NASA Chandra: Exoplanet WASP-18b makes star act deceptively old

A new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that a giant exoplanet, WASP-18b, is making the star that it orbits very closely act much older than it actually is. 

This artist’s illustration depicts WASP-18b and its star, which are about 330 light years away 

Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

A planet may be causing the star it orbits to act much older than it actually is, according to new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This discovery shows how a massive planet can affect the behavior of its parent star.

The star, WASP-18, and its planet, WASP-18b, are located about 330 light-years from Earth. WASP-18b has a mass about 10 times that of Jupiter and completes one orbit around its star in less than 23 hours, placing WASP-18b in the "hot Jupiter" category of exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system.

WASP-18b is the first known example of an orbiting planet that has apparently caused its star, which is roughly the mass of our sun, to display traits of an older star.

"WASP-18b is an extreme exoplanet," said Ignazio Pillitteri of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo in Italy, who led the study.

"It is one of the most massive hot Jupiters known and one of the closest to its host star, and these characteristics lead to unexpected behaviour. This planet is causing its host star to act old before its time."

Pillitteri's team determined WASP-18 is between 500 million and 2 billion years old, based on theoretical models and other data.

While this may sound old, it is considered young by astronomical standards. By comparison, our sun is about 5 billion years old and thought to be about halfway through its lifetime.

Younger stars tend to be more active, exhibiting stronger magnetic fields, larger flares, and more intense X-ray emission than their older counterparts.

Magnetic activity, flaring, and X-ray emission are linked to the star's rotation, which generally declines with age.

However, when astronomers took a long look with Chandra at WASP-18 they didn't detect any X-rays.

Using established relations between the magnetic activity and X-ray emission of stars, as well as its actual age, researchers determined WASP-18 is about 100 times less active than it should be.

"We think the planet is aging the star by wreaking havoc on its innards," said co-author Scott Wolk of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The researchers argue that tidal forces created by the gravitational pull of the massive planet, similar to those the moon has on Earth's tides, but on a much larger scale, may have disrupted the magnetic field of the star.

The strength of the magnetic field depends on the amount of convection in the star, or how intensely hot gas stirs the interior of the star.

"The planet's gravity may cause motions of gas in the interior of the star that weaken the convection," said co-author Salvatore Sciortino also of INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo in Italy.

"This has a domino effect that results in the magnetic field becoming weaker and the star to age prematurely."

WASP-18 is particularly susceptible to this effect because its convection zone is narrower than most stars.

This makes it more vulnerable to the impact of tidal forces that tug at it.

The effect of tidal forces from the planet may also explain an unusually high amount of Lithium found in earlier optical studies of WASP-18.

Lithium is usually abundant in younger stars, but over time convection carries lithium to the hot inner regions of a star, where it is destroyed by nuclear reactions.

If there is less convection, the lithium does not circulate into the interior of the star as much, allowing more lithium to survive.

These results were published in the July issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics and are available online.

More information: For a preprint of the study results in The Astrophysical Journal, visit: arxiv.org/abs/1406.2620

ESA NASA Hubble Image: Mysterious Old Spiral

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

This striking cosmic whirl is the center of galaxy NGC 524, as seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

This galaxy is located in the constellation of Pisces, some 90 million light-years from Earth.

NGC 524 is a lenticular galaxy.

Lenticular galaxies are believed to be an intermediate state in galactic evolution — they are neither elliptical nor spiral.

Spirals are middle-aged galaxies with vast, pin wheeling arms that contain millions of stars.

Along with these stars are large clouds of gas and dust that, when dense enough, are the nurseries where new stars are born. When all the gas is either depleted or lost into space, the arms gradually fade away and the spiral shape begins to weaken.

At the end of this process, what remains is a lenticular galaxy — a bright disc full of old, red stars surrounded by what little gas and dust the galaxy has managed to cling on to.

This image shows the shape of NGC 524 in detail, formed by the remaining gas surrounding the galaxy’s central bulge. Observations of this galaxy have revealed that it maintains some spiral-like motion, explaining its intricate structure.

Vodafone 155 Targets Senior UK Citizens with Physical Disabilities

Vodafone has released a new phone for senior citizens in the UK called "Vodafone 155". The device is a basic phone and has been specially designed for elderly people with physical disabilities such as limited dexterity, vision or hearing impairments.

It has been priced at £25.

The phone offers user-friendly features such as speed-dialling and listening to recorded calls besides automated texting capabiities through the SOS button. The emergency button (or the panic button) is a trigger that sends calls or messages to pre-designated numbers stored on the phone.

