Archive
1st Photos from New Discovery Channel Telescope Unveiled
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One of the first images captured by the Discovery Channel Telescope in Arizona shows the barred spiral galaxy M109. The privately funded observatory took its first photos in May 2012.
CREDIT: Lowell Observatory
The Discovery Channel Telescope is an observatory with a 14-foot (4.3-meter) mirror built near Happy Jack, Ariz., by the Lowell Observatory and Discovery Communications, the parent company of television’s Discovery Channel. The telescope’s opening was marked with a gala on Saturday (July 21) at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff and featured a keynote speech from Neil Armstrong, the first person ever on the moon.
“The First Light Gala is a historic event in the annals of Lowell Observatory,” Jeffrey Hall, director of Lowell Observatory, said in a statement. “It marks completion of our spectacular new research facility, initiation of superb projects that will bring our research to millions through our partnership with Discovery Communications. We are honored to be part of it and grateful to all who have helped make it a reality.”
Read more: http://www.space.com/16706-discovery-channel-telescope-first-photos.html
Gliese 581g – The most habitable exoplanet
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This artist’s conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star. The large planet in the foreground is Gliese 581g, which is in the middle of the star’s habitable zone and is only two to three times as massive as Earth. Some researchers aren’t convinced Gliese 581g exists, however.
CREDIT: Lynette Cook
The controversial exoplanet Gliese 581g is the best candidate to host life beyond our own solar system, according to a new ranking of potentially habitable alien worlds.
Gliese 581g shot to the top of the list — which was published Thursday (July 19) by researchers at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo’s Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL) — after a new study marshaled support for its long-debated existence.
The exoplanet was discovered in September 2010, but other astronomers began casting doubt on its existence just weeks later. Now Gliese 581g’s discoverers have rebutted their critics’ charges in a new paper, and have done so effectively enough to get the PHL onboard.
Read more: http://www.space.com/16722-top-5-habitable-alien-planets.html
Solar Corona Revealed in Super-High-Definition
ScienceDaily (July 20, 2012) — Astronomers have just released the highest-resolution images ever taken of the Sun’s corona, or million-degree outer atmosphere, in an extreme-ultraviolet wavelength of light. The 16-megapixel images were captured by NASA’s High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, which was launched on a sounding rocket on July 11th. The Hi-C telescope provides five times more detail than the next-best observations by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
These photos of the solar corona, or million-degree outer atmosphere, show the improvement in resolution offered by NASA’s High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C (bottom), versus the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (top). Both images show a portion of the sun’s surface roughly 85,000 by 50,000 miles in size. Hi-C launched on a sounding rocket on July 11, 2012 in a flight that lasted about 10 minutes. The representative-color images were made from observations of ultraviolet light at a wavelength of 19.3 nanometers (25 times shorter than the wavelength of visible light). (Credit: NASA)
“Even though this mission was only a few minutes long, it marks a big breakthrough in coronal studies,” said Smithsonian astronomer Leon Golub (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), one of the lead investigators on the mission.
Understanding the Sun’s activity and its effects on Earth’s environment was the critical scientific objective of Hi-C, which provided unprecedented views of the dynamic activity and structure in the solar atmosphere.
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120720195519.htm
Geoengineers Will Release Tons of Sun-Reflecting Chemicals Into the Air Above New Mexico
By Colin Lecher Posted 07.18.2012
Even if they can be a major disaster for people nearby them, volcanoes do one good thing: helping to cool the planet by sending sun-reflecting chemicals into the stratosphere. Now two Harvard engineers are trying to replicate the better part of the volcanic process on a small scale by spraying thousands of tons of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere above New Mexico.
Russian Research Project Offers ‘Immortality’ to Billionaires – by Transplanting Their Brains Into Robot Bodies
Thursday, 19 July 2012
So what would be the difference? I don’t understand
‘A Russian entrepreneur who heads a hi-tech research project called ‘Avatar’ has contacted billionaires to offer them immortality. Itskov claims he will personally oversee their immortality process, in exchange for an undisclosed fee.’
