This Wonderful Universe ~ {ERG} - Page 11

LoneRanger · #**151** 06-13-2008, 02:24 PM

At Last, GLAST

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Image Credit: Jerry Cannon, Robert Murray, NASA

Explanation: Rising through a billowing cloud of smoke, this Delta II rocket left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch pad 17-B Wednesday at 12:05 pm EDT. Snug in the payload section was GLAST, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, now in orbit around planet Earth. GLAST's detector technology was developed for use in terrestrial particle accelerators. But from orbit, GLAST can study gamma-rays from extreme environments in our own Milky Way galaxy, as well as supermassive black holes at the centers of distant active galaxies, and the sources of powerful gamma-ray bursts. Those cosmic accelerators achieve energies not attainable in earthbound laboratories. GLAST also has the sensitivity to search for signatures of new physics in the relatively unexplored high-energy gamma-ray regime.

Henize 70: A SuperBubble In The LMC

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Credit: Anglo-Australian Telescope photograph by David Malin
Copyright: Anglo-Australian Telescope Board

Explanation: Stars with tens of times the mass of the Sun profoundly affect their galactic environment. Churning and mixing the interstellar gas and dust clouds they leave their mark in the compositions and locations of future generations of stars and star systems. Dramatic evidence of this is beautifully illustrated in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), by the lovely ring shaped nebula, Henize 70. It is actually a luminous "superbubble" of interstellar gas about 300 lightyears in diameter, blown by winds from massive stars and supernova explosions, its interior filled with tenuous hot expanding gas. These superbubbles offer astronomers a chance to explore this crucial connection between the lifecycles of stars and the evolution of galaxies.

LoneRanger · #**152** 06-15-2008, 12:58 PM

M51 Hubble Remix

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Credit: S. Beckwith (STScI), Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA, NASA
Additional Processing: Robert Gendler

Explanation: The 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog is perhaps the original spiral nebula - a large galaxy with a well defined spiral structure also cataloged as NGC 5194. Over 60,000 light-years across, M51's spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (right), NGC 5195. Image data from the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has been reprocessed to produce this alternative portrait of the well-known interacting galaxy pair. The processing has further sharpened details and enhanced color and contrast in otherwise faint areas, bringing out dust lanes and extended streams that cross the small companion, along with features in the surroundings and core of M51 itself. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant. Not far on the sky from the handle of the Big Dipper, they officially lie within the boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici.

Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Images

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Credit: W.N. Colley & E. Turner (Princeton), J.A. Tyson (Lucent Technologies), HST, NASA

Explanation: What are those strange blue objects? Many are images of a single, unusual, beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies. Cluster galaxies here appear yellow and -- together with the cluster's dark matter -- act as a gravitational lens. A gravitational lens can create several images of background galaxies, analogous to the many points of light one would see while looking through a wine glass at a distant street light. The distinctive shape of this background galaxy -- which is probably just forming -- has allowed astronomers to deduce that it has separate images at 4, 8, 9 and 10 o'clock, from the center of the cluster. Possibly even the blue smudge just left of center is yet another image! This spectacular photo from HST was taken in October 1994. The first cluster lens was found unexpectedly by Roger Lynds (NOAO) and Vahe Petrosian (Stanford) in 1986 while testing a new type of imaging device. Lensed arcs around this cluster, CL0024+1654, were first discovered from the ground by David Koo (UCO Lick) in 1988.

LoneRanger · #**153** 06-15-2008, 01:03 PM

Phoenix Digs for Clues on Mars

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Credit: Phoenix Mission Team, NASA, JPL-Caltech, U. Arizona, Texas A&M University

Explanation: What's a good recipe for preparing Martian soil? Start by filling your robot's scoop a bit less than half way. Next, dump your Martian soil into one of your TEGA ovens, being sure to watch out for clumping. Then, slowly increase the temperature to over 1000 degrees Celsius over several days. Keep checking to see when your soil becomes vaporized. Finally, your Martian soil is not ready for eating, but rather sniffing The above technique is being used by the Phoenix Lander that arrived on Mars three weeks ago. Data from the first batch of baked soil should be available in a few days. Pictured above, a circular array of the Phoenix Lander's solar panels are visible on the left, while a scoop partly filled with Martian soil is visible on the right. The robotic Phoenix Lander will spend much of the next three months digging, scooping, baking, sniffing, zapping, dissolving, and magnifying bits of Mars to help neighboring Earthlings learn more about the hydrologic and biologic possibilities of the sometimes mysterious red planet.

