Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion January 21, 2020
By: James Maynard
Tags: Astronomy, Space, Science, Astronomy News, Physics

Exploring strange gamma radiation from the ancient Universe, a new study shows the early solar system may have been affected by an ancient barrier, new insights into the extinction of dinosaurs and more of the latest top stories in space and astronomy.

This week, we look at a new theory which could explain a mysterious glow of gamma radiation from deep space, and we will see how the Solar System may have once been divided by a barrier, altering the formation of planets. We will also examine new findings about dark matter, while the discovery of strange objects near the core of the Milky Way perplexes astronomers. New simulations provide evidence that a massive asteroid was the major factor leading to the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago, and dead galaxies from the early age of our Universe provides clues about the evolution of families of stars like The Milky Way.

The second episode in season two of Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion. Video credit: The Cosmic Companion.

A team of astronomers believe they have found a correlation between the distribution of matter in the early universe and the emission of unexplained gamma radiation from the ancient Cosmos.

The source of this energy remains unknown, but it could be dark matter, or perhaps blazars — energetic galaxies where supermassive black holes devour vast quantities of matter.

Not long after the formation of our sun, it is possible that our solar system was divided in half by a loose disk of debris left over from the formation of our local family of planets. This feature may have contributed to the formation of rocky planets in the inner solar system and giants of gas and ice at distances past Mars.

Researchers from the United States and Japan believe organic material which made its way past this barrier could have seeded the Earth with the building blocks of life.

Our Milky Way galaxy, like all galaxies, is home to a supermassive back hole. In 2005, astronomer Dr. Andrea Gehz of UCLA found an unusual object near this behemoth object. A second specimen was found seven years later, and the bodies became known as G objects.

Now Gehz reports finding four more bodies like the first two. These objects come together when they are more distant from the black hole, and stretch out into trails of gas when they are closer to the supermassive black hole.

The age of dinosaurs came to an end 66 million years ago, when the Earth was struck by an asteroid as large as Mount Everest. For several hundred thousand years prior to this event, the Deccan Traps in India experienced massive volcanic eruptions, altering the climate of Earth.

New simulations suggest the impact played the major role in the extinction, which wiped out approximately three-quarters of all species on Earth.

Blazars — active galaxies with ravenous supermassive black holes near their center — are suspects in the case of the mysterious gamma radiation. Image credit: M. Weiss/CfA

Galaxies which no longer produce new stars are considered to be dead by cosmologists. A new study looking at the oldest-known dead galaxy shows the family of stars died roughly 12 billion years ago. Just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, this stellar family already had a fully-formed core, researchers determined. By studying these objects, astronomers hope to learn more about galaxies like the Milky Way which are still producing stars.