Space

In the last yen years, astronomers have discovered scads of strange exploding stars, one-offs that may point to new and unusual physics. Supernova (SN) 2005E, discovered five years ago by the University of California, Berkeley's Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), is one of eight known "calcium-rich supernovae" that seem to stand out from the rest. The research is documented in a new paper published in Nature. The study argues that SN 2005E is distinct from the two main classes of supernovae: the Type Ia supernovae, thought to be old, white dwarf stars that accrete matter from a…

Richard Dawkins suggested that the first measure of an intelligent species, should two chance to meet, would be whether they understood how they came to be. I imagine such a remarkable exchange of cosmic existentialism set on a hovering space dongle, lit only by the faint glow of distant ringed planets: “Hey, you know about evolution?”“Yep” And with these words, the warmth of science would triumph over the cold curve of the ever widening Universe, at least for a moment. Will such an exchange ever take place? Why haven’t we met an aliens yet? Are we likely to? I did some reading, and found…

I will discuss Leibniz's ideas on complexity (Discours de metaphysique, 1686), leading to modern work on program-size complexity, the halting probability and incompleteness. Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason asserts that if anything is true it is true for a reason. But the bits of the numerical value of the halting probability are mathematical truths that are true for no reason. More precisely, as I will explain, they are irreducible mathematical truths, that is, true for no reason simpler than themselves. To watch the video simply click on the image bellow: Leibniz, Complexity and…

Researches at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics have carried out the first fully three-dimensional computer simulations of a core collapse supernova over a timescale of hours after the initiation of the blast. The model will explain how initial asymmetries, which emerge deep in the dense core during the very early stages of the explosion, fold themselves into inhomogeneities observable during the supernova blast, researchers say. While the great energy of the outburst makes these stellar explosions visible far out into the Universe, they are relatively rare. In a galaxy of the size of…

Given I'm a mad scientist building a satellite in my basement, who are my heroes?  Are they Carl Sagan, astronomer populist extraordinaire?  Neil Tyson, a dynamic yet media-saavy heir to Sagan?  Newton, inventor of the apple? If I had to pick 3, I'd say Fiorella Terenzi, Tony Zuppero, and Edward Stratemeyer. Zuppero got some noise last year when his free ebook To Inhabit the Solar System got mention in El Register.  Zuppero is a mad inventor's mad inventor-- an Aspie with dreams of exploring the solar system in rockets who gets dragged into the US crazy weapons programs.…

A Texas A&M University-led team of astronomers has uncovered what may be the earliest, most distant cluster of galaxies ever detected. The group of roughly 60 galaxies, called CLG J02182-05102, is nearly 10 billion years old — born just 4 billion years after the Big Bang. However, it's not the size nor the age of the cluster that astronomers find amazing. Rather, it's the surprisingly modern appearance of CLG J02182-05102 that has them baffled — a huge, red collection of galaxies typical of only present-day galaxies. "It's like we dug an archaeological site in Rome and found pieces of…

New images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton, have helped astronomers detect a vast reservoir of intergalactic gas about 400 million light years from Earth. This discovery is the strongest evidence yet that the “missing matter” in the nearby Universe is located in an enormous web of hot, diffuse gas. This missing matter is composed of baryons, the particles, such as protons and electrons, that are found on the Earth, in stars, gas, galaxies, and so on.  A variety of measurements of distant gas clouds and galaxies have provided a good estimate of the amount of…

ESA's Herschel infrared space telescope has located a hole in the side of a cloud of bright reflective gas known to astronomers as NGC 1999. The hole has provided scientists with a surprising glimpse into the end of the star-forming process. Stars are born in dense clouds of dust and gas that can now be studied in unprecedented detail with Herschel. Although jets and winds of gas have been seen coming from young stars in the past, it has always been a mystery exactly how a star uses these to blow away its surroundings and emerge from its birth cloud. NGC 1999 sits next to a black patch of…

Astronomers from the University of Florida will take a second look this summer at a rare cosmic cradle for the universe's largest stars, the constellation Carina. The massive gas cloud is located 8,000 light years away in the Southern sky and is home to stars that grow up to have 50 times the sun's mass. The constellation was once part of the larger constellation Argo Navis until it split into three. The cloud is in the early stages of collapsing in on itself, offering astronomers an unusual vista on the first contractions of behemoth star birth. Although our sun has far less mass than the…

The ESA's Herschel infrared space observatory is capturing new images from thousands of distant galaxies as they furiously build stars and beautiful star-forming clouds. The photographic evidence reveals previously hidden details and challenges old ideas about of star formation. The new findings were presented today during a major scientific symposium held at the European Space Agency (ESA). Herschel's observation of the star-forming cloud RCW 120 has revealed an embryonic star which looks set to turn into one of the biggest and brightest stars in our Galaxy within the next few hundred…