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Post by casper on Sept 10, 2011 19:47:12 GMT -6
I hope that falling satellite lands right in front of me so I can pick it up and take it home with me. That would be cool! Skywalker, only you would want to try to catch a falling satelite. Maybe it will hit you on the head and knock some sense into you. You will probably get squashed.
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Post by auntym on Sept 15, 2011 18:39:24 GMT -6
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-16b.html NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers a World Orbiting Two Stars[/color] 09.15.11 The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth. Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it. "This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life," Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now." A research team led by Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., used data from the Kepler space telescope, which measures dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting planets. Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the "habitable zone," the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the surface of the orbiting planet. Scientists detected the new planet in the Kepler-16 system, a pair of orbiting stars that eclipse each other from our vantage point on Earth. When the smaller star partially blocks the larger star, a primary eclipse occurs, and a secondary eclipse occurs when the smaller star is occulted, or completely blocked, by the larger star. Astronomers further observed that the brightness of the system dipped even when the stars were not eclipsing one another, hinting at a third body. The additional dimming in brightness events, called the tertiary and quaternary eclipses, reappeared at irregular intervals of time, indicating the stars were in different positions in their orbit each time the third body passed. This showed the third body was circling, not just one, but both stars, in a wide circumbinary orbit. CONTINUE READING: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-16b.html
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Post by auntym on Sept 26, 2011 12:56:53 GMT -6
www.stumbleupon.com/su/1KbasN/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/image-of-the-day-galaxy-m82-home-of-a-mystery-signal-unlike-anyting-in-the-known-universe.html
Galaxy M82 -Home of a Mystery Signal Unlike Anything in the Known Universe[/color] M82, a starburst galaxy was previously believed to be an irregular galaxy. However, in 2005, two symmetric spiral arms were discovered in the near-infrared (NIR) images of M82. The arms were detected by subtracting an axisymmetric exponential disk from the NIR images. In April 2010, radio astronomers working at the Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester reported an unknown object in M82. The object has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before. There have been several theories about the nature of this unknown object, but currently no theory entirely fits the observed data. It has been suggested that the object could be a "micro quasar", having very high luminosity, and being fairly stable. However, microquasars also produce large quantities of X-rays, whereas no X-rays have been seen from the mystery object.The object is located at several arcseconds from the center of M82. www.stumbleupon.com/su/1KbasN/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/image-of-the-day-galaxy-m82-home-of-a-mystery-signal-unlike-anyting-in-the-known-universe.htmlThe Daily Galaxy via Chandra X Ray Space Telescope
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Post by lois on Sept 26, 2011 13:35:21 GMT -6
What is this?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 27, 2011 14:48:04 GMT -6
Get ready for another meteor shower- The draconids (constellation Draco) will be at their peak on the night of oct. 8 !! Draco can be found in the north . On the night of nov. 18, the leonids will be at their peak . This turned out to be the best shower id ever witnessed several years ago when I counted over 500 in a 5 hr. duration .