The phone also ports a built-in alert sound to alarm neighbours in case of emergency. Apart from being significantly more affordable than most other phones aimed at senior citizen, it stands out with an oversized keypad with big buttons and large display fonts alongside support for hearing aids, high volume ring tones and noise cancellation technology. It also adds a sliding keylock on its side to prevent accidental pocket dialling.

The display is perhaps a little too small at 1.7-inches with a lowly resolution of 128x160 pixels; however, this, it must be remembered, is a basic phone meant for the visually impaired.

However, the phone does boast of a powerful battery rated to last up to 29 days in standby mode and offers up to 10 hours of talk time.

The phone is available for purchase at all Vodafone stores, under a Pay As You Go (PAYG) scheme. In addition, Vodafone can also import data and contacts from other handsets, free of cost.

Scientists Nearer to Finding Solution for Age-Related Problems

A team of scientists from the Salk Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL) and the University of Lausanne have created super strong mice by controlling its natural muscle growth.

This invention will help solve genetic muscular degeneration and other age-related problems.

The scientists changed the activity of certain genes by tweaking a genome regulator called NCOR1.

They suppressed a thyroid hormone which regulates growth in most mammals and created mice that were twice as strong as normal.

According to Johan Auwerx, the lead author from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), "This could be used to combat muscle weakness in the elderly, which leads to falls and contributes to hospitalizations."

"In addition, we think that this could be used as a basis for developing a treatment for genetic muscular dystrophy."

"There are now ways to develop drugs for people who are unable to exercise due to obesity or other health complications, such as diabetes, immobility and frailty," said Ronald M Evans, a professor at the Salk Institute.

"We can now engineer specific gene networks in muscle to give the benefits of exercise to sedentary mice."

It may be recalled that cell biology expert Norman S Wolf dealt with muscular degeneration in his book 'Comparative Biology on Aging.' Wolf had argued that by restricting calories and doing regular exercise, humans could slow aging process and reduce muscular degeneration.

In the present case, the mice, which underwent genetic mutation, became true marathoners, running faster and longer before showing any signs of fatigue. They were able to cover almost twice the distance compared to the normal mice. They also exhibited better tolerance to cold.

Unlike "genetic accelerators," the new work shows that suppressing an inhibitor is a new way to build muscle, which in this experiment confirmed that the muscle fibers of the modified mice are denser, more massive, and the cells in the tissue contain higher numbers of mitochondria-cellular organelles that deliver energy to the muscles.

Auwerx said that if these results were confirmed in humans, the experiment would attract attention especially from the athletes and medical experts.

The Salk Institute conducts biological research on molecular biology, genetics, neuroscience and plant biology. Five scientists from here have won Nobel Prizes.

Recently, the institute discovered a safer way to cure asthma, allergies and arthritis. It has also done research on a drug that reduces baldness.

The EPFL (Switzerland) focuses on education, research, technology and has conducted several researches on subjects like microbiology and robotics.

Trackers: GPS shoes for Alzheimer's patients

The first shoes with built-in GPS devices, to help track down dementia-suffering seniors who wander off and get lost, are set to hit the US market this month, the manufacturer says.

GTX Corp said the first batch of 3,000 pairs of shoes has been shipped to the footwear firm Aetrex Worldwide, two years after plans were announced to develop the product.

The shoes will sell at around $300 a pair and buyers will be able to set up a monitoring service to locate "wandering" seniors suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.

Andrew Carle, a professor at George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services who was an adviser on the project, said the shoes are likely to save lives and avoid embarrassing and costly incidents with the elderly.

"It's especially important for people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's who are at the highest risk," Carle told AFP.

"They might be living in their home but they're confused. They go for a walk and they can get lost for days."

Carle said studies indicate more than five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, a number expected to quadruple in the coming years. He said 60 percent of sufferers will wander and become lost and up to half of those lost who are not found within 24 hours may die, from dehydration, exposure or injury.

Other devices such as bracelets or pendants can provide similar protection but seniors often reject these.

"The primary reason is that paranoia is a manifestation of the disease," Carle said. "If you put something on someone with Alzeheimer's that they don't recognize, they remove it. If it's a wristwatch and it's not their wristwatch, they will take it off. So you have to hide it."

The GPS system, which is implanted in the heel of what appears to be a normal walking shoe, allows family members or carers to monitor the wearer and to set up a "geofence" that would trigger an alert if the person strays beyond a certain area.

The shoes are being developed by GTX Corp., which makes miniaturized Global Positioning Satellite tracking and location-transmitting technology, and Aetrex. They received certification from the Federal Communications Commission this year for the system.

The makers say the market for such shoes is growing, given the soaring costs of Alzheimer's.

