A star-planet system with a COHERENT radio signal from an AURORA | 10:26
Dr. Becky | 579K subscribers | 133K views | 13 days ago
Posted on 05/25/2023 6:20:17 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A star-planet system with a COHERENT radio signal from an AURORA | 10:26
Dr. Becky | 579K subscribers | 133K views | 13 days ago
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Transcript 0:00 · it's debunking time again folks because 0:02 · as much as we'd all like to be living 0:04 · through the plot of contact and 0:06 · discovering alien signatures when on 0:11 · no because this month we've seen another 0:14 · astronomy result Twisted from this 0:17 · research paper reporting coherent radio 0:19 · signals from a star that also happens to 0:22 · have a planet to stories like this 0:25 · claiming that this signal is being sent 0:27 · from the planet itself and that it's a 0:30 · big step forward in the hunt for 0:33 · extraterrestrial life 0:36 · now I can 100 see how this has happened 0:39 · because a lot of these statements are 0:40 · true in isolation but not linked 0:43 · together in that way to make that very 0:46 · big jump to aliens so let's chat about · The star YZ Ceti and its planets 0:49 · what the authors of This research paper 0:51 · Pineda and villidson have actually found 0:53 · now they were studying the star YZ seti 0:57 · a red dwarf star star which is much 0:59 · cooler and fainted in the sun that's 1:01 · around about 12 light years away and 1:04 · it's known to have three planets 1:06 · orbiting around it with possibly a 1:09 · fourth as well which makes it a really 1:11 · good candidate to test whether these 1:14 · planets have magnetic fields or not the · A planet's magnetic field and its habitability 1:18 · Earth for example has a magnetic field 1:20 · which helps to Shield those from all the 1:22 · high energy radiation that's burped off 1:24 · by the sun it protects life here on 1:27 · Earth and gives us the beautiful 1:28 · displays of the Northern Lights the 1:31 · Aurora where these high energy particles 1:33 · are actually funneled down to the poles 1:36 · and cause elements in our atmosphere to 1:38 · Glow these beautiful green and red 1:40 · colors Mars however does not have a 1:42 · magnetic field so over the past four and 1:44 · a half billion years or so of the Solar 1:45 · System's lifetime it has been bombarded 1:48 · by all this radiation from the Sun and 1:50 · slowly had its atmosphere Stripped Away 1:52 · this is why we think Mars might have 1:54 · been habitable in the past and why it 1:56 · might have had liquid water on its 1:58 · surface but not anymore hence all the 2:01 · searches for Life on Mars with the likes 2:03 · of the perseverance Rover so whether a 2:06 · planet has a magnetic field or not is 2:08 · going to be a really important factor 2:10 · when we're considering like the search 2:12 · for life beyond Earth and habitable 2:15 · planets now we've actually detected 2:17 · magnetic fields around gas giant 2:20 · exoplanets before so planets like 2:22 · Jupiter in our own solar system we're 2:24 · orbiting other stars but we've never 2:26 · found a rocky Earth-like exoplanet with 2:30 · a magnetic field orbiting another star 2:32 · yet and the reason for that is it's 2:35 · really difficult to find out if a Barnet 2:37 · at a great distance has a magnetic field 2:39 · it's not something that you can observe · Generating an aurora on the star giving off radio signals 2:41 · directly but you can infer that it's 2:44 · there if you have a planet orbiting very 2:48 · close in to its star with a magnetic 2:51 · field then any of that radiation that's 2:53 · burped up by the star just like the sun 2:56 · does that planet's magnetic field is 2:58 · going to interact with all that material 2:59 · essentially plow through it and push it 3:01 · off in different directions in some 3:03 · cases push it back towards the star 3:05 · where it then interacts with the Stars 3:08 · magnetic field again and can get 3:10 · funneled down to the Stars poles and 3:11 · form an aurora there which will glow Not 3:15 · Invisible light that we see with our 3:16 · eyes like Aurora on Earth but instead 3:19 · with radio waves light with very long 3:23 · wavelengths low frequencies we have 3:26 · actually seen this before with Jupiter 3:29 · and its Moon IO so not a planet in orbit 3:31 · around a star but a moon in orbit around 3:33 · a Planet part of Jupiter's Aurora is 3:36 · actually caused by io's magnetic field 3:37 · interacting with Jupiter's magnetic 3:40 · field and that was first reported back 3:41 · in 1998. so we know it should be 3:44 · possible to find radio signals like this 3:47 · it's just knowing where to look best 3:50 · candidates are obviously uh planets that 3:53 · we know exist that orbit very close into 3:55 · their Stars which is exactly what Pineda · The coherent radio signals detected from YZ Ceti 3:58 · and villageson did with the very large 4:01 · array the vla a radio telescope in New 4:04 · Mexico yes the very same one that was 4:07 · used in the film contact I've actually 4:10 · done like an astrophysicist reacts video 4:11 · to the film contact if you want to check 4:13 · that out obviously the main difference 4:14 · here is that with a radio telescope 4:16 · you're detecting light not sound you can 4:19 · sonify that if you really want to to 4:22 · listen to your data but very hard to 4:24 · pick up any signals so instead what if 4:26 · Pineda and bulletin actually found here 4:28 · where they found coherent radio bursts 4:30 · from YZ seti that coincide with its 4:35 · innermost planets to day orbit coherent 4:39 · essentially means that the light you're 4:40 · detecting is all coming at the same 4:42 · frequency or wavelength and sometimes 4:44 · even the same polarization as well so 4:46 · lasers are a really good example of 4:48 · coherent light all