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Post by auntym on Sept 30, 2011 11:35:09 GMT -6
www.stumbleupon.com/su/18zpMw/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/vast-cosmic-filaments-discovered-that-link-the-universe.htmlSeptember 30, 2011 Vast Cosmic Filament Discovered Connecting Milky Way to the UniverseAstronomers at The Australian National University have discovered proof of a vast filament of material that connects our Milky Way galaxy to nearby clusters of galaxies, which are similarly interconnected to the rest of the Universe. “By examining the positions of ancient groupings of stars, called globular clusters, we found that the clusters form a narrow plane around the Milky Way rather than being scattered across the sky,” said Dr. Stephan Keller of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at ANU. “Furthermore, the Milky Way’s entourage of small satellites are seen to inhabit the same plane. What we have discovered is evidence for the cosmic thread that connects us to the vast expanse of the Universe. The filament of star clusters and small galaxies around the Milky Way is like the umbilical cord that fed our Galaxy during its youth,” Keller observed. There are two types of matter that made up the Universe – the dominant, enigmatic dark matter and ordinary matter in the form of galaxies, stars and planets. “A consequence of the Big Bang and the dominance of dark matter is that ordinary matter is driven, like foam on the crest of a wave, into vast interconnected sheets and filaments stretched over enormous cosmic voids – much like the structure of a kitchen sponge." CONTINUE READING: www.stumbleupon.com/su/18zpMw/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/vast-cosmic-filaments-discovered-that-link-the-universe.html
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Post by auntym on Oct 5, 2011 22:07:15 GMT -6
www.openminds.tv/seti-scientists-speculate-that-et-civilizations-are-rare-799/
Scientists speculate that ET civilizations are rare[/color] Jason McClellan | Oct 05, 2011 Dr. Paul Shuch (credit: Paul Shuch) The 62nd International Astronautical Convention recently took place at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town, South Africa. Seti League executive director emeritus Paul Shuch participated in the convention, and spoke about searching for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. In doing so, the topic of the “Wow!” signal came up. The “Wow!” signal was a radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry Ehman on August 15, 1977 with Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope. This signal, named after Ehman’s reaction, was “so strong that it catapulted the Big Ear’s recording device off the chart,” according to the Big Ear’s website. The “Wow!” signal has never been detected again. Shuch described it as “one of those things that goes bump in the night and then is gone forever.” The Cape Times explains that the signal “bore all the hallmarks, at the time of its detection, of having a non-Earth origin.” CONTINUE READING: www.openminds.tv/seti-scientists-speculate-that-et-civilizations-are-rare-799/
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Post by swamprat on Oct 16, 2011 11:13:50 GMT -6
Save the James Webb!!
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Post by skywalker on Oct 17, 2011 20:41:17 GMT -6
So now they are going to cut spending. After running up the national debt several trillion dollars giving money to foreign countries and labor union pension funds they are now going to cut spending. And what is it that they cut? Things that might actually be useful. Right now our national debt is increasing by 4 billion dollars every single day because of the government's idiotic spending practices. I think they could easily afford to build that telescope...they just don't want to. They would rather spend the money to buy votes and gain more power.
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Post by swamprat on Oct 19, 2011 7:15:13 GMT -6
thetowntalk.com
What arrogance8:08 AM, Oct. 18, 2011 Astronomer Seth Shostak of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence says there are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy and 400 billion galaxies in the universe. If just the stars in the Milky Way galaxy were turned into grains of salt they would fill a dump truck. What we have been able to see is through a glass and darkly and is but a palm full of salt from that dump truck. I say that to say this: How are we so certain when our insignificance is of such magnitude that we are insignificant in and of each grain in the dump truck? In fact it would take 100 earths to make a grain of that salt. We tell ourselves there is purposefulness in the universe because it explains at least in some way why we’re different from a tree or a rock. Clever trees and rocks, but trees and rocks the same. We think we are special, and Hurricane Katrina is unimpressed. All creatures posture, males in search of breeding opportunities for the most part, but nothing in nature is absolute. The bumble bee sometimes brings down the buffalo. Like a lizard displaying his neck flesh, we posture that an all-powerful being created the universe on our behalf and gave it to us to do with as we will. What arrogance! Damian Brumley Montgomery www.thetowntalk.com/article/20111018/OPINION03/110180322
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Post by auntym on Oct 20, 2011 13:52:26 GMT -6
www.space.com/13306-giant-space-bubble-nebula-skywatcher-photo.htmlThe bubble nebula is located 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. CREDIT: Larry Van Vleet View full size imageA delicate-looking cosmic bubble shape appears to float inside a distant nebula in this stunning view captured by California-based skywatcher Larry Van Vleet . The photo shows a giant bubble of gas blown by the nebula NGC 7635, also known as the Bubble nebula. Van Vleet used a RCOS 16 Truss telescope and Apogee U16M to capture the photo from his Sierra Remote Observatories in Shaver Lake,Calif., in August. The bubble was created by fierce stellar winds and intense radiation from a nearby star, which likely has a mass 10 to 20 times that of the sun. The process blasted out material to form the bubble structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The cloud contains the expansion of the Bubble nebula while itself being excited by the hot central star, causing it to glow. CONTINUE READING: www.space.com/13306-giant-space-bubble-nebula-skywatcher-photo.html
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2011 15:26:01 GMT -6
amazing how beautiful it is 'out there' ..
