Astronomy

Venus is known for being really quite inhospitable with high surface temperatures and Mars is known for its rusty red horizons. Even the moons of some of the outer planets have fascinating environments with Europa and Enceladus boasting underground oceans. Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope show that Ariel, a moon of Uranus, is also a strong candidate for a sub surface ocean. How has this conclusion been reached? Well JWST has detected carbon dioxide ice on the surface on the trailing edge of features trailing away from the orbital direction. The possible cause, an underground ocean! Uranus is the seventh planet in the Solar System and has five moons. Ariel is one of them and is notable for its icy surface and fascinatingly diverse geological features. It was discove...

Get ready to embark on a journey through time and imagination as the Armagh Observatory & Planetarium proudly announces its upcoming “Robot Exhibition”, running from 2nd July to 31st August 2024. This summer, science-fiction enthusiasts and curious minds alike will have the unique opportunity to explore a mesmerising collection of robots, cyborgs, and androids.    Science-fiction fans are sure to recognise their favourite metal movie stars in this comprehensive exhibit. The Robot Exhibition showcases memorable and iconic robots from science-fiction movies and TV shows, highlighting their role in storytelling and exploring how they represent our changing relationship with technology.     Visitors are invited to delve into the past, present, and future of robots in science-fiction, cons...

Did stars form differently 12 billion years ago compared to how they form today? The cosmic environment of the early Universe was metal-poor – that is, it was depleted in heavy elements that astronomers call ‘metals’ and that are formed inside stars. These metals were sparse because not enough time had passed for sufficient generations of stars to produce them. Image: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/A. Pagan (STScI). It’s thought that the abundance of these metals within giant molecular gas clouds can affect how stars form, for example potentially influencing the initial mass function that describes the distribution of stellar masses. In the present day Universe, the initial mass function leads to low-mass stars being extremely common and high-mass stars being extremely rare. In the early Univers...

Map of the line emission of hydrogen (in red and blue) and oxygen (in green) in the PJ308-21 system, shown after masking the light from the central quasar ("QSO"). The different colors of the quasar's host galaxy and companion galaxies in this map reveal the physical properties of the gas within them. Credit: Decarli/INAF/A&A 2024 An international research group led by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and comprising 34 research institutes and universities worldwide utilized the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on board the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to witness the dramatic interaction between a quasar inside the PJ308–21 system and two massive satellite galax...