#Galactic_structures

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On October 29, the INFUSE mission launched, designed to study the formation of star systems through the study of data on supernova explosions On October 29, 2023, the INFUSE mission will launch, designed to explore the mysteries of the emergence of new star systems through the study of supernova explosions. The sounding rocket launches from the White Sands Range in New Mexico. Every year, the constellation Cygnus attracts astronomers in the northern hemisphere. A special artifact of the night sky directly above this constellation is the Veil Nebula, which has become a favorite object of observation for both amateur astronomers and scientific researchers. It is the remnant of a star whose size in the past exceeded the mass of our Sun by 20 times. About 20,000 years ago, this giant star underwent gravitational collapse, resulting in a brilliant supernova explosion. Even at a distance of 2,600 light years, the brightness of this event was sufficient that it could be observed from Earth even in daylight. [caption id="attachment_76772" align="aligncenter" width="727"] star systems[/caption] Supernova explosions are an integral part of the life cycle of a star. They eject into the surrounding space heavy elements formed in the core of the star, which subsequently becomes a source of chemical elements that exceed the mass of iron. As a result, planets, stars, and new star systems gradually form over time from the dispersed clouds of dust and gas left after the flare. The Veil Nebula provides a unique opportunity to observe a recent supernova explosion in its active stage. This huge cloud, more than 120 light years in size, continues to expand at a speed of about 1.5 million kilometers per hour. The INFUSE mission is the key to understanding the formation of star systems What astronomers detect with telescopes is not the explosion itself, but the dust and gas superheated by the shock wave and manifesting itself as a glow as it cools. To study the shock wave, Professor Brian Fleming and his team developed a telescope capable of detecting ultraviolet radiation, which has too high an energy for human vision to perceive. This light will help reveal the glow of dust and gas that has been hit by the shock waves and is still at a high temperature after the process. The INFUSE mission is an innovative spectrograph that is the first instrument of its kind to go into space. This tool combines the advantages of two techniques: optical imaging and spectroscopy. Modern optical telescopes have excellent cameras that allow them to accurately determine the direction of light and its spatial location. But they can't separate the light into its different wavelengths, and the resulting image ends up with different spectra superimposed on each other. In turn, spectroscopy divides a light beam into its components - certain spectra, similar to the division of a light beam by a prism into a rainbow. This procedure will help reveal a lot of additional information about the composition of the light source, its temperature, and the dynamics of the processes occurring. However, spectroscopy can help analyze only a narrow strip of light at a time, similar to looking at the night sky through a narrow keyhole. The INFUSE instrument creates an image and then “cuts” it—the spectrometer separates each strip into a spectrum. This data can be reconstructed into a three-dimensional "data cube" - a stack of images where each layer reveals a specific wavelength of light. Using data obtained from INFUSE, Professor Fleming and his team will be able to not only identify specific elements and their temperatures but also analyze the location of these elements along the shock wave. INFUSE will be launched into space aboard a sounding rocket. These are miniature rockets that fly into space for a few minutes to collect scientific data. The mission will launch a two-stage Black Brant 9 rocket to a peak altitude of about 240 kilometers before parachuting down to the ground for recovery. The team has already planned to upgrade the tool and relaunch. Moreover, some parts of the rocket are already being reused from the previous launch of the DEUCE mission, which took place in Australia in 2022.

#astronomical_observations #astronomy #celestial_bodies #Cosmic_bodies #cosmic_exploration #Galactic_entities #Galactic_structures #Planetary_systems #space_exploration #star_systems #Stellar_bodies #Stellar_systems

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The Hubble telescope captured the galaxy NGC 685, made up of more than 100 million stars, appearing to orbit in the depths of space The average galaxy NGC 685 contains at least 100 million stars. About 58 million light-years from Earth, galaxy NGC 685 appears to be orbiting in the depths of space. The Hubble Space Telescope image, the last of six released as part of Hubble's Galaxy Week, shows the galaxy with its spiral arms dotted with countless pockets of bright blue regions called star clusters. Closer to the center of the galaxy, there are also many twisted red wisps, representing bands of gas and dust where new generations of stars form over eons. [caption id="attachment_69171" align="aligncenter" width="598"] galaxy[/caption] NGC 685: a galaxy home to millions of stars surprised Hubble NASA's accompanying description of the photo of the galaxy NGC 685 says it is located in the constellation Eridanus, measures about 60,000 light-years, and may contain at least 100 million stars. In comparison, the Milky Way is estimated to consist of approximately 100 billion stars. Despite the difference in size and number of stars, both galaxies have an interesting feature: they have a central bar that crosses the cores of the galaxies. In this image of the galaxy NGC 685, this red-flecked bar can be seen stretching horizontally within a small circle of gas and dust. Its intense brilliance is due to the many stars concentrated in a relatively small area. Previous studies have shown that such bars are observed in about two-thirds of spiral galaxies. Gas and other material flows into the galactic cores through these bridges, indicating that the galaxy's "formative period" is over, astronomers say. Although little time has been devoted to studying NGC 685, studying bar galaxies like this one helps astronomers understand how galaxies evolve and whether the process is different for our galaxy.

