#rogue planets

[nasa]

A simulated image of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s future observations toward the center of our galaxy, spanning less than 1 percent of the total area of Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey. The simulated stars were drawn from the Besançon Galactic Model.

Exploring the Changing Universe with the Roman Space Telescope

The view from your backyard might paint the universe as an unchanging realm, where only twinkling stars and nearby objects, like satellites and meteors, stray from the apparent constancy. But stargazing through NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will offer a front row seat to a dazzling display of cosmic fireworks sparkling across the sky.

Roman will view extremely faint infrared light, which has longer wavelengths than our eyes can see. Two of the mission’s core observing programs will monitor specific patches of the sky. Stitching the results together like stop-motion animation will create movies that reveal changing objects and fleeting events that would otherwise be hidden from our view.

Watch this video to learn about time-domain astronomy and how time will be a key element in NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s galactic bulge survey. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

This type of science, called time-domain astronomy, is difficult for telescopes that have smaller views of space. Roman’s large field of view will help us see huge swaths of the universe. Instead of always looking at specific things and events astronomers have already identified, Roman will be able to repeatedly observe large areas of the sky to catch phenomena scientists can't predict. Then astronomers can find things no one knew were there!

One of Roman’s main surveys, the Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, will monitor hundreds of millions of stars toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers will see many of the stars appear to flash or flicker over time.

This animation illustrates the concept of gravitational microlensing. When one star in the sky appears to pass nearly in front of another, the light rays of the background source star are bent due to the warped space-time around the foreground star. The closer star is then a virtual magnifying glass, amplifying the brightness of the background source star, so we refer to the foreground star as the lens star. If the lens star harbors a planetary system, then those planets can also act as lenses, each one producing a short change in the brightness of the source. Thus, we discover the presence of each exoplanet, and measure its mass and how far it is from its star. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab 

That can happen when something like a star or planet moves in front of a background star from our point of view. Because anything with mass warps the fabric of space-time, light from the distant star bends around the nearer object as it passes by. That makes the nearer object act as a natural magnifying glass, creating a temporary spike in the brightness of the background star’s light. That signal lets astronomers know there’s an intervening object, even if they can’t see it directly.

This artist’s concept shows the region of the Milky Way NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey will cover – relatively uncharted territory when it comes to planet-finding. That’s important because the way planets form and evolve may be different depending on where in the galaxy they’re located. Our solar system is situated near the outskirts of the Milky Way, about halfway out on one of the galaxy’s spiral arms. A recent Kepler Space Telescope study showed that stars on the fringes of the Milky Way possess fewer of the most common planet types that have been detected so far. Roman will search in the opposite direction, toward the center of the galaxy, and could find differences in that galactic neighborhood, too.

Using this method, called microlensing, Roman will likely set a new record for the farthest-known exoplanet. That would offer a glimpse of a different galactic neighborhood that could be home to worlds quite unlike the more than 5,500 that are currently known. Roman’s microlensing observations will also find starless planets, black holes, neutron stars, and more!

This animation shows a planet crossing in front of, or transiting, its host star and the corresponding light curve astronomers would see. Using this technique, scientists anticipate NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find 100,000 new worlds. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA/GESTAR)

Stars Roman sees may also appear to flicker when a planet crosses in front of, or transits, its host star as it orbits. Roman could find 100,000 planets this way! Small icy objects that haunt the outskirts of our own solar system, known as Kuiper belt objects, may occasionally pass in front of faraway stars Roman sees, too. Astronomers will be able to see how much water the Kuiper belt objects have because the ice absorbs specific wavelengths of infrared light, providing a “fingerprint” of its presence. This will give us a window into our solar system’s early days.

This animation visualizes a type Ia supernova.

Roman’s High Latitude Time-Domain Survey will look beyond our galaxy to hunt for type Ia supernovas. These exploding stars originate from some binary star systems that contain at least one white dwarf – the small, hot core remnant of a Sun-like star. In some cases, the dwarf may siphon material from its companion. This triggers a runaway reaction that ultimately detonates the thief once it reaches a specific point where it has gained so much mass that it becomes unstable.

NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will see thousands of exploding stars called supernovae across vast stretches of time and space. Using these observations, astronomers aim to shine a light on several cosmic mysteries, providing a window onto the universe’s distant past. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Since these rare explosions each peak at a similar, known intrinsic brightness, astronomers can use them to determine how far away they are by simply measuring how bright they appear. Astronomers will use Roman to study the light of these supernovas to find out how quickly they appear to be moving away from us.

By comparing how fast they’re receding at different distances, scientists can trace cosmic expansion over time. This will help us understand whether and how dark energy – the unexplained pressure thought to speed up the universe’s expansion – has changed throughout the history of the universe.

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will survey the same areas of the sky every few days. Researchers will mine this data to identify kilonovas – explosions that happen when two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole collide and merge. When these collisions happen, a fraction of the resulting debris is ejected as jets, which move near the speed of light. The remaining debris produces hot, glowing, neutron-rich clouds that forge heavy elements, like gold and platinum. Roman’s extensive data will help astronomers better identify how often these events occur, how much energy they give off, and how near or far they are.

And since this survey will repeatedly observe the same large vista of space, scientists will also see sporadic events like neutron stars colliding and stars being swept into black holes. Roman could even find new types of objects and events that astronomers have never seen before!

Learn more about the exciting science Roman will investigate on X and Facebook.

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[most-ment]

Rogue Planets

Salaam loves! Check out a new poem series about love and space; 'Rogue Planets' on my website or insta.

Rogue Planets

or

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzVcXRoiQ9_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

My tag list is out of this world :

@jayrealgf @think-through-pen @unforgettable-sensations @jordynhaiku @sweetwarmcookies16 @grimfox @mk-ranz

[adrenalinespill]

all the stars in the universe

yet rogue planets can’t call one home

drifting through the cold abyss

cruelly cursed to roam

[inkyvoids]

Most of the planets in the Universe orbit a star. They are part of a system of planets, similar to our own solar system. But a few planets drift alone in the cosmos. For whatever reason, be it a near collision or slow gravitational perturbations that destabilize its orbit, these planets are cast out of their star system and sent adrift. These rogue planets are notoriously challenging to find, but as we start to discover them we’re finding they are a bit more common than we’d thought. Now a new study posits a reason why. What they found was that while in single-star systems planets need to be closely spaced to create a rogue planet, in binary systems planets can be widely spaced and still generate rogues. The combination of gravitational tugs from both the stars and other planets is sufficient to destabilize the orbits of some planets. In general, the largest planet of the system remains stable and can destabilize the orbits of smaller planets. Based on their simulations, if the two stars have a circular orbit, then the presence of a Neptune-sized world is enough to generate rogue worlds. If the binary stars orbit each other in an elliptical orbit, then the presence of a super-Earth is enough to generate rogue planets.

[ketrinadrawsalot]

Sheila tried a Black Hole Angel costume, but it got dirty quickly because it attracted dust, crumbs, and in one instance a rogue planet that got too close.

[banjodroid]

Obsessed with how rogue planet introduces us to anakin and obi-wan, three years post phantom menace and I think this blurb describes both their dynamic and mentality very well

[brazen-kenobi]

“Anakin suddenly jumped out of his chair and hugged his master with a fierceness that took Obi-Wan by surprise. Obi-Wan held the boy gently, and let the moment flow into its own shape. Some padawans were as simple as quiet pools. Only in training did they aquire the depth and complexity that showed maturity. Anakin had been a deep and complex mystery from the first day they had met. And yet, Obi-Wan had never felt such a strength of connection with any other being – not even Qui-Gon Jinn.”

- Greg Bear, Star Wars: Rogue Planet

[skylobster]

A very peculiar exoplanet. I am reminded of comets - particularly of the orbits of Oort Cloud comets, which have negligible velocity before they are dislodged and fall sunwards. Thus, they have no preferred direction, in addition to having highly eccentric, near-parabolic orbits. Perhaps this exo-Jupiter was also dislodged from an Oort-like orbit. Possibly it could also be a rogue planet, captured from interstellar space.

One interesting clue would be the tilt of its orbit from the plane of the rest of its solar system. Even if it’s orbit falls into that same plane, a backwards ellipse could be considered a tilt of 180 degrees. I cannot imagine such a tilt arising without a past perturbation event.

Another question: Would such an eccentric orbit tend to circularize with time, perhaps through the influence of other planets, or tidal effects from the star?

