#ndwgoecountdown Vortrag – Die Entdeckung von Planeten um ferne Sterne mit der PLATO-Mission

Neben den acht Planeten unseres Sonnensystems wurden um andere Sterne bereits über 5800 Planeten entdeckt. Am MPS bereiten wir in Zusammenarbeit u.a. mit der ESA die Weltraummission PLATO vor. Mit PLATO werden wir bald tausende neuer Exoplaneten entdecken.

https://www.goettinger-nacht-des-wissens.de/nach-format/vortrag/

@DrReneHeller @ndw_goe @thegoecampus

#ndwgoe #ndwgoemps #goettingen #mpsgoettingen #ESA #PLATOmission #exoplanets

The IMPRS for Solar System Science offers PhD training at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research @mpsgoettingen, in collaboration with the University of Göttingen and TU Braunschweig @tubraunschweig . We have a thing for the Sun, planets and moons, comets, asteroids, meteorites ... #space

https://www.mps.mpg.de/solar-system-school

#IMPRS #PhD #SolarSystem #UniGöttingen #TUBraunschweig #Introduction

#ndwgoecountdown Exoplaneten – Entdeckung von Planeten um ferne Sterne

Tausende Planeten, die um ferne Sterne kreisen, sind bisher bekannt. Doch wie entdeckt man einen Planeten, der viele Lichtjahre von uns entfernt ist? Im Mitmachexperiment erläutern Forscher*innen eine der gängigsten Methoden und berichten von der künftigen Weltraummission PLATO und ihrer Suche nach erdähnlichen Planeten.

@ndw_goe @thegoecampus

#ndwgoe #ndwgoemps #goettingen #mpsgoettingen #ESA #PLATOmission #exoplanets

🤩 The very #first images of the 📷solar poles are here ☀️! Check the new pictures and videos of #SolarOrbiter, some of them taken by our #EUI telescope onboard the satellite. https://www.astro.oma.be/en/first-view-of-the-solar-poles-with-eui/
🧪🔭📷

☀️ Premiere im Sonnensystem Erstmals zeigt die Solar Orbiter-Sonde der ESA Detailaufnahmen der Polregionen der Sonne – dank einer Umlaufbahn außerhalb der Ekliptik. 😎 Solar Orbiter soll klären, wie der Sonnenwind entsteht, wie das Magnetfeld unseres Sterns erzeugt wird – und wie die Sonne die Heliosphäre, also den von ihr erzeugten Einflussraum im All, verändert. Möglich machen das 10 hochspezialisierte Instrumente, 6 davon mit deutscher Beteiligung. Koordiniert vom DLR Raumfahrtmanagement.

Revolutionäre Perspektive: „Solar Orbiter“ blickt erstmals auf die Sonnen-Pole
https://www.fr.de/wissen/revolutionaere-perspektive-solar-orbiter-blickt-erstmals-auf-die-sonnen-pole-zr-93781183.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Gepostet in Wissenschaft @wissenschaft-FR_de

This is the 100 year anniversary of humans having an idea of what the heck the sun and all the stars actually are. If you had asked a leading astronomer in 1925 what the sun was, they would say that it's basically the same as Earth, but very hot.

In Cecilia Payne's doctoral thesis she was the first to say, from spectral data, that the sun was overwhelmingly made of hydrogen and helium.

It was later described as "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin

#ndwgoecountdown Ein Blick in den Himmel: Ausstellung Astrofotografie

Unser Nachthimmel ist voller atemberaubender Ansichten, die über die Astrofotografie sichtbar gemacht werden können, mit einer einfachen Kamera oder einem hochtechnischen Teleskop. Unsere Ausstellung zeigt Bilder von Sonne und Planeten über interstellare Gasnebel bis hin zu fernen Galaxien, aufgenommen von unseren Wissenschaftler*innen.

