![]() ![]() The study of exothings is a way of conversing with the rest of the cosmos and saying, “Oh, you’ve got one of those too?” And because any hypothetical life must live somewhere, exothings could someday answer one of our most existential questions: Are we alone? So it’s nice to look out across that sea, dark and unknowable, and occasionally spot other islands, other familiar shores. Not to be dramatic, but Earth is a small island in an endless sea. There is plenty of scientific possibility in the discovery of exothings, and also comfort. Read: Faraway planets don’t seem so distant anymore Just this week, astronomers announced that they have found an exoradiation belt, an invisible cocoon of charged particles, held in place by a planet’s magnetic field. The search for such celestial objects and structures has intensified in recent years. ![]() Exomoons haven’t been proved to exist, but astronomers believe that they are more numerous than exoplanets themselves. Astronomers have found exoauroras, exoasteroid belts, and even exorings, such as the ones that surround Saturn. The exo- prefix extends beyond the realm of planets. (Truly, telescopes have gotten really good.) Although most people probably can’t name an exoplanet-something like “HD 108236 b” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue-the fact that the cosmos is full of them is now well known. They’ve even recently captured evidence of an exoplanet getting swallowed up by its dying star. This world was called an exoplanet.Īstronomers have since discovered more than 5,300 exoplanets and counting, and they’re studying the atmosphere of these worlds to determine if the molecules suspended in their clouds could sustain life. By then, telescopes had become sufficiently advanced to reveal the hard evidence: A star about 50 light-years away was wobbling, a sign that a small world was tugging on it. Until the 1990s, that idea was no more than a hypothesis. On Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram.Several centuries ago, as scientists began to embrace the startling idea that Earth was not the center of the universe, they also began to ponder its startling implication: that the stars in the night sky might be suns in their own right, orbited by their own worlds. Studying such a close and young Type II supernova may yield new clues about massive stars and how they explode.įollow HT Tech for the latest tech news and reviews, also keep up with us SN 2023ixf will likely brighten and remain visible to telescopes for months. The featured image shows home spiral galaxy two days ago with the supernova highlighted, while the roll-over image shows the same galaxy a month before. Rapid follow up observations already indicate that SN 2023ixf is a Type II supernova, an explosion that occurs after a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses. SN 2023ixf occurred in the photogenic Pinwheel Galaxy M101, which, being only about 21 million light years away, makes it the closest supernova seen in the past five years, the second closest in the past 10 years, and the second supernova found in M101 in the past 15 years. The supernova, dubbed SN 2023ixf, was discovered by Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki three days ago and subsequently located on automated images from the Zwicky Transient Facility two days earlier. NASA's description of the pictureĪfter this nearby star exploded, humanity's telescopes quickly turned to monitor it. ![]() The picture was captured by astrophotographer Craig Stocks. ![]()
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