Exoplanet caught in ‘hairpin turn’ signals how high-mass gas giants form

An exoplanet’s elongated, backwards orbit holds clues to the formation history and future trajectories of hot Jupiters

Astronomers have discovered a planet that has the most oblong orbit ever found among transiting planets. The exoplanet’s extreme circuit — which looks closer to a cucumber than a circle — follows one of the most drastically stretched-out orbits of all known exoplanets, planets that orbit stars outside our solar system. It is also orbiting its star backwards, lending insight into the mystery of how close-in massive gas planets, known as hot Jupiters, form, stabilize and evolve over time.

The research, led by Penn State scientists, was published today (July 17) in the journal Nature.

“We caught this massive planet making a sharp, hairpin turn during its close passage to its star,” said Suvrath Mahadevan, the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy at Penn State and author on the paper. “Such highly eccentric transiting planets are incredibly rare — and it's really amazing that we were able to discover the most eccentric one.”

Mahadevan explained that the term “eccentric” refers to the shape of a planet’s orbit, which is measured on a scale from zero to one, with zero being a perfectly circular orbit. This exoplanet, named TIC 241249530, has an orbital eccentricity of 0.94, making it more eccentric than the orbit of any other transiting exoplanet ever found. For comparison, Pluto’s highly elliptical orbit around the sun has an eccentricity of 0.25; Earth’s eccentricity is 0.02. Such an extreme orbit, Mahadevan explained, would cause temperatures on the planet to vary between that of a summer’s day at the farthest point in its orbit to blazing hot at its closest approach.

To add to the unusual nature of the exoplanet’s orbit, the team also found that it’s orbiting backwards, meaning in a direction opposite to the rotation of its host star. This is not something that astronomers see in most other exoplanets, nor in our own solar system, and it helps inform the team’s interpretation of the exoplanet’s formation history.

“While we can’t exactly press rewind and watch the process of planetary migration in real time, this exoplanet serves as a sort of snapshot of the migration process,” Arvind Gupta, NOIRLab postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the paper, who conducted the research as a doctoral student at Penn State, said in a NOIRLab release. “Planets like this are hard to find and we hope it can help us unravel the hot Jupiter formation story.”

At present there are over 5,600 confirmed exoplanets in just over 4,000 star systems. Within this population, about 300 to 500 exoplanets fall into the curious class known as hot Jupiters — large, Jupiter-like exoplanets that orbit very close to their star, much closer than Mercury is to our sun. How hot Jupiters end up in such close orbits is a mystery, but astronomers suspect that they begin in orbits far from their star and then migrate inward over time. The early stages of this process have rarely been observed, but with this new analysis of an exoplanet with an unusual orbit, astronomers are one step closer to unraveling the hot Jupiter mystery.

“Astronomers have been searching for exoplanets that are likely precursors to hot Jupiters, or that are intermediate products of the migration process, for more than two decades, so I was very surprised — and excited — to find one,” Gupta said. 

The discovery and characterization of the exoplanet was enabled by three instruments built at Penn State: the NASA-funded NEID spectrograph, the Habitable Zone Planet Finder spectrograph and a photometric diffuser. All three instruments allow researchers to observe and analyze light emitted by the exoplanet.

The researchers first detected the planet using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) in January 2020, which revealed a dip in a star’s brightness consistent with a single Jupiter-sized planet passing in front of the star. To confirm the nature of these fluctuations and eliminate other possible causes, a team of astronomers used two instruments on the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a program of NSF NOIRLab.

The team first utilized the NASA-funded NN-EXPLORE Exoplanet and Stellar Speckle Imager (NESSI) in a technique that helps to “freeze out” atmospheric twinkling, which showed that there were no extraneous stars nearby that could have confused the TESS measurements. Then, using the HPF and NEID spectrographs, the team observed how TIC 241249530’s spectrum, or wavelengths of its emitted light, shifted as a result of the exoplanet orbiting it.

“It's so exciting to see such great science coming out of NEID within just a few years of operations,” said Andrea Lin, a co-author on the paper and doctoral student at Penn State who helped construct and commission the NEID spectrograph. “We’re just getting started and I'm looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish in the future.”

Detailed analysis of how the velocity of the star changes throughout the planet’s six-month orbital period confirmed that the exoplanet is approximately five times more massive than Jupiter, and that it is orbiting along an extremely eccentric path.

