A quick look at everything that tickled my fancy this past week:
New Solar Cycle
The sun has entered into a new solar cycle. The 25th time this has happened!
Science Alert sums it up best:
“Far from the woes of planet Earth, our Sun has been having a rather quiet year. A close look at its activity confirms what solar enthusiasts have been suspecting for a while – our closest star has entered a new cycle.
Ever since we started to track the Sun’s dark blemishes in earnest, humans have noticed a pattern of quiescence and temper that repeats roughly every 11 years.
There have been 24 of these cycles since observations were first recorded in the mid-18th century. And, according to a panel made up of experts from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), December 2019 marked the start of number 25.
You can’t be blamed for not noticing the shift. There were no flashes of light, no cosmic trumpets. Just an appearance of low-temperature shadows called sunspots at high latitudes.”
Stellar Heartbeats
Speaking of stars, it turns out they have something akin to a heartbeat.
According to Futurism:
“For the first time, astronomers were able to cut through all the background noise of the universe and discover that a particular class of star gives off rhythmic pulsing, not unlike a person’s heartbeat.
The internal fluctuations of a type of star known as a ‘Delta Scuti’ eluded astronomers for decades, but new data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) revealed distinct patterns coming from inside 60 nearby stars relatively close to our solar system, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Nature.”
Mars in 8K
Future images of the Red Planet will be stunning thanks to Japan’s decision to send an 8K camera there.
As Engadget puts it:
“The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and broadcaster NHK are developing 4K and 8K cameras (via Parabolic Arc) that will capture images of Mars and its moons (Phobos and Deimos) for the upcoming Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission. The mission will regularly take pictures and partially transmit them to Earth to ‘create a smooth image,’ while the originals will be stored in a return capsule headed back to Earth.
This should also help visualize the spacecraft’s behavior by combining camera info with flight data. It could help operate the spacecraft, JAXA said.
The MMX spacecraft is expected to launch in Japan’s fiscal 2024 and reach Mars by fiscal 2025. It’ll be longer still before the return capsule arrives.
It could be worth the wait. MMX should not only provide highly detailed photography of Mars from above the surface, but land on Phobos and collect surface material. Scientists may learn more about Mars’ past and present. It could also be a treasure trove for NHK — the media giant would have 8K footage that other TV providers could never hope to record themselves.”
Loud Sound
The loudest sound ever recorded in space was recently detected. And it’s puzzling astronomers.
Space.com explains:
“In space, nobody can hear you scream, but with the right equipment, it is possible to detect a roar. That’s what scientists discovered back in 2006 when they began to look for distant signals in the universe using a complex instrument fixed to a huge balloon that was sent to space. The instrument was able to pick up radio waves from the heat of distant stars, but what came through that year was nothing short of astounding.
As the instrument listened from a height of about 23 miles (37 kilometers), it picked up a signal that was six-times louder than expected by cosmologists. Because it was too loud to be early stars and far greater than the predicted combined radio emission from distant galaxies, the powerful signal caused great puzzlement. And scientists still don’t know what is causing it, even today. What’s more, it could hamper efforts to search for signals from the first stars that formed after the Big Bang.”
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