NGC 4314: A Nuclear Starburst Ring

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Credit: G. F. Benedict (U. Texas) et al., WFPC2, HST, NASA

Explanation: Is this old galaxy up to new tricks? The barred spiral galaxy NGC 4314 is billions of years old, but its appearance has changed markedly over just the past few millions of years. During that time, a nuclear ring of bright young stars has been evolving. The inset picture of NGC 4314 taken by McDonald Observatory shows the whole galaxy and boxes the small region around the core imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. This inner region appears much like a miniature spiral galaxy itself, complete with dust lanes and spiral arms, even though it is only a few thousand light-years across. Further study of NGC 4314 might help astronomers understand how the inner and outer parts of this galaxy interact, and what caused this unusual ring of star formation.

LoneRanger · #**154** 06-15-2008, 01:17 PM

Phoenix Digs for Clues on Mars

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Credit: Phoenix Mission Team, NASA, JPL-Caltech, U. Arizona, Texas A&M University

Explanation: What's a good recipe for preparing Martian soil? Start by filling your robot's scoop a bit less than half way. Next, dump your Martian soil into one of your TEGA ovens, being sure to watch out for clumping. Then, slowly increase the temperature to over 1000 degrees Celsius over several days. Keep checking to see when your soil becomes vaporized. Finally, your Martian soil is not ready for eating, but rather sniffing The above technique is being used by the Phoenix Lander that arrived on Mars three weeks ago. Data from the first batch of baked soil should be available in a few days. Pictured above, a circular array of the Phoenix Lander's solar panels are visible on the left, while a scoop partly filled with Martian soil is visible on the right. The robotic Phoenix Lander will spend much of the next three months digging, scooping, baking, sniffing, zapping, dissolving, and magnifying bits of Mars to help neighboring Earthlings learn more about the hydrologic and biologic possibilities of the sometimes mysterious red planet.

NGC 4314: A Nuclear Starburst Ring

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Credit: G. F. Benedict (U. Texas) et al., WFPC2, HST, NASA

Explanation: Is this old galaxy up to new tricks? The barred spiral galaxy NGC 4314 is billions of years old, but its appearance has changed markedly over just the past few millions of years. During that time, a nuclear ring of bright young stars has been evolving. The inset picture of NGC 4314 taken by McDonald Observatory shows the whole galaxy and boxes the small region around the core imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. This inner region appears much like a miniature spiral galaxy itself, complete with dust lanes and spiral arms, even though it is only a few thousand light-years across. Further study of NGC 4314 might help astronomers understand how the inner and outer parts of this galaxy interact, and what caused this unusual ring of star formation.

LoneRanger · #**155** 06-16-2008, 02:47 PM

Inside the Coma Cluster of Galaxies

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Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA);
Acknowledgment: D. Carter (LJMU) et al. and the Coma HST ACS Treasury Team

Explanation: Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured above is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own Milky Way Galaxy does. Although nearby when compared to most other clusters, light from the Coma Cluster still takes hundreds of millions of years to reach us. In fact, the Coma Cluster is so big it takes light millions of years just to go from one side to the other! The above mosaic of images of a small portion of Coma was taken in unprecedented detail by the Hubble Space Telescope to investigate how galaxies in rich clusters form and evolve. Most galaxies in Coma and other clusters are ellipticals, although some imaged here are clearly spirals. The spiral galaxy on the upper left of the above image can also be found as one of the bluer galaxies on the upper left of this wider field image. In the background thousands of unrelated galaxies are visible far across the universe.

An Active Region of the Sun

Credit: A. Title (Stanford Lockheed Institute), TRACE, NASA

Explanation: The Sun is a busy place. This false-color image depicts an active region near an edge of the Sun. Hot plasma is seen exploding off the Sun's photosphere and traveling along loops defined by the Sun's magnetic field. The red regions are particularly hot, indicating that some magnetic field loops carry hotter gas than others. These active loops were so large that the Earth could easily fit under one. The TRACE satellite was launched in April with plans to continue high-resolution imaging as the Sun passes Solar Maximum in the next few years.