“This is the most eccentric transiting planet known and will prove to be as important as the previous record holder, HD80606b, which likewise has a wacky orbit highly misaligned with its host star's spin,” said Jason Wright, Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics, who supervised the project while Gupta was a doctoral student at the university. “These two highly eccentric planets have been ‘caught in the act’ of evolving towards hot Jupiter status. Like HD80606b, this planet is many times Jupiter's mass, suggesting this channel for forming hot Jupiters might be one only the most massive planets can take.”

Together, these two examples observationally affirm the idea that higher-mass gas giants evolve to become hot Jupiters as they migrate from highly eccentric orbits toward tighter, more circular orbits.

"We’re especially interested in what we can learn about the dynamics of this planet's atmosphere after it makes one of its scorchingly close passages to its star," Wright said. "Telescopes like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have the sensitivity to probe the changes in the atmosphere of this newly discovered exoplanet as it undergoes rapid heating, so there is still much more for the team to learn about the exoplanet."

Other Penn State co-authors are Jessica Libby-Roberts, a postdoctoral fellow, Megan Delamer, a graduate student, and Donald Schneider, distinguished professor of astronomy and astrophysics. A full list of authors is available on the paper.

IMAGE: A team of astronomers led by Penn State scientists have discovered a planet that has the most oblong orbit ever found among transiting planets. The exoplanet’s extreme circuit — which looks closer to a cucumber than a circle — follows one of the most drastically stretched-out orbits of all known exoplanets, planets that orbit stars outside our solar system. The planet, , named TIC 241249530, is also orbiting its star backwards, lending insight into the mystery of how close-in massive gas planets, known as hot Jupiters, form, stabilize and evolve over time. Credit Abigail Minnich/Penn State

[theoutcastrogue]

Members of an ethical hacking group called Dragon Sector, including Sergiusz Bazański and Michał Kowalczyk, were called upon by a train repair shop, Serwis Pojazdów Szynowych (SPS), to analyze train software in June 2022. SPS was desperate to figure out what was causing "mysterious failures" that shut down several vehicles owned by Polish train operator the Lower Silesian Railway, Polish infrastructure trade publication Rynek Kolejowy reported. At that point, the shortage of trains had already become "a serious problem" for carriers and passengers, as fewer available cars meant shorter trains and reduced rider capacity, Rynek Kolejowy reported.

Dragon Sector spent two months analyzing the software, finding that "the manufacturer's interference" led to "forced failures and to the fact that the trains did not start," and concluding that bricking the trains "was a deliberate action on Newag's part."

According to Dragon Sector, Newag entered code into the control systems of Impuls trains to stop them from operating if a GPS tracker indicated that the train was parked for several days at an independent repair shop.

The trains "were given the logic that they would not move if they were parked in a specific location in Poland, and these locations were the service hall of SPS and the halls of other similar companies in the industry," Dragon Sector's team alleged. "Even one of the SPS halls, which was still under construction, was included."

The code also allegedly bricked the train if "certain components had been replaced without a manufacturer-approved serial number," 404 Media reported. [...]

404 Media noted that Newag appeared to be following a common playbook in the right-to-repair world where manufacturers intimidate competitor repair shops with threatened lawsuits and unsubstantiated claims about safety risks of third-party repairs. So far, Dragon Sector does not appear intimidated, posting its success on YouTube and discussing its findings at Poland’s Oh My H@ck conference in Warsaw.

[most-ment]

S.P

[lordcaptains]

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader - JANUS

[grumfield]

patron saint of non-answers that will fuck up the baby

[moipale]

"ART had an alternate, more drastic plan that included giving me sex-related parts, and I told it that was absolutely not an option." (Artificial Condition, pg. 50)

do you think ART did its crew members' bottom surgery

[browsethestacks]

Detective Comics #1000 (2019)

Forbidden Planet Variants

Art by Brian Bolland

[genderqueerpond]

RTD: Fifteen is emotionally available :) fifteen, unlike past doctors, isn't afraid to talk about his feelings!!

Fifteen, nonchalantly shrugging off his whirlwind romance sacrificing himself to endless torture to save ruby sunday and the world, with a cheerful smile: I have to be like this because this is what I'm like.