Space Apps Challenge 2018

Background

NASA Missions Harvest a Passel of ‘Pumpkin’ Stars

Astronomers using observations from NASA's Kepler and Swift missions have discovered a batch of rapidly spinning stars that produce X-rays at more than 100 times the peak levels ever seen from the sun. The stars, which spin so fast they've been squashed into pumpkin-like shapes, are thought to be the result of close binary systems where two sun-like stars merge.

"These 18 stars rotate in just a few days on average, while the sun takes nearly a month," said Steve Howell, a senior research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and leader of the team. "The rapid rotation amplifies the same kind of activity we see on the sun, such as sunspots and solar flares, and essentially sends it into overdrive."

The most extreme member of the group, a K-type orange giant dubbed KSw 71, is more than 10 times larger than the sun, rotates in just 5.5 days, and produces X-ray emission 4,000 times greater than the sun does at solar maximum.

The researchers used Kepler measurements to determine the rotation periods and sizes for 10 of the stars, which range from 2.9 to 10.5 times larger than the sun. Their surface temperatures range from somewhat hotter to slightly cooler than the sun, mostly spanning spectral types F through K. Astronomers classify the stars as subgiants and giants, which are more advanced evolutionary phases than the sun's caused by greater depletion of their primary fuel source, hydrogen. All of them eventually will become much larger red giant stars.

Forty years ago, Ronald Webbink at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign noted that close binary systems cannot survive once the fuel supply of one star dwindles and it starts to enlarge. The stars coalesce to form a single rapidly spinning star initially residing in a so-called "excretion" disk formed by gas thrown out during the merger. The disk dissipates over the next 100 million years, leaving behind a very active, rapidly spinning star.

Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Goddard manages the Swift mission in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University in University Park, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Virginia. Other partners include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy, with additional collaborators in Germany and Japan.

Resources

NASA Missions Harvest a Passel of ‘Pumpkin’ Stars

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-mis...

Kepler and K2

Kepler: About the Mission". NASA / Ames Research Center. 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2016.

Dunham, Edward W.; Gautier, Thomas N.; Borucki, William J. (August 2, 2010). "Statement from the Kepler Science Council". NASA / Ames Research Center. Retrieved April 14, 2016.

Kepler Launch". NASA. Retrieved September 18, 2009.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/ind...

Swift

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/main

videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=47&v=oe-d9RxLLaM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=EIY9SqMAF8E

Challenges

• We had a little problem understanding some information since we don't have that much of knowledge about physics and space.