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Perhaps astronomers have finally figured out the reason for the Milky Way's misalignment. It turns out that this is due to the halo of dark matter surrounding our galaxy Previously, we imagined our galaxy as a flat disk. However, when studying the shape of the Milky Way in more detail, scientists discovered that its disk was distorted. These features have long remained a mystery, but now astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution have conducted calculations that indicate that the dark matter halo surrounding the Milky Way may be “curved,” causing the edge to widen and the shape of the galaxy to bend. [caption id="attachment_70302" align="aligncenter" width="780"] dark side of the galaxy[/caption] Studying dark matter is challenging for scientists because it doesn't interact with light, making it "invisible." However, this substance makes up about 85% of all matter in the Universe, while ordinary matter makes up only about 15%. The only way to establish the presence of dark matter is its effect on gravity and its interaction with ordinary matter and light. Thus, it was discovered that galaxies rotate so quickly that in some cases the gravitational influence of the visible matter inside them would not be enough to prevent them from flying apart - dark matter is the “gravitational glue” that holds galaxies together. The “dark side of the galaxy” has skewed the Milky Way Thus, the researchers hypothesize that most, if not all, galaxies are wrapped in dark matter halos. In the case of the Milky Way, a halo of dark matter is thought to extend beyond the halo of stars surrounding its disk and core. Last year, the same Harvard team performed calculations that showed that the Milky Way's stellar halo has an elliptical shape, tilted relative to the galaxy's disk. Then scientists assumed that the shape of this dark matter halo would be similar to a stellar halo, but noticeably larger. Now the team has taken the study further, using computer models to calculate how the orbits of stars relate to the tilted halo of dark matter. The simulation showed an almost perfect match to the galaxy, its extended edge and distorted shape. “The tilted dark halo appears quite often in simulations, but no one has examined its effect on the Milky Way,” said Charlie Conroy, team member and professor of astronomy. The results of the study also support the assumption that the Milky Way “grew” as a result of collisions with other galaxies. “The tilted halo indicates that our galaxy experienced a collision and merger with another galaxy,” said Chiwon Jesse Han, leader of the study team. Calculating the shape of the dark matter halo around the Milky Way could reveal not only the history of the evolution of our galaxy but also help us understand the nature of dark matter and reveal some of the properties of the particles that make it up. The findings could also help astronomers study free-floating “blobs” of dark matter that drift between galaxies.

#astronomical_mysteries #astronomical_studies. #astrophysics #cosmic_enigmas #cosmic_investigations. #cosmic_phenomena #dark_matter #dark_side_of_the_galaxy #galactic_exploration #galactic_observations #galactic_structure #hidden_galaxies #space_mysteries #space_research #space_science

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Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that already had a high concentration of metals a billion years after the Big Bang. Early galaxies contain mostly hydrogen and helium, but this distant galaxy is anomalously rich in metals The universe is becoming more metallic over time: in its younger days, it was composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. But recently, researchers discovered a galaxy that was well ahead of this trend and, a billion years after the Big Bang, had accumulated a high content of metals. Almost all atoms heavier than helium originate in stars, the “forges of the cosmos,” which transform primordial materials into the many different elements we see today. These "forges" process the finite amount of hydrogen and helium in the Universe. As a result, the total supply of hydrogen decreases over time, while the proportion of heavier elements (which astronomers call "metals" regardless of their actual metallic properties) increases. When astronomers look back and observe the early stages of the universe, they expect to see mostly pure hydrogen and helium. [caption id="attachment_68900" align="aligncenter" width="780"] galaxy[/caption] This prediction is generally supported by observations, and when looking at galaxies created in the first 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, researchers most often observe clouds of gas that contain almost no metals. However, a collaboration led by Jianhao Huyang of the University of South Carolina recently discovered a contradiction to this convention: their observations of a hazy galaxy created a billion years ago showed a metal fraction higher than predicted for such a young source by more than two orders of magnitude. Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that set the trend for a high proportion of metals before anyone else Huyang and his colleagues made this discovery by observing a distant quasar called SDSS J002526.84-014532.5, which has a redshift of 5.07. Between the Earth and this source, there is a galaxy with a redshift of 4.74. As light from a quasar passes through the diffuse gas of a galaxy on its way to our telescopes, certain wavelengths of radiation are preferentially absorbed by the molecules and atoms they encounter along the way. By measuring the relative amount of this absorption, the researchers were able to determine which elements were trying to block the path of light and how dense they were. They discovered that the galaxy contains significant amounts of carbon, oxygen, magnesium, and other heavy elements. Just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang, this galaxy already had a greater relative amount of carbon and oxygen than our own Sun, which was born many billions of years later. Models of early galaxy formation predict a significantly lower proportion of metals, even taking into account the large uncertainties of described but not yet seen first-generation stars. Like many unexpected discoveries, the authors of the present study cannot yet explain what could lead to such a significant content of heavy elements. They acknowledge that this may be because looking at this particular direction may have passed through a patch of "developed" gas, and the galaxy as a whole may be as metal-poor as expected. However, in this case, they will not be able to explain how the light passed through such a small area with exactly the composition data obtained. It may be time to reconsider models of the chemical evolution of early galaxies, or there may be something special about this particular galaxy that remains hidden.

#astronomical_observation #astronomy #astrophysics #celestial #Cosmic #cosmic_objects #cosmic_phenomena #cosmic_structures #galactic_center #galactic_structure #Galaxy #galaxy_classification #galaxy_formation #Space #space_exploration #star_systems #universe