Tag Archive for 'UV'

Hackmanite turns purple under UV irradiation, and the color fades back to white in a few minutes under regular white light. Image credit: Mika Lastusaari.

Natural Aluminosilicate Minerals Change Color Under UV Light

Jun 22, 2022 by News Staff

Hackmanite, tugtupite, and scapolite change their color from white to purple, pink, and blue, respectively, under UV irradiation, according to a team of...

This diagram shows three layers of aerosols in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. The height scale on the diagram represents the pressure above 10 bar. The deepest layer (Aerosol-1 layer) is thick and composed of a mixture of hydrogen sulfide ice and particles produced by the interaction of the planets’ atmospheres with sunlight. The key layer that affects the colors is the middle layer, which is a layer of haze particles (Aerosol-2 layer) that is thicker on Uranus than on Neptune. Irwin et al. suspect that, on both planets, methane ice condenses onto the particles in this layer, pulling the particles deeper into the atmosphere in a shower of methane snow. Because Neptune has a more active, turbulent atmosphere than Uranus does, the team believes Neptune’s atmosphere is more efficient at churning up methane particles into the haze layer and producing this snow. This removes more of the haze and keeps Neptune’s haze layer thinner than it is on Uranus, meaning the blue color of Neptune looks stronger. Above both of these layers is an extended layer of haze (Aerosol-3 layer) similar to the layer below it but more tenuous. On Neptune, large methane ice particles also form above this layer. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / NASA / JPL-Caltech / B. Jónsson.

Haze Layers are Responsible for Different Blue Hues of Neptune and Uranus, Scientists Say

Jun 1, 2022 by News Staff

An international team of planetary researchers led by University of Oxford scientists has performed an analysis of visible/near-infrared observations of...

Solar Orbiter Reveals Sun’s Surface in Unprecedented Detail

May 5, 2022 by News Staff

One of the new images, taken by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) aboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft on March 7, 2022, is the highest resolution...

An artist’s illustration shows SN 2013ge, with its companion star at lower right. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Majority of Massive Stars Form and Evolve as Binary Systems, New Research Suggests

May 5, 2022 by News Staff

In some supernova cases, astronomers find no trace of the former star’s outermost layer of hydrogen. What happened to the hydrogen? Suspicions that companion...

An artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole that is inside the dust-shrouded core of a starburst galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / N. Bartmann.

Hubble Finds Rapidly Growing Black Hole in Early Universe

Apr 13, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have spotted GNz7q, a black hole that existed only 750 million years after the Big Bang, in one of...

Astronomers Spot Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen

Apr 8, 2022 by News Staff

The newly-discovered galaxy, named HD1, existed when the Universe was just 330 million years old. HD1 (red object). Image credit: Harikane et al., arXiv:...

An artist’s impression of the ultrahot Jupiter KELT-20b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Ultrahot Jupiters WASP-178b and KELT-20b Have Extreme Weather

Apr 6, 2022 by News Staff

It’s raining vaporized rock on WASP-178b, and KELT-20b has its upper atmosphere getting hotter rather than cooler because it is being sunburned by intense...

Hexagonal boron nitride-based deep-ultraviolet LED. Image credit: Pohang University of Science and Technology.

Researchers Create Deep-Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diode

Jan 20, 2022 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Pohang University of Science and Technology and the Korean Institute for Basic Science has demonstrated deep-ultraviolet...

An artist’s impression of the exoplanet HAT-P-11b with its extended helium atmosphere blown away by the star, an orange dwarf star smaller, but more active, than the Sun. Image credit: Denis Bajram.

HAT-P-11b Has Strong Magnetosphere, Metal-Poor Atmosphere

Dec 23, 2021 by News Staff

Using ultraviolet data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have detected carbon ions — charged particles that interact with magnetic...

This artist’s illustration shows NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in the outer Solar System. In the background lies the Sun and a glowing band representing Zodiacal Light, caused by sunlight reflecting off of dust. Image credit: Joe Olmsted / STScI.

New Horizons Detects Galactic Lyman-alpha Emissions

Nov 23, 2021 by News Staff

Hydrogen is the most abundant element. When a neutral hydrogen atom gets blasted with energy, its electron can be boosted to a larger orbit with a higher...

This Hubble image shows Markarian 1337, a barred spiral galaxy 119.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Riess et al.

Hubble Snaps Beautiful Image of Markarian 1337

Nov 8, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of the barred spiral galaxy Markarian 1337. This Hubble image...

This infrared image from JAXA’s Akatsuki orbiter shows night on Venus. Image credit: ISAS / JAXA.

Study: Sunlight Filtering through Venusian Clouds Could Support Earth-Like Photosynthesis

Sep 30, 2021 by News Staff

In a paper published this week in the journal Astrobiology, researchers focused on the possible existence of the Earth-like phototrophy — the process...

Southeastern pocket gophers (Geomys pinetis) are biofluorescent, giving off a colored glow when illuminated with UV light. Image credit: Pynne et al., doi: 10.1674/0003-0031-186.1.150.

Scientists Observe Biofluorescence in Burrowing Mammals for First Time

Sep 21, 2021 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of researchers led by the University of Georgia has documented ultraviolet biofluorescence in live southeastern pocket gophers (Geomys...

This artist’s impression shows how ULAS J1120+0641, a very distant quasar powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun, may have looked. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Quasars are Standardizable Cosmic Candles, Astronomers Say

Sep 14, 2021 by News Staff

Using spectral data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Chandra Source Catalog 2.0, and the Chandra COSMOS Legacy survey, astronomers have found...

Location of the observed O- and B- type stars on the Galactic plane. Image credit: De Cia et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03780-0.

Milky Way’s Interstellar Medium Is Not Homogeneous, New Study Shows

Sep 9, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have measured the metallicity of the neutral interstellar medium towards 25 bright stars in our Milky...

Roth et al. reveal the first evidence for water vapor in the atmosphere of Ganymede, the result of the thermal escape of water vapor from the moon’s icy surface. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. daSilva.

Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Ganymede

Jul 26, 2021 by News Staff

Jupiter’s icy satellite Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System. Water ice on its surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus...

Hubble’s image of the Orion Nebula with proplyd highlights. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M. Robberto, Space Telescope Science Institute & ESA / Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team / L. Ricci, ESO.

Massive Stars near Solar System’s Parent Molecular Cloud Affected Composition of Its Building Blocks

Jul 6, 2021 by News Staff

In 2011, planetary researchers using samples of the solar wind collected by NASA’s Genesis spacecraft found that solar system planetary bodies have a...

Iron and Nickel Detected in Atmospheres of Solar System Comets

May 20, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have detected neutral atoms of two heavy metals — iron (Fe I) and nickel (Ni I) — in the atmospheres...

This visible-light image of Jupiter was created from data captured on January 11, 2017 using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Near the top, a long brown feature called a ‘brown barge’ extends 72,000 km (nearly 45,000 miles) in the east-west direction. The Great Red Spot stands out prominently in the lower left, while the smaller feature nicknamed Red Spot Jr. (known to Jovian scientists as Oval BA) appears to its lower right. Image credit: NASA / ESA / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Wong et al. / de Pater et al. / M. Zamani.

Astronomers Capture Stunning New Images of Jupiter

May 12, 2021 by News Staff

Three images of Jupiter from the 8-m Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North telescope at the Gemini Observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope show...

This Hubble image shows the young exoplanet PDS 70b. Image credit: Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Hubble Captures First-Ever Ultraviolet Image of Exoplanet

Apr 30, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have imaged a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet around the orange dwarf star PDS 70. This is the...

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