at the same 4:51 · wavelengths therefore the same color 4:53 · it's exactly what you'd expect to see 4:55 · with this plasma interacting with the 4:57 · magnetic field of the star to give you 4:59 · this Aurora on the start it's the same 5:02 · thing we see on earth right we get a 5:03 · coherent light source from the Aurora 5:05 · it's always the exact same color of 5:07 · Green from oxygen in the atmosphere and 5:09 · always the exact same color of red from 5:10 · nitrogen in the atmosphere so that also 5:13 · is a coherent light source same as 5:16 · what's going on here exceptions that 5:17 · invisible light we're seeing it with 5:18 · radio wavelengths of light instead it's · What this means for our search for habitable planets 5:21 · a really exciting result for exoplanet 5:25 · studies because these planets that orbit 5:27 · really close into red dwarf stars might 5:30 · sound like they're in a hellish place 5:31 · you'll all be seeing every two days but 5:34 · actually because because red dwarf stars 5:37 · are really cool and faint like way 5:40 · cooler and fainted than the sun is 5:42 · they're habitable zones so the region 5:44 · that you'd have the temperatures that 5:45 · would be right to support liquid water 5:47 · and therefore at least Life as we know 5:49 · it they're really close into the star so 5:52 · you can have a planet on a very short 5:54 · you know days sort of length of orbit 5:57 · and still be in the habitable zone so 6:00 · the fact that we've also detected a 6:02 · magnetic field around such a planet as 6:04 · well and we know that magnetic fields 6:05 · seem to be this sort of ingredient that 6:08 · you need in the recipe for habitability 6:10 · of a planet that's a very big step 6:12 · forward in terms of like where do we 6:14 · search in the future for habitable 6:16 · planets for these bio signatures that 6:19 · perhaps will suggest that life is 6:21 · present in the atmosphere of a planet 6:24 · I've made a video before all about bio 6:26 · signatures and especially how Jaber St 6:28 · is gonna hunt for them in the 6:30 · atmospheres of planets if you want to 6:32 · check that video out so I think there · A game of "telephone" on the internet 6:34 · are four true statements here off the 6:36 · back of this research the first is that 6:39 · there's a coherent radio signal been 6:40 · detected from a star planet system 6:42 · second that this radio signal has come 6:44 · from Aurora that only exists because the 6:47 · planet has a magnetic field three that a 6:49 · magnetic field seems to be really 6:51 · promising for the habitability of a 6:52 · planet at least you know comparing like 6:54 · Earth and Mars in the solar system at 6:56 · least and then finally number four is 6:58 · that if we could find more of these 7:00 · things more of these planets orbiting 7:02 · close into their stars that have these 7:04 · coherent radio signals coming from them 7:06 · that would be a big step forward for the 7:08 · search for life outside Earth and it 7:11 · seems like what's happened is that 7:12 · there's just been this like massive game 7:14 · of telephone across the internet where 7:17 · Whispers of This research have gotten so 7:20 · distorted that you've cut out all of 7:23 · this middle bit of context and just gone 7:26 · coherent radio signal equals step 7:29 · forward in search for aliens 7:33 · and it has been in 7:36 · frustrating to watch this happen so I 7:40 · hope you will forgive me this rant that 7:42 · has been disguised as an educational 7:44 · science video and remember folks don't 7:48 · believe everything that you see online · Brilliant 7:52 · before we get to the bloopers I just 7:54 · want to say a big thank you to brilliant 7:55 · for sponsoring this week's video If you 7:58 · find yourself wondering whether an 7:59 · article or a post that you've seen 8:01 · online is scientifically legit or not 8:03 · but you didn't necessarily have the 8:05 · know-how to be able to tell then 8:07 · brilliant.org can help you gain the 8:10 · skills and background knowledge that you 8:12 · need brilliant is one of the best ways 8:14 · to learn science maths interactively 8:16 · they're visual Hands-On approach is so 8:19 · engaging and it makes it a really 8:21 · effective way to learn something new 8:23 · you're not just memorizing formulas or 8:26 · equations brilliant is building your 8:28 · intuitions I think their scientific 8:30 · thinking course is perfect for this it 8:32 · really gets you thinking analytically 8:34 · about problems and then you can apply 8:37 · those problem-solving skills that you 8:38 · learn to your everyday life so to try 8:41 · everything that brilliant has to offer 8:43 · for free for 30 days head to 8:45 · brilliant.org forward slash Dr Becky or 8:48 · you can click on that link in the video 8:49 · description down below and the first 200 8:52 · of you are also going to get 20 off an 8:54 · annual premium subscription so thank you 8:57 · so much to brilliant for sponsoring this 8:59 · video and now 9:01 · roll those bloopers · Bloopers 9:03 · and that it's a big step forward in the 9:05 · hunt for extraterrestrial life 9:10 · [Music] 9:15 · I think my um screams need to be a 9:17 · little bit more low pitched otherwise 9:19 · it's just like 9:22 · [Music] 9:28 · that'll do 9:32 · oh 9:33 · that's enough for book I might head into 9:35 · a pillow for one day 9:38 · it's a good job I've got this team my 9:40 · voice is awesome 9:45 · I say tea it's not tea it's squash we 9:47 · all know it's squash all right where are 9:49 · we going next 9:54 · pay attention Becky 9:57 · shoot me down but I won't fall 10:01 · it's never 10:02 · aliens 10:04 · I feel like all scientists have said 10:06 · it's never aliens like so many times now 10:09 · but everyone we just sort of trained 10:11 · them to be like so skeptical 10:14 · skeptical but if it ever is aliens 10:17 · everyone can be really skeptical and no 10:19 · one's gonna believe us 10:21 · oh problem to be in 10:24 · foreign