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Post by swamprat on Oct 20, 2011 15:38:30 GMT -6
ScienceDailyPlanet-Sized Object as Cool as Earth Revealed in Record-Breaking PhotoScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2011) — The photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- whose temperature is like a hot summer day in Arizona -- will be presented by Penn State Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kevin Luhman during the Signposts of Planets conference at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on Oct. 20, 2011. A paper describing the discovery will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. "This planet-like companion is the coldest object ever directly photographed outside our solar system," said Luhman, who led the discovery team. "Its mass is about the same as many of the known extra-solar planets -- about six to nine times the mass of Jupiter -- but in other ways it is more like a star. Essentially, what we have found is a very small star with an atmospheric temperature about cool as the Earth's." Luhman classifies this object as a "brown dwarf," an object that formed just like a star out of a massive cloud of dust and gas. But the mass that a brown dwarf accumulates is not enough to ignite thermonuclear reactions in its core, resulting in a failed star that is very cool. In the case of the new brown dwarf, the scientists have gauged the temperature of its surface to be between 80 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit -- possibly as cool as a human. Ever since brown dwarfs first were discovered in 1995, astronomers have been trying to find new record holders for the coldest brown dwarfs because these objects are valuable as laboratories for studying the atmospheres of planets with Earth-like temperatures outside our solar system. Luhman and his colleagues presented this new candidate for the coldest known brown dwarf in a paper published in spring 2011, and they now have confirmed its record-setting cool temperature in a new paper that will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. This research was sponsored by grants from the National Science Foundation and the NASA Astrophysics Theory Program. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111019165226.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fspace_time%2Fextrasolar_planets+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Space+%26+Time+News+--+Extrasolar+Planets%29
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Post by swamprat on Oct 21, 2011 7:21:51 GMT -6
ScienceDaily
Nearby Planet-Forming Disk Holds Water for Thousands of Oceans
ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — For the first time, astronomers have detected around a burgeoning solar system a sprawling cloud of water vapor that's cold enough to form comets, which could eventually deliver oceans to dry planets. Water is an essential ingredient for life. Scientists have found thousands of Earth-oceans' worth of it within the planet-forming disk surrounding the star TW Hydrae. TW Hydrae is 176 light years away in the constellation Hydra and is the closest solar-system-to-be. The researchers used the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) on the orbiting Hershel Space Observatory to detect the chemical signature of water. "This tells us that the key materials that life needs are present in a system before planets are born," said Bergin, a HIFI co-investigator. "We expected this to be the case, but now we know it is because have directly detected it. We can see it." Scientists had previously found warm water vapor in planet-forming disks close to the central star. But until now, evidence for vast quantities of water extending into the cooler, far reaches of disks where comets and giant planets take shape had not emerged. The more water available in disks for icy comets to form, the greater the chances that large amounts will eventually reach new planets through impacts. Other recent findings from HIFI support the theory that comets delivered a significant portion of Earth's oceans. Researchers found that the ice on a comet called Hartley 2 has the same chemical composition as our oceans. HIFI is helping astronomers gain a better understanding of how water comes to terrestrial planets -- Earth and beyond. If TW Hydrae and its icy disk are representative of many other young star systems, as researchers think they are, then the process for creating planets around numerous stars with abundant water throughout the universe appears to be in place, NASA officials say. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111020171448.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fspace_time%2Fextrasolar_planets+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Space+%26+Time+News+--+Extrasolar+Planets%29
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Post by skywalker on Oct 21, 2011 7:42:23 GMT -6
I'm going to have to disagree with these scientific clowns on this one. Water does not land on planets because of comet impacts. Water is one of the byproducts created through condensation during the formation of the planets. Every planet is formed in basically the same way and is made up of the same elements. Every planet at some point in time is covered with both oceans and an atmosphere. Some are thicker than others due to the size and mass of the planet. The smaller planets cool and solidify more rapidly than the larger ones and they gradually lose both their atmosphere and their oceans. This is what happened to Mars a long time ago. I don't know where they came up with that rediculous comet impact theory.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2011 9:52:51 GMT -6
So..I was perusing for some additional answers and the BEST I found was this one to the question..how did water form on planet earth:
The Martians sent it here. Their politicians warned them about global warming of Mars, and to keep their cities from flooding, they sent all their polar ice to Earth. Problem occured when they found out that global warming was cyclic and happened every few thousand Martian years anyway. Too bad for them, but good for us.
