#AstroMiniBR: cosmic Halloween!

Every week, TecMundo and #AstroMiniBR bring together the most relevant and unusual astronomy curiosities produced by collaborators From Twitter profile I would like to share some more information about the fantastic world of astronomy. Check out!

#1: “Chasing” a galaxy!

You can see it in the picture below What appears to be a ghostly figure stalking a galaxy to swallow it. But this is only due to our imagination and a well-known phenomenon called pareidolia. In fact, these two objects are not even close to each other in space.

What appears to be the “mouth” (or claw) of the strange-looking creature is actually About 1,300 light-years from Earth, a massive cloud of gas and dust known as comet globule CG4. It’s a fracture, so there’s a big gap where the head should be.

Comet globules are typically characterized by dusty heads and long tails; These features make these structures visually similar to comets, but in reality they are very different. Globules are often the birthplaces of stars, and many of them contain very young stars at their heads. The reason for the empty area in the “head” of this object is not yet known.

The galaxy to the left of the globule is cataloged as ESO 257-19; It is a massive spiral galaxy that is much, much more distant and only appears close to CG4 by observational superposition.

#2: Sunshine in multiple colors

Sunlight is a mixture of different colors. It is like a rainbow, and the combination of these colors mix to create the light that our eyes perceive as white and that we see every day.. However, solar observation telescopes have filters that can separate this light into its components.

This is possible thanks to the phenomenon of light dispersion, where different colors are deviated at slightly different angles when passing through transparent materials, such as prisms or special filters for telescopes.

So, by separating these colors, telescopes allow us to observe sunlight within a certain range of the spectrum; this often results in different shades of yellow or orange. Filters do not change the color of sunlight; it only allows a certain wavelength to pass, which is converted into this or that color on our retina.

Observing filters are essential elements of astronomical observation that help scientists study certain aspects of the Sun and other celestial bodies with greater precision and detail.

#3: NASA’s Psyche mission

on October 13 NASA launches Psyche space probe on a SpaceX rocket called Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center in the United States. The probe, currently in space, is heading toward a metallic asteroid called 16 Psyche, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and believed to be the exposed core of an extinct early planet.

The probe is scheduled to arrive at the asteroid in July 2029; At this point, Psyche will begin capturing and analyzing images and samples from the asteroid’s surface, helping astronomers better understand the formation processes of asteroids, as well as planets in the Solar System.

The probe is about the size of a small van and is powered by solar energy. The instrument panel includes a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager.

Asteroid Psyche, which is about 280 kilometers across at its widest point, may be part (or even all) of a planet’s iron-rich core.It is the basic building block of a rocky planet. The asteroid may also be the remaining part of a completely different type of iron-rich body composed of metal-rich material somewhere in the solar system.

Always stay up to date with astronomical curiosities at TecMundo!