THREE new JWST results! Two exoplanets and a protocluster | Night Sky News May 2023 | 32:20
Dr. Becky | 579K subscribers | 171K views | 6 days ago
Transcript 0:00 · this video is sponsored by redshift 9. 0:05 · hello and welcome to this episode of night sky news for May 2023 with me astrophysicist Dr Becky Smithers this is 0:12 · the show where we chat about what you can look out for in the night sky in the next few weeks and we chat about what's been happening in space news in the past 0:19 · few weeks this month we're chatting about not one not two but three brand 0:25 · new jwst results and there's chapter markers down here if you want to skip ahead to any specific news story plus 0:32 · any scientific research papers I mentioned are all going to be linked in the description down below so without 0:38 · any further Ado let's kick things off and start by looking up 0:46 · all right this month it's all about Mars and Venus they are both really prominent · Mars + Venus delights! 0:52 · in the evening sky at the minute wherever you are in the world you should be able to see this and as they move 0:57 · along their orbits throughout the month of May and June we're gonna get a few little treats along the way so starting · 24-25th May Toenail Moon + Mars + Venus 1:04 · with only 23rd and 24th of May the Crescent Moon AKA my beloved toenail 1:10 · moon is going to be right in the middle of Venus and Mars in the west just after 1:16 · Sunset now the further east you are you'll see this on the 23rd when the moon is closest to the very bright Venus 1:23 · yes the brightest things in the sky and then by the time that night rolls around for those of us further west the moon is 1:29 · going to be moving more Central then by the 24th for those in the East it will 1:34 · be in the middle and then for those of us in the west it's going to be closer to that fainter reddish Mars it should 1:40 · make picking out Venus and Mars that bit easier as well if you don't know what you're looking for having the moon there it's just a little bit of a signpost now · Venus at greatest elongation! 1:47 · if you have a telescope break that out and try and see if you can see Venus's face just like the moon we see Venus lit 1:54 · from different angles as it orbits the Sun so right now it appears half lit as 2:00 · it slowly comes round to a point in its orbit that we call its greatest elongation essentially it's the further 2:07 · separation from the Sun that Venus gets in the sky from our perspective here on Earth that's gonna happen on the 4th of 2:13 · June and what it means for us stargazers here on Earth is that Venus is going to be the highest in the sky that it ever 2:18 · gets and it's going to stick around for longer after the sun has set so that means that the rest of May and June are 2:26 · the perfect time for trying to spot the very bright and High Venus in the sky · 1st/2nd June : Mars in the Beehive! 2:32 · now if you want another excuse to break out your telescope or maybe binoculars or even try your hand at some 2:38 · astrophotography then on the first and second of June Mars is going to have moved into the Beehive cluster of stars 2:46 · also known as m44 it's an OP open cluster of around about a thousand stars 2:52 · and I've actually made a video for the Deep sky videos channel about the Beehive cluster if you want to check 2:57 · that out and through binoculars The Beehive cluster looks spectacular like it practically Glitters there's so many 3:04 · stars in that area of sky and to have Mars passing through that region as well it's just gonna be spectacular now if 3:11 · it's cloudy on those dates for you don't worry because you're gonna have another chance at this but this time with Venus · 12th/13th June : Venus in the Beehive! 3:19 · on the 12th and 13th of June as it too moves along its orbit and passes through 3:25 · the Beehive cluster again through binoculars or with a telescope with a very low zoom lens on it you know Venus 3:31 · and this sort of backdrop of thousands of stars is just gonna look absolutely spectacular so if you do manage to 3:37 · capture any astrophotography shots of this send them my way over on social media because you know I would always love to see them now before we chat 3:45 · about what's been happening in space news the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that all of the visuals in the 3:52 · night sky segment showing you you know where to look for the planets or the stars were all from redshift 9 the · AD: Redshift 9 3:57 · sponsor of this week's video redshift 9 is a virtual planetarium software that 4:03 · simulates what the sky will look like at any time or location to give you an 4:08 · interactive star chart that has all of the constellations sure but also 1.2 4:13 · million asteroids and 1 million deep Sky objects like nebulae and other galaxies I absolutely love redshift 9 because 4:20 · there's loads of features in it that I would have to usually go to other places to find so for example like showing the 4:27 · path a planet is going to take through the sky in the next few weeks or showing the positions of solar system objects in 4:34 · their orbits in real time or maybe even Eclipse paths and maps of totality which 4:40 · is honestly going to make planning my trip to next year's Eclipse that much easier plus if you have a motorized 4:46 · telescope you can even use redshift 9 to Troll and point your telescope at any 4:52 · given object so if that sounds like something you want to get your hands on there's a link in the description down below where you can download redshift 9 4:58 · for Windows machines plus if you use the code Dr Becky that's 5:04 · d-r-b-e-c-k-y you're gonna get a 30 Euro discount so thank you so much to 5:09 · redshift 9 for sponsoring this video and now let's come back down to earth and chat about what's been happening in 5:16 · space news in the past month · NGC1333, celebrating HST's 33rd birthday! 