SPACE STORIES — A SNAPSHOT Pasta Shaped of this kind of extensive filamentous rock on other planets, we would know Rock — Sign it’s a fingerprint of life.” He further added, “It’s big and it’s unique. No of Life on Red other rocks look like this. It would be definitive evidence for the presence of Planet alien microbes.” Sulfuri can survive in extremely ESEARCHERS at the Illinois hot, fast-flowing water bubbling up from University, USA, have found a underground hot springs. The bacteria Rkind of rock on the red planet can withstand exposure to light which appears like Fettuccine Pasta. and importantly survives only in It is believed that the formation of environments with extremely low oxygen such type of unusual shape and structure levels, using sulfur and carbon dioxide of the rocks on the earth is controlled by as energy sources. These are the special a bacteria called Sulfurihydrogenibium traits which make it a suitable candidate yellowstonense (Sulfuri). This bacteria to colonize on Mars and other planets. is ancient and can withstand harsh According to Bruce Fouke, environments that are similar to the “Bacteria form tightly wound cables condition on Mars. The appearance of that wave like a flag that is fixed on such rock on the planet indicates that one end. These Sulfuri cables look these bacteria once lived on Mars. amazingly like fettuccine pasta, while The research was published in the Bruce Fouke, Geology Professor further downstream they look more like journal Astrobiology. at the University who led the NASA- capellini pasta,” he added. “This should funded study, told the Illinois News be an easy form of fossilized life for a Source: Illinois University (news.illinois.edu) Bureau that, “If we see the deposition rover to detect on other planets.”

in this cavity region for at least the last have old and there has been no Peers 100 million years. recent formation of stars in them,” Galaxies are very large aggregates explained K. George, who carried into the Heart of billions of stars held by gravitation. out the study at the Indian Institute of Milky Way, our home galaxy, is Astrophysics, Bengaluru. of Jellyfish believed to house nearly ten billion stars A blue galaxy can become red if it with the Sun as one among them. On a stops forming stars. Galaxies may stop Galaxy larger scale, it has been found that even forming stars due to various processes galaxies flock together due to gravity in within the galaxy itself such as the effect HE Ultraviolet Imaging groups of hundreds to thousands, known of the supermassive black hole at the Telescope onboard India’s space as galaxy clusters. centre; the presence of a rectangular bar- Tobservatory, AstroSat, has The region between these galaxies like structure which is made up of stars provided an insight into processes at is filled with very hot gas whose and located near the centre; or massive work in the heart of a jellyfish galaxy. temperature can be as high as millions explosions accompanying stellar death Researchers who studied the of degrees. As a galaxy moves through called supernovae. The stripping of gas anatomy of a jellyfish galaxy called this hot gas, some of the cold gas from the galaxy due to its motion in the JO201 have found that it comprises in the galaxy's outer regions can be a central bright region surrounded pulled back, leading to the formation by a bright broken ring-like emission of stars in structures that resemble structure. Ensconced in between is a tails or tentacles. This gives them the cavity or void like region of rather faint appearance of jellyfish, and hence, ultraviolet emission. The ultraviolet light teir name jellyfish galaxies. One such from the bright ring is due to young stars jellyfish galaxy is JO201, which has formed in the last 200 to 300 million been studied by astronomers from India years. and abroad as a part of an international By comparing this with images from collaboration called GASP. other telescopes at different wavebands, “Galaxies come in two researchers have shown that the cavity is varieties — those that appear blue have due to the scarcity of young stars. This young stars and are the -forming means no new stars have been formed variety, while red ones are those which Ultraviolet image of the centre of the Jellyfish galaxy JO201 imaged using AstroSat. The cross marks the 54 | Science Reporter | September 2019 position of active galactic nucleus in the galaxy. New Mechanism Explaining the Disappearance of Methane on Mars

