Archive
WISE Captures a Nebula on Fire
Sunday July 8, 2012
The Flame Nebula sits on the eastern hip of Orion the Hunter, a constellation most easily visible in the northern hemisphere during winter evenings. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
(Phys.org) — A new image from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows the candle-like Flame nebula lighting up a cavern of dust. The Flame nebula is part of the Orion complex, a turbulent star-forming area located near the constellation’s star-studded belt.
The image is being released today along with a new batch of data from the mission. Last March, WISE released its all-sky catalog and atlas containing infrared images and data on more than a half billion objects, including everything from asteroids to stars and galaxies. Now, the mission is offering up additional data from its second scan of the sky.
“If you’re an astronomer, then you’ll probably be in hog heaven when it comes toinfrared data,” said Edward (Ned) Wright of UCLA, the principal investigator of the WISE mission. “Data from the second sky scan are useful for studying stars that vary or move over time, and for improving and checking data from the first scan.”
Read more: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-flame-bright-wise-image.html
New Instrument Sifts Through Starlight to Reveal New Worlds
ScienceDaily (July 5, 2012) — An advanced telescope imaging system that started taking data last month is the first of its kind capable of spotting planets orbiting suns outside of our solar system. The collaborative set of high-tech instrumentation and software, called Project 1640, is now operating on the Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California after more than six years of development by researchers and engineers at the American Museum of Natural History, the California Institute of Technology, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The project’s first images demonstrating a new technique that creates extremely precise “dark holes” around stars of interest were presented July 5 at the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation meeting in Amsterdam by Ben R. Oppenheimer, a curator in the Museum’s Department of Astrophysics and principal investigator for Project 1640.
Although hundreds of planets are known from indirect detection methods to orbit other stars, it’s extremely difficult to see them directly in an image. This is largely because the light that stars emit is tens of millions to billions of times brighter than the light given off by planets.
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120705161252.htm
In a Cosmology Breakthrough, Astronomers Measure a Filament of Dark Matter
By Rebecca Boyle 07.05.2012
Invisible, cold dark matter plays a major role in the evolution of galaxies, according to modern cosmological theory. The most advanced simulations of cosmic evolution show stringy tendrils of mass — dark matter — connecting giant clusters of galaxies via a vast cosmic web. Now for the first time, astronomers have been able to detect one of these filaments, sussing out its location by watching it warp light.
Your own solar observatory
July 2, 2012
You can watch or control the scopes for yourselves live here:
http://observatory.godlikeproductions.com/ (you can watch as a guest, but you are required to login for queueing in the control line)
Learn how to use it here:
http://video.godlikeproductions.com/video/HOW_TO_VIDEO_FOR_OBSERVATORY?id=1162905b337b781e514
==> Please note that believenothing.net is not affiliated in any way with the above mentioned website and this is not some kind of advertising.
I just think that it is something worth mentioning and a good alternative to the official channels.
Meteor plunges into ocean lighting up Perth sky
METEORIC SNAP: A photo of the meteor over Cottesloe taken by PerthNow reader Gavin Trought just before sunset. Source: PerthNow
AMAZING VIEWS: This picture was posted to Twitter by Pip Moir. She wrote ” Very bizarre. View from cott. Looks like fire. What is that?!?” Source: PerthNowTHIS fiery streak in the sky amazed Perth beachgoers at sunset as a suspected meteor plunged into the ocean off the WA coast.
PerthNow reader Gavin Trought snapped the ‘fire in the sky’ as it appeared over Cottesloe just before sunset on Friday, with remnants of the phenomenon still visible in the sky this afternoon.
“The weird streak in the sky as seen from Cottesloe last night. I noticed it just before sunset,” he told us.
Perth journalist Pip Moir also posted the photo she took at Cottesloe Beach to Twitter shortly after 6pm as puzzled onlookers debated what caused the colourful phenomena.
Evidence of Life On Mars Could Come from Martian Moon Phobos
ScienceDaily (June 29, 2012) — A mission to a Martian moon could return with alien life, according to experts at Purdue University, but don’t expect the invasion scenario presented by summer blockbusters like “Men in Black 3” or “Prometheus.”
“We are talking little green microbes, not little green men,” said Jay Melosh, a distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences and physics and aerospace engineering at Purdue. “A sample from the moon Phobos, which is much easier to reach than the Red Planet itself, would almost surely contain Martian material blasted off from large asteroid impacts. If life on Mars exists or existed within the last 10 million years, a mission to Phobos could yield our first evidence of life beyond Earth.”
