Spitzer infra-red space telescope discoveries

[Rick]

First galaxies arrived early, and overweight

Galaxies might have started to form far earlier than scientists had previously thought, according to new results from teams working on the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/06/early_galaxies/

[Rick]

The Spitzer telescope has detected what looks to be an asteroid belt around a star some 41 light-years from Earth.

US astronomers say that if confirmed it would be the first such band of rocky material found around a star of similar age and size to our own Sun.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4465329.stm

[Rick]

Stunning new infrared pictures of star forming regions in the Casseopeia constellation have been sent back by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The images reveal stars forming inside towering pillars of dust - more than ten times larger than the famous "Pillars of Creation" pictures Hubble took of the Eagle Nebula. The largest of the towers houses several embryonic stars than have never been seen before.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/10/spitzer_snaps_stars/

[Mike]

Also ...... http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2005-23/release.shtml

[Rick]

The dual suns that rise and set over Luke Skywalker's homeworld in the film Star Wars may be more than just fantasy, according to data from Nasa.

In a classic scene from the 1977 movie, the hero gazes into the distance as two yellow suns set on the horizon.

Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope has found that planetary systems are as common around double stars as they are around single stars, like our own Sun.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6506081.stm

[Rick]

Gorgeous new pictures from the Spitzer space telescope show newborn stars "hatching" from the head of the Orion constellation.

NASA says it is likely that the wave of star formation we are witnessing here was triggered by a shockwave from a star that exploded more than three million years ago.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/18/stars_pretty_picture/

[Rick]

What do you get if you take four galaxies and set them on a collision course? The biggest cosmic pile-up we earthlings have ever seen. Come back in a few million years and they will have formed a giant galaxy, roughly ten times the size of our puny Milky Way

The star-wreck was spotted by astronomers using NASA's Spitzer space telescope and the WIYN telescope. (WIYN, a ground based imaging scope capable of capturing extremely high resolution images, is jointly run by the universities of Wisconsin, Indiana, Yale and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.)

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/07/galactic_smash_up/

[mickw]

One of our closest galactic neighbors is M33, also known as the Triangulum Galaxy. It is a member of what's known as the Local Group of galaxies.

A new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals the colorful M33 to be surprisingly large -- bigger than its visible-light appearance would suggest, astronomers said in a recent statement.

With its ability to detect cold, dark dust, Spitzer sees emission from cooler material well beyond the visible range of M33's disk. Exactly how this cold material moved outward from the galaxy is still a mystery, but winds from giant stars or supernovas may be responsible, Spitzer astronomers said.

More:  http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090407-m33-galaxy.html

[mickw]

At least one in every 100 white dwarf stars may be orbited by asteroids and rocky planets, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest. The finding could mean that these now dead stars once hosted solar systems similar to our own.

Also, the work could help scientists determine whether other rocky, Earth-like planets are orbiting around other stars.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090420-mm-solar-system.html

[Rick]

 A survey of dead stars has found that many are probably surrounded by the rocky remains of asteroids and planets.

The discovery comes from a Spitzer space-telescope study of white dwarfs - the fading embers of burnt-out stars.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8008340.stm

[mickw]

A coiled galaxy with an eye-like object at its center harbors a hidden black hole surrounded by a storm of star formation.

The galaxy, called NGC 1097, is located 50 million light-years from Earth. It is spiral-shaped like our own Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars.

The "eye" at the center of the galaxy is caused by a monstrous black hole, which can't be seen but is surrounded by a ring of stars and rampant star birth. In a new color-coded infrared view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090723-spitzer-galaxy.html

[mickw]

A class of cosmic oddballs exists that doesn't fit in with either stars or planets, instead occupying a murky middle ground.

Known as brown dwarfs, these misfits fall somewhere between planets and stars in terms of their temperature and mass. They are cooler and more lightweight than stars and more massive (and normally warmer) than planets.

This has generated a debate among astronomers: Do brown dwarfs form like planets or like stars?

Scientists now have an additional clue – a baby brown dwarf was discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope – that suggests brown dwarfs develop like light-weight stars

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091130-mm-baby-brown-dwarf.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29

[Mike]

A class of cosmic oddballs exists.....

That's most of the OAS Membership isn't it?