@ndw_goe @thegoecampus

#ndwgoe #ndwgoemps #goettingen #mpsgoettingen #astrophotography

ESA's Solar Orbiter probe photographs solar South Pole for the first time
https://www.heise.de/en/news/ESA-s-Solar-Orbiter-probe-photographs-solar-South-Pole-for-the-first-time-10442060.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into heise online in English @heise-online-in-english-heiseonline

ESA's Solar Orbiter probe photographs solar South Pole for the first time

As ESA inclined the orbit of the Solar Orbiter relative to the orbital plane, the probe could observe the south pole of the sun for the first time ever.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/ESA-s-Solar-Orbiter-probe-photographs-solar-South-Pole-for-the-first-time-10442060.html?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=mastodon

#Raumfahrt #Wissenschaft #news

ESA-Sonde Solar Orbiter fotografiert erstmals solaren Südpol
https://www.heise.de/news/ESA-Sonde-Solar-Orbiter-fotografiert-erstmals-solaren-Suedpol-10442009.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Gepostet in Wissen @wissen-heiseonline

ESA-Sonde Solar Orbiter fotografiert erstmals solaren Südpol

Weil die ESA die Bahn des Solar Orbiter gegenüber der Bahnebene geneigt hat, konnte die Sonde zum ersten Mal überhaupt den Südpol der Sonne beobachten.

https://www.heise.de/news/ESA-Sonde-Solar-Orbiter-fotografiert-erstmals-solaren-Suedpol-10442009.html?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=mastodon

#Raumfahrt #Wissenschaft #news

Revolutionäre Perspektive: „Solar Orbiter“ blickt erstmals auf die Pole der Sonne
https://www.fr.de/wissen/revolutionaere-perspektive-solar-orbiter-blickt-erstmals-auf-die-pole-der-sonne-zr-93781183.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Gepostet in Wissenschaft @wissenschaft-FR_de

Coda: talking this morning with @louiseharra, co-PI on Solar Orbiter’s EUI imaging system, she reminded me that the Japanese Hinode mission (in which NASA & ESA are also partners) has also made observations of the Sun’s poles thanks to the non-zero obliquity.

Indeed, Hinode has done important science linked to turbulence there & the flipping of the Sun’s magnetic fields:

https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/hinode-and-soho-paint-an-asymmetrical-picture-of-the-sun/

The images released today from Solar Orbiter were taken at an angle of 17°, roughly double that available due to the Sun’s obliquity. So not the first, but much better.

And with further Venus flybys, Solar Orbiter will move further out of the ecliptic, & will end up seeing the Sun from an angle of 33° inclined to the poles.

That’s a game changer – the foreshortening effect will be greatly reduced & we’ll finally have a better insight into what’s happening at the Sun’s poles.

Expect surprises.

Apologies for the delay in continuing this thread – Mastodon went doolally for a while.

Anyway, to reiterate: other missions including PROBA-2 *have* imaged the Sun’s poles before, thanks to the axial tilt or obliquity of the Sun.

But those images have always been at a very shallow grazing angle & that makes it hard to get a good handle on what’s happening at the poles.

Regardless of how it happened, the Sun’s 7.25° obliquity is a reality. And that means that as Earth & its spacecraft orbit around the Sun, we can indeed see both poles at different times six months apart, albeit at a glancing angle of just 7.25° at best.

That greatly foreshortens things & gives a distorted view, but nevertheless, you *can* see the Sun’s poles from Earth.

Indeed, ESA even issued a PR about its PROBA-2 mission having done so in 2018 🙂

https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESAC/An_artificial_Proba-2_view_of_the_solar_north_pole

One theory is that the Sun and its planetary system were born in a dense cluster. As the stars move around, they can encounter the each other & their gravity works perturbs each other.

If the Sun had a close flyby from another star out of plane, then that may have warped the protoplanetary disk, changing its angle relative to the young Sun’s rotation axis.

In fact, the Sun’s rotation axis is tilted by 7.25° with respect to perpendicular to the ecliptic – this is known as the Sun’s obliquity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

Quite why this is remains a mystery, as it doesn’t fit the picture of planets forming from a disk of gas & dust rotating around a young protostar: angular momentum considerations would suggest the star’s rotation axis would be perpendicular to the disk where the planets are made.

All prior solar missions with cameras such as SolarMax, SOHO, SDO, Hinode, & PROBA-2 have been in orbits close to Earth and thus the ecliptic – this is the plane in which Earth orbits the Sun.

If you make the reasonable assumption that the Sun’s rotation axis is perpendicular to the ecliptic, then you wouldn’t be able to see the Sun’s poles from a spacecraft in the ecliptic.

However, that assumption would be wrong.