#Tag · bonfire.cafe

[ #Waves and #Plasma] Numerous #moons orbit #Jupiter, including #Io, whose volcanic activity causes the ejection of #matter and the formation of a magnetized #plasma disc—or #magnetodisc—in the equatorial plane of the gas giant.

How does the plasma in this magnetodisk manage to remain in a state of #equilibrium? By emitting waves, according to a new study based on data acquired by the #Juno probe, which has been orbiting #Jupiter since 2016.

https://www.irap.omp.eu/en/2025/11/jupiter-natural-regulators-maintain-the-balance-of-its-magnetized-plasma-disk/

#astrophysics #planetology

Diagram of the plasma magnetic disk, the magnetodisk (blue area), in the Jupiter system. This illustration also includes Jupiter, Io, Io’s torus (orange zone surrounding Io), Jupiter’s ionosphere (green zone surrounding Jupiter), magnetic field lines (black curves), and Juno’s trajectory relative to the magnetodisk.

IRAP

@irap@social.numerique.gouv.fr · 3 days ago

https://www.irap.omp.eu/en/2025/11/jupiter-natural-regulators-maintain-the-balance-of-its-magnetized-plasma-disk/

#astrophysics #planetology

Debby ‬⁂📎🐧:disability_flag: boosted

Inkican

@inkican@mastodon.social · 3 days ago

Physicists Take the Imaginary Numbers Out of Quantum Mechanics

https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-take-the-imaginary-numbers-out-of-quantum-mechanics-20251107/

#quantum #quantumphysics #physics #science #quantummechanics #astrophysics

Inkican

@inkican@mastodon.social · 3 days ago

Physicists Take the Imaginary Numbers Out of Quantum Mechanics

https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-take-the-imaginary-numbers-out-of-quantum-mechanics-20251107/

#quantum #quantumphysics #physics #science #quantummechanics #astrophysics

hypebot boosted

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · 4 days ago

A hypnotising view of Paranal in #Chile!

Yet the sky is not revolving around the tip of one of our Auxiliary Telescopes. This illusion is caused by the almost perfect alignment with the southern celestial pole, around which stars seem to trail due to Earth's rotation.

Capturing these circular star trails is no easy task: a slight misalignment can completely ruin the outcome! 😲

📷 O. Castillo/ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

www.eso.org

A hypnotising view of Paranal

An open white dome, with part of a telescope peeking through its opening at the top. The sky in the background is full of concentric white-ish circles, centered at the top of the telescope.

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · 4 days ago

A hypnotising view of Paranal in #Chile!

Capturing these circular star trails is no easy task: a slight misalignment can completely ruin the outcome! 😲

📷 O. Castillo/ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

www.eso.org

A hypnotising view of Paranal

phildini and 4 others boosted

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · last week

For the first time ever, astronomers have unveiled the shape of a star’s explosion at its earliest stage.

The feat was achieved by ESO's Very Large Telescope just a day after the detection of this supernova, as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface.

This brief initial phase wouldn’t have been observable a day later. This will help shed light on how massive stars go supernova.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2520/

Illustration: ESO/L. Calçada

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

www.eso.org

Unique shape of star’s explosion revealed just a day after detection

Swift observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed the explosive death of a star just as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface. For the first time, astronomers unveiled the shape of the explosion at its earliest, fleeting stage. This brief initial phase wouldn’t have been observable a day later and helps address a whole set of questions about how massive stars go supernova.

A digital illustration of a star going supernova, surrounded by a gaseous disc in orange and red tones. The star is seen exploding in an olive shape, directed above and below the star.

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · last week

For the first time ever, astronomers have unveiled the shape of a star’s explosion at its earliest stage.

The feat was achieved by ESO's Very Large Telescope just a day after the detection of this supernova, as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface.

This brief initial phase wouldn’t have been observable a day later. This will help shed light on how massive stars go supernova.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2520/

Illustration: ESO/L. Calçada

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

www.eso.org

Unique shape of star’s explosion revealed just a day after detection

Roni Rolle Laukkarinen and 1 other boosted

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · 2 weeks ago

A dance of two pairs!

While the two Magellanic Clouds shine upon the Atacama Desert in #Chile, two Auxiliary Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer point up to the sky.

Just like our cosmic neighbours move around the Milky Way, the Auxiliary Telescopes can be moved along rails and arranged in different configurations when observing the sky.

