Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Artist's illustration of a quasar similar to APM 08279+5255, where astronomers discovered huge amounts of water vapour. While this figure shows the quasar's torus approximately edge-on, the torus around APM 08279+5255 is likely positioned face-on from our point of view. Credit: NASA/ESA

Universe's Largest, Earliest Water Mass Found -- Cosmos

PASADENA: The largest and farthest reservoir of water in the known universe has been located. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a distant quasar more than 12 billion light-years away.

The quasar is one of the most powerful known objects in the universe and has an energy output of 1,000 trillion suns - about 65,000 times that of the Milky Way galaxy.

Read more ....

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Oxygen Spotted In Space

"Hidden" oxygen may be released from dust grains and ice in star-forming regions

Oxygen Finally Spotted In Space -- BBC

One of astronomy's longest-running "missing persons" investigations has concluded: astronomers have found molecular oxygen in space.

While single atoms of oxygen have been found alone or incorporated into other molecules, the oxygen molecule - the one we breathe - had never been seen.

The Herschel space telescope spotted the molecules in a star-forming region in the constellation of Orion.

Read more ....

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Breath-Taking Snaps Of Galaxy Seen With The Naked Eye

Stunning: Photographer Alex Cherney has dedicated his life's work to capturing the night sky as it is rarely seen by humans by using just an ordinary digital camera

The Milky Way So Close You Can Almost Taste It: Breath-Taking Snaps Of Galaxy Seen With The Naked Eye -- The Daily Mail

A star-gazer has come a little bit closer to the final frontier - after spending 18 months photographing the night sky.

With just an ordinary digital camera, Alex Cherney turned thousands of snaps into an incredible time-lapse video of the cosmos.

Using long exposures to allow more light in, these breath-taking pictures from the southern tip of Australia demonstrate how he captured the dramatic way the sky changes at night.

Read more ....

Monday, June 13, 2011

Astonishing Image Captures Night Sky

The image, taken in the remote town of Denial Bay, a fishing village on the edge of the Great Australian Bight, was taken using a special 'time lapse' process Photo: ANDREW BROOKS

Pictured: Astonishing Image Captures Night Sky In Dazzling Formation -- The Telegraph

Exclusive: Lit up in the night sky, this spectacular picture shows a galaxy of stars in a dazzling formation more akin to a large-scale spinning wheel.


The astonishing image, taken in the heart of the Australian outback, was used simply by taking advantage of the earth's rotation.

Andrew Brooks, an amateur photographer, took the image using his camera, a tripod, his neighbour's lounge room light and a little patience while letting gravity do the rest.

Read more ....

My Comment: This is why I love astronomy.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Astronomers Capture A Milky Way 'Clone'

The large spiral galaxy named NGC 6744 Photo: ESO/PA

Milky Way 'Clone' Captured By European Astronomers -- The Telegraph

A striking image of a giant Milky Way ''clone'' has been captured by astronomers.

The bird's eye view of NGC 6744 gives a good idea of what our own galaxy would look like to a passing space traveller.

The spiral galaxy is around 30 million light years away in the southern constellation of Pavo, the Peacock.

In the new image from European Southern Observatory astronomers it is seen almost face on, so that the striking spiral arms are clearly visible.

NGC 6744 would almost be an identical twin of the Milky Way were it not for its size.

Read more ....

Thursday, June 2, 2011

VLT (Very Large Telescope) HD Timelapse Footage



This Time Lapse Video of the Very Large Telescope At Work is the Coolest Thing You'll See Today -- Popular Science

There’s very little we can write to preface the imagery below, so we’ll just set the scene and get out of the way. The video below was captured by Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama Desert. And it might make you cry.

Read more ....

My Comment: This looks so cool.

Friday, May 27, 2011

A Closeup Of Black Hole Jets

Centaurus A Black Hole Jets This composite of visible, microwave (orange) and X-ray (blue) data reveals the jets and radio-emitting lobes emanating from Centaurus A's central black hole. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Galaxy Closeup Reveals Best-Ever Snapshot of Black Hole Jets -- Popular Science

A black hole with a mass of 55 million suns.

A gigantic black hole at the center of one of the Milky Way’s close neighbors is spewing jets of material into the cosmos, hurling gamma rays and radio waves into interstellar space. Now researchers in the U.S. and Germany peered at the galaxy with the closest-ever resolution, seeing galactic features up to 15 light-days across. That’s incredibly close for a galaxy 12 million miles away.

Read more ....

A New 'Distant Object' Candidate Is Discovered

Researchers have unveiled a gamma-ray burst detected by NASA's Swift satellite in April 2009 as the latest candidate for the most distant object in the universe. (Credit: Gemini Observatory / AURA / Levan, Tanvir, Cucchiara)

Cosmic Explosion Is New Candidate For Most Distant Object In The Universe -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — A gamma-ray burst detected by NASA's Swift satellite in April 2009 has been newly unveiled as a candidate for the most distant object in the universe. At an estimated distance of 13.14 billion light years, the burst lies far beyond any known quasar and could be more distant than any previously known galaxy or gamma-ray burst. Multiple lines of evidence in favor of a record-breaking distance for this burst, known as GRB 090429B for the 29 April 2009 date when it was discovered, are presented in a paper by an international team of astronomers led by former Penn State University graduate student Antonino Cucchiara, now at the University of California, Berkeley.

Read more ....

Friday, October 8, 2010

'Living Dinosaurs' in Space: Galaxies in Today's Universe Thought to Have Existed Only In Distant Past

A simulation of a star forming galaxy similar to those observed. Cold gas (red) flowing onto a spiral galaxy feeds star formation. (Credit: Rob Crain, James Geach, the Virgo Consortium, Andy Green & Swinburne Astronomy Productions)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2010) — Using Australian telescopes, Swinburne University astronomy student Andy Green has found 'living dinosaurs' in space: galaxies in today's Universe that were thought to have existed only in the distant past.

