Space
Astronomers have detected rapid changes in the brightness of embryonic stars within the well-known Orion Nebula, 1,350 light years from Earth, which appears prominently in the winter skies for European observers. Sometimes referred to as the Sword of Orion, the nebula lies below the three stars that form the belt of Orion the Hunter, one of the most easily recognized constellations.
It is one of the few nebulas visible to the naked eye and is a popular target for amateur astronomers.
Images from Herschel’s far-infrared instrument and two of Spitzer’s instruments working at…
Astronomers have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole - about 20,000,000 miles per hour, 3 percent of the speed of light. This is nearly 10 times faster than had ever been seen from a stellar-mass black hole.
Stellar-mass black holes are born when extremely massive stars collapse. They typically weigh between five and 10 times the mass of the sun. The stellar-mass black hole powering this super wind is known as IGR J17091-3624, or IGR J17091 for short. The wind speed in IGR J17091 matches some of the fastest winds generated by…
Last week-end I was being a good mother and drove my son to a party. We took off not long after the Sun had set. The last few evenings and nights have been crystal clear and completely mesmerizing here, on the countryside a little north of Oslo, Norway. This Friday was no different. As we approached the destination I noticed a very bright light in the sky. Even though it's been a while since I was a professional astronomer or astrophysicist, I maintain my habit of checking out the night sky (read: I do it ALL THE TIME) making 'meaningless' remarks about my observations. At least they…
Previously undiscovered islands of cold gas and a mysterious haze of microwaves could bring us closer to revealing the blueprint of cosmic structure.
The results include the first map of carbon monoxide to cover the entire sky. Carbon monoxide is a constituent of the cold clouds that populate the Milky Way and other galaxies. Predominantly made of hydrogen molecules, these clouds provide the reservoirs from which stars are born but hydrogen molecules are difficult to detect because they do not readily emit radiation. Carbon monoxide forms under similar conditions and, even though it is much…
Recently I submitted an ABSTRACT for the Conference-COSPAR-12 , will be held at Mysore INDIA. unfortunately it was rejected for presentation. I am here with posting the same for the public interest.
Title of the paper.
"Heart of the God" model of the universe-Possibility of experimental verification of ‘TIME TRAVEL'
Abstract Presented&Rejected:
"HEART OF THE GOD"model of the cosmology says that the universe is made up of ‘space-time fluid’ in a spherical shape with time as radius. The Surface area shows the four-dimensional universe of General Relativity. Also, the…
NGC 3324, on the northern outskirts of the chaotic environment of the Carina Nebula in the constellation of Carina (The Keel, part of Jason’s ship the Argo), is about 7500 light-years from Earth and has been sculpted by many other pockets of star formation. A rich deposit of gas and dust in the NGC 3324 region fueled a burst of star birth there several millions of years ago and led to the creation of several hefty and very hot stars.
Stellar winds and intense radiation from these young stars have blown open a hollow in the surrounding gas and dust. This is most in evidence as the wall of…
Following on my last article, I'd like to ask the question, weither some day, dark matter might be useful or even vital to a civilisation. This depends on the properties of the stuff, which of course we haven't found yet. But it seems the standard lightest super-symmetric particle dark matter, most likely wouldn't be much use even to an highly advanced inter stellar civilisation. The lightest super-symmetric particle doesn't do much, it interacts by gravity, and by the weak nuclear force only and sometimes it annihilate with other particles like itself. …
An extremely hot, massive young galaxy cluster named ACT-CL J0102-4915 is the largest ever seen in the distant Universe, and has been has been nicknamed El Gordo — the "big" or "fat one" in Spanish. It consists of two separate galaxy sub-clusters colliding at several million miles per hour, and is so far away that its light has traveled for seven billion years to reach Earth.
The derivation of the formal name shows that it is a galaxy cluster found using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the second part indicates the location of the object in the sky, in the southern constellation…
Over in print media today, New Scientist's cover article was on a "new" idea for what dark matter is. Apparently, dark matter should be composed of Dark Atoms, in a theory introduced by Christopher Wells, et al. In fact, astronomers and particle physicists have been studying many ideas of what dark matter could be for quite a while. Occasionally a summary of the current ideas gets published, such a the 2004 classic, by Silk, even then half the current ideas get left out, such as CHAMP, mirror matter, Q-balls, super weak dark matter and many others.
Still, I have to wonder if…
antunes |
Time to ring in a new year with pressure waves. We can see, but not, hear true sonic waves generated from stars, as the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope is finding. We also get to learn a new word, 'astroseismology': the study of pressure waves in cosmic objects. Sudden surface event on stars (such as our sun) can include flares, plasma ejections, and loops of plasma. When the surface gets disturbed, just like dropping a coin into a pool, you get waves that ripple through the whole star.
Kepler and the Convection, Rotation and Planetary Transits (COROT) are…