoming one of the brightest objects in the sky. (Although astronomers think that this happened around the year 1680, there are no verifiable historical records to confirm this.)

The shock waves generated by this blast supercharged the stellar wreckage and its environment, making the debris glow brightly in many types of light, particularly X-rays. Shortly after Chandra was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, astronomers directed the observatory to point toward Cas A. It was featured in Chandra's official “First Light” image, released Aug. 26, 1999, and marked a seminal moment not just for the observatory, but for the field of X-ray astronomy. Near the center of the intricate pattern of the expanding debris from the shattered star, the image revealed, for the first time, a dense object called a neutron star that the supernova left behind.

Since then, Chandra has repeatedly returned to Cas A to learn more about this important object. A new video shows the evolution of Cas A over time, enabling viewers to watch as incredibly hot gas — about 20 million degrees Fahrenheit — in the remnant expands outward. These X-ray data have been combined with data from another of NASA's "Great Observatories," the Hubble Space Telescope, showing delicate filamentary structures of cooler gases with temperatures of about 20,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hubble data from a single time period are shown to emphasize the changes in the Chandra data.

The video shows Chandra observations of Cas A from 2000 to 2013. In that time, a child could enter kindergarten and graduate from high school. While the transformation might not be as apparent as that of a student over the same period, it is remarkable to watch a cosmic object change on human time scales.

The blue, outer region of Cas A shows the expanding blast wave of the explosion. The blast wave is composed of shock waves, similar to the sonic booms generated by a supersonic aircraft. These expanding shock waves produce X-ray emission and are sites where particles are being accelerated to energies that reach about two times higher than the most powerful accelerator on Earth, the Large Hadron Collider. As the blast wave travels outwards at speeds of about 11 million miles per hour, it encounters surrounding material and slows down, generating a second shock wave - called a "reverse shock" - that travels backwards, similar to how a traffic jam travels backwards from the scene of an accident on a highway.

These reverse shocks are usually observed to be faint and much slower moving than the blast wave. However, a team of astronomers led by Toshiki Sato from RIKEN in Saitama, Japan, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, have reported reverse shocks in Cas A that appear bright and fast moving, with speeds between about 5 and 9 million miles per hour. These unusual reverse shocks are likely caused by the blast wave encountering clumps of material surrounding the remnant, as Sato and team discuss in their 2018 study. This causes the blast wave to slow down more quickly, which re-energizes the reverse shock, making it brighter and faster. Particles are also accelerated to colossal energies by these inward moving shocks, reaching about 30 times the energies of the LHC.

Cassiopeia A in X-ray and optical light.

JPEG (698.2 kb)] - Large JPEG (5.3 MB) - Tiff (27.6 MB)

This recent study of Cas A adds to a long collection of Chandra discoveries over the course of the telescope's 20 years. In addition to finding the central neutron star, Chandra data have revealed the distribution of elements essential for life ejected by the explosion (shown above), have constructed a remarkable three dimensional model of the supernova remnant, and much more.

Scientists also created a historical record in optical light of Cas A using photographic plates from the Palomar Observatory in California from 1951 and 1989 that had been digitized by the Digitized Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard (DASCH) program, located at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA). These were combined with images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope between 2000 and 2011. This long-term look at Cas A allowed astronomers Dan Patnaude of CfA and Robert Fesen of Dartmouth College to learn more about the physics of the explosion and the resulting remnant from both the X-ray and optical data.

This recent study of Cas A adds to a long collection of Chandra discoveries over the course of the telescope’s 20 years. In addition to finding the central neutron star, Chandra data have revealed the distribution of elements essential for life ejected by the explosion, clues about the details of how the star exploded, and much more.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A Tour of the Latest Look at "First Light" from Chandra

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Fast Facts for Cassiopeia A Movie:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIKEN/T. Sato et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
Scale: Image is about 8.4 arcmin (27 light years) across.
Category: Supernovas & Supernova Remnants
Coordinates (J2000): RA 23h 23m 26.7s | Dec +58° 49' 03.00"
Constellation: Cassiopeia
Observation Date: 8 pointings from Jan 1, 2000 to May 20, 2013
Observation Time: 123 hours
Obs. ID: 114, 11952,4638,9117, 10935-10936, 14229, 14480
Instrument: ACIS
Also Known As: Cas A
References: Sato,T., et al. 2018, ApJ, 853, 46. arXiv:1710.06992
Color Code: X-rays: Energy (Red: 0.5-1.5keV; Green 1.5-2.5 keV, Blue: 4.0-6.0 keV)
Distance Estimate: About 11,000 light years

Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

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Storms on Jupiter Seen by Multi-Wavelength Observations

Figure 1: Subaru/COMICS map of Jupiter at 8.70 microns. Images recorded over the four consecutive nights (January 11-14, 2017) were stitched together to produce an image over 360 degrees in longitude. Several features are indicated on the map (Great Red Spot (GRS), Oval BA (BA), Source SEB Outbreak by arrow #1, Vortices by arrow #3, Hot Spots by arrow #4, and Large Plumes by arrow #5). (Credit: Imke de Pater et al.)

