Tag

Interstellar Medium

All articles tagged with #interstellar medium

space4 days ago•13 min saved

Unfinished Chilean Telescope Reveals How Dying Stars Feed the Galaxy

During calibration in 2025, the under‑construction Modular Optical Telephoto Hyperspectral Robotic Array (MOTHRA) at Chile’s El Sauce Observatory imaged 22 faint bow shocks around the Helix Nebula, providing real-time evidence of how gas expelled by dying stars is recycled into the interstellar medium to seed future star and planet formation. The low‑cost lens array—built to map the cosmic web—offers direct insight into the mass‑loss process, with findings published in Nature and funded by contributions including Alex Gerko.

via The Times of India|

#astronomy #helix-nebula #interstellar-medium

space8 days ago•161 min saved

Dead-star debris returns to the Galaxy, foreshadowing the Sun's distant fate

Astronomers using the new MOTHRA instrument spotted bow-shaped clumps in the Helix Nebula, showing material shed by a dying star being torn apart and reabsorbed into the interstellar medium, a vivid demonstration of stellar debris being recycled into the galaxy to seed future stars—and a reminder that our Sun will undergo a similar fate in about five billion years.

via Space|

#bow-shocks #helix-nebula #interstellar-medium

astronomy13 days ago•6 min saved

Cosmic recycling unveiled: dying stars seed the next generation

New MOTHRA telescope images of the Helix Nebula reveal material ejected by dying stars moving as fast clumps that create bow shocks and shed star-made elements into surrounding gas, illustrating the cosmic recycling that seeds future stars, planets, and possibly life; the debris lingers for about 10,000 years before fully dispersing.

via Scientific American|

#astronomy #interstellar-medium #nebula

science1 month ago•8 min saved

Cosmic Four-Carbon Sugar Detected in Interstellar Space

Astronomers detected erythrulose, a four‑carbon sugar, in a Milky Way molecular cloud using radio telescopes at Yebes and Granada, suggesting sugars can form on interstellar dust grains and potentially contribute energy for early metabolic processes relevant to the origins of life.

via Hackaday|

#abiogenesis #astrochemistry #erythrulose

science1 month ago•2 min saved

Cosmic sugar detected in interstellar space hints at life's building blocks

Astronomers detected erythrulose, a sugar also found in raspberries, in the interstellar medium near the Milky Way's center using radio telescopes, marking another example of sugars found in space and suggesting life's ingredients may be widespread in the galaxy.

via NBC News|

#astrobiology #astronomy #interstellar-medium

astronomy1 month ago•49 min saved

Cosmic sugar discovery: four-carbon erythrulose detected in interstellar space

Ultrasensitive broadband spectral surveys with the Yebes 40 m and IRAM 30 m telescopes led to the first detection of erythrulose, a four‑carbon ketose, in the interstellar medium toward the Galactic Centre cloud G+0.693−0.027. Erythrulose is at least 8–17 times more abundant than the undetected C3 sugars in this cloud, and its formation is explained by grain-surface chemistry combining glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol via fast hydrogen-abstracting reactions on icy dust grains, followed by an intersystem crossing to yield the chiral sugar. Astrophysical modeling (LTE fits and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations) reproduces its presence under typical Galactic Centre conditions, suggesting interstellar sugars could contribute to prebiotic inventories and potentially to the origin of biological homochirality on early Earth, linking ISM chemistry to meteoritic organics and solar-system material.

via Nature|

#astrochemistry #astronomy #erythrulose

science1 month ago•2 min saved

First interstellar sugar detected near Milky Way center hints at cosmic prebiotic chemistry

Astronomers detected erythrulose, a four‑carbon sugar, in a massive interstellar dust cloud (G+0.693-0.027) near the Milky Way’s center. The sugar forms on microscopic dust grains from glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol at around -250°C and could be delivered to planets via comets or meteorites. This marks the first direct detection of a sugar in interstellar space and suggests simple sugars important for life may be more common in the cosmos, potentially seeding early Earth during periods of heavy bombardment.

via The Guardian|

#dust-grains #erythrulose #interstellar-medium

space1 month ago•43 min saved

X-ray map reveals a jagged Local Hot Bubble and hidden tunnels near Earth

New eROSITA X-ray maps reveal the Local Hot Bubble around the Sun is jagged and extended, with a north-south temperature split and possible tunnels linking to neighboring cavities, suggesting the solar neighborhood is part of a connected, dynamic interstellar network shaped by past supernovae.

