Astronomy

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Sept. 18, 2015 May 16, 2016 Oct. 3, 2016 Oct. 6, 2017

WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 15

Neptune’s dark storm weakens further

QUICK TAKES

LOOKING FOR LIFE
NASA’s planetary protection
officer suggested aggressively
exploring Mars’ most promising
regions for signs of life.

• SCIENTIFIC HANDOFF
  A consortium headed by the
  University of Central Florida
  will now manage Arecibo
  Observatory in Puerto Rico.


• 
  

  POSITIVE OUTLOOK
  New research suggests
  humans would react positively
  to the discovery of microbial
  life on another world.

  
  


• 
  

  NEW APPOINTMENT
  President Donald Trump
  recently nominated former
  astronaut James Reilly to lead
  the U.S. Geological Survey.

  
  


• 
  

  THE FLOOR IS LAVA
  The Chicxulub meteor that
  struck Earth 66 million years
  ago triggered the release of
  magma from seafloor ridges
  all over the world.

  
  


• 
  

  WORKING TOGETHER
  The Very Large Telescope’s
  ESPRESSO spectrograph has
  combined light from all four
  8.2-meter Unit Telescopes
  for the first time.

  
  


• 
  

  BRIGHT BEACONS
  Computer simulations show
  the oldest stars in the Milky
  Way can act as tracers for
  invisible dark matter.

  
  


• 
  

  IGNORANCE IS BLISS
  Contrary to current theory,
  star-forming gas in the galaxy
  WISE 1029 is not affected by
  strong outflows from its
  supermassive black hole.

  
  


• 
  

  DEEP FREEZE
  Asteroids can function as
  “time capsules” that preserve
  molecules from the early solar
  system and help scientists
  reconstruct the origins of
  life on Earth.

  
  


• 
  

  BY THE STARS
  Swedish researchers have
  shown that nocturnal animals
  can use light from stars and
  the glow of the Milky Way to
  navigate at night.

  
  


• 
  

  PULSING LIGHTS
  Scientists have proven that
  pulsating aurorae occur when
  waves of plasma flow from the
  magnetosphere down into
  Earth’s atmosphere. — J.P.

  
  

Catching a glimpse of a supernova is tricky business.

Not only do you need the right equipment, but you

also need to have some incredible luck. Fortunately

for amateur astronomer Víctor Buso, September 20,

2016, was apparently his lucky day.

Buso was testing a new camera mounted on a

16-inch telescope at his home rooftop observatory in

Rosario, Argentina. Under a dark sky, he pointed his

scope at NGC 613 — a spiral galaxy about 70 million

light-years away in the constellation Sculptor — to

take a series of short-exposure photographs.

To ensure his new camera was functioning prop-

erly, Buso examined the images right away. He

noticed that a previously invisible point of light had

appeared on the outskirts of NGC 613, and that the

point was quickly growing brighter as he moved

from one image to the next.

With the help of fellow amateur Sebastian Otero,

Buso prepared an international alert, an online noti-

fication reporting transient night-sky events. Within

no time, astronomer Melina Bersten and her col-

leagues at the Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata

spotted the report and immediately realized that

Buso had caught the initial burst of light from a

massive supernova explosion — an extremely

rare event. According to Bersten, the chances of

making such a discovery are between 1 in 10 million

and 1 in 100 million.

“Professional astronomers have long been

searching for such an event,” said University of

California, Berkeley astronomer Alex Filippenko,

whose follow-up observations were critical to ana-

lyzing the explosion, in a press release.

“Observations of stars in the first moments they

begin exploding provide information that cannot

be directly obtained in any other way,” Filippenko

added. “It’s like winning the cosmic lottery.”

— Jake Parks

Supernova snapshot

is 1 in 10 million

39,

The distance from Earth, in miles, at which asteroid

2018 CB passed on February 9. This is less than

a fifth of the Earth-Moon separation.

COSMIC EXPANSION. Astronomers used Hubble to take the most precise measurement yet of the universe’s

expansion rate, and confirmed it is expanding faster than expected.

SMELLY STORM. Dark storms on Neptune were first spotted by Voyager 2 in 1989. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers

have continued to track similar features. A recent massive storm, found by Hubble in 2015 and believed to consist of unpleasant-smelling

hydrogen sulfide, is slowly fading away. Once roughly 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) across, the storm now measures only 2,300 miles

(3,700 km) in diameter. Researchers had believed that an eruption of cloud activity would occur as the vortex approached Neptune’s

equator, but instead, it’s shrinking calmly before our eyes. — Amber Jorgenson

NASA, ESA, AND M.H.

WONG AND

A.I.

HSU (UC BERKELEY)

LUCKY SHOT.

Supernova 2016gkg

(indicated with red

lines) occurred in the

spiral galaxy NGC 613,

about 70 million light-

years from Earth.

On September 20, 2016,

amateur astronomer

Víctor Buso captured the

initial burst of light from

this supernova, a first.

CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE,

LAS CAMPANAS OBSERVATORY

DRAMATIC ENTRANCE.

This sequence of images (top to

bottom) taken by Buso shows

the sudden appearance and

brightening of the supernova

over the course of 13 minutes.

V. BUSO, M. BERSTEN, ET AL.