+- Punaweb Forum (http://punaweb.org/forum)
+-- Forum: Punaweb Forums (http://punaweb.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: Punatalk (http://punaweb.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=10)
+--- Thread: Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea (/showthread.php?tid=17412)
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 07-28-2023
Why didn't our universe destroy itself?
Our current theories of the Big Bang model suggest that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have formed in the early universe, and as any Star Trek fan knows, when matter meets antimatter it selfs annihilates with a massive release of energy. We know that isn't exactly happened and that the balance between matter and antimatter was slightly weighted in favor of matter. All the weird stuff disappeared in a puff of smoke and we're left with a universe that contains matter. However, no one knows why this was the case. Recent observations using the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea might help explain how this happened.
"Measuring helium in distant galaxies may give physicists insight into why the universe exists"
"Last year, the Subaru Collaboration—a group of Japanese scientists working on the Subaru telescope—released data on 10 galaxies far outside of our own that are almost exclusively made up of hydrogen and helium.
Using a technique that allows researchers to distinguish different elements from one another based on the wavelengths of light observed in the telescope, the Subaru scientists determined exactly how much helium exists in each of these 10 galaxies. Importantly, they found less helium than the previously accepted theory predicted.
With this new result, my collaborators and I worked backward to find the number of neutrinos and antineutrinos necessary to produce the helium abundance found in the data. Think back to your ninth grade math class when you were asked to solve for "X" in an equation. What my team did was essentially the more sophisticated version of that, where our "X" was the number of neutrinos or antineutrinos.
The previously accepted theory predicted that there should be the same number of neutrinos and antineutrinos in the early universe. However, when we tweaked this theory to give us a prediction that matched the new data set, we found that the number of neutrinos was greater than the number of antineutrinos."
So what you may ask? The article goes on to say:
"This analysis of new helium-rich galaxy data has a far-reaching consequence—it can be used to explain the asymmetry between matter and antimatter. The Subaru data points us directly to a source for that imbalance: neutrinos. In this study, my collaborators and I proved that this new measurement of helium is consistent with there being more neutrinos then antineutrinos in the early universe. Through known and likely particle physics processes, the asymmetry in the neutrinos could propagate into an asymmetry in all matter."
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-helium-distant-galaxies-physicists-insight.html
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 08-26-2023
"Neptune's disappearing clouds linked to solar cycle, study shows"
This discovery using the Keck Observatory on MK has surprised scientists. Neptune is a long way from the sun and any relatively small variations in the sun's output seemed unlikely to influence any major changes on Neptune. However, there is a strong correlation between Neptune's upper-level clouds disappearing recently and solar activity.
"Findings from extensive long-term observations of Neptune have been published in the scientific journal "Icarus," revealing a surprising connection between the vanishing clouds of the distant ice giant and the solar cycle. This discovery is particularly remarkable when considering that Neptune, being the smallest and most remote of the gas giants, resides far from the Sun. It receives only 1/900th of the solar illumination that our planet Earth enjoys."
https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/r1fzdlgt3
(Icarus is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that concentrates on research about the solar system).
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - kander - 08-26-2023
Still, the religious nuts will blame you and CO2 that drives the weather. What an inconvenient discovery.
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 08-27-2023
(08-26-2023, 05:42 PM)kander Wrote: Still, the religious nuts will blame you and CO2 that drives the weather. What an inconvenient discovery.
Neither CO2 nor I drive the weather on Neptune and I really don't care if religious nuts claim otherwise. In the meantime:
"First observations ever of the outskirts of a supermassive black hole's accretion disk"
Astronomers using the Gemini North Observatory have, for the first time, constrained the size of an accretion disk surrounding a supermassive black hole in another galaxy. The mass of the black hole is estimated to be between 400 and 900 million solar masses (cf. the Milky Way's own massive central black hole that has a mass of about four million solar masses). The data suggest the disk's outer radius is about 1/7th of a light year. For reference, gravitationally speaking, the solar system has a radius of about one light-year, so hopefully that gives a picture of how much mass is contained within a very small volume.
"Nothing can evoke an existential perspective-spiral quite like looking at an image of a galaxy. At first glance, these sublime structures may appear rather serene. But in fact the center of many galaxies is a turbulent environment containing an actively feeding supermassive black hole.
Orbiting these incomprehensibly dense objects are swirling accretion disks of gas and dust, which feed the black hole and emit copious amounts of energy all along the electromagnetic spectrum—from high-energy gamma rays and X-rays, through visible light, to infrared and radio waves."
More details at https://phys.org/news/2023-08-outskirts-supermassive-black-hole-accretion.html
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 08-29-2023
"VLBA Marks 30 Years Pushing the Bounds of Science"
The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) has now been in existence for thirty years and has been involved in several major discoveries in astronomy. One of the most important sites it has is the radio dish on Mauna Kea as it extends the baseline, increases its resolution, and fills in the coverage of the sky that's not possible without a site in Hawaii.