via The Brighter Side of News|

#erosita #interstellar-medium #local-hot-bubble

space1 month ago•2 min saved

Predicting the Solar Wind to Map New Horizons' Path to the Heliosphere's Edge

SwRI researchers merged a solar wind forecasting method with heliosphere models to predict where New Horizons will encounter the termination shock, the outer boundary of the heliosphere. They estimate the crossing could occur between 2029 and 2040, with the possibility of multiple crossings as the heliosphere expands and contracts, helping plan future measurements at the solar system's edge.

via Universe Today|

#heliosphere #interstellar-medium #new-horizons

science2 months ago•17 min saved

One Molecule, One Myth: Debunking Space’s Raspberry Flavor Narrative

A 2009 detection of ethyl formate in Sagittarius B2 helped fuel the popular claim that space tastes like raspberries; however, ethyl formate is only one of many molecules in a vast, tenuous cloud, and the larger, more significant finding was the identification of n-propyl cyanide, showing complex organics can form in interstellar space. The raspberry framing is an oversimplification: the cloud’s chemistry does not equate to a space flavor, and space does not smell like raspberries—astronauts describe spaceflight smells as metallic. The broader takeaway is that complex organic chemistry, potentially related to prebiotic processes, can begin in interstellar environments long before planets form, though unambiguous amino acids have yet to be detected in space.

via Space Daily|

#astrochemistry #ethyl-formate #interstellar-medium

space3 months ago•5 min saved

Voyager 1 nears a light-day from Earth, marking humanity’s farthest ongoing beacon

NASA’s Voyager 1 is set to reach exactly one light-day from Earth in November 2026, about 25.9 billion kilometers away, continuing to send science data despite aging power and limited instruments. It has already crossed the termination shock and heliopause into the interstellar medium, but remains far from the Solar System’s edge; by around 2036 it could become undetectable, after which it will drift through the Milky Way for eons as a relic of humanity’s first grand interstellar-leaning probes.

via BBC Sky at Night Magazine|

#astronomy #interstellar-medium #solar-system

space-science3 months ago•4 min saved

Earth Plows Through Ancient Supernova Debris Preserved in Antarctic Ice

A new study detects iron-60 in Antarctic ice aged 40,000–80,000 years, tying Earth’s passage through the Local Interstellar Cloud to debris from a past supernova. Using accelerator mass spectrometry on hundreds of kilograms of ice and corroborating isotopes, researchers show the cloud around the Solar System contains material from an ancient stellar explosion, with the iron-60 signal varying over tens of thousands of years and supporting the idea that our cosmic neighborhood records such events.

via SciTechDaily|

#antarctic-ice #interstellar-medium #iron-60

science3 months ago•38 min saved

The Milky Way’s Core Unveiled: A High-Resolution Map of Galactic Gas

Astronomers released the largest, most detailed image of the Milky Way's center, created with ALMA's 66 antennas to map cold molecular gas and dust at millimeter wavelengths. The mosaic reveals intricate gas filaments and molecular fingerprints, offering new insight into how stars form in the extreme environment around the galactic center, including a mysterious millimeter ultra-broad line object (MUBLO) detected only by ALMA. The project will be complemented by JWST observations to place our Galaxy in broader cosmic context and to inform theories of solar-system formation.

via WBUR|

#alma #interstellar-medium #milky-way

space7 months ago•56 min saved

Rainbow bow shock around a nearby white-dwarf binary challenges stellar physics

Astronomers using the VLT have spotted a rainbow-colored bow shock around RXJ0528+2838, a white dwarf in a binary about 730 light-years away. The nebula, extending ~4,000 AU and at least 1,000 years old, surrounds a diskless system that is actively pulling material from its companion. Researchers believe an extremely strong magnetic field powers an unusual, outflow-like phenomenon—the so-called mysterious engine—without a traditional accretion disk, challenging current models of mass transfer in binary systems. The finding, published in Nature Astronomy, suggests more such systems may exist and could be studied in detail with the upcoming ELT set to go online by 2028.

via Live Science|

#binary-star #bow-shock #interstellar-medium

science1 year ago•3 min saved

Voyager Probes Detect 50,000-Degree Fire Wall at Solar System's Edge

NASA's Voyager probes confirmed a hot, dynamic boundary called the heliopause at the edge of the solar system, characterized by temperatures up to 50,000 kelvin, providing new insights into the solar system's interaction with interstellar space.

via Indian Defence Review|

#heliopause #interstellar-medium #science