Read more : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120629015408.htm
Gravitational Lensing: Astronomers Spot Rare Arc from Hefty Galaxy Cluster
ScienceDaily (June 26, 2012) — Seeing is believing, except when you don’t believe what you see. Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found a puzzling arc of light behind an extremely massive cluster of galaxies residing 10 billion light-years away. The galactic grouping, discovered by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, was observed as it existed when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age of 13.7 billion years. The giant arc is the stretched shape of a more distant galaxy whose light is distorted by the monster cluster’s powerful gravity, an effect called gravitational lensing. The trouble is, the arc shouldn’t exist.
“When I first saw it, I kept staring at it, thinking it would go away,” said study leader Anthony Gonzalez of the University of Florida in Gainesville, whose team includes researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “According to a statistical analysis, arcs should be extremely rare at that distance. At that early epoch, the expectation is that there are not enough galaxies behind the cluster bright enough to be seen, even if they were ‘lensed,’ or distorted by the cluster. The other problem is that galaxy clusters become less massive the further back in time you go. So it’s more difficult to find a cluster with enough mass to be a good lens for gravitationally bending the light from a distant galaxy.”
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120626131234.htm
Proximity of New Planets Stuns Even Astronomers
“We’ve never known of planets like this,” said Yale University astronomer Sarbani Basu, a member of the research team that analyzed the system. “If you were on the smaller planet looking up, the larger planet would seem more than twice the size of Earth’s full moon. It would be jaw-dropping.”
Basu’s research focused on determining the properties of the planets’ host star — work that was essential for discerning the characteristics of the orbiting planets.
The 46-member, international team, led by astronomers at Harvard and the University of Washington, report their discovery June 21 in Science Express, the early release version of the journal Science.
Read mode : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120621152307.htm
Researchers Estimate Ice Content of Crater at Moon’s South Pole
ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned data that indicate ice may make up as much as 22 percent of the surface material in a crater located on the moon’s south pole.
The team of NASA and university scientists using laser light from LRO’s laser altimeter examined the floor of Shackleton crater. They found the crater’s floor is brighter than those of other nearby craters, which is consistent with the presence of small amounts of ice. This information will help researchers understand crater formation and study other uncharted areas of the moon. The findings are published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.
“The brightness measurements have been puzzling us since two summers ago,” said Gregory Neumann of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., a co-author on the paper. “While the distribution of brightness was not exactly what we had expected, practically every measurement related to ice and other volatile compounds on the moon is surprising, given the cosmically cold temperatures inside its polar craters.”
Read more : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620141159.htm
ESPL: Dances of the Planets
June 19, 2012
The planets in the heavens move in exquisite orbital patterns, dancing to the Music of the Cosmos. There is more mathematical and geometric harmony than we realize. The idea for this article is from a book Larry Pesavento shared with me. The book, ‘A Little Book of Coincidence‘ by John Martineau, illustrates the orbital patterns and several of their geometrical relationships. .
Take the orbits of any two planets and draw a line between the two planet positions every few days. Because the inner planet orbits faster than the outer planet, interesting patterns evolve. Each planetary pairing has its own unique dance rhythm. For example, the Earth-Venus dance returns to the original starting position after eight Earth years. Eight Earth years equals thirteen Venus years. Note that 8 and 13 are members of the Fibonacci number series.
- Earth: 8 years * 365.256 days/year = 2,922.05 days
- Venus: 13 years * 224.701 days/year = 2,921.11 days (ie. 99.9%)
Watching the Earth-Venus dance for eight years creates this beautiful five-petal flower with the Sun at the center. (5 is another Fibonacci number.)
Another intriguing fact is the ratio between the Earth’s outer orbit and Venus’s inner orbit is given by a square.
In the following dance patterns, the planet pairing is given and the number of orbits of the outer planet. Enjoy these beautiful patterns.
Let me share with you other facts about cosmic harmony. The radius of the Moon compared to the Earth is three to eleven, ie. 3:11.
- Radius of Moon = 1,080 miles = 3 x 360
- Radius of Earth = 3,960 miles = 11 x 360 = 33 x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5
- Radius of Earth plus Radius of Moon = 5,040 miles = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 = 7 x 8 x 9 x 10
The ratio 3:11 is 27.3 percent, and the orbit of the Moon takes 27.3 days. 27.3 days is also the average rotation period of a sunspot. The closest : farthest distance ratio that Venus and Mars each experiences in the Mars-Venus dance is incredibly 3:11. The Earth orbits between them.
The sizes of the Moon and the Earth ‘Square the Circle’ as shown in this illustration, which is drawn to scale. The perimeters of the dotted square and the dotted circle are the same length.
The perimeter of the dotted red square is 4 x Earth’s diameter = 4 x 7,920 miles = 31,680 miles.
The circumference of the dotted blue circle is 2 pi x radius = 2 x 3.142 x 5040 miles = 31,667 miles. (ie. 99.9%)
Article by Howard Arrington
Believe nothing 