Another Interesting Leak: A Second NASA Scientist Tells Us That ‘Somebody Else’ Is On The Moon

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The Andromeda Galaxy is a giant swirl of around a trillion stars just down the street from the Milky Way. But billions of years from now, it will collide with our home galaxy.

The Andromeda Galaxy’s discovery

The great galaxy debate

Milkomeda: the Milky Way and Andromeda collide

Astronomers believe they have discovered the first extragalactic exoplanet beyond our own galaxy. The binary system M51-ULS-1, located 28 million light-years away near the heart of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), consists of either a neutron star or a black hole tangoing with a more typical companion star.

Astronomers used X-ray data rather than more traditional visual observations to locate the distant planet hidden in this system. "We are trying to open up a whole new arena for finding other worlds by searching for planet candidates at X-ray wavelengths, a strategy that makes it possible to discover them in other galaxies," said study lead Rosanne Di Stefano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in a press release.The Whirlpool Galaxy (left) in X-ray and optical light. On the right is an artist’s concept of the M51-ULS-1 system with the neutron star or black hole syphoning material from its companion star. The planet is eclipsing the X-rays generated by the superheated material around the compact object.

X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/R. DiStefano, et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/Grendler; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

The new study,

which was published in Nature Astronomy, looked at three galaxies: M51, M101, and M104. Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton, the team targeted more than 200 total star systems within these galaxies. They discovered only one exoplanet in all of those systems.So far, researchers have primarily used two methods to identify the over 4,000 confirmed exoplanets. The radial velocity method determines how much a star wobbles when an orbiting planet gently tugs on its stellar host. Even though stars have far more mass than the planets that orbit them, even a small planet can cause its star to move slightly, leaving an imprint in the star’s light.In contrast, the transit method takes advantage of a planet passing in front of its star. This temporarily dims the starlight by a noticeable amount. Even though planets are much smaller than stars, researchers can detect these delicate but detectable variations in brightness.

Although both the radial velocity and transit methods are clearly effective, they can only find planets up to about 3,000 light-years from Earth. That is still well within the bounds of our Milky Way galaxy, which spans approximately 100,000 light-years.

To find the first extragalactic planet,

scientists decided to look for passing planets within X-ray binaries. A white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole would pull material from a companion star in these systems. When this material collides with the exotic stellar remnant, it becomes superheated and emits X-rays.

Unlike optical light transits, where a relatively small planet only blocks a tiny amount of starlight, the area where X-rays are produced in such binary systems is small enough that even a planet can block a significant portion (if not all) of the X-ray light. This means that X-ray transits can be found at much greater distances than visual transits.

The black hole or neutron star

in the M51-ULS-1 system is closely orbited by a star 20 times the mass of the Sun. This makes the system one of the most visible X-ray binaries in M51. Using Chandra data, researchers discovered that the X-rays typically emitted by the system dropped to zero for 3 hours. The researchers believe that a Saturn-sized exoplanet is orbiting the compact object at a distance of 19.2 astronomical units (AU; where 1 AU is the average distance between Earth and the Sun). That is roughly twice the distance between Saturn and the Sun.

Of course, an exoplanet isn’t the only possibility for why the X-ray signal was disrupted. A cloud of dust passing in front of an X-ray source can also obscure it. The researchers did consider this explanation, too, but they ultimately concluded it was less likely than an exoplanet.

Unfortunately, it will take a long time to confirm the extragalactic detection. Because of its large orbit, the candidate will not pass in front of the source for another 70 years.

Rough past

If M51-ULS-1 is a planet, the Saturn-sized object has a turbulent past.

The presence of a neutron star or black hole indicates that the system once housed not only the current companion star, but also another dying star. This doomed star would have used up all of its fuel before exploding as a supernova, bathing any nearby planets in intense radiation.

And, because the system’s massive current companion star is still alive and well, it’s entirely possible that this extragalactic exoplanet will be forced to survive another destructive supernova in the future.The first full-color images from NASA’s will be released in less than a week, but how does the observatory find and lock onto its targets? Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) was designed with this question in mind by the Canadian Space Agency. It recently captured a view of stars and galaxies that teases what the telescope’s science instruments will reveal in the coming weeks, months, and years.

FGS has always been capable of capturing imagery, but its primary goal is to enable precise science measurements and imaging with pinpoint accuracy. When it does capture imagery, it usually does not keep it: Webb only sends data from up to two science instruments at a time due to the limited communications bandwidth between L2 and Earth. However, during a week-long stability test in May, the team realized that they could keep the captured imagery because there was available data transfer bandwidth.

The resulting engineering test image is a little rough around the edges. It was not designed to be a scientific observation; rather, the data was collected to test how well the telescope could remain locked onto a target, but it does hint at the telescope’s power. It carries some of the characteristics of the viewpoints developed by Webb during its post-launch preparations. Bright stars are distinguished by their six, long, sharply defined diffraction spikes, which are caused by Webb’s six-sided mirror segments. Galaxies cover nearly the entire background beyond the stars.

According to Webb scientists, the result of 72 exposures over 32 hours is one of the deepest images of the universe ever taken. When the FGS aperture is open, it does not use color filters like the other science instruments, which makes studying the age of the galaxies in this image with the rigor required for scientific analysis impossible. Even when capturing unplanned imagery during a test, FGS can produce stunning views of the universeThis Fine Guidance Sensor test image was acquired in parallel with NIRCam imaging of the star HD147980 over a period of eight days at the beginning of May. This engineering image represents a total of 32 hours of exposure time at several overlapping pointings of the Guider 2 channel. The observations were not optimized for detection of faint objects, but nevertheless the image captures extremely faint objects and is, for now, the deepest image of the infrared sky. The unfiltered wavelength response of the guider, from 0.6 to 5 micrometers, helps provide this extreme sensitivity. The image is mono-chromatic and is displayed in false color with white-yellow-orange-red representing the progression from brightest to dimmest. The bright star (at 9.3 magnitude) on the right hand edge is 2MASS 16235798+2826079. There are only a handful of stars in this image – distinguished by their diffraction spikes. The rest of the objects are thousands of faint galaxies, some in the nearby universe, but many, many more in the distant universe. Credit: NASA, CSA, and FGS team.

Because this image was not created with a scientific outcome in mind, there are a few differences between it and the full-resolution images that will be released on July 12. As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced on June 29, those images will include the deepest image of the universe ever captured, at least for a short time.

The FGS image is colored using the same reddish color scheme that has been used throughout commissioning on Webb’s other engineering images. Furthermore, no "dithering" occurred during these exposures. Dithering occurs when the telescope repositions itself slightly between exposures. Additionally, the centers of bright stars appear black because they saturate Webb’s detectors, and the telescope’s pointing did not change over the exposures to capture the center from different pixels within the camera’s detectors. The image’s edges and corners also show the overlapping frames of the different exposures.

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