Tag: galaxy

BREAKING NEWS: New Study Suggests Electric Discharge Between Earth’s Core and Magnetic Field

This news release highlights the observation of charged particles in the form of what is sometimes described as “sprites”, which is an electrical discharge which surges from “below” to “above”. It is similar to the mechanics of a local lightening/thunderstorm we witness here on Earth. To the typical observer, it appears that lightening comes down from the heavens and strikes the Earth; however, it is the intense impulse of charge which comes from the ground which produces high voltage.

The existence of these upper atmosphere sprites has been reported by pilots for years sparking a healthy debate as to their cause and how they exist. ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen during his mission on the International Space Station in 2015 was asked to take pictures over thunderstorms with the most sensitive camera on the orbiting outpost to look for these brief features.

Denmark’s National Space Institute has now published the results of photos taken by ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, of upper atmosphere discharges, sometimes referred to as blue lightening or ‘sprites’. The video taken by Mogensen were from the (ISS) International Space Station. (shown below)

The cause or effects of these charged particle events are not well understood. Researched data does suggest a connection between Earth’s magnetic field and Earth’s core. With this hypothesis as a foundation, my personal research suggest a continued conjunction goes beyond our Heliosphere and into our galaxy Milky Way.

The blue discharges and jets are examples of a little-understood part of our atmosphere called the heliosphere. The Heliosphere is the outer atmosphere of the Sun and marks the edge of the Sun’s magnetic influence in space. The solar wind that streams out in all directions from the rotating Sun is a magnetic plasma, and it fills the vast space between the planets in our solar system.

The magnetic plasma from the Sun does not conjoin with the magnetic plasma between the stars in our galaxy, allowing the solar wind carves out a bubble-like atmosphere that shields our solar system from the majority of galactic cosmic rays.

Andreas concludes, “It is not every day that you get to capture a new weather phenomenon on film, so I am very pleased with the result – but even more so that researchers will be able to investigate these intriguing thunderstorms in more detail soon.”

Cluster Galaxy Immersed in Giant Cloud of Cold Gas

Astronomers studying a cluster of still-forming protogalaxies seen as they were more than 10 billion years ago have found that a giant galaxy in the center of the cluster is forming from a surprisingly-dense soup of molecular gas.

clusterofgalaxies_scienceofcycles

“This is different from what we see in the nearby Universe, where galaxies in clusters grow by cannibalizing other galaxies. In this cluster, a giant galaxy is growing by feeding on the soup of cold gas in which it is submerged,” said Bjorn Emonts of the Center for Astrobiology in Spain, who led an international research team.

The scientists studied an object called the Spiderweb Galaxy, which actually is not yet a single galaxy, but a clustering of protogalaxies more than 10 billion light-years from Earth. At that distance, the object is seen as it was when the Universe was only 3 billion years old. The astronomers used the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) and the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to detect carbon monoxide (CO) gas.

The presence of the CO gas indicates a larger quantity of molecular hydrogen, which is much more difficult to detect. The astronomers estimated that the molecular gas totals more than 100 billion times the mass of the Sun. Not only is this quantity of gas surprising, they said, but the gas also must be unexpectedly cold, about minus-200 degrees Celsius. Such cold molecular gas is the raw material for new stars.

The CO in this gas indicates that it has been enriched by the supernova explosions of earlier generations of stars. The carbon and oxygen in the CO was formed in the cores of stars that later exploded.

The ATCA observations revealed the total extent of the gas, and the VLA observations, much more narrowly focused, provided another surprise. Most of the cold gas was found, not within the protogalaxies, but instead between them.
“This is a huge system, with this molecular gas spanning three times the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy,” said Preshanth Jagannathan, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Socorro, NM.

Earlier observations of the Spiderweb, made at ultraviolet wavelengths, have indicated that rapid star formation is ongoing across most of the region occupied by the gas.

“It appears that this whole system eventually will collapse into a single, gigantic galaxy,” Jagannathan said.

“These observations give us a fascinating look at what we believe is an early stage in the growth of massive galaxies in clusters, a stage far different from galaxy growth in the current Universe,” said Chris Carilli, of NRAO.