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There is nothing good in war
NASA locates most distant galaxy ever discovered
The most distant galaxy ever seen in the universe has been detected by NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
11:58AM GMT 16 Nov 2012
Light from the newly discovered galaxy, which astronomers have named MACS0647-JD, reached Earth after travelling across space for 13.3 billion years.
It provides a window on what the galaxy looked like just 420 million years after the big bang, when the universe was only three per cent of its current age.
The galaxy was detected using an effect known as gravitational lensing, where large clusters of galaxies are used as “natural zoom lenses” to enlarge the appearance of galaxies behind them.
Astronomers were able to detect a hint of light from MACS0647-JD because it was magnified as it passed around an enormous galaxy cluster known as MACS J0647+7015 as it travelled towards Earth.
Thanks to the gravitational force of the cluster, the Hubble telescope was able to detect the light at up to eight times the brightness it otherwise would.
Hints of life in the deepest scientific marine samples ever collected
- By Jeffrey MarlowEmail Author
- November 16, 2012 |
- 9:12 am
Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert recently returned from the Research Vessel Chikyu off the coast of Japan’s Shimokita Peninsula, where she served as a member of the microbiology team aboard a (literally) groundbreaking leg of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. The expedition resulted in a new world record for deepest scientific marine drilling to 2,440 meters beneath the seafloor. But were there signs of life so far down? Here, Trembath-Reichert offers some answers … or at least what pass for answers for a suitably cautious scientist….
Nowhere is safe!
Refuse to go to war
Gravitational lens magnifies earliest galaxy yet seen
by John Timmer – Nov 17 2012, 8:45pm GTBST
Small galaxy was producing stars only 425 million years after the Big Bang.
The Universe’s first galaxies played a key role in shaping the environment in which we now find ourselves. They fostered the formation of the first stars, which died in spectacular explosions that enabled a new generation of smaller stars, orbited by rockier planets. And the galaxies themselves merged and grew, forming the large galaxies and clusters that populate the Universe today. But, despite their critical role in shaping the Universe, we’ve never actually been able to see one of them.
Slowly, that’s changing. The Hubble Deep Field exposures have helped us spot galaxies from the Universe’s early days. But now, a special Hubble project has used an intervening cluster of galaxies as a lens to spot what appears to be the most distant galaxy ever imaged, one that dates from just 425 million years after the Big Bang.
Since it takes light time to reach us from distant corners of the Universe, the further you look, the older the objects you see. The wavelength of the light also gets shifted towards the red by the expansion of the Universe, which stretches it out as it travels. As you get closer to the Big Bang, light that started out in the UV end of the spectrum gets pushed deeper and deeper into the infrared. To make these galaxies even harder to spot, the extreme distance means that very few photons actually make their way to Earth, so these objects are incredibly dim.
Read more: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/11/gravitational-lens-magnifies-earliest-galaxy-yet-seen/
A generation of idiots
NASA’s Cassini Sees Burp at Saturn After Large Storm
These red, orange and green clouds (false color) in Saturn’s northern hemisphere indicate the tail end of a massive storm that started in December 2010. Even after visible signs of the storm started to fade, infrared measurements continued to reveal powerful effects at work in Saturn’s stratosphere. Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
› Full image and caption
October 25, 2012
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has tracked the aftermath of a rare massive storm on Saturn. Data reveal record-setting disturbances in the planet’s upper atmosphere long after the visible signs of the storm abated, in addition to an indication the storm was more forceful than scientists previously thought.
Data from Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) instrument revealed the storm’s powerful discharge sent the temperature in Saturn’s stratosphere soaring 150 degrees Fahrenheit (83 kelvins) above normal. At the same time, researchers at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., detected a huge increase in the amount of ethylene gas, the origin of which is a mystery. Ethylene, an odorless, colorless gas, isn’t typically observed on Saturn. On Earth, it is created by natural and man-made sources.
Goddard scientists describe the unprecedented belch of energy in a paper to be published in the Nov. 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
“This temperature spike is so extreme it’s almost unbelievable, especially in this part of Saturn’s atmosphere, which typically is very stable,” said Brigette Hesman, the study’s lead author and a University of Maryland scientist who works at Goddard. “To get a temperature change of the same scale on Earth, you’d be going from the depths of winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, to the height of summer in the Mojave Desert.”
Read more: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-335&rn=news.xml&rst=3564
The illusion of freedom
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