... starlight can break water vapour in the atmospheres of exoplanets into hydrogen and oxygen.” This happens when photons of a certain energy break the bonds of molecules into their constituent atoms. This is a process known as photodissociation and...
... in. As this material is accreted onto the black hole it can reach a temperature of around 105 K whilst emitting energetic photons at optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray wavelengths. These X-ray sources have been mistaken in the past for fast...
... Space Telescope and other ground-based observatories to have energies more than a billion times higher than a photon of visible light. Neutrinos on the other hand are mysterious, neutral subatomic particles that rarely interacts with...
... at specific wavelengths. Collecting light from each star is very time consuming – it takes about an hour to collect enough photons of light for each star in order to scrutinise its spectra. Luckily the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at the...
.... To determine how the Moon formed, CubeX would use a technique called X-ray fluorescence, or XRF to capture “fluorescing” photons with a tiny X-ray optic and an onboard spectrometer. XRF works by detecting X-rays emitted from individual atoms...
... (3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit) and while other NASA telescopes such as Chandra can pick up these super hot photons, it can only do so in a small patch of sky at any one time. HaloSat on the other hand will look at the...