Multi-wavelength measurements from telescopes worldwide capture the eruption of storms in Jupiter's northern and southern equatorial belts.

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope contributed to coordinated observations of the planet in January 2017, joining observers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), the Very Large Array (VLA), NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Gemini North Telescope, the Very Large Telescope (VLT), and the W. M. Keck Telescope in tracking the effects of these storms - visible as bright plumes above the planet's main ammonia ice cloud deck over which they appear. The rising plumes then interacted with Jupiter's powerful winds, which stretched the clouds far from their points of origin.

These multi-wavelength, coordinated observations are consistent with one theory, known as moist convection, about how these plumes form. According to this theory, upwelling winds carry a mix of ammonia and water vapor high enough for the water to condense into liquid droplets. The condensing water releases heat that expands the cloud and buoys it quickly upward through other cloud layers, ultimately breaking through the ammonia ice clouds at the top of the atmosphere.

"Mid-infrared images of Jupiter from the Subaru Telescope and the Very Large Telescope and ALMA radio observations indicate the plumes are dark at wavelengths where ammonia gas absorbs", said Glenn Orton of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the United States. "This demonstrates the plumes are rich in ammonia gas, which supports the theory they are driven by moist convection." Yasumasa Kasaba of Tohoku University in Japan added "this is a great example of using coordinated observations over several wavelength regimes to improve the understanding of atmospheric phenomena on other planets".

The observations will ultimately help planetary scientists understand the complex atmospheric dynamics on Jupiter, which, with its Great Red Spot and colorful bands, make it one of the most beautiful and changeable of the giant gas planets in the solar system.

Figure 2: HST map at optical wavelengths from 11 January, 2017, with the zonal wind profile superimposed. 

Credit: Imke de Pater et al.

These results are described in a paper led by Dr. Imke de Pater of UC Berkeley that will be published by the Astronomical Journal online. Glenn Orton, James Sinclair of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Yasumasa Kasaba of Tohoku University in Japan contributed the Subaru mid-infrared images using the COMICS instrument. Among the other co-authors of the paper are graduate students Chris Moeckel and Charles Goullaud and research astronomers Michael Wong and David DeBoer, of UC Berkeley; Robert Sault of the University of Melbourne in Australia; and Bryan Butler of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Each was involved in obtaining and analyzing the Hubble, Gemini, ALMA and VLA data, respectively. Leigh Fletcher and Padraig Donnelly of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom supplied the VLT data. Gordon Bjoraker of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Máté Ádámkovics of Clemson University in South Carolina were responsible for the Keck data.

A part of the Subaru Telescope observations presented in the paper were observed through the Keck-Subaru exchange program.

Source: Subaru Telescope

Links:

• Storms on Jupiter are disturbing the planet's colorful belts (Press Releases from University of California, Berkeley)

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Revealing the Intimate Lives of MASSIVE Galaxies August 22, 2019

Figure caption. Example distributions of the first four velocity “moments” (called v, σ, h3 and h4 ) measured from the GMOS-N IFS data for two of the MASSIVE survey galaxies. For each galaxy, the top row shows two-dimensional maps, while the bottom row shows two-sided radial profiles from Gemini/GMOS-N (magenta circles) and McDonald Observatory (green squares) data. For more information, see the study by Berkeley graduate student Irina Ene, in the June issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Hi-res image

Every galaxy has a story, and every galaxy has been many others in the past (unlike for humans, this is not purely metaphorical, as galaxies grow via hierarchical assembly). Generally speaking, the most massive galaxies have led the most interesting lives, often within teeming galactic metropolises where they are subject to frequent interactions with assorted neighbors. These interactions influence the structure and motions of the stars, gas, and dark matter that make up the galaxies. They also affect the growth of the supermassive black holes at the galaxies’ centers.

Although the detailed life stories of most galaxies will remain forever uncertain, the key thematic elements may be surmised in various ways. A particularly powerful probe of a galaxy’s dynamical structure is called integral field spectroscopy (IFS), which dissects a galaxy’s light at each point within the spectrograph’s field of view. In this way, it is possible to construct a map of the motions of the stars within the galaxy and infer the distribution of the mass, both visible and invisible. IFS observations of the outskirts of a galaxy can provide insight into its global dynamics and past interactions, while IFS data on the innermost region can measure the mass of the supermassive black hole and the motions of the stars in its vicinity. 

The MASSIVE Galaxy Survey, led by Chung-Pei Ma of the University of California, Berkeley, is a major effort to uncover the internal structures and formation histories of the most massive galaxies within 350 million light years of our Milky Way. A recent study by the MASSIVE team presents high angular resolution IFS observations of 20 high-mass galaxies obtained with GMOS at Gemini North, combined with wide-field IFS data on the same galaxies from the 2.7-meter telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas. The study, led by Berkeley graduate student Irina Ene, appears in the June issue of The Astrophysical Journal. 