"This is a significant milestone for both companies and while the $604 billion worldwide cost of dementia has become and will continue to be a significant fiscal challenge, the under $300 GPS enabled shoes will ease the enormous physical and emotional burden borne by Alzheimer's victims, caregivers and their geographically distant family members," said Patrick Bertagna, chief executive of GTX Corp.

Professor Carle said the original idea was to develop the shoes for children and long-distance runners but the makers changed the plan when he offered his advice, noting that the devices can also help ease a lot of anxiety about seniors who want to remain active.

"They feel a need to walk and it is good for them," he said. "They should take a walk. It's good for them."

NASA Hubble Image: ARP 274 - A Tale of Three Galaxies

Arp 274, also known as NGC 5679, is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping in the image, although they may be at somewhat different distances.

The spiral shapes of two of these galaxies appear mostly intact. The third galaxy (to the far left) is more compact, but shows evidence of star formation.

Two of the three galaxies are forming new stars at a high rate.

This is evident in the bright blue knots of star formation that are strung along the arms of the galaxy on the right and along the small galaxy on the left.

The largest component is located in the middle of the three. It appears as a spiral galaxy, which may be barred. The entire system resides at about 400 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 was used to image Arp 274 in april 2011. Blue, visible and infrared filters were combined with a filter that isolates hydrogen emission.

The colours in this image reflect the intrinsic colour of the different stellar populations that make up the galaxies.

Yellowish older stars can be seen in the central bulge of each galaxy. A bright central cluster of stars pinpoint each nucleus.

Younger blue stars trace the spiral arms, along with pinkish nebulae that are illuminated by new star formation.

Interstellar dust is silhouetted against the starry population. A pair of foreground stars inside our own Milky Way are at far right.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Soviet Luna 17, Lunokhod Beams Surprising Laser Flashes To Earth

It looks like a creature from science fiction, but Lunokhod 1 is real.

Photo Credit: Lavochkin Association.

Soviet technology was built to last. This was not always a good thing with respect to derelict space craft and near earth debris but in this case it is remarkable.

Luna 17, Lunokhod, a Soviet built robotic lunar rover lost on the dusty plains of the Moon for the past 40 years has been found again, and it is returning surprisingly strong laser pulses to Earth.

"We shined (sic) a laser on Lunokhod 1's position, and we were stunned by the power of the reflection," says Tom Murphy of UC San Diego, who leads the research team that's putting the old robot back to work. "Lunokhod 1 is talking to us loudly and clearly."

Almost forgotten in the lore of the Apollo-era space race, Lunokhod 1 was one of the greatest successes of the old Soviet lunar exploration program. In 1970, Time magazine described the robot's historic landing:

"Three hours after reaching the Moon aboard the latest unmanned Russian Moon probe, Luna 17, Lunokhod I (literally "moonwalker") lumbered down one of two ramps extended by the mother ship and moved forward ... thus taking the first giant step for robotkind on another celestial body."

The remote-controlled rover traveled almost 7 miles during its 11 month lunar tour, relaying thousands of TV images and hundreds of high-resolution panoramas of the Moon back to Earth. It also sampled and analyzed lunar soil at 500 locations.

Then Lunokhod-1 was lost - until last month when NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found it again.

Multiple Craters; Both Young And Old In Sirenum Fossae

Elevation of the Sirenum Fossae region in the Southern Highlands of Mars. The image shows the region centred at about 28 degrees S, 185 degrees E.

It extends some 230 by 127 kilometres and covers 29,450 square kilometres, roughly the size of Belgium. For more images please go here.

The High Resolution Stereo Camera, operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) on board the Mars Express orbiter has imaged craters, both young and old, in this view of the Southern Highlands of Mars.

Part of the Sirenum Fossae region in the Southern Highlands, the area in this image is centred at about 28 degrees S, 185 degrees E. The image captures an area to the north of the Magelhaens Crater. It extends some 230 by 127 kilometres and covers about 29,450 square kilometres, roughly the size of Belgium. The image resolution is approximately 29 metres per pixel.

Sirenum Fossae extends more than 2500 kilometres to the southwest of the Tharsis volcanic region, which houses Olympus Mons, the highest volcano in our Solar System.

Sirenum Fossae is system of grabens, formed by stresses placed on the crust during the uplift of the Tharsis region. A graben is visible as two sets of parallel lines running from top to bottom to the left of centre.

The Southern Highlands are older than the Northern Lowlands, based on the larger number of impact craters seen covering the region. Craters 50 kilometres in diameter are common in this area and have usually suffered from erosion, indicating they were formed during ancient times.