The report of his finding -- Green's first scientific paper -- appears on the cover of the Oct. 7 issue of Nature.

Read more ....

Monday, October 4, 2010

The Awesome Power Of Galaxy Cluster Mergers



From Discovery News:

The scales are mind-boggling and the physics is cutting edge, so how do you go about simulating the collision of two galactic clusters? Using some of the most powerful computers in the world, researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, the Flash Center at the University of Chicago and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have done just that.

Read more ....

Monday, September 20, 2010

What's Eating The Stars Out Of Our Galaxy's Heart?

From The New Scientist:

The centre of the Milky Way is darker than you'd expect – and not just because it's home to a supermassive black hole

A LITTLE over 25,000 light years away lies the most mysterious place in the nearby universe. Jam-packed with colliding stars and cloaked in dust, it is the centre of our galaxy. At its very heart, we suspect, lurks a monstrous black hole more than 4 million times as massive as the sun. Known as Sagittarius A*, it is thought to rip stars apart, orchestrating stellar mayhem as it warps the very fabric of space and time.

Read more ....

Friday, September 10, 2010

Stunning Photos of Space Capture Top Honors

This image of a bristlecone pine tree under the Milky Way took the top prize in the second annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, run by the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, England. Hosted with Sky at Night magazine, the contest received more than 400 entries from about 25 countries. The winner, "Blazing Bristlecone," was shot by Tom Lowe in California's White Mountains. (© Tom Lowe)

CSN Editor: For more pictures, go here.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The ESO Turns Its Massive Laser Beam On The Heavens (For Science)

The VLT's Yepun Instrument Lights Up the Sky ESO/Y. Beletsky

From Popular Science:

We are not at war with an alien race from the center of the Milky Way, but if we were, this is exactly what we would want it to look like. Snapped at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory -- home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array -- the photo depicts the VLT's Laser Guide Star facility in action.

Read more ....

Friday, September 3, 2010

Hubble Observations of Supernova Reveal Composition Of 'Star Guts' Pouring Out

A team of astronomers led by the University of Colorado at Boulder is charting the interactions between Supernova 1987A and a glowing gas ring encircling the supernova remnant known as the "String of Pearls." (Credit: NASA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2010) — Observations made with NASA's newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope of a nearby supernova are allowing astronomers to measure the velocity and composition of "star guts" being ejected into space following the explosion, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Read more ....

Black Holes Formed Soon After Big Bang

Supermassive black holes are found at the centre of galaxies - including our galaxy, the Milky Way. Credit: NASA

From Cosmos/AFP:

PARIS: The first supermassive black holes formed just a billion years after the Big Bang, showing that big structures build up quickly in the universe, scientists said.

Ordinary black holes are entities of mass whose gravitational pull is so huge that not even light can escape them. But they are dwarfs compared to so-called supermassive black holes, which are many orders of magnitude bigger.

Read more ....

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Richest Planetary System Discovered

A close-up of the sky around the star HD 10180. Credit: ESO and Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin

From Cosmos:


PARIS: A distant star orbited by at least five planets has been found, according to European astronomers, in the biggest discovery of so-called exoplanets since the first was logged 15 years ago.

The star is similar to our Sun and its planetary lineup has an intriguing parallel with own Solar System, although no clue has so far been found to suggest it could be a home from home, they said.

The star they studied, HD 10180, is located 127 light years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus, the male water snake, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said.

Read more
....

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Massive Mega-Star Challenges Black Hole Theories

This artist's impression shows the magnetar in the very rich and young star cluster Westerlund 1. This remarkable cluster contains hundreds of very massive stars, some shining with a brilliance of almost one million suns. Credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

From Live Science:

Astronomers have discovered a massive star that once dwarfed our sun and is now challenging theories of how stars evolve, die and form black holes.

The star is a peculiar cosmic object known as a magnetar. Magnetars are extremely dense, super-magnetic stars that can form from supernova explosions. [Photo of the massive star. ]

Read more ....

My Comment: That is one hell of a big (and heavy) star.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Chile Wins The Extremely Large Telescope

Artist's impression of the Mily Way rising over the ELT in Chile. Credit: ESO

From Cosmos/AFP:

BERLIN: Chile won the right to host the largest-ever telescope, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has announced, and it is due to begin operation in 2018.

The other main contender site for the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) was the Spanish isle of La Palma in the Canary Islands off western Africa.

The ESO, an intergovernmental astronomical research agency, already has three facilities operating in the Atacama Desert, including the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the town of Paranal, which is currently considered the foremost European-operated observatory.

Read more ....

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Picking Planets From Potatoes

In space, objects tend to conform to one of five shapes: (clockwise from left) spheres, dust, potatoes, halos and disks. Credit: Lineweaver, Norman and Chopra

From Astrobiology Magazine:

When Pluto was discovered in 1930, it was considered to be the ninth planet of our solar system. Since that time, astronomers have discovered similar icy objects in that far-distant orbital region of the Sun known as the Kuiper belt. Many astronomers questioned whether Pluto should be grouped with worlds like Earth and Jupiter, and in 2006 this debate led the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the recognized authority in naming heavenly objects, to formally re-classify Pluto as a dwarf planet.

Read more ....

The Stars: May

Source: Hencoup Enterprises

From The Independent:

Since the Greek astronomer Ptolemy observed Polaris (the Pole Star) 2000 years ago, it has brightened more than two-and-a-half times.

This is 100 times more than theory would predict, and astronomers are baffled as to why. And William Shakespeare, it turns out, had it all wrong with Julius Caesar
declaiming: "I am as constant as the northern star". Now we know the star is far from constant.

Read more ....