HE planet Mars has always been speculated for the existence of life due to its similarities to the Earth. Nearly Tfifteen years ago the first observance of methane on Mars aroused great interest around the scientific world. However, a mysterious phenomenon is the presence and disappearance of methane on the planet. Sometimes very low concentrations can also be measured which is not a mis-measurement but rather a mechanism responsible for the disappearance of methane in Simulation of erosion on Mars. Image Credits: Mars Simulation the atmosphere. Laboratory, AU Though various mechanisms have been proposed explaining the production of methane but the reasons for the disappearance This is the process which is more effective than of methane remained unidentified. An interdisciplinary group photochemical processes explaining how methane gets removed of researchers at Aarhus University, Denmark, conducted from the atmosphere and then deposits in the soil within the an investigation and proposed a mechanism explaining the observed time periods. disappearance of methane on Mars. Researchers investigating Scientists have also demonstrated that these mineral surfaces for years have suggested that in a Mars-like atmosphere, wind- can form reactive chemicals, for example, hydrogen peroxide driven erosion can be responsible for the disappearance of and oxygen radicals, which are extremely poisonous to living methane from the Mars atmosphere. Importantly, they explained creatures, including bacteria. that wind-generated saltation can oxidize minerals and ionize The outcomes are significant for evaluating the likelihood of gases like methane causing bond formation between ionized life on or close to Mars' surface. In various follow-up studies, methane and minerals. the specialists will analyze what is happening with the bound The researchers based their study on Mars-analogue minerals, for example, basalt and plagioclase, and demonstrated methane and whether the erosion procedure in addition to the that these solids can be oxidized and gases are ionized during the gases in atmosphere likewise changes or even totally evacuates erosion process. In this manner, the ionized methane reacts with more complex organic material, which can either originate on the mineral surfaces and bonds to them. Subsequently, the team Mars itself or has come to Mars as a feature of shooting stars. demonstrated that the carbon atom, for example, methyl group The study has been published in Icarus. from methane, bonds to the silicon particle in plagioclase, which is likewise a dominant compound of Mars' surface material. Source: Aarhus University (https://international.au.dk/) hot gas between galaxies in a cluster because of the AGN, and not due to tail-like structure, far out in the galaxy. could also impede the formation of stars. young stars. The energy released from According to the authors, this galaxy Regarding the curbing of star- the AGN heats up cold gas clouds is unique as it provides direct evidence formation in this galaxy, researchers present close by. As stars are formed of internal and external mechanisms at favour the hypothesis of the Active from cold gas clouds, this heating of work to halt the formation of stars in Galactic Nucleus (AGN). Most large gas leads to an arrest of star formation. the galaxy. galaxies are believed to possess This, in turn, results in a scarcity of The research results have been supermassive black-holes at their young stars giving the galaxy a cavity- centres. The mass of these supermassive accepted for publication in the journal like appearance around the AGN. black holes could be hundreds of Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical The incomplete ring structure seen thousands to billions of times the mass Society. The team included scientists with lack of ultraviolet towards the left of Sun. The gas and dust from the from the GASP collaboration and the of the bright ring is explained due to neighbourhood swirling at very high Indian Institute of Astrophysics. velocities into the supermassive black the lack of young stars in this region. hole increase the brightness of the However, in this case, this cessation Sarita Vig, India Science Wire central region multi-fold, and the galaxy of star-formation is explained due to [Sarita Vig is an astrophysicist and an is said to pass through an AGN phase. external effects, a result of gas being associate professor at the Indian Institute In JO201, it is reported that the stripped out from this galaxy. Notice of Space Science and Technology (IIST), central region is bright in ultraviolet that this is the same side which has the Thiruvananthapuram]

September 2019 | Science Reporter | 55 that the jet is in the direction of Scorpius constellation. The Indian Astronomers find explosion should have resulted in a compact stellar object such as a neutron star or a pulsar or a black hole. However, there Evidence of Supernova is no of either yet. Massive stars with a mass more than 8-10 times that of our Remnants Sun end up as supernova explosions. The explosions brighten to intensity of million suns for a few days and then slowly fade OR several centuries, astronomers have been fascinated into oblivion. The bursts throw up vast amounts of gas and by large explosions that occur at the end of a star’s particles at high velocity in all directions and they appear mostly Flifecycle, resulting in a phenomenon called supernova. circular (in many cases bubble-shaped) with hot filament-like A team of Indian astronomers has found tell-tale evidence structures. The blasts rip off the outer layers of the dead star of a supernova explosion in a star-forming region called while the inner core collapses to become exotic stellar objects G351.7–1.2. such as a neutron star, a pulsar or a black hole. The evidence is in the form of a high-velocity jet of atomic The group was probing the region G351.7–1.2 using the hydrogen. The team consisted of scientists from Indian Institute Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), operated by the of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram, National Centre of Radio Astrophysics in Pune. “We observed Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, and National a large number of gas clouds and chanced upon a structure Centre of Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), Pune. that appeared like a supernova remnant. It was bubble shaped, The research team, led by V.S. Veena of IIST, found which is usual for a supernova remnant. Radio observations at

