Medical discoveries dominated the news in 2020, but even under pandemic conditions, astronomers continued their work. They hunted through radio waves for mystery signals, discovered new galaxies, and even determined which alien galaxies could detect the earth.
Radio releases from an alien world
Planets in the solar system emit radio waves, especially Jupiter with its intense magnetic fields. But no one has ever noticed radio waves coming from a planet beyond the solar system until researchers picked up a signal from a gas giant in the Tau Boötes system, just 51 light-years from Earth. That signal can help them learn more about the exoplanet’s magnetic field, which can provide clues as to what’s going on in its atmosphere.
X-ray blobs burst from the Milky Way
Millions of years ago, an explosion in the center of the Milky Way blew energetic material above and below the galactic disk. This material is still visible and glows in the gamma ray spectrum in two clusters discovered in 2010, known as the Fermi Bubbles. In 2020, researchers found a few more spots in the same region, visible in the X-ray spectrum. These dim, gigantic features of the Milky Way tower are probably related to the Fermi bubbles during the 25,000 light-year Fermi Bubbles, to a width of 45,000 light-years to completion. Researchers call them the ‘eROSITA bubbles’.
A lost rocket amplifier
The Earth acquired a new ‘minimoon’ in 2020, one of several objects that the planet encounters in space from time to time and ends up in orbit around our planet. But closer examination by amateur and professional space observers showed that the minimoon was not a natural object at all, but rather a missile launcher launched by NASA in the 1960s.
Ghostly radio circles
Scientists often find things in space that look like vague spots, but the newly discovered strange radio circuits (ORCs), discovered in 2019 and reported in 2020, are special. The round spots, visible in radio telescope data, do not look like any known object. These are not supernova remnants or optical effects called Einstein rings. Some scientists have even suggested that it may be the worms’ throats. But no one really knows what these newly discovered things are.
A million new galaxies
A radio telescope in the Australian suburbs mapped 83% of the observable universe over the course of 300 hours of observations. And it revealed a huge amount of data: 3 million galaxies, a full million of which have never been seen before. The Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) relies on 36 antennas to capture the air, but this was the first time that all 36 were used simultaneously for one project.
A hint of life on Venus?
Venus is perhaps the most inhospitable place in the solar system, with acid clouds and hellish temperatures. Therefore, astronomers who were ready to search for phosphine, a stinking gas considered a possible signature of life on alien planets, first trained their phosphine-hunting telescope on Venus: they wanted a reference image from a certain dead world. But in a shocking turn, they found the connection in Venus’ clouds.
However, other researchers cautiously insisted before suggesting that there really is a life on Venus.
A Newborn Magnet
On November 12, researchers discovered a bright kilonova, a light show from the aftermath of two neutron stars merging. Kilonovas are rare in space, but researchers have already seen them. However, this one was special: Strange signals in the kilonova light indicate the presence of something new. Researchers who studied the event offered some possibilities, but said it was probably a newborn magnetar: a large, super-magnetic neutron star that formed during the collision.
The source of a rapid radio burst
Magnetars can also be responsible for the brightest flashes of light in space. These ‘rapid radio bursts’ have obscured astronomers for years, packaging the energy released by the sun within a few days into a few milliseconds. Most seem to come from far beyond the Milky Way, but by 2020, researchers reported that an FRB came from our home system, just 30,000 light-years from Earth. And this one had a known point of origin: a magnetar. Does that mean all such bursts of magnetars? No one is sure.
The strangers we might see
Astronomers detect alien planets by seeing them move between the earth and their stars. One day they may even study their atmosphere by watching the starlight shine through them. But it only works for planets with orbits to place them between the earth and their home star. Planets that are not so strip are mostly invisible to current telescope technology.
In 2020, scientists asked what star systems on Earth had vantage points to make their small planet with its atmosphere pulse with signs of life. They identified 1004 galaxies that could see the earth within 326 light-years. One star, just 12 light-years from Earth, has known exoplanets and will have the right vantage point to see the Earth when it moves into position in 2044.
Originally published on Live Science.