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    VIRGOCosmos In Brief - Aktualní novinky vesmírného výzkumu v kostce
    VIRGO
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    VIRGO:

    http://seti.berkeley.edu:8000/observations-of-ross-128/

    Exciting news: the HARPS exoplanet hunter team have discovered a new, Earth-like exoplanet orbiting around the star Ross 128, one of our closest neighbors.
    This newly discovered 'exo-Earth', designated Ross 128b, is particularly remarkable as it is thought to have surface temperatures similar to here on Earth.

    Curiously, this is the second time this year Ross 128 has been in the news. In May 2017, an intriguing signal in the direction of Ross 128 was detected at
    Arecibo. In July, we conducted follow-up observations with Green Bank Telescope and concluded that disappointingly, the signal was most likely due to radio
    interference from a passing satellite. Our analysis has now been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Astrobiology; data from our
    observations is available for download at http://seti.berkeley.edu/ross128/.

    Ross 128 was also observed over the 1.1-1.9 GHz band as part of Breakthrough Listen's nearby star survey. Again, we did not detect any signals of SETI interest.
    These data are available online, and our analysis is detailed in the Astrophysical Journal (E. Enriquez et. al., 2017).

    So sadly, we've already looked closely at Ross 128 and have come up empty. Nonetheless, as Ross 128b is such an exciting target, we are considering additional,
    deeper observations at radio and optical wavelengths. Nearby exoplanets are particularly exciting from a SETI perspective as they permit us to search for and
    potentially detect much weaker signals than from more distant targets.

    VIRGO
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    When water met iron deep inside the Earth, it might have created conditions for life - Astrobiology Magazine
    https://www.astrobio.net/...-in-news/water-met-iron-deep-inside-earth-might-created-conditions-life/

    Reservoirs of oxygen-rich iron between the Earth’s core and mantle could have played a major role in Earth’s history,
    including the breakup of supercontinents, drastic changes in Earth’s atmospheric makeup, and the creation of life,
    according to recent work from an international research team published in National Science Review.

    The team—which includes scientists from Carnegie, Stanford University, the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology
    Advanced Research in China, and the University of Chicago—probed the chemistry of iron and water under the extreme
    temperatures and pressures of the Earth’s core-mantle boundary.

    VIRGO
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    Supercomputer Simulates Dynamic Magnetic Fields of Jupiter, Earth, Sun - Egghead
    http://blogs.ucdavis.edu/...11/09/supercomputer-simulates-dynamic-magnetic-fields-jupiter-earth-sun/

    As the Juno space probe approached Jupiter in June last year, researchers with the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics’
    Dynamo Working Group were starting to run simulations of the giant planet’s magnetic field on one of the world’s fastest computers.
    While the timing was coincidental, the supercomputer modeling should help scientists interpret the data from Juno, and vice versa.

    Jupiter’s magnetic fields
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oqZnjg5JdY


    Earth’s magnetic fields
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUbbRvTf218
    VIRGO
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    Astronomers discover new type of cosmic explosion | University of Southampton
    https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2017/11/galactic-explosion.page

    An international team of astronomers, including a University of Southampton expert, has discovered a new type of explosion in a distant galaxy.
    The explosion, called PS1-10adi, seems to prefer active galaxies that house supermassive black holes consuming the gas and material around them.

    Using telescopes on La Palma and Hawaii, the team detected an explosion that was so energetic it must have originated from one of two sources:
    an extremely massive star – up to several hundred times more massive than our Sun – exploding as a supernova, or from a lower mass star that
    has been shredded by the ultra-strong gravitational forces close to the supermassive black hole.
    VIRGO
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    With launch of new night sky survey, UW researchers ready for era of ‘big data’ astronomy | UW News
    http://www.washington.edu/...ew-night-sky-survey-uw-researchers-ready-for-era-of-big-data-astronomy/

    The first astronomers had a limited toolkit: their eyes. They could only observe those stars, planets and celestial events bright enough to pick up unassisted.
    But today’s astronomers use increasingly sensitive and sophisticated instruments to view and track a bevy of cosmic wonders, including objects and events that
    were too dim or distant for their sky-gazing forebears.