Hubble sees the needle galaxy, edge-on and up close
Image credit: ESA/NASA
This image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals an exquisitely detailed view of part of the disc of the spiral galaxy NGC 4565. This bright galaxy is one of the most famous examples of an edge-on spiral galaxy, oriented perpendicularly to our line of sight so that we see right into its luminous disc. NGC 4565 has been nicknamed the Needle Galaxy because, when seen in full, it appears as a very narrow streak of light on the sky.
The edgewise view into the Needle Galaxy shown here looks very similar to the view we have from our Solar System into the core of the Milky Way. In both cases ribbons of dust block some of the light coming from the galactic disc. To the lower right, the dust stands in even starker contrast against the copious yellow light from the star-filled central regions. NGC 4565’s core is off camera to the lower right.
Read more : http://phys.org/news/2012-07-hubble-needle-galaxy-edge-on.html
Early Human Ancestor, Australopithecus Sediba, Fossils Discovered in Rock
July 13, 2012
ScienceDaily — Scientists from the Wits Institute for Human Evolution based at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg have just announced the discovery of a large rock containing significant parts of a skeleton of an early human ancestor. The skeleton is believed to be the remains of ‘Karabo’, the type skeleton of Australopithecus sediba, discovered at the Malapa Site in the Cradle of Humankind in 2009.
Professor Lee Berger, a Reader in Palaeoanthropology and the Public Understanding of Science at the Wits Institute for Human Evolution, will make the announcement at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in Shanghai, China on 13 July 2012.
“We have discovered parts of a jaw and critical aspects of the body including what appear to be a complete femur (thigh bone), ribs, vertebrae and other important limb elements, some never before seen in such completeness in the human fossil record,” says Berger. “This discovery will almost certainly make Karabo the most complete early human ancestor skeleton ever discovered. We are obviously quite excited as it appears that we now have some of the most critical and complete remains of the skeleton, albeit encased in solid rock. It’s a big day for us as a team and for our field as a whole.”
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120712162744.htm
Astronomers in Chile spot evidence of dark galaxies
AAP July 12, 2012
A photo released on July 9, 2012, of the Cats Paw Nebula revisited in a combination of exposures from the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope in Chile with 60 hours of exposures on a 0.4-metre telescope taken by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Ryan M. Hannaho. Source: AFP
ASTRONOMERS in Chile using a powerful telescope have observed what appears to be evidence of the existence of dark galaxies, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) says.
Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies from the early universe that are believed to be the building blocks of today’s bright, star-filled galaxies, said the ESO, an intergovernmental organisation supported by 15 countries.
“For the first time, dark galaxies – an early phase of galaxy formation, predicted by theory but unobserved until now – may have been spotted,” the observatory said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, an international team thinks they have detected these elusive objects by observing them glowing as they are illuminated by a quasar,” the statement said.
Arctic Biologist Shares Astonishing Sea Creatures With the World
- By Pete Brook July 11, 2012 |
There is no road to the White Sea Biological Station, which sits at latitude 66° N on the cusp of the Arctic Circle. Located on the shores of its namesake, the White Sea, the only way to get there is by boat in summer and snowmobile in winter since the waters of Kandalaksha Bay are frozen six months out of the year.
Inside the station is an unlikely photo studio where Alexander Semenov, 25, is sharing his stunning photographs of arctic sea creatures with the global online community.
“I’m trying to act like the Discovery channel, but as a single unit,” says Semenov.
Read more: http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/07/arctic-sea-creatures/?pid=2706
Giving Ancient Life Another Chance to Evolve: Scientists Place 500-Million-Year-Old Gene in Modern Organism
July 12, 2012
“This is as close as we can get to rewinding and replaying the molecular tape of life,” said scientist Betül Kaçar, a NASA astrobiology postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s NASA Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution. “The ability to observe an ancient gene in a modern organism as it evolves within a modern cell allows us to see whether the evolutionary trajectory once taken will repeat itself or whether a life will adapt following a different path.”
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711100726.htm
Believe nothing 