5:21 · all right well this month saw the 33rd anniversary of the launch of the Hubble 5:26 · Space Telescope and to celebrate that incredible unexpected Milestone because I mean the original life expectancy with 5:33 · the Hubble Space Telescope was supposed to be 15 years and now we've got more 5:38 · than double that with it expected to keep going at least until the 2030s so 5:44 · Nazar and Isa to celebrate this you know 33 years of Hubble have released this image of NGC 1333 a star-forming region 5:53 · of gas in our own galaxy The Milky Way 967 light years away so you can see 5:59 · these newly formed stars burning hottest and brightest heating up the gas around 6:05 · them and blowing away the dust which you can still see is very dense in the middle of the image where it's like 6:11 · shrouding like ongoing star formation and the reason that you can pass all of that information is because of the color 6:16 · of the image right and where they get the color from is from images that let through different wavelengths of light 6:23 · through filters so first they take an image only letting through blue wavelengths of Light which show off the 6:29 · hotter regions then an image which only lets through green wavelengths and then an image only letting through the red 6:35 · wavelengths which shows the cooler regions of this gas cloud plus then they 6:41 · use a filter to take an image that only lets through specifically the light emitted by hydrogen gas to get hydrogen 6:48 · gas to glow like that you need a lot of energy so you know there's some newly formed Stars nearby that are giving off 6:54 · a lot of UV radiation now the final image that you see is created by 7:01 · coloring these filter images appropriately according to their wavelength you know red green and blue 7:06 · and then adding them together to give that final image it's as close to what 7:11 · you would see if your eyes were as big as this double space telescope and that sensitive to light and the reason we do 7:19 · this is because the color helps us to pass that scientific information that's in all of that data in black and white 7:25 · you can't pick out very easily of where are the hotter and the cooler regions in 7:30 · the areas of that hydrogen gas is glowing because of very high energy star formation that's going on in those areas 7:38 · if you're curious about this I've actually made a video before about a color in space images so both true color 7:44 · and false color images as well you know if you want to know more about this process I'll pop a link in the description down below to that video but 7:50 · it's not just a pretty picture right studying star formation regions like this is incredibly important for our 7:58 · understanding of the life cycle of stars plus the sun and the solar system most likely started life in a region of space 8:05 · just like this one very dense gas cloud forming alongside lots of other stars that the sun has since drifted away from 8:12 · so studying regions like this helps us to better understand the sun and the Solar System's Beginnings as well but · JWST finds a proto-cluster! 8:18 · enough about the Hubble Space Telescope because this one we have not one not two 8:23 · but three new jwst results to talk about now two of them are on X Planet so we're 8:29 · going to do those together in a little bit but first I want to start with this work from morushita and the glass 8:35 · collaboration who claimed to have found a proto-cluster of galaxies in jwst data 8:42 · specifically in this image of Abel 2744 also known as Pandora's cluster which we 8:48 · actually talked about in a Night Sky News just a few months ago it's a big cluster of galaxies about 4 billion 8:56 · light years away so astrophysically speaking pretty nearby but the main goal 9:02 · with jdbst has always been to find and characterize the most distant galaxies 9:07 · in the universe the ones where the light has been traveling from those galaxies two hours for over 13 billion years so 9:16 · that we're seeing those galaxies as they were over 13 billion years ago in the very early days of the universe we can 9:23 · therefore literally watch the very first stars and galaxies being born so that we 9:28 · can learn how do structures form in the early Universe how do galaxies form and how do they evolve and it's thought that 9:36 · where material in the early Universe are mostly hydrogen gas where that material was densest you're going to get the most 9:41 · galaxies forming and you're also going to get those galaxies forming at a quicker rate as well so people have 9:48 · always been on the lookout for these over densities in the early Universe a place where you can find more galaxies 9:54 · forming there and they are the precursors to the big giant Galaxy 9:59 · clusters that we see now but forming in the very early Universe they are Proto 10:06 · clusters now back in 2014 jangen collaborators were looking for very distant galaxies in Hubble Imaging of 10:12 · Abel 2744 and what they were looking for in all of these images that are taken at these different filters was a drop off 10:19 · in the light at Blue filters whereas you'd still detect the Galaxy in redder 10:25 · filters this is because as the light from a distant Galaxy travels through the universe and it might pass through a 10:30 · cloud of hydrogen gas the hydrogen absorbs like a very specific wavelength of light but since the universe is 10:37 · expanding light from the distant galaxies also gets red shifted and as it 10:42 · encounters more and more clouds of hydrogen gas it continuously loses that same wavelength of light and you end up 10:49 · with this big drop off in light at these blue wavelengths meaning that you can spot a very