Astronomers discover the formation of a protoplanet

Researchers at Stanford recently found evidence of an exoplanet being formed orbiting a star approximately 450 light years away. They were observing gaps in the debris/gas disk of the parent star and found evidence of the planet.  The researches the determined this newly forming planet to be similar to Jupiter. They were able to observe the process planets grow from rocky/icy cores into gas giants. As hydrogen heats up, it becomes excited and through spectroscopy can be observed as a H-alpha emission. This new evidence gives insight into how exoplanets are formed.

Source: https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2015/pr-proto-planet-forming-111815.html

Exoplanet weather

Astronomers are now able to calculate weather patterns of distant planets. Scientists were observing HD 1896722b in constellation Vulpecula, about 63 light years away. Using doppler shift and limb darkening, astronomers were able to calculate wind speeds blowing from the day to night side of the planet at speeds of 5400 mph. HD1896722b is a good candidate for this method because it is ~180 times closer to its parent star, is approximately 10% larger than Jupiter, and has an orbital period of 2.2 days. These extremes allow for scientists to calculate these values more easily.  If scientists decided to visit this planet, they better wear windbreakers!

Source: http://www.space.com/31128-exoplanet-global-winds-5400-mph.html

Phobos

New photos of Phobos, a moon orbiting Mars, suggests that it is breaking apart. Phobos is the closest moon orbiting its counterpart in our solar system. Every 100 years, Phobos' orbit around Mars decreases by about 2m due to Mars' gravity. The striations in Phobos' surface were once thought to be caused by an impact from an impact but new research suggest that the stretch marks were caused by gravitational forces from mars. The same research also reveals that some of the grooves are younger than others, fitting this newer model. Scientists predict that Phobos has 30-50 millions years before it completely disintegrates. If Phobos were to break apart while in orbit around mars, large debris would fall toward mars. An event like this should have a large impact on the already thin atmosphere of mars.

Source: http://www.space.com/31133-mars-moon-phobos-falling-apart.html

Dark Matter

Dark matter is believed be five times more abundant than normal matter. Dark matter was first suspected when astronomers observed that galaxies possessed more mass than the stars could account for, the velocities of the stars should have overcome gravitational forces and those star would have escaped into the void of space. Currently, scientists have ruled out any normal matter as possible dark matter candidates. Researchers believe that in the early universe, when it was very hot and turbulent, dark matter interacted with normal particles more so than it does now. During that time, it was thought dark matter would have been easily detectable through
their interactions with normal matter.

Just like protons and neutrons are comprised of quarks, scientists believe that dark matter is also comprised of 'stealth' particles. Supercomputer analysis suggests that these particles would have masses ~200x10^12 eV, which is way more massive than known elementary particles. These stealth particles are believed to be held together by another mysterious 'dark form' strong interaction. Once the universe cooled, these particles are thought to have developed some sort of new weak interaction with ordinary matter. Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider are seeking out to rule out or detect any instances of dark matter interactions with ordinary particles.

The lower image shows the proposed distribution of dark matter extrapolated from observations in gravitational lensing.


Source: http://www.space.com/31013-stealth-dark-matter-universe-missing-mass.html

Earth like planets

According to a new theoretical study, most Earth like planets in the universe have yet to be formed. Approximately only 8% of earth like planets that will form have existed. Scientists theorize that even though the rates of star formation has slowed compared to earlier periods in the universe, there will be plenty of base elements from which planets may be formed. In the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are an estimated 1 billion Earth like planets. If you were to include the innumerable amount of other galaxies in the observable universe, that number quickly exponentiates. There definitely has to be some sort of humanoid life form on one of those planets. Even though the universe is relatively young, compared to its estimated 100 trillion year lifespan, it is doubtful we are the most advanced civilization in the universe. It's only a matter of time before we have an extraterrestrial encounter. -lol
I thought this article was really interesting and put the size of the universe in perspective. The world is a big place but space is HUGE.





Source: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/most-earth-like-worlds-have-yet-to-be-born-according-to-theoretical-study

Cosmic Souffle

Cosmic Souffle

If there is too much available matter, it will form too many stars at an accelerated rate, leaving the formation of intense red stars.  The author states that in galactic terms, red stars means that the galaxy is old and "dead."
He goes on to discuss that the inner parts of elliptical galaxies rotate and move at much higher velocities than their further out counterparts.
This can confirmed via Keplers second law:    
The closer an orbiting object is to its center would need to have a higher velocity to cover the same area an object orbiting at further distances would. 
The spiral arms on a galaxy are thought to be "star factories." The gas clouds in the spiral arms moves faster than that orbiting planets/debris fields. When they collide this process compresses the gasses and influences the formation of new stars.
In the spiral arms of galaxies, there are brighter, larger stars that are blue. These stars are short lived compared to that of the long lived, smaller red stars. When astronomers take images of the galaxies, they are observing much of these larger, blue stars. These larger stars block out the view of a lot of matter in the arms of the galaxy giving the impression of "pinwheel galaxies."
Only by taking long exposure images, astronomers can see all the extra matter in the gaps in the arms of galaxies.

This is a picture of a whirlpool galaxy, NGC 5194, and is one of the brightest galaxies we can observe. The image was taken from Hubble and Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Source: http://www.space.com/30982-there-is-a-trick-to-making-a-spiral-galaxy.html

Table Mountain Facility

Table Mountain Facility, originally named Table Mountain Observatory, was founded in 1926 by the Smithsonian institute. Its location in the San Gabriel mountains at an elevation of approximately 7500 ft.  This location offers a great reduction in light pollution from surrounding populous and the arid environment typically offers cloudless nights.  Initially the facility was used for atmospheric, solar, and astronomic observations until the facility was acquired by JPL in 1962 and underwent several renovations.  In the 60s, part of the facility was used to test spacecraft solar panels. In the 70s/80s, Table Mountain Facility did spectroscopic studies of carbon dioxide of Venus in the near infrared wavelengths. As upgrades were completed, eventually scientists were able to study methane and ammonia content of Jupiter and its satellites. In the late 90s, modifications were made to the telescopes, addition of air conditioning units, to help with the reduction of seeing.

Some current projects/devices include:
The Atmospheric Visibility Monitor (AVM) which is an automated telescope the records the transmission of light through the atmosphere and records stars at multiple wavelengths.

The Fourier Transform Ultraviolet Spectrometer (FTUVS) measures the spectroscopy of earth's atmosphere using the moon or sun as a light source to provide data on long term atmospheric composition changes. The data is used by scientists at Cal Tech, JPL, and Network for the Detection  of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) to study depletion of stratospheric ozone and climate change.
The Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) device measures atmospheric conditions such as water vapor, ozone, temperature, and aerosol profiles at altitudes up to 90km in the atmosphere.  The data collected from this project are also used for studying long term atmospheric changes.

The Optical Communications Telescope Lab (OCTL) is used to establish communication with spacecraft and high precision tracking of LEO(?) and deep space objects (< 2" rms).
The NRL uses spectroscopy to monitor middle atmosphere water vapor content. The studies at TMF played a pivotal role in finding a large increase in water vapor in the 90s.

The Table mountain facility works in cconjuction local colleges, such as the pomona colleges, using a 1m telescope to study Jupiters atmosphere, galactic star cluster and the variability of quasars. The 1m telescope is outfitted with a nitrogen cooled camera, a ultra low expansion mirror, adaptive optics, and a filter wheel that allows for narrow and broad band imaging. 

Sources: 

http://tmf.jpl.nasa.gov/tmf-web/

http://www.astro.pomona.edu/blog/2010-astro/?page_id=72