This Week in Astronomy: Zhúlóng Galaxy, Dark Energy and NASA's Solar Probe Update

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
<v Speaker 1>with our soothing Bedtime Astronomy podcast. Each episode offers a
<v Speaker 1>gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
<v Speaker 1>unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
<v Speaker 1>of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
<v Speaker 1>slumber under the night sky. This week in Astronomy, Jeweloon, Galaxy,
<v Speaker 1>Dark Energy, and NASA's Solar Probe Update. Jewelon, a distant
<v Speaker 1>spiral galaxy challenges early universe models. Using the James Webb
<v Speaker 1>Space Telescope JWST, an international team of astronomers has made
<v Speaker 1>a groundbreaking discovery. Jeweloon, a massive Grand design spiral galaxy
<v Speaker 1>residing at an immense distance from Earth. Fine detailed in
<v Speaker 1>a research paper published on the pre print server AR
<v Speaker 1>fourteen on December seventeen, Mark Schulong is potentially the most
<v Speaker 1>distant spiral galaxy identified to date. Grand design spiral galaxies,
<v Speaker 1>renowned for their prominent, well defined arms gracefully swirling outwards
<v Speaker 1>from a distinct corps, are believed to owe their structure
<v Speaker 1>to denser regions within their discs. These denser regions act
<v Speaker 1>as triggers for star formation, compressing incoming material as it
<v Speaker 1>passes through. The Emergence of spiral galaxies in the early
<v Speaker 1>universe remains a subject of ongoing investigation, with these galaxies
<v Speaker 1>being relatively rare at high redshifts. Prior to this discovery,
<v Speaker 1>only a handful of individual spirals had been detected at
<v Speaker 1>a red shift exceeding three point zero. A team of
<v Speaker 1>astronomers led by Manuan Shao of the US University of
<v Speaker 1>Geneva in Switzerland serendipitously stumbled upon Julong while analyzing data
<v Speaker 1>from the JWST panoramic survey. The galaxy, named after Julong,
<v Speaker 1>a mythical giant red soular dragon and god in Chinese mythology,
<v Speaker 1>was identified at a photometric redshift of approximately five point two.
<v Speaker 1>This redshift indicates that Julong existed when the universe was
<v Speaker 1>only a billion years old. Despite its young age, Jewlong
<v Speaker 1>boasts a mass comparable to our own Milky Way Galaxy,
<v Speaker 1>a remarkable feat for a galaxy formed so early in
<v Speaker 1>the universe's history. The study revealed that Julong possesses a
<v Speaker 1>classical bulge in a large face on stellar disc adorned
<v Speaker 1>with spiral arms spanning an impressive sixty two thousand light years.
<v Speaker 1>Spectral energy distribution SED analysis of Dulung indicates a quiescent
<v Speaker 1>like core and a star forming stellar disc. Interestingly, the core,
<v Speaker 1>exhibiting a red hue, possesses the highest stellar mass surface
<v Speaker 1>densities observed among quiescent galaxies. This quiescence in the core
<v Speaker 1>lines with the expectations of inside out galaxy growth and quenching.
<v Speaker 1>While the disk of Julung continues to actively form stars,
<v Speaker 1>its overall star formation rate is relatively low. Estimated at
<v Speaker 1>sixty six solar masses per year. The efficiency with which
<v Speaker 1>baryons ordinary matter are converted into stars in Julong is
<v Speaker 1>approximately zero point three, significantly higher than even the most
<v Speaker 1>efficient galaxies observed at later epics. These findings strongly suggest
<v Speaker 1>that Jewelong experienced a period of highly efficient star formation
<v Speaker 1>and is currently undergoing a transition phase from a star
<v Speaker 1>forming to a quiescent state. The discovery of Julon has
<v Speaker 1>profound implications for our understanding of galaxy evolution. It suggests
<v Speaker 1>that mature galaxies like Joulon emerged much earlier in the
<v Speaker 1>universe's history than previously anticipated within the first billion years
<v Speaker 1>after the Big Bang? Is dark energy real? A new
<v Speaker 1>perspective on the expanding universe? One of the biggest mysteries
<v Speaker 1>in science, dark energy may not actually exist, according to
<v Speaker 1>a team of researchers at the University of Canterbury in
<v Speaker 1>christ Church, New Zealand. Their analysis, published in the journal
<v Speaker 1>Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters, challenges the
<v Speaker 1>long held assumption that the cosmos expands equally in all directions.