You have to admit..it get the prize for creativity ;D Sky didn't we have a post about a planet surrounded by a big water bubble awhile back?
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Post by skywalker on Oct 21, 2011 15:58:51 GMT -6
There was a post about a huge ginormous amount of water floating around in space but it wasn't surrounding a star or planet like this latest one is. I'll try to find it later when I have more time.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2011 16:29:04 GMT -6
LOL Jo... thanks for the laugh I needed it. ;D
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2011 19:01:42 GMT -6
My only question is....do you suppose he was serious?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2011 19:47:34 GMT -6
One never knows... do one?
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Post by auntym on Oct 25, 2011 17:31:31 GMT -6
www.stumbleupon.com/su/17yGWa/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/10/image-of-the-day-the-violent-beauty-of-the-black-widow-pulsar.htmlOctober 25, 2011 Image of the Day: The Eerie Beauty of "The Black Widow" Pulsar
The pulsar, a.k.a. the "Black Widow," is moving through the galaxy at a speed of almost a million kilometers per hour. A bow shock wave due to this motion is visible to optical telescopes, shown in this image as the greenish crescent shape. The pressure behind the bow shock creates a second shock wave that sweeps the cloud of high-energy particles back from the pulsar to form the cocoon. This composite X-ray (red/white) and optical (green/blue) image reveals an elongated cloud, or cocoon, of high-energy particles flowing behind the rapidly rotating pulsar, B1957+20 (white point-like source). The pulsar is emitting intense high-energy radiation that appears to be destroying a companion star through evaporation. It is one of a class of extremely rapid rotating neutron stars called millisecond pulsars. Calculations suggest that the "black widow" will evaporate away its companion in about a billion years. These objects are thought to be very old neutron stars that have been spun up to rapid rotation rates with millisecond periods by pulling material off their companions. The advanced age, very rapid rotation rate, and relatively low magnetic field of millisecond pulsars put them in a separate class from young pulsars, such as the Crab Nebula. Pulsars rank at or near the top of freaky phenomena found in our Universe. In the early 1930s, California Institute of Technology astrophysicist, Fred Zwicky, an immigrant from Bulgaria, focused his attention on a question that had long troubled astronomers: the appearance of random, unexplained points of light, new stars. CONTINUE READING: www.stumbleupon.com/su/17yGWa/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/10/image-of-the-day-the-violent-beauty-of-the-black-widow-pulsar.html
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Post by auntym on Nov 12, 2011 13:34:37 GMT -6
t.co/haPLVt3R The Universe season 5 episode 1 - 7 Wonders of the Solar System [Full Length] Uploaded by BraveManNewWorld2 on Mar 10, 2011 PART 2... Mars: The New Evidence PART 3... Magnetic Storm PART 4 ... Time Travel PART 5 ... Secrets of the Space Probes PART 6 ... Asteroid Attack .... BLOCKED BY A&E PART 7 ... Total Eclipse
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Post by auntym on Nov 17, 2011 12:25:26 GMT -6
www.stumbleupon.com/su/1mHflL/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/11/update-of-jupiters-europa-massive-lake-verified-beneath-ice-shrouded-surface.htmlNovember 17, 2011 Update of Jupiter's Europa: Massive Lake Verified Beneath Ice-Shrouded SurfaceData from a NASA planetary mission have provided scientists evidence of what appears to be a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa. The data suggest there is significant exchange between Europa's icy shell and the ocean beneath. This information could bolster arguments that Europa's global subsurface ocean represents a potential habitat for life elsewhere in our solar system. The findings are published in the scientific journal Nature. "The data open up some compelling possibilities," said Mary Voytek, director of NASA's Astrobiology Program at agency headquarters in Washington. "However, scientists worldwide will want to take a close look at this analysis and review the data before we can fully appreciate the implication of these results." NASA's Galileo spacecraft, launched by the space shuttle Atlantis in 1989 to Jupiter, produced numerous discoveries and provided scientists decades of data to analyze. Galileo studied Jupiter, which is the most massive planet in our solar system, and some of its many moons. One of the most significant discoveries was the inference of a global saltwater ocean below the surface of Europa. This ocean is deep enough to cover the whole surface of Europa and contains more liquid water than all of Earth's oceans combined. However, being far from the sun, the ocean surface is completely frozen. Most scientists think this ice crust is tens of miles thick. CONTINUE READING: www.stumbleupon.com/su/1mHflL/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/11/update-of-jupiters-europa-massive-lake-verified-beneath-ice-shrouded-surface.html