over the continental United States. Space Snippets The eclipse was enjoyed by millions of skywatchers across South America. The path of totality was near La Serena, Successful Abort-test Chile, ending just south of Buenos for Orion Spacecraft Aires, Argentina. The Moon completely NASA on 2 July 2019 successfully blocked out the Sun for up to 2.5 tested the launch-abort system of Orion minutes. Spacecraft designed to take astronauts to the Moon. Ascent Abort-2, a test version of the Orion crew module during the approximately three-minute test successfully liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, at an altitude of about six miles. The success indicates that the project is on schedule for its first crewed flight in 2022. Image Credit : NASA

NASA Scientists Map Image Credit : ESA/Royal Observatory of Belgium Damages Caused by California Quakes Aphelion Day — Earth The two recent earthquakes in Southern was Farther Away from California on 4 & 5 July 2019 caused the Sun severe damages across the place with the Aphelion day which occurs once in magnitude of 6.4 and 7.1 respectively. a year took place on 4 July 2019 for The hit to the region with 7.1 magnitude this year. On this day Earth reached was one of the largest hits in 40 years. The aphelion — maximum distance nearly of Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis Spectacular Total Solar 152.1 million kilometres from the Sun (ARIA) team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion which was farthest than at any other time Eclipse Enjoyed by Laboratory in Pasadena, California, of the year. The aphelion distance was gathered data using a technique called Millions almost 1.67% farther than the average Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and The total eclipse on 2 July 2019 distance between Earth and Sun. Earth produced a detailed map depicting the was visible for the first time after the experienced perihelion distance on 3 changes or displacement caused by the great total solar eclipse in August 2017 January 2019. quakes.

56 | Science Reporter | September 2019 Sarita Vig, a faculty member at IIST and a member of the study team. The presence of highly directional jet points towards the presence of a compact object such as a black hole or a neutron star at the centre. “However, our efforts in finding it at low radio frequencies did not yield positive results,” added Nirupam Roy, another member of the team based at IISc. The researchers have not given up hope. “It is possible that the object responsible for the jet is elusive at the observed radio wavelengths. Further studies in other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum may give more hints about the nature of the compact source that is responsible for the genesis of this different frequencies confirmed this view,” explained Veena. jet within the supernova remnant,” says Jayanta Roy of NCRA “We found high-velocity jets of atomic hydrogen extending and a collaborating member of the study. to about 20 light years racing at a speed of about 50 km per The study team has published its results in the Monthly second in opposite directions in the neighbourhood. Clearly, Notices of Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS) — Letters. there was a supernova explosion. However, despite our efforts, we could not find the leftover of the massive star,” observed Dr T V Venkateswaran, India Science Wire

Another Fast Radio Burst — A Newly Discovered Explosion Astronomers have detected another non-repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) namely FRB 190523 by the Deep Synoptic Array-10 at Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory, Subsequently, together with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, they have also tracked a massive galaxy approximately 8 billion light years away from where such a powerful explosion originated. The present discovery may help researchers to resolve the mystery behind the causes of such explosions. Image Credit : NASA Image Credit : Caltech/OVRO/G. Hallinan Make it Rain Mission TESS Discovers the Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle Tiniest Planet Yet successfully launched seven satellites NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet from Launch Complex 1 on New Survey Satellite) unveiled the smallest Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula on 29 June planet ever spotted till date which is 2019. The mission was named ‘Make between the size of Earth and Mars and it Rain’ because of the high volume of has been named L 98-59b. The planet rainfall in Seattle in the Spaceflight home was 10% smaller than the previous city and New Zealand is also quite wet. record of TESS.

Three planets in the L98-59 system found by TESS compared to Mars and Earth in order of increasing size [Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center] September 2019 | Science Reporter | 57