<v Speaker 1>For the past century, physicists have relied on the concept
<v Speaker 1>of dark energy to explain the observed acceleration of the
<v Speaker 1>universe's expansion. However, this contentious theory has always presented significant challenges.
<v Speaker 1>Instead of invoking dark energy, the researchers propose a new
<v Speaker 1>model called timescape that explains the observed acceleration without requiring
<v Speaker 1>a mysterious force. The timescape model acknowledges that gravity slows
<v Speaker 1>down time. This means that an ideal clock within a
<v Speaker 1>galaxy would tick slower than the same clock in empty space. Consequently,
<v Speaker 1>billions more years would have elapsed in vast cosmic voids
<v Speaker 1>compared to regions within galaxies. This temporal difference allows for
<v Speaker 1>greater expansion of space within voids, creating the illusion of
<v Speaker 1>an accelerating expansion rate as these voids become increasingly domine
<v Speaker 1>in the universe. This research provides compelling evidence that the
<v Speaker 1>observed acceleration of the universe may not be driven by
<v Speaker 1>dark energy, but rather by variations in the kinetic energy
<v Speaker 1>of expansion within a lumpy universe. The researchers believe that
<v Speaker 1>the Timescape model can resolve several key questions surrounding the
<v Speaker 1>quarks of our expanding cosmos. The standard land of cold
<v Speaker 1>dark matter land a CEDM model, which incorporates dark energy,
<v Speaker 1>relies heavily on measurements of distances to supernova explosions and
<v Speaker 1>distant galaxies. These supernova appear farther away than expected, suggesting
<v Speaker 1>an accelerating expansion rate. However, recent observations have increasingly challenged
<v Speaker 1>the validity of this model. The Hubble tension, an anomaly
<v Speaker 1>observed in the cosmic microwave background CMB, reveals inconsistencies between
<v Speaker 1>the expansion rate of the early universe and its current
<v Speaker 1>expansion rate. Furthermore, recent analysis of hypercision data from the
<v Speaker 1>Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument DESI indicates that the land to
<v Speaker 1>CDM model does not fit the data, as well as
<v Speaker 1>models where dark energy evolves over time instead of remaining constant.
<v Speaker 1>These discrepancies highlight the limitations of the simplified Freedman's equation,
<v Speaker 1>which assumes a uniform expansion of the universe. In reality,
<v Speaker 1>the universe exhibits a complex structure with galaxy clusters, filaments,
<v Speaker 1>and vast empty voids. The Timescape model acknowledges this complexity,
<v Speaker 1>proposing that a simple expansion law consistent with Einstein's general
<v Speaker 1>relativity does not necessarily obey Friedman's equation. The researchers believe
<v Speaker 1>that the European Space Agency's EUCLID SAPA, launched in July
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty three, as the potential to test and differentiate
<v Speaker 1>between the Freedman equation and the Timescape alternative. This endeavor
<v Speaker 1>will require a substantial number of high quality supernova observations,
<v Speaker 1>ideally exceeding one thousand. While a previous test of the
<v Speaker 1>Timescape model in two thoy seventeen showed only a slight
<v Speaker 1>improvement over the land to CDM model, the current analysis,
<v Speaker 1>utilizing a significantly larger data set of one thousand five
<v Speaker 1>hundred thirty five supernovae from the Pantheon plus collaboration provides
<v Speaker 1>strong evidence in favor of the Timescape model. This new
<v Speaker 1>evidence may also offer a compelling resolution to the Hubble
<v Speaker 1>tension and other anomalies related to the expansion of the universe.