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Post by auntym on Nov 18, 2011 14:31:12 GMT -6
www.stumbleupon.com/su/1FMg5f/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/11/image-of-the-day-the-water-domes-of-jupiters-europa-.htmlNovember 18, 2011 Image of the Day: The Water Domes of Jupiter's Europa Jupiter's icy moon Europa is pockmarked by mysterious domes and depressions that now seem to be areas where liquid water once appeared close to the surface. Thera Macula is one such region of likely active chaos production above a large liquid water lake in the icy shell of Europa. Color indicates topographic heights relative to background terrain. Purples and reds indicate the highest terrain. Europa is thought to harbour a saltwater ocean, sandwiched between a 20-kilometre-thick layer of surface ice and a rocky core below. For clues as to what might be happening there, Britney Schmidt of the University of Texas, Austin, and colleagues looked at studies of subglacial volcanoes and ice shelves on Earth. They concluded that ice rising from the bottom of Europa's surface layer created its 300-metre-high "chaos terrains". ... Image Credit: Paul Schenk/NASA and JPL/NASA In a significant finding in the search for life beyond Earth, the science teams at The University of Texas and elsewhere have discovered what appears to be a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The water could represent a potential habitat for life, and many more such lakes might exist throughout the shallow regions of Europa’s shell, lead author Britney Schmidt, a postdoctoral fellow at the university’s Institute for Geophysics, writes in the journal Nature. CONTINUE READING: www.stumbleupon.com/su/1FMg5f/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/11/image-of-the-day-the-water-domes-of-jupiters-europa-.html
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Post by swamprat on Nov 22, 2011 6:40:37 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Nov 30, 2011 20:41:42 GMT -6
Competing Explanations Proposed for Strange Christmas Space Explosionby Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor Date: 30 November 2011 Artist's impression of the model suggested for GRB 101225A CREDIT: Aurore Simonnet, NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University The Christmas sky last year was lit up by an extraordinarily powerful and mysteriously long-lasting explosion in space that scientists now suggest was a comet smacking into a dense star or a peculiar supernova death. Radiation from gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions ever seen in the universe, strikes Earth's atmosphere from random directions in space about twice a day. These bursts can be roughly divided into two kinds, ones lasting less than two seconds, and ones lasting up to minutes. However, the strange gamma-ray burst detected on Christmas Day 2010 by NASA's Swift satellite lasted at least half an hour. Scientists think shorter gamma-ray bursts are generally caused by merging neutron stars — dead stars made up of super-dense neutron matter. Longer bursts are typically thought to originate from hypernovas, in which giant stars that explode as incredibly powerful supernovas spew two opposing jets of energy as they die; we see them head-on as bursts. However, researchers suspect a number of mysterious events of completely different origins could mimic gamma-ray bursts. Such might be the case with the Christmas burst, formally known as GRB 101225A. "It is important to understand gamma-ray bursts to get some global picture of the life and death of massive stars," said astronomer Christina Thöne of the Institute of Astrophysics in Andalusia, Spain. "Massive stars are ultimately the ones that decide what elements are present, created and recycled in the gas in our and any other galaxy." Now scientists have two competing explanations for the Christmas burst: a cosmic. impact on a dead star in our galaxy, or a peculiar supernova in a distant galaxy. Based on the length and brightness of the