Showing posts with label across de universe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label across de universe. Show all posts

Friday, May 3, 2013

Herschel Space Telescope Closes Its Eyes on the Universe

Herschel Space Telescope Closes Its Eyes on the Universe:
ESA’s Herschel space observatory set against a background image of the Vela C star-forming region. Copyright ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortia, T. Hill, F. Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU – CNRS/INSU – Uni. Paris Diderot, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium.
Herschel Space Telescope Closes Its Eyes on the Universe
ESA’s Herschel space observatory set against a background image of the Vela C star-forming region. Copyright ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortia, T. Hill, F. Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU – CNRS/INSU – Uni. Paris Diderot, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium.
Sadly – though as expected – the most powerful far-infrared orbital telescope put in orbit has ended mission. The Herschel space observatory has now run out of liquid helium coolant, ending more than three years of pioneering observations of the cool Universe.
The spacecraft needs to be at temperatures as low as 0.3 Kelvin, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit to make its observations, and mission scientists and engineers knew since Herschel’s launch on May 14, 2009 that the 2,300 liters of liquid helium would slowly evaporate away.
The Herschel team sent out a notice that the helium was finally exhausted today, noted at the beginning of the spacecraft’s daily communication session with its ground station in Western Australia. The data showed a clear rise in temperatures measured in all of Herschel’s instruments.

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Saturn Storm’s ‘Suck Zone’ Shown In Spectacular Cassini Shots

Saturn Storm’s ‘Suck Zone’ Shown In Spectacular Cassini Shots:
A false-color image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, of a huge hurricane at Saturn's north pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Saturn Storm’s ‘Suck Zone’ Shown In Spectacular Cassini Shots
A false-color image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, of a huge hurricane at Saturn’s north pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Checking out the above pictures of a Saturn hurricane, one can’t help but wonder: how close was the Cassini spacecraft to spiralling down into gassy nothingness?
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© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |
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An Awesome Look at Enceladus, the Jet-Powered Moon

An Awesome Look at Enceladus, the Jet-Powered Moon:
Plumes from Enceladus' geysers are illuminated by reflected light from Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute.
An Awesome Look at Enceladus, the Jet-Powered Moon
Plumes from Enceladus’ geysers are illuminated by reflected light from Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute.
According to planetary scientist and Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco, about 98 geyser jets of all sizes near Enceladus’s south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds out into space. The spray from those geysers are evident in this new image from Cassini, showing a big, beautiful plume, illuminated by light reflected off of Saturn. Look closely to see that the plume is as large as the moon itself.

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Gigantic Hot Gas Cloud Sheaths Colliding Galaxies

NGC 6240: Gigantic Hot Gas Cloud Sheaths Colliding Galaxies:
Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO/E.Nardini et al); Optical (NASA/STScI)
Gigantic Hot Gas Cloud Sheaths Colliding Galaxies
Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO/E.Nardini et al); Optical (NASA/STScI)
Looking almost like a cosmic hyacinth, this image is anything but a cool, Spring flower… it’s a portrait of an enormous gas cloud radiating at more than seven million degrees Kelvin and enveloping two merging spiral galaxies. This combined image glows in purple from the Chandra X-ray information and is embellished with optical sets from the Hubble Space Telescope. It flows across 300,000 light years of space and contains the mass of ten billion Suns. Where did it come from? Researchers theorize it was caused by a rush of star formation which may have lasted as long as 200 million years. (...)
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How the Fermi Spacecraft Almost Got Taken Out by a Relic of the Cold War

How the Fermi Spacecraft Almost Got Taken Out by a Relic of the Cold War:
Artist concept of the Fermi Space Telescope. Credit: NASA.
How the Fermi Spacecraft Almost Got Taken Out by a Relic of the Cold War
Artist concept of the Fermi Space Telescope. Credit: NASA.
As a space telescope scientist or satellite operator, the last thing you want to hear is that your expensive and possibly one-of-a kind — maybe irreplaceable — spacecraft is in danger of colliding with a piece of space junk. On March 29, 2012, scientists from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope were notified that their spacecraft was at risk from a collision. And the object heading towards the Fermi spacecraft at a relative speed of 44,000 km/h (27,000 mph) wasn’t just a fleck of paint or tiny bolt.
Fermi was facing a possible direct hit by a 1,400 kg (3,100-pound) defunct Russian spy satellite dating back to the Cold War, named Cosmos 1805. If the two satellites met in orbit, the collision would release as much energy as two and a half tons of high explosives, destroying both spacecraft and creating more pieces of space junk in the process.