The accompanying figure shows example maps of four indicators, or “moments” (called v, σ, h3 , and h4), of the stellar motions within two galaxies in the MASSIVE survey. The maps, based on the GMOS IFS data, cover the central regions of the galaxies. The figure also shows graphs of how these indicators vary with distance from the centers of these galaxies. Although both galaxies exhibit ordered central rotation, they are strikingly different in how the motions of the stars vary within the galaxy. Interestingly, for galaxies in the MASSIVE Survey, the directions of the motions of the stars in the central regions are often unaligned with the motions at large radius. This indicates complex and diverse merger histories. 

As a proof of concept, the new study performs detailed dynamical modeling of the IFS data for NGC 1453, the galaxy in the sample with the fastest rotation rate. The team’s analysis reveals the amount of dark matter in this galaxy and shows how the shapes of the stars’ orbits change with radius. In addition, the team found an impressively large mass for the central black hole, more than three billion times the mass of our Sun. The MASSIVE Survey team is currently performing detailed modeling for all the rest of the galaxies in the sample. The results will provide further insight into the assembly histories of the largest galaxies in the local Universe and refine our understanding of the coevolution of galaxies and their central black holes up to the most extreme masses. 

This web feature can also be found in our July 2019 issue of Gemini Focus.

Source: Gemini Observatory

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Where Are New Stars Born? NASA's Webb Telescope Will Investigate

SDSS J1226+2152 

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy SDSS J1226+2152, which is being magnified and distorted by the immense gravity of a galaxy cluster in front of it. It is one of four distant, star-forming galaxies the TEMPLATES team will study with Webb. The team chose it as an example of a galaxy that is not very dusty. Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, and H. Ebeling (University of Hawaii). Release images

Release video

When it comes to making new stars, the party is almost over in the present-day universe. In fact, it’s been nearly over for billions of years. Our Milky Way continues to form the equivalent of one Sun every year. But in the past, that rate was up to 100 times greater. So if we really want to understand how stars like our Sun formed in the universe, we need to look billions of years into the past.

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope as a sort of time machine, a team of researchers intends to do just that. Led by principal investigator Jane Rigby of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and co-principal investigator Joaquin Vieira of the University of Illinois, Champaign, the team will take advantage of natural, cosmic telescopes called gravitational lenses. These large celestial objects will magnify the light from distant galaxies that are at or near the peak of star formation.

The phenomenon of gravitational lensing occurs when a huge amount of matter, such as a massive galaxy or cluster of galaxies, creates a gravitational field that distorts and magnifies the light from objects behind it, but in the same line of sight. The effect allows researchers to study the details of early galaxies too far away to be seen otherwise with even the most powerful space telescopes.

“We’re studying four galaxies that appear much, much brighter than they actually are, because they’ve been highly magnified up to 50 times. We’ll use gravitational lenses to study how those galaxies are forming their stars, and how that star formation is distributed across the galaxies,” explained Rigby.

“The nice thing about using lensed sources is that it’s like a cosmic magnifying glass, where the galaxy is stretched out, so it enhances the resolution of your telescope,” said Vieira.

The program is called Targeting Extremely Magnified Panchromatic Lensed Arcs and Their Extended Star Formation, or TEMPLATES. Although TEMPLATES is an acronym, its meaning goes deeper. The word “template” refers to something used as a pattern, mold, or guide for designing or constructing similar items. “We want to make these four targets incredibly well-studied, and to have really good data, so other Webb researchers can use them as templates, or good examples, when they are working to understand data for a large number of galaxies that are much fainter,” said Rigby.

How the Targets Were Chosen

One of the main reasons these four galaxies were chosen is because they’re very bright, making them easy to study. “All of these galaxies are forming stars like crazy,” said Vieira.

These targets also represent much of the variety of galaxies in the universe in terms of how dusty they are, how bright they are, and how many stars they’ve already made. Astronomers call galaxies "dusty" when their images show dark, often fuzzy patches that come from dust in the galaxy blocking starlight.

Two of the galaxies are very dusty, and two of them are not dusty at all. The two dusty galaxies are each lensed by another, single galaxy. The two galaxies that are not very dusty are lensed by galaxy clusters.

From very dusty galaxies, scientists have one picture of how galaxies evolved. From surveys of non-dusty galaxies, they have a different picture. Those pictures don’t always match. Webb is expected to provide a more complete story of star formation because it has the sensitivity to see the light from dust heated by young stars—even in galaxies that don’t have a lot of dust—as well as the sensitivity to see visible light even from the dusty galaxies.

The TEMPLATES team will use three of the four instruments aboard Webb, as well as many of the telescope’s filters and settings, to get as much data as possible on these galaxies. In addition to taking pictures, the team will use spectroscopy, a technique that will reveal the chemical composition of the galaxies, how gas is moving, and how dense and hot that gas is.

