A 60-Year Old Mystery About the Moon's Magnetosphere Is Finally Solved

Depiction of the KHI-induced shockwaves and vortices on the lunar surface. Credit - Lai et al.

One particularly well known fact about the Moon is that it doesn’t have much of a magnetosphere to speak of. There’s no blanket to protect it from the solar wind ravaging its surface, blowing away its atmosphere and charging the notoriously dangerous dust particles that make up its regolith. However, scientists have also known for around 60 years that some parts of the moon do experience sudden spikes in a magnetic field - some of which are up to 10 times stronger than the background magnetization. Since their discovery, these “lunar external magnetic enhancements” (LEMEs) have puzzled researchers - what was causing them, and why did they reach so high above the lunar surface that spacecraft could see them? A new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by Shu-Hua Lai and her colleagues at the National Central University in Taiwan explains for the first time what is likely causing these LEMEs - a novel type of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.

from Universe Today https://ift.tt/AKgkRJw
via IFTTT

Comments

More Data and Machine Learning has Kicked SETI Into High Gear

For over sixty years, astronomers and astrophysicists have been engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This consists of listening to other star systems for signs of technological activity (or “technosignatures), such as radio transmissions. This first attempt was in 1960, known as Project Ozma, where famed SETI researcher Dr. Frank Drake (father of the Drake Equation) and his colleagues used the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to conduct a radio survey of Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. Since then, the vast majority of SETI surveys have similarly looked for narrowband radio signals since they are very good at propagating through interstellar space. However, the biggest challenge has always been how to filter out radio transmissions on Earth – aka. radio frequency interference (RFI). In a recent study, an international team led by the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (DIAA) applied a new deep-learning algorithm to data collecte...

The First Close-Up Picture of Star Outside the Milky Way

Like a performer preparing for their big finale, a distant star is shedding its outer layers and preparing to explode as a supernova. Astronomers have been observing the huge star, named WOH G64, since its discovery in the 1970s. It’s one of the largest known stars, and also one of the most luminous and massive red supergiants (RSGs). The star is surrounded by an envelope of expelled star-stuff, which could indicate it’s getting ready to explode. WOH G64 isn’t in the Milky Way; it’s in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy. Getting these detailed image is quite a feat for the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. It’s also quite an accomplishment for the team of scientists behind the image. They’ve published their images and the results of their observations of the star in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Their research is titled “ Imaging the innermost circumstellar environment of the red supergiant WOH G64 in the Large Magellanic ...

Planetary Surfaces: Why study them? Can they help us find life elsewhere?

Universe Today recently explored the importance of studying impact craters and what they can teach us about finding life beyond Earth. Impact craters are considered one of the many surface processes—others include volcanism, weathering, erosion, and plate tectonics—that shape surfaces on numerous planetary bodies, with all of them simultaneously occurring on Earth. Here, we will explore how and why planetary scientists study planetary surfaces, the challenges faced when studying other planetary surfaces, what planetary surfaces can teach us about finding life, and how upcoming students can pursue studying planetary surfaces, as well. So, why is it so important to study planetary surfaces throughout the solar system? “Planetary surfaces record the history of the Solar System, a history that’s almost entirely lost to us here on Earth,” Dr. Paul Byrne, who is an Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, tells Uni...

INFORMATION

Search This Blog