distant galaxy in the red of 10:57 · filters but not in the Bluer filters Hubble can only detect so far into the infrared though so at some point you 11:03 · actually redshift the light completely past what Hubble can see which is why you need jwst data but zengen 11:09 · collaborators did find some promising candidates in the background of Pandora's cluster and usually you'd 11:16 · expect those to be you know randomly distributed across the sky but they found that nine of them them are all 11:22 · sort of in the same area suggesting that they could be in an over density a 11:28 · proto-cluster like what people have been searching for now even if you use jwst to do this this method of detecting 11:34 · distant galaxies with this sort of Dropout in different filters is not very precise ideally what you do is take the 11:41 · light from a distant Galaxy split it through a prism to get that trace of how much light of each wavelength do you 11:47 · receive so you can much more easily pinpoint that exact drop off in the 11:52 · light and then you can say okay what wavelength does that happen at compare it to the wavelength that you know that 11:58 · hydrogen absorbs that and then you can work out the redshift much more precisely and with that you can then 12:04 · work out okay this over density I have of lots of galaxies in this region all those galaxies all at the exact same 12:09 · redshift and therefore at the same distance away from us and therefore all in sort of the same three-dimensional 12:15 · place in space rather than being sort of all in the foreground and background of each other and not actually related to 12:21 · each other kind of like you know like stars in A constellation now the level Space Telescope HST is not powerful 12:27 · enough to do this it can't collect enough light from a very distant Galaxy to have enough to split it into all of its component wavelengths so instead 12:33 · this is a job for jwst and that's exactly what marashita and collaborators have done here they've finally got some 12:39 · jwst Spectra of these distant galaxies using the near spec detector and you can see that they're looking for that drop 12:46 · off in light to pinpoint the amount the light has been redshifted by and you can 12:51 · see the redshift is given by this symbol Zed here and they're all around about 12:56 · 7.88 ish meaning that the light has been traveling for around about 13:02 · 13.15 billion years before getting to us and so we're seeing these galaxies as 13:08 · they were when the universe was just 650 million years old so very early in the 13:14 · universe's history so it's very likely that these galaxies make up a Proto 13:20 · cluster which is has now been dubbed a2744-zed 7p9od which if it is would 13:28 · mean that it would be the most distant Proto cluster ever found which is a very 13:34 · exciting result in itself so This research paper just announced the discovery of this Proto cluster and it 13:40 · also estimated some properties like the total mass of the cluster at 400 billion times the mass of the Sun but the next 13:47 · steps are going to be getting more Spectra of the other candidate galaxies that might be in this protocoster and 13:53 · analyzing those Spectra along with these uh further you know trying to answer questions like um you know how heavy are 13:59 · these galaxies what's their Mass uh what are they made of in terms of like you know what's the ratio of hydrogen to 14:04 · other heavier elements how many stars are they forming do their properties correlate with their environment as well 14:11 · so if they're you know in a denser environment how does that compare to uh 14:16 · galaxies in the universe that we see that are in a very isolated environment have been completely left alone and then 14:23 · can you know all of these properties like the masses and the star formation rates can they be replicated by simulations using our best model of the 14:31 · universe so lots of questions still around this protocol cluster and this sort of early work that's been done with 14:37 · jwst that hopefully will help us answer in all the questions we have about how galaxies and structures first formed and 14:44 · then evolved in the early universe but now something completely different still with jwst but this time exoplanets · JWST phase-curve on strange exoplanet GJ1214B 14:51 · firstly This research by kempson and collaborators on the planet jg-1214b which might ring some bells for 14:59 · a few of you because I spoke to my colleague Dr Jake Taylor back in December and he actually teased that 15:06 · this result was coming we're studying the phase curve of GJ 1214b hopefully that should be out soon as well 15:13 · I can't say just yet and now that research is finally published and Jake 15:19 · made sure to send me this paper so I didn't miss it now jg-1214b is one of 15:24 · the most extensively studied exoplanets ever you've got HST observations you've got Spitzer observations you name a 15:30 · telescope you've probably got observations of jg-1214b and that's because it was only the second Super 15:36 · Earth to ever have its radius a mass measured and found to be smaller than 15:42 · the gas giants but then not as dense as like the rocky planet so it's somewhere 15:48 · a sort of a halfway house between Earth and Neptune maybe a super Earth or sub 15:53 · Neptune we don't have anything like that in the solar system so figuring out what 15:58 · it's like you know is always intrigued people plus the star that it orbits around 16:03 · jg-1214 which is a red dwarf you know smaller coolest star than the sun it's 16:09 · fairly close by it's only about 47 light years away and then the planet jg-1214b 16:14 · passes in front of its star every one and a half days or so so in terms of 16:19 · like when you can actually we observe this thing passing in front of its star so you can get details about it it's 