Webb will allow the team to make those measurements across each galaxy. “It’s like dissection,” explained Rigby. “We’ll pick apart every piece of the galaxy, rather than just getting one average measurement.”

Unlocking the Mysteries of Star Formation

The TEMPLATES team has four main goals:

1. Measure how many new stars are forming, to determine how rapidly galaxies form stars. By making different kinds of measurements of star-formation rates for the four galaxies, the team plans to see how well they agree or disagree. Through cross-checks, the team will determine whether or not these galaxies are in the midst of vigorous star formation, or if they are just forming a star occasionally.

2. Map the star-formation rate in these galaxies. Scientists don’t know much about where stars form in galaxies over most of cosmic time. Mapping star formation in galaxies in the nearby universe is relatively easy, but it’s much more difficult for distant galaxies. Looking across most of cosmic time, distant galaxies all appear very small in the sky and individual features cannot be resolved. So, scientists don’t have a good understanding of where stars formed in galaxies in the early universe.

3. Compare the young and old stellar populations. Scientists will measure the older stars—stars that live for billions of years, like the Sun. They’ll determine where those stars reside within a galaxy, which will inform them about the past history of star formation. Then they can compare that data to where the new stars are forming. That will reveal how star formation has changed in galaxies over time, and answer some basic questions about how galaxies grow. For example, do they build up from the inside out, or from the outside in?

4. Measure the conditions of the gas within these galaxies. Scientists will determine how much of the periodic table these galaxies have built up—for example, how much carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen they contain. They will also measure other physical conditions, such as how dense the gas is.

Helping Other Researchers Understand Webb

The team’s observations will be part of the Director’s Discretionary-Early Release Science program, which provides time to selected projects early in the telescope’s mission. This program allows the astronomical community to quickly learn how best to use Webb’s capabilities, while also yielding robust science. The team is also helping other researchers to understand the best way to take data with this telescope.

“TEMPLATES really just scratches the surface of what you can do with Webb,” Rigby continued. “It definitely will not be the last word—it’s one of the first words of what this telescope will be able to do, how we can understand galaxies. What we’re doing with TEMPLATES is we want to make sure we’re hitting the ground running with gorgeous data early in the mission to really understand how to make the most of Webb’s amazing capabilities.”

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world’s premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Contact

Ann Jenkins / Christine Pulliam

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

410-338-4488 / 410-338-4366

jenkins@stsci.edu / cpulliam@stsci.edu

Related Links:  NASA's Webb Portal

Source:  NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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A Rare Look at the Surface of a Rocky Exoplanet

An artist's conception of The Earth-sized exoplanet LHS 3844b which orbits a small star 49 light-years from Earth. It may be covered in dark volcanic rock, according to observations by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer data also suggest the planet has little to no atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC). High Resolution (jpg) - Low Resolution (jpg)

Detecting Light from Exoplanet LHS 3844b 
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/L. Kreidberg (CfA | Harvard & Smithsonian)

Low Resolution (jpg)

An artist's conception of The Earth-sized exoplanet LHS 3844b which orbits a small star 49 light-years from Earth. It may be covered in dark volcanic rock, according to observations by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer data also suggest the planet has little to no atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC). Animation (mov)

Cambridge, MA - With an 11-hour orbit around its parent star, the hot planet most likely has no atmosphere, and may be covered in dark lava rock, according to data from the IRAC camera on NASA's Spitzer telescope.

A new study using data from the IRAC camera on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope provides a rare glimpse at the conditions on the surface of a rocky planet around anther star. The exoplanet very likely has little to no atmosphere, according to the data, and could be covered in the same cooled volcanic material that comprises the dark lunar regions known as mare. The exoplanet therefore might be similar to Mercury, or to Earth's Moon.

This exoplanet discovery, published today (August 19, 2019) in the journal Nature, is just the latest in a series of nearly 700 refereed exoplanet publications relying on IRAC since 2009 when Spitzer’s Warm Mission began and IRAC became its only operating instrument. The IRAC camera’s PI-team is based at the CfA and is led by Giovanni Fazio.

The planet, LHS 3844b, was discovered in 2018 by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey (TESS) mission, is located 48.6 light-years from Earth, and has a radius 1.3 times that of Earth. It orbits a small, cool type of star called an M dwarf — especially noteworthy because, as one of the most common and long-lived types of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, M dwarfs may host a high percentage of the total number of planets in the galaxy. TESS found the planet via the transit method which detects when the observed light from a parent star dims as its orbiting exoplanet crosses the line-of-sight between the star and Earth. TESS’s Director of Science is CfA astronomer Dave Latham, and CfA astronomers are key members of the TESS Science Office Core and other TESS teams.