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The Sun Burps Out a Gigantic Rolling Wave

The Sun Burps Out a Gigantic Rolling Wave:

Just in time for May Day, the Sun blasted out a coronal mass ejection (CME) from just around the limb earlier today, May 1, 2013. In a gigantic rolling wave, this CME shot out about a billion tons of particles into space, traveling at over a million miles per hour. This CME is not headed toward Earth. The video, taken in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), covers about two and a half hours of elapsed time.

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PHOTO : Will Antimatter Obey Gravity’s Pull ?

Will Antimatter Obey Gravity’s Pull?:
What matter and antimatter might look like annihilating one another. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
Will Antimatter Obey Gravity’s Pull?
What matter and antimatter might look like annihilating one another. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
What goes up must always come down, right? Well, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) wants to test if that principle applies to antimatter.

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© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Anarchic Star Formation Found In Dust Cloud

Anarchic Star Formation Found In Dust Cloud:
The Danish 1.54-metre telescope located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud.  Credit: ESO
The Danish 1.54-metre telescope located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud. Credit: ESO
If you think that breaking all the rules is cool, then you’ll appreciate one of the latest observations submitted by the Danish 1.54 meter telescope housed at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. In this thought-provoking image, you’ll see what kind of mayhem occurs when stars are forged within an interstellar nebula. (...)
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What If the Earth Had No Moon?

Into Oblivion: What If the Earth Had No Moon?:
A shattered Luna as depicted in the summer blockbuster Oblivion. (Credit: Universal Pictures).
A shattered Luna as depicted in the summer blockbuster Oblivion. (Credit: Universal Pictures).
AVAST gentle reader: mild SPOILER(S) and graphic depictions of shattered satellites ahead!
We recently had a chance to catch Oblivion, the first summer blockbuster of the season. The flick delivers on the fast-paced Sci-Fi action as Tom Cruise saves the planet from an invasion of Tom Cruise clones.
But the movie does pose an interesting astronomical question: what if the Earth had no large moon? In the movie, aliens destroy the Earth’s moon, presumably to throw our planet into chaos. You’d think we’d already be outclassed by the very definition of a species that could accomplish such a feat, but there you go.
Would the elimination of the Moon throw our planet into immediate chaos as depicted in the film? What if we never had a large moon in the first place? And what has our nearest natural neighbor in space done for us lately, anyway?

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© David Dickinson for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Across The Universe : A New View of Comet ISON

A New View of Comet ISON:
View of Comet ISON on May 2, 2013. Credit: Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes, Remanzacco Observatory.
View of Comet ISON on May 2, 2013. Credit: Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes, Remanzacco Observatory.
Update: Here’s a brand new image of Comet C/2012 S1 ISON, as seen on May 2, 2013 by Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes of the Remanzacco Observatory (their image from May 1, which we featured earlier, is below.) For this latest image, they used the 2-meter Ritchey-Chretien Liverpool Telescope. Via Facebook, Howes said they have been able to identify the same tail structure which was seen in the Hubble Space Telescope images of this comet from April 10.
From the May 1 observations, their initial approximation of the tail length is around 28 arcseconds, which Howes told Universe Today is bigger than some recent reports from smaller scopes.
Below is their image from May 1, using the 2 meter La Palma Telescope:

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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Stunning Views of Venus, All the Way from Saturn

Stunning Views of Venus, All the Way from Saturn:
Venus appears just off the edge of the dark disc of Saturn, in the upper part of the image, directly above the white streak of Saturn's G ring. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Stunning Views of Venus, All the Way from Saturn
Venus appears just off the edge of the dark disc of Saturn, in the upper part of the image, directly above the white streak of Saturn’s G ring. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Two amazing images from the Cassini spacecraft today: We know how brightly Venus shines in our own night sky; now here’s visual proof it shines brightly even in the skies above Saturn. In one image it shines so brightly that it is even visible looking through Saturn’s rings! But in this absolutely stunning shot, above, Venus appears as a morning star, just off the edge of the planet. From Cassini, you’re looking directly above the edge of Saturn’s G ring to see the white dot, which is Venus. Lower down, Saturn’s E ring makes an appearance, looking blue thanks to the scattering properties of the dust that comprises the ring. (A bright spot near the E ring is a distant star, the Cassini CICLOPS team says.)
This beautiful image was taken on January 4, 2013.
On average, Venus and Saturn are about 1,321,200,000 km (820,955,619 mi or 8.83 astronomical units) apart, so that’s a nice, long distance shot! Venus is brighter in Saturn’s skies than Earth is, however, because Venus is covered in thick sulfuric acid clouds, making it very bright.
And here’s the other great shot, showing Saturn and its rings in true color:

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Astrophoto: Incredible View of the Milky Way from New Zealand

Astrophoto: Incredible View of the Milky Way from New Zealand:
The Milky Way over New Zealand. Credit: Zhang Hong.
Astrophoto: Incredible View of the Milky Way from New Zealand
The Milky Way over New Zealand. Credit: Zhang Hong.
There are some moments in an astrophotographer’s life that you just have to step back and say thanks for the view. “Thanks clear sky,” said Zhang Hong when he posted this image on Google+.
This almost looks like a shower of stars raining down. Just gorgeous.
Here are the specs on his equipment: Nikon D800, Aperture: f/2.8, Focal length: 14.mm, exposure time:25.9 seconds, ISO-4000, -0.7 exposure compensation, spot metering, no flash, equatorial mount.

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Image Gallery: Astronauts Capture a Dragon

Image Gallery: Astronauts Capture a Dragon:
The SpaceX Dragon capsule is snared by the International Space Station's Canadarm 2. Credit: NASA
Image Gallery: Astronauts Capture a Dragon
The SpaceX Dragon capsule is snared by the International Space Station’s Canadarm 2. Credit: NASA
Sunday was a big day in space, and astronaut Chris Hadfield captured the excitement in photos, and shared them via Twitter. “What a day!” Hadfield tweeted. “Reached & grabbed a Dragon, berthed her to Station & opened the hatch to find fresh fruit, notes from friends, and peanut butter.”
SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft overcame a problem with its thrusters after reaching orbit on Friday, and on Sunday Dragon successfully approached the Station, where it was captured by Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and crewmate Tom Marshburn using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. Dragon was grappled at 5:31 a.m. EST, and was berthed to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module at approximately 8:56 a.m. EST on March 3.
See more photos below. The image captions are Hadfield’s Tweets.
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NASA Finds a Space Invader

NASA Finds a Space Invader:
The image of a spiral galaxy has been stretched and mirrored by gravitational lensing into a shape similar to that of a simulated alien from the classic 1970s computer game Space Invaders Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage/ESA-Hubble Collaboration
NASA Finds a Space Invader
The image of a spiral galaxy has been stretched and mirrored by gravitational lensing into a shape similar to that of a simulated alien from the classic 1970s computer game Space Invaders Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage/ESA-Hubble Collaboration
Pew pew! NASA has found a Space Invader, but they won’t be activating any laser cannons to shoot it down. If you remember the classic 1970s computer game “Space Invaders,” you’ll quickly see the resemblance of the game’s pixelated alien to this actual image from the Hubble Space Telescope. This strange-looking object is really a mirage created by the gravitational field of a foreground cluster of galaxies warping space and distorting the background images of more distant galaxies.

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A Completely Fake UFO Video

A Completely Fake UFO Video:

We’ve yet to see an authentic and convincing UFO video, and this one takes the cake. It is completely fake. Not one thing in it is real. Seriously. If you haven’t yet seen or heard about the “UFO Over Santa Clarita” video (above), it appears to be footage taken from a handheld camera, shakily taking shots from within a moving car. Then a spaceship darts across the sky, and the gasping filmmaker stops the car, only see a huge hovering mothership grab the first ship and disappear.
The filmmaker, Aristomenis “Meni” Tsirbas, revealed to Wired that, as many suspected, the video was fake. But impressively, absolutely everything in the film, from the car’s interior to the sky to the UFOs, is not real. It is all CGI (Computer Generated Imagery).
“The video is 100 percent CGI through and through,” Tsirbas told Wired. “The electric towers [seen alongside the road] are 3-D geometry and the sky is a 3-D dome that has a texture map on it that’s a combination of painting, volumetric clouds and photogrammetry.”
Tsirbas has now produced a new video showing the breakdown of the CGI, and it’s quite impressive:

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Comet PANSTARRS Crosses Paths With Zodiacal Light

Comet PANSTARRS Crosses Paths With Zodiacal Light:
The tapering wedge of the zodiacal light reaches from the western horizon on March 3, 2013 toward the bright Planet Jupiter at top. Credit: Bob King
Comet PANSTARRS Crosses Paths With Zodiacal Light
The tapering wedge of the zodiacal light reaches from the western horizon on March 3, 2013 toward the bright Planet Jupiter at top. The pink color is light pollution from Duluth, Minn. about 15 miles away.  Credit: Bob King
With the much-anticipated PANSTARRS comet emerging into the evening sky this week, we might keep our eyes open to another sight happening at nearly the same time. If you live where the sky to the west is very dark, look for the zodiacal light, a tapering cone of softly-luminous light slanting up from the western horizon toward the bright planet Jupiter near twilight’s end.

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Evidence for a Deep Ocean on Europa Might be Found on its Surface

Evidence for a Deep Ocean on Europa Might be Found on its Surface:
Astronomers hypothesize that chloride salts bubble up from the icy moon's global liquid ocean and reach the frozen surface where they are bombarded with sulfur from volcanoes on Jupiter's fourth largest moon, Io. This illustration of Europa (foreground), Jupiter (right) and Io (middle) is an artist's concept. Credit: Keck Observatory.
Evidence for a Deep Ocean on Europa Might be Found on its Surface
Astronomers hypothesize that chloride salts bubble up from the icy moon’s global liquid ocean and reach the frozen surface where they are bombarded with sulfur from volcanoes on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Io. This illustration of Europa (foreground), Jupiter (right) and Io (middle) is an artist’s concept. Credit: Keck Observatory.
Astronomer Mike Brown and his colleague Kevin Hand might be suffering from “Pump Handle Phobia,” as radio personality Garrison Keillor calls it, where those afflicted just can’t resist putting their tongues on something frozen to see if it will stick. But Brown and Hand are doing it all in the name of science, and they may have found the best evidence yet that Europa has a liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface. Better yet, that vast subsurface ocean may actually shoot up to Europa’s surface, on occasion.

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Black Holes, Fermi Bubbles and the Milky Way

Black Holes, Fermi Bubbles and the Milky Way:
milky way final 3c
Black Holes, Fermi Bubbles and the Milky Way
Deep at the heart of our galaxy lurks a black hole. This isn’t exciting news, but neither is it a very exciting place. Or is it? While all might be quiet on the western front now, there may be evidence that our galactic center was once home to some pretty impressive activity – activity which may have included multiple collision events and mergers of black holes as it gorged on a satellite galaxies. Thanks to new insights from a pair of assistant professors, Kelly Holley-Bockelmann at Vanderbilt and Tamara Bogdanovic at Georgia Institute of Technology, we have more evidence which points to the Milky Way’s incredibly active past. (...)
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Giant Ancient Impact Crater Confirmed in Iowa

Giant Ancient Impact Crater Confirmed in Iowa:
3-D perspective map of the Decorah impact feature looking northward. (Credit: USGS/Adam Kiel graphic/Northeast Iowa RC&D).
Giant Ancient Impact Crater Confirmed in Iowa
3-D perspective map of the Decorah impact feature looking northward. (Credit: USGS/Adam Kiel graphic/Northeast Iowa RC&D).
A monster lurks under northeastern Iowa. That monster is in the form of a giant buried basin, the result of a meteorite impact in central North America over 470 million years ago.

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Evil Empire Beware: Gas Giant Planets are Hard to Destroy

Evil Empire Beware: Gas Giant Planets are Hard to Destroy:
Jupiter and its four planet-size moons, called the Galilean satellites photographed and assembled into a collage by NASA.
Evil Empire Beware: Gas Giant Planets are Hard to Destroy
Jupiter and its four planet-size moons, called the Galilean satellites photographed and assembled into a collage by NASA.
Last year, physicists worked out the plausibility of a fully functional (if not fictional) Death Star being able to destroy planets, and found that the Galactic Empire’s technological terror could indeed destroy Earth-like rocky planets, but a Jupiter-sized gas planet would be a tough challenge.
Now, real but theoretical modeling confirms that gas giants like Jupiter would be really hard to destroy by any means, including by stars that undergo periodic outbursts. Actual stars, that is, not Death Stars.

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