    On Nov. 14, scientists with the California Institute of Technology, the University of Washington and eight additional partner institutions, announced that
    the Zwicky Transient Facility, the latest sensitive tool for astrophysical observations in the Northern Hemisphere, has seen “first light” and took its first
    detailed image of the night sky.

    When fully operational in 2018, the ZTF will scan almost the entire northern sky every night. Based at the Palomar Observatory in southern California and
    operated by Caltech, the ZTF’s goal is to use these nightly images to identify “transient” objects that vary between observations — identifying events
    ranging from supernovae millions of light years away to near-Earth asteroids.

    Zwicky Transient Facility sees 'first light'
    https://phys.org/news/2017-11-zwicky-transient-facility.html

    VIRGO
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    https://www.space.com/38782-possibly-earth-like-alien-planet-ross-128b.html

    A newfound exoplanet may be one of the best bets to host alien life ever discovered — and it's right in Earth's backyard, cosmically speaking.

    Astronomers have spotted a roughly Earth-mass world circling the small, dim star Ross 128, which lies just 11 light-years from the sun.
    The planet, known as Ross 128b, may have surface temperatures amenable to life as we know it, the researchers announced in a new study that
    will appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

    Ross 128b is 2.6 times more distant from Earth than Proxima b, the potentially habitable planet found in the nearest solar system to the sun.
    But Proxima b's parent star, Proxima Centauri, blasts out a lot of powerful flares, potentially bathing that planet in enough radiation to
    stunt the emergence and evolution of life, scientists have said.

    Radiation is likely much less of an issue for Ross 128b, because its parent star is not an active flarer, said discovery team leader Xavier
    Bonfils, of the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble and the University of Grenoble Alpes in France.

    "This is the closest Earth-mass planet potentially in the habitable zone that orbits a quiet star," Bonfils told Space.com via email, referring
    to the range of orbital distances where liquid water could exist on a world's surface.

    http://www.eso.org/public/usa/videos/eso1736b/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVi5D9xtmMM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLmmy55xNVg
    VIRGO
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    !!!
    Project Lyra: Sending a Spacecraft to 1I/’Oumuamua (formerly A/2017 U1), the Interstellar Asteroid
    https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=38728

    Now that we have determined that the object now known as 1I/’Oumuamua is indeed interstellar in origin,
    is there any way we could launch a mission to study it? The study below, written by key players in the
    Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is), examines the possibilities. Andreas Hein is Executive as well
    as Technical Director of i4is, while Nikolas Perakis, a graduate student at the Technical University of
    Munich, serves as Deputy Technical director. Kelvin Long is president and co-founder of i4is; Adam Crowl,
    a familiar figure to Centauri Dreams readers, is active in its technical programs. Physicist and radio
    astronomer Marshall Eubanks is the founder of Asteroid Initiatives; systems engineer Robert Kennedy is
    president of i4is-US and general chair of the Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop. Propulsion scientist Richard
    Osborne serves as i4is Director of Technology & Strategic Foresight. Their plan for 1I/’Oumuamua follows.


    [1711.03155] Project Lyra: Sending a Spacecraft to 1I/'Oumuamua (former A/2017 U1), the Interstellar Asteroid
    https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.03155

    VIRGO
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    https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia21970/jupiter-s-stunning-southern-hemisphere

    See Jupiter’s southern hemisphere in beautiful detail in this new image taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The color-enhanced view captures
    one of the white ovals in the “String of Pearls,” one of eight massive rotating storms at 40 degrees south latitude on the gas giant planet.

    The image was taken on Oct. 24, 2017 at 11:11 a.m. PDT (2:11 p.m. EDT), as Juno performed its ninth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time
    the image was taken, the spacecraft was 20,577 miles (33,115 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of minus
    52.96 degrees. The spatial scale in this image is 13.86 miles/pixel (22.3 kilometers/pixel).

    Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager.

    VIRGO
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    News | Dawn Explores Ceres' Interior Evolution
    https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6997

    Surface features on Ceres -- the largest world between Mars and Jupiter -- and its interior evolution have a closer relationship than one might think.

    A recent study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, analyzed Ceres' surface features to reveal clues about the dwarf planet's interior evolution.
    Specifically, the study explored linear features -- the chains of pits and small, secondary craters common on Ceres.

    The findings align with the idea that, hundreds of millions (up to a billion) years ago, materials beneath Ceres' surface pushed upward toward the exterior,
    creating fractures in the crust.

    VIRGO
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    ‘Unlucky’ dinosaurs: no extinction if asteroid had hit almost any other part of Earth | Science | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/...aurs-no-extinction-if-asteroid-had-hit-almost-any-other-part-of-earth

    Only 13% of the Earth’s surface harboured rich enough hydrocarbon deposits to cause a mass extinction following an impact, research reveals

    The massive asteroid that slammed into Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs might never have triggered a mass extinction had it struck almost
    any other part of the planet, scientists claim.

    In work that reveals just how unlucky the prehistoric beasts were, researchers calculate that the odds of the enormous space rock wreaking
    such havoc were low across 87% of the Earth’s surface.

    Unfortunately for the dinosaurs, the 9km-wide asteroid thumped into the ground in what is now Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, where the concentration
    of hydrocarbons in the rocks was so high that the soot and sulphate aerosols sent into the sky caused global cooling and drought. The impact crater
    near the town of Chicxulub is 180km wide and 20km deep.


    A glimpse of when Canada's badlands were a lush dinosaur forest by the sea
    Read more
    Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, Kunio Kaiho and Naga Oshima at Tohoku University in Japan describe calculations that suggest only 13%
    of the Earth’s surface harboured rich enough hydrocarbon deposits to cause a mass extinction in the event of such a devastating impact.

    VIRGO
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    https://www.nasa.gov/...ge-feature/goddard/2017/hubble-shows-light-echo-expanding-from-exploded-star

    Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space.

    The supernova, called SN 2014J, occurred at the upper right of M82, and is marked by an “X.” The supernova was discovered on Jan. 21, 2014.

    Hubble Captures Supernova’s Light Echo
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzSAoW6fS6c
    VIRGO
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    Set an alert: Do not miss The Farthest on PBS | Ars Technica
    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/set-an-alert-do-not-miss-the-farthest-on-pbs/

    The Farthest (2017) documentary trailer
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=znTdk_de_K8
    VIRGO
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    Surprising Results from October's Triton Cover-Up - Sky & Telescope
    http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/surprising-results-from-octobers-triton-occultation/

    By watching a star disappear behind Triton, one of Saturn's moons, astronomers learned about the state of its ultrathin atmosphere.

    For those of us who keep track of where and when solar-system objects occult a background star, the brief cover-up of a dim star in
    Aquarius by Neptune’s large moon Triton on October 5th was especially newsworthy.

    The target, 12.6-magnitude star UCAC4 410-143659, was the brightest star occulted by Triton since 1997. It’s about a magnitude
    brighter than Triton itself, and its location only 13 arcseconds from 8th-magnitude Neptune made observations relatively easy.

    VIRGO
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    Did Triton Destroy Neptune’s First Moons?
    http://aasnova.org/2017/11/06/did-triton-destroy-neptunes-first-moons/

    Neptune’s moon system is not what we would expect for a gas giant in our solar system. Scientists have now explored the possibility that
    Neptune started its life with an ordinary system of moons that was later destroyed by the capture of its current giant moon, Triton.

    VIRGO
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    Asteroid 2017 VE flew past Earth at 0.88 LD, a day before discovery
    https://watchers.news/2017/11/07/asteroid-2017-ve/

    A newly discovered asteroid designated 2017 VE flew past Earth at 0.88 LD / 0.00227 AU (~339 597 km / 211 009 miles) on November 4,
    2017, one day before it was discovered. This is the 46th known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year.