During follow-up observations, IRAC was able to detect light from the surface of LHS 3844b. The planet makes one full revolution around its parent star in just 11 hours. With such a tight orbit, LHS 3844b is most likely "tidally locked" with one side of the planet permanently facing the star. The star-facing side, or dayside, is about 1,410 degrees Fahrenheit (770 degrees Celsius). Being relatively hot, the planet radiates copious amounts of infrared light which IRAC, an infrared camera, is able to measure. This observation marks the first time IRAC data have been able to provide information about the atmosphere of a terrestrial-sized world around an M dwarf.

The Search for Life

By measuring the temperature difference between the planet's hot and cold sides, the team concluded that there is a negligible amount of heat being transferred between the two. If an atmosphere were present, hot air on the dayside would naturally expand, generating winds that would transfer heat around the planet. On a rocky world with little to no atmosphere, like the Moon, there is no air present to transfer heat. "The temperature contrast on this planet is about as big as it can possibly be," said CfA researcher Laura Kreidberg, lead author of the new study. "That matches beautifully with our model of a bare rock with no atmosphere."

Understanding the factors that could preserve or destroy planetary atmospheres is part of how scientists plan to search for habitable environments beyond our solar system. Earth's atmosphere is the reason liquid water can exist on the surface, enabling life to thrive. On the other hand, the atmospheric pressure of Mars is now less than 1% of Earth's, and the oceans and rivers that once dotted the Red Planet's surface have disappeared.

"We've got lots of theories about how planetary atmospheres fare around M dwarfs, but we haven't been able to study them empirically," Kreidberg said. "Now, with LHS 3844b, we have a terrestrial planet outside our solar system where for the first time we can determine observationally that an atmosphere is not present."

Compared to Sun-like stars, M dwarfs emit relatively high levels of ultraviolet light, which is harmful to life and can erode a planet's atmosphere. They're particularly violent in their youth, belching up a large number of flares -- bursts of radiation and particles that can strip away budding planetary atmospheres.

The IRAC observations rule out an atmosphere with more than 10 times the pressure of Earth's. An atmosphere between 1 and 10 bars on LHS 3844b has been almost entirely ruled out, although the authors note a slim chance it could exist if the stellar and planetary properties were to meet some very specific and unlikely criteria. (Measured in units called bars, Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 1 bar.) They also argue that with the planet so close to a star, a thin atmosphere would be stripped away by the star's intense radiation and winds. "I'm still hopeful that other planets around M dwarfs could keep their atmospheres," Kreidberg said. "The terrestrial planets in our solar system are enormously diverse, and I expect the same will be true for exoplanet systems."

A Bare Rock

The authors of the new study went one step further, using LHS 3844b's surface albedo (or its reflectiveness) to try to infer its composition. The Nature study shows that LHS 3844b is "quite dark," according to co-author Renyu Hu, an exoplanet scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which manages Spitzer. He and his co-authors believe the planet is covered with basalt, a kind of volcanic rock. "We know that the mare of the Moon are formed by ancient volcanism," Hu said, "and we postulate that this might be what has happened on this planet."

IRAC/Spitzer and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have previously gathered information about the atmospheres of multiple gas planets, but LHS 3844b appears to be the smallest planet for which scientists have used the light coming from its surface to learn about its atmosphere (or lack thereof). IRAC previously used the transit method to study the seven rocky worlds around the TRAPPIST-1 star (also an M dwarf) and learn about their possible overall composition; for instance, some of them likely contain water ice. NASA plans to terminate the Spitzer/IRAC operations in February, 2020, as a cost-savings measure.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe. This release is based on Spitzer-JPL release 2019-113.

For more information, contact:

Tyler Jump
Public Affairs
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
+1 617-495-7462
tyler.jump@cfa.harvard.edu

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA)

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Moon Glows Brighter Than Sun in Images From NASA's Fermi

The Moon shines brightly in gamma rays as seen in this time sequence from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each 5-by-5-degree image is centered on the Moon and shows gamma rays with energies above 31 million electron volts, or tens of millions of times that of visible light. At these energies, the Moon is actually brighter than the Sun. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. This animation shows how longer exposure, ranging from two to 128 months (10.7 years), improved the view. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration. Download

If our eyes could see high-energy radiation called gamma rays, the Moon would appear brighter than the Sun! That’s how NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has seen our neighbor in space for the past decade.

Gamma-ray observations are not sensitive enough to clearly see the shape of the Moon’s disk or any surface features. Instead, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) detects a prominent glow centered on the Moon’s position in the sky.

Mario Nicola Mazziotta and Francesco Loparco, both at Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Bari, have been analyzing the Moon’s gamma-ray glow as a way of better understanding another type of radiation from space: fast-moving particles called cosmic rays.

“Cosmic rays are mostly protons accelerated by some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, like the blast waves of exploding stars and jets produced when matter falls into black holes,” explained Mazziotta.