[Ian]

cosmic...

Mick, we need that avatar of yours again mate.

[mickw]

Stars at all stages of development, from dusty little tots to young adults, are on display in a new image from Spitzer.
This cosmic community is called the North American nebula. In visible light, the region resembles the North American continent, with the most striking resemblance being the Gulf of Mexico. But in Spitzer's infrared view, the continent disappears. Instead, a swirling landscape of dust and young stars comes into view.

More:   7000

[Rick]

NASA's Spitzer Sees Light of Lonesome Stars

PASADENA, Calif. - A new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggests a cause for the mysterious glow of infrared light seen across the entire sky. It comes from isolated stars beyond the edges of galaxies. These stars are thought to have once belonged to the galaxies before violent galaxy mergers stripped them away into the relatively empty space outside of their former homes.

"The infrared background glow in our sky has been a huge mystery," said Asantha Cooray of the University of California at Irvine, lead author of the new research published in the journal Nature. "We have new evidence this light is from the stars that linger between galaxies. Individually, the stars are too faint to be seen, but we think we are seeing their collective glow."

The findings disagree with another theory explaining the same background infrared light observed by Spitzer. A group led by Alexander "Sasha" Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., proposed in June this light, which appears in Spitzer images as a blotchy pattern, is coming from the very first stars and galaxies.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20121024.html

[Rick]

NASA's Spitzer Puts Planets in a Petri Dish

Our galaxy is teeming with a wild variety of planets. In addition to our solar system's eight near-and-dear planets, there are more than 800 so-called exoplanets known to circle stars beyond our sun. One of the first "species" of exoplanets to be discovered is the hot Jupiters, also known as roasters. These are gas giants like Jupiters, but they orbit closely to their stars, blistering under the heat.

Thanks to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers are beginning to dissect this exotic class of planets, revealing raging winds and other aspects of their turbulent nature. A twist to come out of the recent research is the planets' wide range of climates. Some are covered with a haze, while others are clear. Their temperature profiles, chemistries and densities differ as well.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-155

[Rick]

NASA's Spitzer Telescope Witnesses Asteroid Smashup

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted an eruption of dust around a young star, possibly the result of a smashup between large asteroids. This type of collision can eventually lead to the formation of planets.

Scientists had been regularly tracking the star, called NGC 2547-ID8, when it surged with a huge amount of fresh dust between August 2012 and January 2013.

"We think two big asteroids crashed into each other, creating a huge cloud of grains the size of very fine sand, which are now smashing themselves into smithereens and slowly leaking away from the star," said lead author and graduate student Huan Meng of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

While dusty aftermaths of suspected asteroid collisions have been observed by Spitzer before, this is the first time scientists have collected data before and after a planetary system smashup. The viewing offers a glimpse into the violent process of making rocky planets like ours.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-291

[Rick]

NASA's Spitzer Confirms Closest Rocky Exoplanet

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have confirmed the discovery of the nearest rocky planet outside our solar system, larger than Earth and a potential gold mine of science data.

Dubbed HD 219134b, this exoplanet, which orbits too close to its star to sustain life, is a mere 21 light-years away. While the planet itself can't be seen directly, even by telescopes, the star it orbits is visible to the naked eye in dark skies in the Cassiopeia constellation, near the North Star.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4672

[Rick]

NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water -- key to life as we know it -- under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6756

[Rick]

Scientists Improve Brown Dwarf Weather Forecasts

Dim objects called brown dwarfs, less massive than the Sun but more massive than Jupiter, have powerful winds and clouds -- specifically, hot patchy clouds made of iron droplets and silicate dust. Scientists recently realized these giant clouds can move and thicken or thin surprisingly rapidly, in less than an Earth day, but did not understand why.

Now, researchers have a new model for explaining how clouds move and change shape in brown dwarfs, using insights from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Giant waves cause large-scale movement of particles in brown dwarfs' atmospheres, changing the thickness of the silicate clouds, researchers report in the journal Science. The study also suggests these clouds are organized in bands confined to different latitudes, traveling with different speeds in different bands.

"This is the first time we have seen atmospheric bands and waves in brown dwarfs," said lead author Daniel Apai, associate professor of astronomy and planetary sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

More: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6925