📷 J. Looten/ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #astrophysics #space #science

www.eso.org

A dance of two pairs

Two of ESO’s small Auxiliary Telescopes, accompanied by the Magellanic Clouds up in the night sky. The ATs are small white domes, their tops open revealing telescopes pointing at the sky. The Magellanic Clouds are look like bright, blueish clouds with stars within them. A human silhouette is visible on the right side of the picture.

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · 2 weeks ago

A dance of two pairs!

While the two Magellanic Clouds shine upon the Atacama Desert in #Chile, two Auxiliary Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer point up to the sky.

Just like our cosmic neighbours move around the Milky Way, the Auxiliary Telescopes can be moved along rails and arranged in different configurations when observing the sky.

📷 J. Looten/ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #astrophysics #space #science

www.eso.org

A dance of two pairs

Chip Butty and 1 other boosted

Thomas Weibel

@thomasweibel@swiss.social · 3 weeks ago

After decades of research, a seemingly unremarkable find retrieved from a Roman shipwreck proved to be a sensational scientific discovery, proving that the ancient Greeks were capable of making mechanical models of the cosmos. The Antikythera Mechanism is the world‘s first known analog computer.

https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2023/11/an-ancient-greek-computer/

My virtual replica:

https://www.thomasweibel.ch/anticythera2/

#history #sciencehistory #antiquity #archaeology #astronomy #digitalhumanities #mathematics #physics #astrophysics

The Anticythera Mechanism

The Anticythera Mechanism: Virtual reconstruction of the ancient Greek computer

Swiss National Museum - Swiss history blog

An ancient Greek computer

After decades of research, a seemingly innocuous find retrieved from a Roman shipwreck was revealed as a sensational scientific discovery, proving that the ancient Greeks were capable of making mechanical models of the cosmos with hitherto unimagined precision. The ‘Antikythera Mechanism’ is an analogue ‘calendar computer’.

The Antikythera Mechanism as on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Robert Bell and 1 other boosted

ESO

@esoastronomy@mastodon.social · 3 weeks ago

Open Sesame!

The doors of our Extremely Large Telescope have moved for the first time. This was no small feat, as each door will weigh 650 tonnes once completed.

The ELT dome and its doors will guard the telescope from the harsh conditions of the Atacama Desert in #Chile.

https://www.eso.org/public/videos/potw2544a/

📹 ESO/ACe

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science #engineering

Open Sesame: The ELT doors move for the first time

www.eso.org

franco_vazza

@franco_vazza@mastodon.social · 2 weeks ago

#paperday:

"Can galactic magnetic fields diffuse into the voids?"
(answer: NO!)

https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26918 by O. Ghosh et al., (including me) on #astroph today .

It is a necessary rebuttal to a recent paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14774) who claimed the possible magnetisation of voids by propagating a dipole solution for the magnetic fields of galaxies, assuming cosmic voids are textbook "vacua"
Not good at all!

#astronomy #astrophysics #science #physics

arXiv.org

Are magnetic fields in cosmic voids primordial?

The nature of magnetic fields in the voids of the large-scale structure of the Universe has been a multifaceted open puzzle for decades. On one hand, their origin is not clear with most of the magnetogenesis models using physics beyond the standard model in the early Universe, and on the other hand, their existence and potential role in explaining the spectra of TeV blazars have been intensely debated in the past decade. Here, we propose a mechanism, within classical electrodynamics, that could fill the voids with late-Universe fields and, under certain conditions, dispel the need for primordial fields altogether to explain the void fields. Specifically, we use the dipole component of the galactic fields to generate space-filling magnetic fields in voids with white-noise spectrum and sufficient amplitude to explain the lack of GeV halos around TeV blazars observed by Fermi-LAT. A definitive test for such fields in the voids will be the white-noise spectral shape, which will constrain possible plasma processes in the voids to the ones that allow for the propagation of these dipole fields into the voids.

arXiv.org

Can galactic magnetic fields diffuse into the voids?

Cosmic voids are magnetized at the level of at least $10^{-17}$ G on Mpc scales, as implied by blazar observations. We show that an electrically conducting plasma is present in the voids, and that, because of the plasma, \emph{diffusion} into the voids of galactic fields generated by a mean-field dynamo is far too slow to explain the present-day void magnetization. Indeed, we show that even in the presence of turbulence in the voids, dynamo-generated galactic fields diffuse out to a galactocentric radius of only 200-400 kpc. Therefore, it is challenging to meet the required volume filling-factor of the void magnetic field. We conclude that a primordial origin remains the most natural explanation to the space-filling weak fields in voids.