Because the particles are electrically charged, they’re strongly affected by magnetic fields, which the Moon lacks. As a result, even low-energy cosmic rays can reach the surface, turning the Moon into a handy space-based particle detector. When cosmic rays strike, they interact with the powdery surface of the Moon, called the regolith, to produce gamma-ray emission. The Moon absorbs most of these gamma rays, but some of them escape.

Mazziotta and Loparco analyzed Fermi LAT lunar observations to show how the view has improved during the mission. They rounded up data for gamma rays with energies above 31 million electron volts — more than 10 million times greater than the energy of visible light — and organized them over time, showing how longer exposures improve the view.

“Seen at these energies, the Moon would never go through its monthly cycle of phases and would always look full,” said Loparco.

These images show the steadily improving view of the Moon’s gamma-ray glow from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each 5-by-5-degree image is centered on the Moon and shows gamma rays with energies above 31 million electron volts, or tens of millions of times that of visible light. At these energies, the Moon is actually brighter than the Sun. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. This image sequence shows how longer exposure, ranging from two to 128 months (10.7 years), improved the view.  Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration. Hi-res image

As NASA sets its sights on sending humans to the Moon by 2024 through the Artemis program, with the eventual goal of sending astronauts to Mars, understanding various aspects of the lunar environment take on new importance. These gamma-ray observations are a reminder that astronauts on the Moon will require protection from the same cosmic rays that produce this high-energy gamma radiation.

While the Moon’s gamma-ray glow is surprising and impressive, the Sun does shine brighter in gamma rays with energies higher than 1 billion electron volts. Cosmic rays with lower energies do not reach the Sun because its powerful magnetic field screens them out. But much more energetic cosmic rays can penetrate this magnetic shield and strike the Sun’s denser atmosphere, producing gamma rays that can reach Fermi.

Although the gamma-ray Moon doesn’t show a monthly cycle of phases, its brightness does change over time. Fermi LAT data show that the Moon’s brightness varies by about 20% over the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle. Variations in the intensity of the Sun’s magnetic field during the cycle change the rate of cosmic rays reaching the Moon, altering the production of gamma rays.

By Francis Reddy
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Editor: Rob Garner

Source:  NASA/Fermi Space Telescope

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Scientists Observe the Explosion of a Monster Star Requiring New Supernova Mechanism

Artist's conception of the explosion of SN2016iet's host star within a dense stellar environment

Credit: Gemini Observatory/NSF/AURA/ illustration by Joy Pollard. Low Resolution (jpg)

SN2016iet as first observed in September 2014 compared against July 2018 observations which revealed the host star's 54,000 light year distance from the host galaxy. Credit: Center for Astrophysics. Low Resolution (png)

Cambridge, MA - Scientists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have announced the discovery of the most massive star ever known to be destroyed by a supernova explosion, challenging known models of how massive stars die and providing insight into the death of the first stars in the universe.

First noticed in November 2016 by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia satellite, three years of intensive follow up observations of the supernova SN2016iet revealed characteristics—incredibly long duration and large energy, unusual chemical fingerprints, and an environment poor in metals—for which there are no analogues in the existing astronomical literature.

"When we first realized how thoroughly unusual SN2016iet is my reaction was 'whoa – did something go horribly wrong with our data?'" said Mr. Sebastian Gomez, Harvard University graduate student and lead author of the paper. "After a while we determined that SN2016iet is an incredible mystery, located in a previously uncatalogued galaxy one billion light years from Earth."

The team used a variety of telescopes, including the CfA | Harvard & Smithsonian's MMT Observatory located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Amado, AZ, and the Magellan Telescopes at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile to show that SN2016iet is different than the thousands of supernovas observed by scientists for decades.

"Everything about this supernova looks different—its change in brightness with time, its spectrum, the galaxy it is located in, and even where it’s located within its galaxy, said Dr. Edo Berger, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and an author on the paper. "We sometimes see supernovas that are unusual in one respect, but otherwise are normal; this one is unique in every possible way."

The observations and analysis show that SN2016iet began as an incredibly massive star 200 times the mass of Earth's Sun that mysteriously formed in isolation roughly 54,000 light years from the center of its host dwarf galaxy. The star lost about 85 percent of its mass during a short life of only a few million years, all the way up to its final explosion and demise. The collision of the explosion-debris with the material shed in the final decade before explosion led to SN2016iet's unusual appearance, providing scientists with the first strong case of a pair-instability supernova.

"The idea of pair-instability supernovas has been around for decades," said Berger. "But finally having the first observational example that puts a dying star in the right regime of mass, with the right behavior, and in a metal-poor dwarf galaxy is an incredible step forward. SN2016iet represents the way in which the most massive stars in the universe, including the first stars, die."

The team will continue to observe and study SN2016iet for years, watching for additional clues as to how it formed, and how it will evolve. "Most supernovas fade away and become invisible against the glare of their host galaxies within a few months. But because SN2016iet is so bright and so isolated we can study its evolution for years to come," said Gomez. "These observations are already in progress and we can't wait to see what other surprises this supernova has in store for us."