burst, astrophysicist Sergio Campana at the Astronomical Observatory of Brera in Italy and his colleagues suggest that a minor body such as a comet or asteroid crashed into a neutron star. "I think this is the discovery of a completely new astrophysical phenomenon that has not been envisaged before," Campana told SPACE.com. Specifically, the astrophysicists suggest that the gravity of a neutron star ripped apart a 500 trillion-metric-ton chunk of matter that had been passing within 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) of it. The debris fell onto the star and exploded as energy. "If tidal disruption of minor bodies around neutron stars is really happening, I would expect GRB 101225A not [to] be unique," Campana said. "I would like to start searching for this kind of event either in existing data sets or with new observations." On the other hand, Thöne and her colleagues say an oddball supernova might be to blame. They propose that the Christmas explosion occurred when a neutron star combined with a helium star, a type of super-giant star rich in helium. When the neutron star and the helium star's core merged, the result would have been a black hole or a highly magnetic neutron star known as a magnetar, either of which might power long bursts of radiation. The helium star would have shed its outer layers first, surrounding the duo in an envelope of gas — which could explain unusual details seen in the burst's light. To test which explanation might be correct, scientists must figure out if the explosion took place in our galaxy or not. Thöne and her colleagues observed signs that it took place in a distant galaxy, but the evidence is ambiguous, they noted. Further observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories could help solve the mystery. "We hope to settle the question on the right model sometime in the future," Thöne said. "Hopefully sometime next year we will know more." The scientists detailed their findings in two papers published in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Nature. www.space.com/13773-christmas-space-explosion-gamma-ray-burst-explanations.html
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Post by swamprat on Jan 1, 2012 21:25:40 GMT -6
This video has been around for awhile, but I think it is worth revisiting here at the beginning of a new year. Just a reminder of how small we really are compared to the rest of the (known) universe.....
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Post by auntym on Jan 11, 2012 12:43:57 GMT -6
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Post by auntym on Jan 11, 2012 12:59:05 GMT -6
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/01/120110-black-holes-gas-bullets-space-science/?source=link_tw20120111news-blackholebullets Black Hole Caught Pulling Trigger on Gas "Bullets" Gas knots seen moving at a quarter the speed of light, astronomer says.A composite image of Centaurus A reveals lobes and jets emanating from the galaxy's central black hole. Image courtesy A. Weiss and R. Kraft, ESO/WFI/MPIfR/APEX/NASA/CXC/CfA Charles Q. Choi in Austin, Texas for National Geographic News Published January 10, 2012 New ultrasharp pictures show the exact instant a black hole launched gigantic, high-speed "bullets" of gas, scientists announced today. The data come from observations of a black hole called H1743-322 and its companion star, located about 28,000 light-years from Earth. Black holes in such binary systems can pull material off their companions to form rapidly spinning disks around their equators, called accretion disks. Matter from the disks falling into the black holes can cause them to spew jets of matter from their poles. Occasionally, though, these steady jets disappear and are replaced by superfast knots of charged gas fired from the black hole "akin to bullets in a gun," said researcher Gregory Sivakoff at the University of Alberta in Canada. Such outbursts can produce as much energy in an hour as our sun emits in five years. H1743-322, a black hole about five to ten times the mass of the sun, had generated a number of such outbursts since its discovery in 1977. Until now, however, astronomers weren't exactly sure when a black hole "pulled the trigger" and unleashed its gas bullets, a key part of understanding why the bullets appear in the first place. CONTINUE READING: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/01/120110-black-holes-gas-bullets-space-science/?source=link_tw20120111news-blackholebullets
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Post by swamprat on Jan 15, 2012 14:21:22 GMT -6
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