- 3535 - EXOPLANETS - atmospheres and sound waves? Exoplanets have a complex and exotic atmospheres. Astronomers analyzed the atmosphere of one of these most extreme known planets in great detail. The results from this hot, Jupiter-like planet that was first characterized with the help of the “CHEOPS space telescope“, may help astronomers understand the complexities of many other exoplanets.
----------------- 3535 - EXOPLANETS - atmospheres and sound waves?
- The atmosphere of Earth is not a uniform envelope but consists of distinct layers that each have characteristic properties. The lowest layer that spans from sea level beyond the highest mountain peaks.
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- The “troposphere” contains most of the water vapor and is thus the layer in which most weather phenomena occur. The layer above it, the “stratosphere“, is the one that contains the famous ozone layer that shields us from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation.
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- The atmosphere of one of the most extreme known planets may have similarly distinct layers as well, but with very different characteristics. “WASP-189b” is a planet outside our own solar system, located 322 light years from Earth.
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- Extensive observations with the “CHEOPS space telescope” in 2020 revealed among other things that the planet is 20 times closer to its host star than Earth is to the Sun and has a daytime temperature of 3,200 degrees Celsius.
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- More recent investigations with the “HARPS spectrograph” allowed the researchers to take a closer look at the atmosphere of this Jupiter-like planet. They measured the light coming from the planet’s host star and passing through the planet’s atmosphere.
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- The gases in its atmosphere absorb some of the starlight, similar to Ozone absorbing some of the sunlight in Earth’s atmosphere, and thereby leave their characteristic ‘fingerprint’. The gases that left their fingerprints in the atmosphere of WASP-189b included iron, chromium, vanadium, magnesium and manganese.
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- One particularly interesting substance the team found is a titanium oxide gas. While titanium oxide is very scarce on Earth, it could play an important role in the atmosphere of WASP-189b, similar to that of ozone in Earth’s atmosphere.
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- Titanium oxide absorbs short wave radiation, such as ultraviolet radiation. Its detection could therefore indicate a layer in the atmosphere of WASP-189b that interacts with the stellar irradiation similarly to how the Ozone layer does on Earth.
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- The researchers found hints of such a layer and other layers on the ultra-hot Jupiter-like planet. Strong winds and other processes could generate these alterations making fingerprints of different gases altered in different ways. This indicates that they exist in different layers, similarly to how the fingerprints of water vapor and ozone on Earth would appear differently altered from a distance.
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- When the second man, "Buzz" Aldrin, stepped out of the lunar module on July 21, 1969, the first task he did was to set up the “Bernese Solar Wind Composition” experiment (SWC) also known as the “solar wind sail” by planting it in the ground of the moon, even before the American flag.
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- It is not just the wind but every sound begins with motion and vibrations. When the vibrations travel through the air, they can enter the human eardrum where they are eventually turned into electrical signals that our brain interprets as sound. These vibrations can come from many sources here on Earth as well as those in our Solar System and even across our Universe.
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- Sound travels in a wave and has its own distinct properties. One of these is frequency, which is the measurement of how many peaks or troughs of a wave pass a particular point over a certain period of time.
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- Frequency is most often measured in the unit of the Hertz (Hz), which is the number per second. In general, humans can hear in the range of 20 to 20,000 Hz. An elephant can hear in the range below humans, while dogs are sensitive to much higher-frequency sounds.
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- Beyond the animal world, sounds can come from a variety of sources. Natural phenomena such as weather, earthquakes, and even blackholes can produce very low-frequency sounds, while humans have harnessed sound for improvements in technology such as medical imaging.
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- Here is how scientists are using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other instruments around the world and in space to study the cosmos through sound. Sound plays a valuable role in our understanding of the world and cosmos around us.
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- Chandra’s 53-hour observation of the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster has revealed wavelike features that appear to be sound waves. The features were discovered by using a special image-processing technique to bring out subtle changes in brightness.
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- These sound waves are thought to have been generated by explosive events occurring around a supermassive blackhole in Perseus A, the huge galaxy at the center of the cluster. The data also shows two vast, bubble-shaped cavities filled with high-energy particles and magnetic fields.
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- These cavities create the sound waves by pushing the hot X-ray emitting gas aside. The pitch of the sound waves translates into the note of B flat, 57 octaves below middle-C. This frequency is over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing.
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- The Chandra X-ray Observatory of a source called “EX Hydrae“ which is a binary system consisting of a normal star and a white dwarf. Known as a “cataclysmic variable“, it fluctuates in X-ray brightness as the white dwarf consumes gas from its companion.
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- Something as far away and otherworldly as an X-ray-emitting cataclysmic variable binary star system can be significant to humans for two distinct reasons - one scientific and one artistic.
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- Neutron stars are strange and fascinating objects. They represent an extreme state of matter. The intense gravitational field of a neutron star would pull your spacecraft to pieces before it reached the surface.
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- The magnetic fields around neutron stars are extremely strong. Magnetic forces squeeze the atoms into the shape of cigars. If the neutron star is rotating rapidly, as most young neutron stars are, the strong magnetic fields combined with rapid rotation create an awesome generator that can produce electric potential differences of quadrillions of volts. Such voltages, which are 30 million times greater than those of lightning bolts, create deadly blizzards of high-energy particles.
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- These high-energy particles produce beams of radiation from radio through gamma-ray energies. Like a rotating lighthouse beam, the radiation can be observed as a pulsing source of radiation, or pulsar.
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- Pulsars were first observed by radio astronomers in 1967. The pulsar in the Crab Nebula, one of the youngest and most energetic pulsars known, has been observed to pulse in almost every wavelength—radio, optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray.
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April 5, 2022 EXOPLANETS - atmospheres and sound waves? 3535
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