The results of the study are published in the Astrophysical Journal. In addition to Gomez and Berger, the study involved scientists from CfA | Harvard & Smithsonian—Peter K. Blanchard, V. Ashley Villar, Locke Patton, Joel Leja, and Griffin Hosseinzadeh; along with scientists from the University of Edinburgh—Matt Nicholl; Ohio University—Ryan Chornock; and, The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science—Philip S. Cowperthwaite.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

Media Contact:

Amy Oliver
Public Affairs Officer
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
amy.oliver@cfa.harvard.edu
+1 520-879-4406
mobile: +1-801-783-9067

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA)

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NASA’s MMS Finds First Interplanetary Shock

Animation Solar Wind

Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab

Download this video and related multimedia in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

The Magnetospheric Multiscale mission — MMS — has spent the past four years using high-resolution instruments to see what no other spacecraft can. Recently, MMS made the first high-resolution measurements of an interplanetary shock.

These shocks, made of particles and electromagnetic waves, are launched by the Sun. They provide ideal test beds for learning about larger universal phenomena, but measuring interplanetary shocks requires being at the right place at the right time. Here is how the MMS spacecraft were able to do just that.

What’s in a Shock?

Interplanetary shocks are a type of collisionless shock — ones where particles transfer energy through electromagnetic fields instead of directly bouncing into one another. These collisionless shocks are a phenomenon found throughout the universe, including in supernovae, black holes and distant stars. MMS studies collisionless shocks around Earth to gain a greater understanding of shocks across the universe.

Interplanetary shocks start at the Sun, which continually releases streams of charged particles called the solar wind.

The solar wind typically comes in two types — slow and fast. When a fast stream of solar wind overtakes a slower stream, it creates a shock wave, just like a boat moving through a river creates a wave. The wave then spreads out across the solar system. On Jan. 8, 2018, MMS was in just the right spot to see one interplanetary shock as it rolled by.

Catching the Shock

MMS was able to measure the shock thanks to its unprecedentedly fast and high-resolution instruments. One of the instruments aboard MMS is the Fast Plasma Investigation. This suite of instruments can measure ions and electrons around the spacecraft at up to 6 times per second. Since the speeding shock waves can pass the spacecraft in just half a second, this high-speed sampling is essential to catching the shock.

Looking at the data from Jan. 8, the scientists noticed a clump of ions from the solar wind. Shortly after, they saw a second clump of ions, created by ions already in the area that had bounced off the shock as it passed by. Analyzing this second population, the scientists found evidence to support a theory of energy transfer first posed in the 1980s.

MMS consists of four identical spacecraft, which fly in a tight formation that allows for the 3D mapping of space. Since the four MMS spacecraft were separated by only 12 miles at the time of the shock (not hundreds of kilometers as previous spacecraft had been), the scientists could also see small-scale irregular patterns in the shock. The event and results were recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Data from the Fast Plasma Investigation aboard MMS shows the shock and reflected ions as they washed over MMS. The colors represent the amount of ions seen with warmer colors indicating higher numbers of ions. The reflected ions (yellow band that appears just above the middle of the figure) show up midway through the animation, and can be seen increasing in intensity (warmer colors) as they pass MMS, shown as a white dot. Credits: Ian Cohen

Going Back for More

Due to timing of the orbit and instruments, MMS is only in place to see interplanetary shocks about once a week, but the scientists are confident that they’ll find more. Particularly now, after seeing a strong interplanetary shock, MMS scientists are hoping to be able to spot weaker ones that are much rarer and less well understood. Finding a weaker event could help open up a new regime of shock physics.

Related Link

• Learn more about NASA’s MMS Mission

By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Editor: Rob Garner

Source: NASA/Magnetospheric Multiscale

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Hubble's New Portrait of Jupiter

Jupiter

Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley).

 Release Images

This Hubble Space Telescope image highlights the distinct bands of roiling clouds that are characteristic of Jupiter's atmosphere. Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley).

This new Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet's trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. The colors, and their changes, provide important clues to ongoing processes in Jupiter's atmosphere.

The bands are created by differences in the thickness and height of the ammonia ice clouds. The colorful bands, which flow in opposite directions at various latitudes, result from different atmospheric pressures. Lighter bands rise higher and have thicker clouds than the darker bands.

Among the most striking features in the image are the rich colors of the clouds moving toward the Great Red Spot, a storm rolling counterclockwise between two bands of clouds. These two cloud bands, above and below the Great Red Spot, are moving in opposite directions. The red band above and to the right (northeast) of the Great Red Spot contains clouds moving westward and around the north of the giant tempest. The white clouds to the left (southwest) of the storm are moving eastward to the south of the spot.

All of Jupiter's colorful cloud bands in this image are confined to the north and south by jet streams that remain constant, even when the bands change color. The bands are all separated by winds that can reach speeds of up to 400 miles (644 kilometers) per hour.

