Kosmosest #7: Latest in Space (and on Earth)
January 2023. A comet making an appearance in the sky, mainland Europe’s first orbital spaceport, and a fiery landscape showing star formation.
Welcome to the 7th issue of Kosmosest!
Today’s newsletter includes a brief selection of cosmic news, plus potential new wallpapers for you 🌌
Mainland Europe’s first orbital spaceport
Sounding (or sub-orbital) rockets and high-altitude balloons have been launched from Sweden's Arctic Circle region since the 1960s. The rocket range—Esrange Space Center—has been used by the international scientific community to perform microgravity and atmospheric research; it is the perfect location for investigating phenomena such as northern lights and noctilucent clouds.
On Jan. 13, Esrange was inaugurated as a new spaceport which will complement Europe’s current launching capabilities in French Guiana in South America. According to the Swedish Space Corporation (SCC), the first satellite launch is expected by the turn of the year 2023/24.
The emphasis here is on “complement”: the location close to the equator remains as important—launching a rocket there gives it an additional boost, due to the faster rotational speed of Earth. However, launch sites close to the poles are primarily suitable for satellite launches in polar orbits.
The Kiruna site is seen as strategically important for the EU, not only because satellites perform important functions like monitoring oceans and providing broadband, but also because of geopolitical tensions with Russia.
— Sweden aims to launch Europe's space age. POLITICO. Retrieved Jan. 23, 2023.https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-launch-europe-space-age/
A chance to spot a comet
There is a visitor in the sky: Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is visible at present with binoculars and small telescopes in the northern skies. The comet makes its closest approach to Earth on Feb. 2 when it will zoom past us at a distance of 42 million kilometers (26 million miles). However, the current new moon phase makes late January a prime time to catch a glimpse.
Observers in the Southern Hemisphere would have to give comet-spotting a try in early February. You can find a guide for the visibility at EarthSky.org.
But be warned: the comet will look like a fuzzy patch in comparison to astrophotography, and it won’t appear bright green as some headlines lead to think.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered in March 2022 at the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), located in southern California.
Is “cosmic noon” a band name yet? A dazzling star cluster to explain this term
A myriad of new details was revealed in the star-forming region NGC 346, located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy. The Small Magellanic Cloud appears in the southern constellation of Tucana. The observations were acquired as part of a J.W. Space Telescope program led by Dr. Margaret Meixner.
Astronomers probed this region because the conditions and amount of metals within the SMC [Small Magellanic Cloud] resemble those seen in galaxies billions of years ago, during an era in the Universe's history known as 'cosmic noon,' when star formation was at its peak.
[…]
By observing protostars still in the process of forming, researchers can learn if the star formation process in the SMC is different from what we observe in our own Milky Way. Previous infrared studies of NGC 346 have focused on protostars heavier than about 5 to 8 times the mass of our Sun. “With Webb, we can probe down to lighter-weight protostars, as small as one tenth of our Sun, to see if their formation process is affected by the lower metal content,” said Olivia Jones of the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre, Royal Observatory Edinburgh, a co-investigator on the program.
— Webb inspects NGC 346. ESA. Retrieved Jan. 23, 2023.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2023/01/Webb_inspects_NGC_346
The study revealed the presence of building blocks not only for stars, but also planets, opening the possibility that rocky planets could have formed earlier in the universe than astronomers have previously thought.
Paper: Jones, O. C., “Discovery of dusty sub-solar mass young stellar objects in NGC 346 with JWST/NIRCam”, arXiv e-print, 2023. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2301.03932.
I’ll leave you with this view that might just be a dragon spitting fireballs.
Thanks for reading!
Happy Lunar New Year to everyone who celebrates!
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Thank you, Corri, for the first one!
MLA