16:25 · fairly often it makes observing it a lot easier so this was always going to be a target for jwst it was one of the most 16:32 · extensively studied exoplanets we need to follow it up learn what jwst can do in terms of exoplanet studies but also 16:39 · because one of the big questions around it has always been you know what is its 16:44 · atmosphere made of is it more similar to Earth's atmosphere or is it very similar 16:50 · to Neptune's atmosphere has it managed to hold on to this sort of big gas giant atmosphere is that why it's very under 16:57 · dense so a lot of questions around it but the annoying thing is that this planet has a very thick Haze of sort of 17:05 · heavier materials at the top Cloud layer of its atmosphere what that means is 17:10 · that it reflects a lot of Starlight back off it you know sort of all the wavelengths are reflected pretty much 17:16 · evenly so we've looked at this before we've got a pretty much a flat spec term with no information in it because the 17:23 · light's not been able to penetrate the atmosphere to get absorbed by whatever molecules or elements are present there 17:29 · and then they can actually leave sort of an imprint on the light that we then detect that's passed through that 17:34 · planet's atmosphere we can't do that here with this planet at least with the 17:40 · telescopes we've had previously but jws T has an instrument on board called Miri that detects longer infrared wavelengths 17:48 · of light that can actually Pierce through that Haze the longer wavelengths go around those heavier molecules 17:54 · absolutely no problems that you can actually study what the atmosphere is made of so that's exactly what Kempton 17:59 · and collaborators have used Miri to do by taking what's known as a phase curve 18:05 · of jg-1214b This Is Where You observe the exoplanet for its entire orbit recording 18:12 · the light that's reflected off the planet and from the start itself you know just like observing the moon over 18:19 · its orbit around the Earth and seeing the phase days change in the amount of reflected light change here you see the 18:25 · phase of the planet change and you detect less light when it's nearer to us on its orbit and when it blocks light 18:31 · from its Stars it passes in front of it then the light slowly increases as it heads around the back and sort of 18:38 · becomes nearly full phase and then we see a little drop again as it passes behind the star from our perspective so 18:45 · here is that exact thing the phase curve for jg-1214b the black dots are the raw data 18:52 · from jwst the red points are an average of the black dots over sort of five 18:58 · degrees intervals in jg-1214b orbit and then the black line is the best fit to 19:04 · those red points so you can see first of all that the overall wave shape from that phase change is you get less and 19:11 · more light reflected as the planet goes around its orbit and you can also see where the planet passes behind and in 19:17 · front of the star and the light dips slightly from this you can then isolate what is the effect of the planet on the 19:24 · star's light and then you can try and model for it to work out what its atmosphere is made of so first of all 19:29 · how much light we get from the planet in total throughout its orbit is what's shown here in black with models of 19:37 · different atmospheres shown by the different colors and what you're looking for is to see if any of these actually 19:42 · come close to matching the data and hopefully what you can see is that the only ones that have a hope of matching 19:48 · it are ones with very thick reflective hazes and ones with high metal content 19:54 · shown by the the blue and the purple lines here in the bottom panel they have 303 000 times more Metals than the sun 20:02 · has these are an astronomers Metals here so we're talking about anything heavier than hydrogen so yeah helium but also 20:09 · carbon nitrogen oxygen things like that that go into making more complex 20:15 · molecules things like water and methane for context Neptune has about 100 times 20:20 · more Metals than the sun does and Jupiter around about four times a Jupiter is much more hydrogen Rich 20:27 · whereas jg-1214b seems to be very metal Rich rather than necessarily hydrogen Rich 20:34 · you can also break this down by wavelength as well how much light each wavelength you received and you can do 20:40 · this for the day side of the planet that's actually getting light from the Star and also the night side of the 20:47 · planet as well that's furthest away from the start and again you're looking to see if you can detect signatures of 20:52 · certain molecules so that's what this figure shows here in the black points for the day side of the planet on the 20:58 · left and then for the night side of the planet on the right again you've got different colored lines showing models 21:04 · of the atmosphere and it's the haziest most metal rich ones in blue and purple that come the closest but clearly 21:11 · they're not perfect these quite simple models to start with there's going to be a lot more work needed to refine them to 21:16 · get more complex models of of sort of different compositions to try and match the data what's really cool though is 21:23 · this feature here this drop at around about five to nine microns it's more 21:29 · obvious on the night side than on the day side and if you model for the atmosphere the only way you can recreate 21:36 · that dip is if you have a lot of water H2O methane CH4 and hydrogen cyanide hcn 21:45 · all absorbing light at those specific wavelets that's a very exciting result 21:52 · because the mass and the radius of jg-1214b gives it a density that has led 21:59 · some people to speculate whether jg-1214b is a water world Planet an 22:06 · ocean planet surrounded by a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere now these results do technically support that 22:12 · hypothesis which again would be nothing like what we have in the source system it would raise a lot of questions about 22:18 · how on Earth did something like that even form and come to be so to find out 22:24 · what's next I once again asked Dr Jake Taylor to give us a little bit of an Insight hey Becky I'm currently in nice 22:31 · at the observatory but I wanted to quickly send you a video uh because we're finally able to talk about the results from digital 14b so what we've 22:38 · done is pretty awesome it's the first time we've ever measured a phase curve of a planet that's Discord over the 22:45 · spectral range from 5 to 12 microns so this is the range in which Miriam observes and as a result of this it's 22:52 · the first time we've ever detected a thermal emission from a planet that's this cold this means the light from the 22:58 · planet itself over this spectral range we are seeing some spectral features this could be water this could be 23:04 · methane but right now we're not too sure we think it's water but these two molecules have very similar shapes so 23:11 · hopefully we'll be able to get further observations to be able to narrow down what's actually in the atmosphere another really interesting thing we 23:18 · found is that this planet is really reflective it has a really high Albedo 23:23 · and it's the highest Albedo we've ever measured for an exoplanet this means 23:28 · that whatever the clouds are made of they're made of this particle that reflects light really efficiently and so 23:34 · more observations we'll be able to let us know what is causing this I can't wait to talk to you more about other 23:39 · extra Planet things Becky bye thanks again to Jake for sending that along for all of us to enjoy and don't forget you 23:45 · can follow Jake on Tick Tock at Astro Jake T and finally another jws TX · JWST finds a water world? (GJ 486b) 23:50 · Appliance study but this time jg486b which has been observed by Moran and collaborators with near spec now 23:57 · this is once again a planet that's orbiting a red dwarf star every one and a half days or so but this one is much 24:03 · closer in size to the Earth so it's radius is about 1.3 times the earth radius but it's Mass it's about three 24:10 · times the Earth's mass so it is an incredibly dense Planet orbiting very 24:16 · close into its star now planets like this around red dwarf stars because the 24:24 · star is much cooler than the sun even though they're orbiting very very close 24:29 · in could still have the you know sort of Goldilocks temperatures that could support life and liquid water on the 24:37 · surface if they have an atmosphere and that's the big if because being so close 24:45 · into the star they're also bombarded by radiation from that star which can give 24:53 · energy to the molecules in the atmosphere and allow them essentially to boil off and Escape so a big question 25:00 · for Jada West T has always been to these Earth-like planets around red dwarfs that are very easy to study because they 25:06 · come back around on their one and a half day orbit all the times you don't have to wait around very long to actually observe them you know could planets like 25:12 · this actually have atmospheres and therefore support life now 25:18 · jg486 B it's just that little bit too close to its star so its temperature is 25:24 · estimated around about 430 degrees so Celsius so just outside of that 25:31 · habitable zone so you might be wondering well why did they pick this one to observe then but it had other favorable 25:37 · properties that suggested we would get a very strong signal from it with Jade ristice that's why it was picked as sort 25:42 · of one of the first candidates to actually look at so what Moran and collaborators did was take a spectrum 25:48 · with the near spec detector on board Jairus T and this is where you split the light to get a trace of how much light 25:54 · there is at each wavelength first of all just for Starlight and then you do the 25:59 · same thing as the planet passes in front of its star and if you take one from the 26:05 · other you essentially remove all the properties of the star that have imprinted on the light and instead you 26:11 · just get left with the effect of the planet's atmosphere on that light and 26:16 · what you can then do is hunt for the signatures of different molecules like for example water H2O that have absorbed 26:22 · some of the light very specific wavelengths that's the idea anyway this method is called absorption spectroscopy 26:29 · it's used a lot across many exoplanet studies but in practice with real data 26:35 · it's not quite as clear-cut because here is an absorption spectrum that process that I just described for 26:41 · jg486b shown here by the black points and you can see it is very very noisy 26:48 · again the different colored lines are the different models of atmospheres of different molecules such as carbon 26:55 · dioxide in the orange methane in purple you've got an atmosphere with Earth's 27:01 · mix of molecules in green you've got no atmosphere at all in the grade dashed 27:07 · line and then you've got a pure water atmosphere shown by the blue line now if you look at the values given in the 27:13 · brackets they're in the parentheses they're sort of in the key on these plots these are the Chi Squared values 27:20 · Kai is just a Greek letter but essentially it's a number that can tell you how good your fit is what you do is 27:27 · essentially sum up the difference between your fit and your data points and so therefore the bigger the number 27:32 · the worse your fit is and the lower the number the better your fit is so if you 27:37 · look at those numbers you can see why the authors concluded that a water-based atmosphere is the best fit here because 27:45 · it has the lowest chi-squared value that's