On the opposite side of the planet,the band of deep red color northeast of the Great Red Spot and the bright white band to the southeast of it become much fainter. The swirling filaments seen around the outer edge of the red super storm are high-altitude clouds that are being pulled in and around it.

The Great Red Spot is a towering structure shaped like a wedding cake, whose upper haze layer extends more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) higher than clouds in other areas. The gigantic structure, with a diameter slightly larger than Earth's, is a high-pressure wind system called an anticyclone that has been slowly downsizing since the 1800s. The reason for this change in size is still unknown.

A worm-shaped feature located below the Great Red Spot is a cyclone, a vortex around a low-pressure area with winds spinning in the opposite direction from the Red Spot. Researchers have observed cyclones with a wide variety of different appearances across the planet. The two white oval-shaped features are anticyclones, like small versions of the Great Red Spot.

Another interesting detail is the color of the wide band at the equator. The bright orange color may be a sign that deeper clouds are starting to clear out, emphasizing red particles in the overlying haze.

The new image was taken in visible light as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL. The program provides yearly Hubble global views of the outer planets to look for changes in their storms, winds, and clouds.

Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed Jupiter when the planet was 400 million miles from Earth, when Jupiter was near "opposition" or almost directly opposite the Sun in the sky.

Source: HubbleSite

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Contact:

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514
dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

Amy Simon
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
amy.simon@nasa.gov

Mike Wong
University of California, Berkeley, California
mikewong@astro.berkeley.edu

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Related Links:

NASA's Hubble Portal
ESA/Hubble's Release
"Hubble's Brand New Image of Jupiter" Video (Goddard Media Studios' SVS Website)

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Cloaked Black Hole Discovered in Early Universe using NASA's Chandra

QSO PSO167-13
Credit X-ray: NASA/CXO/Ponticifca Catholic Univ. of Chile/F. Vito; 

Radio: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); Optical: PanSTARRS

JPEG (242.2 kb) - Large JPEG (2.6 MB) - Tiff (25.4 MB) - More Images

A Tour of PSO167-13 - More Animations

 

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Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have revealed what may be the most distant shrouded black hole, as reported in our press release. Found at a time only about 850 million years after the Big Bang, this black hole could help astronomers better understand an important epoch in the history of the Universe.

The large image shown here is from the optical PanSTARRS survey. The image on the left contains X-rays detected with Chandra from a small, central region (marked with a red cross) of the optical field. In the middle is the quasar PSO167-13, which was first discovered with PanSTARRS. Optical observations from these and other surveys have resulted in the detection of about 200 quasars that, like PSO167-13, were already shining brightly when the universe was less than a billion years old, or about 7 percent of its present age. On the right, the image shows the same field of view as seen by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) of radio dishes in Chile. The bright source is the quasar and a faint, nearby companion galaxy is seen to the lower left. 

Many black holes, especially in the early Universe, are expected to be veiled by thick clouds of gas and dust. These are known as "obscured" black holes. This cocoon of material makes it more difficult to find and identify these black holes because it blocks much of the light that is emitted from the region around the black hole.

Astronomers think that most of the early growth of black holes occurs while the black hole and disk are strongly obscured. The cocoon of material feeds into the disk, and as the black hole grows, the gas in the cloud is depleted until the black hole and its bright disk are uncovered. 

Optical light surveys are generally only considered effective at finding unobscured black holes, because the radiation they detect is suppressed by even thin clouds of surrounding gas and dust. Therefore, researchers expected that PSO167-13 would be unobscured. 

However, Chandra's unique ability to accurately record X-rays and their positions showed the PSO167-13 was different. After 16 hours of observation only three X-ray photons were detected from PSO167-13, all with relatively high energies. Low energy X-rays are more readily absorbed than higher energy ones, so the likely explanation for the Chandra observation is that the quasar is highly obscured by gas, allowing only high energy X-rays to be detected. 

If confirmed, PSO167-13 beats the previous record-holder for an obscured quasar by approximately half a billion years. 

A paper describing these results led by Fabio Vito of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile was published today in Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available online. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

A Quick Look at PSO167-13

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Fast Facts for QSO PSO167-13:

Scale: Large image is about 13.3 arcmin (14.5 million light years) across. Inset images are about 5 arcseconds (91,000 light years) across.
Category: Quasars & Active Galaxies, Black Holes
Coordinates (J2000): RA 11h 10m 33.98s | Dec -13° 29´ 45.6"
Constellation: Crater
Observation Date: Feb 20, 2018
Observation Time: 16 hours 33 minutes
Obs. ID: 20397
Instrument: ACIS
References: Vito F. et al., A&A Letters, published August 8, 2019; arXiv:1906.04241
Color Code: Large image (Optical: yellow and green); Inset images (X-ray: blue; Radio: red)
Distance Estimate: About 12.9 billion light years (z=6.515)

Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

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