Photographing Planets with the Roman Space Telescope
Nearly 100 years ago, astronomer Bernard Lyot invented the coronagraph – a device that made it possible to recreate a total solar eclipse by blocking the Sun’s light. That helped scientists study the Sun’s corona, which is the outermost part of our star’s atmosphere that’s usually hidden by bright light from its surface.
Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, now under construction, will test out a much more advanced version of the same thing. Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument will use special masks to block the glare from host stars but allow the light from dimmer, orbiting planets to filter through. It will also have self-flexing mirrors that will measure and subtract starlight automatically.
This glare-blocking prowess is important because planets can be billions of times dimmer than their host stars! Roman’s high-tech shades will help us take pictures of planets we wouldn’t be able to photograph using any other current telescopes.
Other observatories mainly use this planet-hunting method, called direct imaging, from the ground to photograph huge, bright planets called “super-Jupiters” in infrared light. These worlds can be dozens of times more massive than Jupiter, and they’re so young that they glow brightly thanks to heat left over from their formation. That glow makes them detectable in infrared light.
Roman will take advanced planet-imaging tech to space to get even higher-quality pictures. And while it’s known for being an infrared telescope, Roman will actually photograph planets in visible light, like our eyes can see. That means it will be able to see smaller, older, colder worlds orbiting close to their host stars. Roman could even snap the first-ever image of a planet like Jupiter orbiting a star like our Sun.
Astronomers would ultimately like to take pictures of planets like Earth as part of the search for potentially habitable worlds. Roman’s direct imaging efforts will move us a giant leap in that direction!
Have you ever wondered how big crystals form? Let’s talk about it this #MineralMonday.💎
Pegmatites produce large crystals—usually over ~1⁄2 inch (1 cm)—and are the final product of some cooling magmas. They’re found in veins, dikes, or pods at or near the margins of large igneous bodies. Large crystals and distinctive textures can form in pegmatites because high concentrations of water and certain chemical elements in their magmas reduce the number of crystal nuclei that form. Water also allows pockets to form where minerals, like this beryl (variety: aquamarine), can grow unimpeded as large well-defined crystals.
A third of patients with long COVID in a new Cambridge study said they lost their jobs because of the condition
Nearly two-thirds of people with long-term effects from COVID-19 experience problems with concentration and memory, according to a new study from Cambridge University.
In
a study of 181 patients with what’s often called long COVID – most of
whom had been infected at least six months before the research began –
78% reported difficulty concentrating, 69% reported brain fog (described
as sluggish or “fuzzy” thinking) – 68% reported forgetfulness and 60% reported problems finding the right word in speech.
Though their symptoms were self-reported, the claims aligned with significantly lower scores in cognitive tests.
“This
is important evidence that when people say they’re having cognitive
difficulties post-COVID, these are not necessarily the result of anxiety
or depression,” co-author Muzaffer Kaser, a psychiatrist, said in a March release. “The effects are measurable – something concerning is happening.”
Half
of the patients reported difficulties in getting their symptoms taken
seriously, according to a release from the school, suggesting the
medical community doesn’t take cognitive issues as seriously as lung
problems, fatigue or other symptoms.
According to the research, published in two studies in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, more
than half of the study’s participants have been unable to work for
extended periods of time and a third said they lost their jobs due to
their illness. …
… The union said it had negotiated a national
agreement for oil workers on wages and working conditions, but about 200
individual bargaining units still had to negotiate local issues.
USW
Local 5 representative B.K. White, a refinery operator who has worked
for the company for 29 years, said Chevron failed to address worker
fatigue and a lack of staffing.
“If we had
more people and could get a better pay rate, maybe our members wouldn’t
feel obligated to come in and work as many as 70 hours a week to make
ends meet. We don’t believe that is safe,” White said.
Chevron
said that in Richmond, “the union’s demands exceeded what the company
believes to be reasonable and moved beyond what was agreed to as part of
the national pattern bargaining agreement.”
The
old contract with Chevron in Richmond expired 1 February and workers
had been reporting to their jobs on a rolling 24-hour extension, the
union said. …
Every year, public companies in the U.S. are required to provide
investors and regulators with detailed data about their financial
performance and the risks they face. Soon, they may also have to
disclose information about how they are dealing with climate change.
The
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday formally proposed new
rules that would for the first time require businesses to report their
greenhouse gas emissions, along with details of how climate change is
affecting their businesses. …
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