    Asteroid 2017 VE was first observed at ATLAS-MLO, Mauna Loa at 10:17 UTC on November 5, 2017. This object made its closest approach to
    the Sun on September 9, 2017, and flew past Earth at 05:13 UTC on November 4 at a speed (relative to the Earth) of 14.08 km/s.

    It belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids and has an estimated diameter between 12 and 28 m (39 - 92 feet).

    The next flyby of this asteroid is expected on November 21, 2021, at a distance of 0.37 AU / 144 LD. However, it won't come nearly as close
    as it did on November 4th until November 4 (+/- 2 days), 2090 when it is expected to flyby at a distance of 0.005 AU / 1.9 LD.

    This is the 46th known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year and the 11th since October 2.

    IAU Minor Planet Center
    https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=2017%20VE

    VIRGO
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    https://www.nasa.gov/feature/help-nickname-new-horizons-next-flyby-target

    NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is looking for your ideas on what to informally name
    its next flyby destination, a billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) past Pluto.

    Poloha NH k dnešnímu dni

    VIRGO
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    Scientists Find Potential “Missing Link” in Chemistry That Led to Life on Earth
    http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2017/20171106krishnamurthy.html

    Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that may have been a crucial factor in the origins of life on Earth.

    Origins-of-life researchers have hypothesized that a chemical reaction called phosphorylation may have been crucial for the assembly of three
    key ingredients in early life forms: short strands of nucleotides to store genetic information, short chains of amino acids (peptides) to do
    the main work of cells, and lipids to form encapsulating structures such as cell walls. Yet, no one has ever found a phosphorylating agent that
    was plausibly present on early Earth and could have produced these three classes of molecules side-by-side under the same realistic conditions.

    TSRI chemists have now identified just such a compound: diamidophosphate (DAP).

    VIRGO
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    Dnešní NASA APOD se vyvedl :) https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171107.html

    VIRGO
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    Alma’s image of red giant star gives a surprising glimpse of the Sun’s future | Chalmers
    http://www.chalmers.se/...image-of-red-giant-star-gives-a-surprising-glimpse-of-the-Suns-future.aspx

    A Chalmers-led team of astronomers has for the first time observed details on the surface of an aging star with the same mass as the Sun. ALMA:s
    images show that the star is a giant, its diameter twice the size of Earth’s orbit around the Sun, but also that the star’s atmosphere is affected
    by powerful, unexpected shock waves. The research is published in Nature Astronomy on 30 October 2017.

    ​A team of astronomers led by Wouter Vlemmings, Chalmers University of Technology, have used the telescope Alma (Atacama Large Millimetre/Submm
    Array) to make the sharpest observations yet of a star with the same starting mass as the Sun. The new images show for the first time details on the
    surface of the red giant W Hydrae, 320 light years distant in the constellation of Hydra, the Water Snake.

    W Hydrae is an example of an AGB (asymptotic giant branch) star. Such stars are cool, bright, old and lose mass via stellar winds. The name derives
    from their position on the famous Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, which classifies stars according to their brightness and temperature.

    VIRGO
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    18-month twinkle in a forming star suggests the existence of a very young planet - National Research Council Canada
    https://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/stories/2017/star_formation.html

    An international team of researchers have found an infrequent variation in the brightness of a forming star. This 18-month recurring
    twinkle is not only an unexpected phenomenon for scientists, but its repeated behavior suggests the presence of a hidden planet.

    This discovery is an early win for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Transient Survey, just one-and-a-half years into its three-
    year mandate to monitor eight galactic stellar nurseries for variations in the brightness of forming stars. This novel study is critical
    to understanding how stars and planets are assembled. The survey is led by Doug Johnstone, Research Officer at the National Research
    Council of Canada and Greg Herczeg, Professor at Peking University (China), and is supported by an international team of astronomers
    from Canada, China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

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