despite jg486b's scorching 27:51 · temperatures from being so close to its star now of course this could be water vapor that it's held onto but that was 27:58 · still just a little bit of a red flag for the authors of this study that perhaps maybe it's not the planet's 28:05 · atmosphere where you find water that's doing this absorbing perhaps it's actually something on the surface of the 28:10 · star itself where there's a big collection of water vapor again obviously that's doing some absorbing 28:16 · just like with sunspots that we see on the surface of our own sun and so when they model for this star spot scenario 28:22 · instead here shown in the yellow they find it gives just as good fit as a 28:29 · watery Planet atmosphere shown in the blue again they can't say for certain which scenario is most likely yet if it 28:37 · did turn out that jg486b did have this water-rich atmosphere that would be a 28:42 · huge deal because yeah we found water vapor in the atmospheres of gas giant 28:48 · like exoplanets before we've never found water vapor you know in the atmosphere 28:53 · of a rocky Earth-like exoplanet before and given the fact that you know jg486b 29:00 · is so close into its star just outside the habitable zone with these very high temperatures and yet it still managed to 29:07 · hold on to a water vapor atmosphere perhaps that means that it's much more 29:13 · likely we'll probably find water in the atmospheres of these planets around red dwarfs that actually are in the 29:20 · habitable zone and that could have huge implications for you know where we look for life outside of Earth you know out 29:28 · there in the universe if it was this scenario and not the star spot scenario 29:34 · the good news is we've got a way to tell the difference because you can see that the two models are very different at the 29:41 · shorter wavelengths that Miranda carburetors haven't probed here but that jbst is actually sensitive too so when 29:49 · you use the detectors on board jusc you do have to make certain decisions about What observations you want to make so with this but you have to choose the 29:56 · dispersion filter you want to use and that's the thing that takes the light and actually splits it into its 30:01 · component wavelengths but these different filters are only sensitive to certain wavelength regions in the 30:07 · Spectrum so Moran and collaborators chosen where there was known absorption features of different molecules that they thought would give them the best 30:12 · bet of characterizing this exoplanet's atmosphere but it turns out we actually needed probably the lower wavelength 30:18 · range to be able to tell the difference between these two scenarios of a sort of rocky planet with a water atmosphere or 30:25 · just a star with some of these star spots with water vapor in them so it's very very likely that jg486b is going to 30:31 · be observed again with jwst this time probably either with near spec or maybe even with nearest another detector on 30:37 · board that can do the splitting of the light but this time focusing on these lower wavelengths of light where 30:43 · hopefully we'll get the data that we'll be able to tell us the difference between whether this is just star spots 30:49 · or whether it's a rocky planet with a water-rich atmosphere all right that's · Conclusion 30:54 · it for this month tonight Sky News as always if you snap any pictures of the night sky or if you see any astronomy 31:00 · related news stories you know when you travel around the internet that you want me to explain in a future video then 31:06 · send them my way over on social media but until next time everybody happy 31:12 · stargazing for May 2023 2020 yeah that was right · Bloopers 31:17 · one thing Wonder you'd like clear that this this these how on Earth did on 31:24 · Earth or is it the universe a lower wavelength range Rave something went 31:29 · wrong to help us understand you know the Suns and the solar systems the binman just arrived outside just had 31:36 · a very big Crush of glass hilarious that I'm talking about the glass collaboration as the binman takeaway the 31:42 · glass recycling I mean thank you benman for your service but I wonder if anyone will notice that I'm 31:48 · not in the comments when this video comes out because by the time this video comes out I'm gonna be on holiday 31:57 · but now it's a real thing I need a break someone in the comments on my last video said that they hated my nails and I'm 32:03 · just like I love my so this cool like minty green color and also I had this manicure done three weeks ago in Toronto 32:10 · and they're still perfect I'm just like oh I can't stop looking at them just 32:16 · like yeah foreign
Apropos of nothing, Asimov wrote a book years ago, "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man".
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She’s kinda hot
Aurora was the name of a planet in Asimov’s Foundation Series....................
You gotta get a gimmick. Here's a YouTube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFRSawe33sA
Selections from three JWST keywords, sorted, duplicates out:
Thanks for posting something incoherent.
I think Anne Aurora was a character in the same series.
What if Aliens use a completely different type of communication we haven’t invented ? D’oh
Not that I can recall.......................
Erots ykecb rd eht pohs.
Back atcha.... :)
$;-)
I thought it was Joe Biden or John Fetterman writing this.
Long story short: coherent (science-speak) does not mean coherent (normal-person-speak)
Or maybe the radio signal is an alien lifeform and we are causing it emotional damage by sending out radio signals of our own that confuse and disorientate the poor life form.
“Send more Chuck Berry.”
Unless they are countdown and deployment instructions, I am not too worried.
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