"The VLBA is a critical tool for astronomy, where knowing distances is the basis for figuring out the mass, makeup, and movement of cosmic objects. High-precision observations are the VLBA’s greatest strength. With the VLBA’s accuracy, astronomers:
- Measure the spins and shapes of galaxies, including our Milky Way
- Collect cosmological distances to measure Dark Energy in the Universe
- Trace the movements of black holes and pulsars to learn their history and future
- Predict if and when galaxies will collide, including the Andromeda Galaxy with our Milky Way
- Provide the most accurate distances to stars
- Pinpoint the exact centers of planets in our Solar System
- Develop the celestial reference grid used by other telescopes"
https://public.nrao.edu/news/vlba-marks-30-years-pushing-the-bounds-of-science/
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 09-05-2023
New analysis points to Planet X again, and perhaps more of them
This was discussed a long time ago in this thread:
https://punaweb.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=17412&pid=272519&highlight=planet+x#pid272519
Although this latest research doesn't involve new observations, it does rely on observations from Maun Kea and they claim it points to a planet that's larger than the Earth and other smaller planetoids that have had their orbits affected by this planet. Personally, I'm not convinced at this point but it is an interesting argument nevertheless.
""We predict the existence of an Earth-like planet and several trans-Neptunian objects on peculiar orbits in the outer solar system, which can serve as observationally testable signatures of the putative planet's perturbations.""
"According to the duo, the proposed ninth planet would have a mass between one-and-a-half and three times that of the Earth.
Its existence would explain three of the fundamental properties of the Kuiper Belt, the pair added.
Specifically, how there is a prominent set of trans-Neptunian objects beyond Neptune's gravitational influence, the significant population of objects with a high orbital inclination, and the existence of some extreme bodies - like the dwarf planet Sedna - with peculiar orbits."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/planet-x-astronomers-find-evidence-of-possible-hidden-world-in-the-kuiper-belt/ar-AA1gd7nJ
Original paper - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aceaf0
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 10-01-2023
This is one with which I have a problem:
"Big Island’s W. M. Keck Observatory captures images of cosmic web"
"While astronomers have known about the cosmic web for decades, and even glimpsed the glow of its filaments around bright cosmic objects called quasars, they have not directly imaged the extended structure in the darkest portions of space – until now.
New results from the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, or KCWI, which was designed by Caltech’s Edward C. Stone Professor of Physics Christopher Martin and his team, are the first to show direct light emitted by the largest and most hidden portion of the cosmic web: the crisscrossing wispy filaments that stretch across the darkest corners of space between galaxies. The KCWI instrument is based at the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Maunakea on the Big Island."
https://bigislandnow.com/2023/09/30/big-islands-w-m-keck-observatory-captures-images-of-cosmic-web/
The problem I have is:
"One challenge in detecting the cosmic web is that its dim light can be confused with nearby background light that suffuses the skies above Maunakea, including the glow from the atmosphere, zodiacal light from the solar system (generated when sunlight scatters off interplanetary dust), and even our own galaxy’s light.
To solve this problem, Martin came up with a new strategy to subtract this background light from the images of interest.
“We look at two different patches of sky, A and B. The filament structures will be at distinct distances in the two directions in the patches, so you can take the background light from image B and subtract it from A, and vice versa, leaving just the structures. I ran detailed simulations of this in 2019 to convince myself that this method would work,” he says."
Subtracting the "glow" around the object you're looking at is a standard technique, you take nearby "sky" observations which are subtracted from the target image leaving only the image of the target. You can also do this with spectroscopy. I learned this as an undergraduate decades ago and use the technique all the time, even today. I guess I'll have to read the actual paper to figure out what's special about this.
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 10-10-2023
Does the local solar system extend farther than we thought?
I'm a bit too tired to make comments or summarize this myself right now, but using AI astronomers seem to be detecting something new beyond the known Kuiper Belt of cold icy objects like Pluto using data from Subaru on Mauna Kea. This article sums it up:
"A new method for scanning telescope images for the faintest signs of rock far beyond Pluto has uncovered evidence that our Solar System's disc of material extends far further into interstellar space than we thought."
[...]
"To take at least some of the drudgery out of the process and speed things up, the research team made use of machine learning, training a neural network on made-up objects inserted into telescope imagery before setting it loose on data collected using the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii in 2020 and 2021.
Compared with a human search through the 2020 data, the machine learning technique identified twice as many Kuiper Belt Objects, suggesting a distinct rise in the density of material at a distance of around 60 to 80 AU along New Horizons' trajectory."
https://www.sciencealert.com/distant-objects-show-solar-system-extends-further-than-we-knew
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 10-12-2023
This is not a real discovery, more of an interlude. The BBC has discovered nice sunrises viewed from Mauna Kea.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-67082119
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 10-14-2023
Cosmic ray shower captured by Subaru on Mauna Kea
Cosmic rays are actually high-energy particles that are formed by energetic events such as supernovae (exploding stars). They travel the Galaxy and universe at very high relativistic speeds and carry a lot of energy. Because they tend to be charged (most are protons with a positive charge) they are affected by magnetic fields so get deflected, so figuring out exactly where they come from is almost impossible.
When one of the particles hits the Earth's atmosphere, it collides with an atom or molecule and a massive reaction occurs. The cosmic ray particle exchanges its energy in the collision and several other smaller particles are formed (muons). They go on to collide with other particles and more muons are produced. These muons have a ridiculously short half-life, around 2 microseconds, but because they are moving at relativist speeds, that's more than enough time to collide with another particle in our atmosphere. You end up with a cascade of particles that are not harmful to us.
I don't recall this ever being imaged, but now it has.
![[Image: 41598_2023_42164_Fig1_HTML.jpg?as=webp]](https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-023-42164-4/MediaObjects/41598_2023_42164_Fig1_HTML.jpg?as=webp)
This is from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-42164-4
https://subarutelescope.org/en/results/2023/10/11/3310.html