<v Speaker 1>The researchers emphasized the need for further observations from EUCLID
<v Speaker 1>and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to solidify support
<v Speaker 1>for the Timescape model. The race is now on to
<v Speaker 1>utilize this wealth of new data to unravel the true
<v Speaker 1>nature of cosmic expansion and potentially overturn the long standing
<v Speaker 1>notion of dark energy. NASA's Solar Probe update. On New
<v Speaker 1>Year's Day, NASA's Parker Solar Probe brought excitement and groundbreaking
<v Speaker 1>updates as it successfully completed another record breaking encounter with
<v Speaker 1>the Sun. This monumental event marked the spacecraft's closest approach yet,
<v Speaker 1>delivering invaluable data and reaffirming its robust performance in the
<v Speaker 1>extreme conditions near our star. On January first, mission control
<v Speaker 1>at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory JUPIL and Maryland
<v Speaker 1>began receiving telemetry data from the probe. These initial transmissions
<v Speaker 1>can affirmed that Parker's systems and scientific instruments were functioning
<v Speaker 1>perfectly following its historic flyby. The telemetry, essentially the spacecraft's
<v Speaker 1>housekeeping data, provided critical insights into the probe's health. According
<v Speaker 1>to NASA's update shared on January second, the Parker's Solar
<v Speaker 1>Probe was operating as intended. The systems and instruments aboard
<v Speaker 1>the spacecraft had successfully executed the program commands, gathering unprecedented
<v Speaker 1>scientific data as it ventured closer to the Sun than
<v Speaker 1>any human made object in history, just three point eight
<v Speaker 1>million miles six point one million kilometers from its surface.
<v Speaker 1>This marked another milestone in humanity's ongoing quest to understand
<v Speaker 1>our star and its mysteries. The spacecraft, designed to endure
<v Speaker 1>the intense heat and radiation of the Sun's outer atmosphere,
<v Speaker 1>performed exactly as planned. During this daring maneuver, Parker's Solar
<v Speaker 1>Probe's instruments captured critical observations of the solar corona, the
<v Speaker 1>Sun's outermost layer, in the space environment surrounding it. The
<v Speaker 1>successful operation of its systems during this flyby demonstrated the
<v Speaker 1>remarkable engineering and planning behind the mission, NASA emphasized that
<v Speaker 1>Parker is paving the way for discoveries that were previously
<v Speaker 1>beyond our reach, opening a new chapter in solar science.
<v Speaker 1>Receiving the telemetry data required a highly coordinated effort using
<v Speaker 1>NASA's Deep Space Network, a global system of antennas that
<v Speaker 1>facilitates communication with spacecraft across the Solar System. The initial
<v Speaker 1>telemetry transmission confirmed that the spacecraft not only survived the
<v Speaker 1>intense conditions, but also adhered flawlessly to its mission commands.
<v Speaker 1>This means it collected a wealth of data during its
<v Speaker 1>close approach, which promises to provide new insights into solar wind,
<v Speaker 1>magnetic fields, and the mechanisms that power the Sun's activity.
<v Speaker 1>As the telemetry continued to arrive, the next step for
<v Speaker 1>mission control was to prepare for the spacecraft to transmit
<v Speaker 1>its full science data set. This transmission, expected later in
<v Speaker 1>the month, requires the probe's most powerful on board antenna
<v Speaker 1>to achieve optimal alignment with Earth. Once received, the data
<v Speaker 1>will be analyzed to uncover new details about the Sun's corona,
<v Speaker 1>its energetic particles, and its influence on the Solar System.
<v Speaker 1>The Parker Solar Probe's accomplishments represent a leap forward in heliophysics.
<v Speaker 1>Scientists anticipate that the data collected during this historic flyby
<v Speaker 1>will answer fundamental questions about the Sun's behavior, including why
<v Speaker 1>it's it's outer atmosphere is hotter than its surface, and
<v Speaker 1>what drives the solar wind that affects space weather around Earth.
<v Speaker 1>These findings are critical not only for advancing scientific knowledge,
<v Speaker 1>but also for safeguarding technologies and astronauts from solar radiation.
<v Speaker 1>The mission reflects the culmination of decades of vision and innovation.
<v Speaker 1>By venturing closer to the Sun than ever before, Parker's
<v Speaker 1>Solar Probe is breaking barriers and expanding humanities reach into
<v Speaker 1>the universe. Its success reaffirms our ability to design spacecraft
<v Speaker 1>capable of withstanding conditions once thought insurmountable, all while delivering
<v Speaker 1>discoveries that bring us closer to understanding the heart of
<v Speaker 1>our solar system SA something name m