LoneRanger · #**156** 06-17-2008, 05:52 PM

Eta Carinae and the Homunculus Nebula

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Credit: N. Smith, J. A. Morse (U. Colorado) et al., NASA

Explanation: How did the star Eta Carinae create this unusual nebula? No one knows for sure. About 165 years ago, the southern star Eta Carinae mysteriously became the second brightest star in the night sky. In 20 years, after ejecting more mass than our Sun, Eta Car unexpected faded. This outburst appears to have created the Homunculus Nebula, pictured above in a composite image from the Hubble Space Telescope taken last decade. Visible in the above image center is purple-tinted light reflected from the violent star Eta Carinae itself. Surrounding this star are expanding lobes of gas laced with filaments of dark dust. Jets bisect the lobes emanating from the central star. Surrounding these lobes are red-tinted debris captured only by its glow in a narrow band of red light. This debris is expanding most quickly of all, and includes streaming whiskers and bow shocks caused by collisions with previously existing material. Eta Car still undergoes unexpected outbursts, and its high mass and volatility make it a candidate to explode in a spectacular supernova sometime in the next few million years.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Telescope

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Credit: SDSS Team, Fermilab Visual Media Services

Explanation: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will soon begin. Pictured above is the 2.5-meter telescope poised to create the most ambitious sky map in the history of astronomy. SDSS will catalog one quarter of the sky down past 23rd magnitude ( R), obtaining redshifts for galaxies and quasars brighter than magnitude 19. SDSS is expected to store about 200 Gigabytes of data each night. Astronomers will work to cull from this information an unprecedented three-dimensional view of our local universe. However, the SDSS may one day be remembered not only for the hundreds of millions of objects which it could see, but for how it indicated the nature and composition of the rest of the universe which it could not see.

krazieman890 · #**157** 06-17-2008, 08:05 PM

wow thanks for sharring (tfs)

LoneRanger · #**158** 06-18-2008, 04:27 PM

Pyramid Ice Crystal Halos Over Finland

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Credit & Copyright: Kari Nyman

Explanation: What if the atmosphere above you became one gigantic lens? This actually happens when a nearly transparent sheet of pyramid shaped ice crystals falls from the sky in a common orientation. These ice-crystals act together like millions of miniature ice mirrors, with external and internal reflections from different faces creating arcs and halos of different radii. An amazing display of pyramid ice crystal halos was captured on June 5 above Tampere, Finland. Visible above are very usual sun halos of 9, 18, 20, and 23, and 24 degrees. In contrast, thin and flat falling ice crystals will produce a halo of 22 degrees only. The high clouds containing the ice crystals are faintly visible, as are some sundogs. The usual Sun image was covered behind a light post, and the above image was significantly digitally sharpened. It is not currently known how large areas of nearly uniform pyramidal ice crystals form.

Cosmic Rays and Supernova Dust

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Credit: M. DeBord, R. Ramaty and B. Kozlovsky (GSFC), R. Lingenfelter (UCSD), NASA

Explanation: Cosmic Rays are celestial high energy particles traveling at nearly the speed of light, which constantly bombard the Earth. Discovered during high altitude balloon flights in 1912 their source has been a long standing mystery. But a recent theory suggests that cosmic ray particles are atomic nuclei blasted from dust grains formed in supernovae, the death explosions of massive stars. This artist's illustration shows a supernova explosion (at left) and a conical section of the expanding cloud of ejected material. Atoms are torn from the brownish bands of "dust" material by shock waves (represented by orange rings). The shocks in the expanding blast wave then accelerate the atoms to near light speeds firing them into interstellar space like cosmic bullets. The theory is supported by observations indicating that high velocity dust was formed in the nearby supernova 1987A, and that Beryllium, a light element created in Cosmic Ray collisions, is found equally in both old an young stars. NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite can also test details of the theory by directly measuring Cosmic Rays.

krazieman890 · #**159** 06-18-2008, 04:31 PM

wow more pics thanks

harsh_at · #**160** 06-19-2008, 12:04 AM

thanks..

LoneRanger · #**161** 06-19-2008, 12:17 PM

The Star Streams of NGC 5907

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Image Credit & Copyright: R Jay Gabany (Blackbird Observatory) - collaboration; D.Martínez-Delgado(IAC, MPIA),
J.Peñarrubia (U.Victoria) I. Trujillo (IAC) S.Majewski (U.Virginia), M.Pohlen (Cardiff),

Explanation: Grand tidal streams of stars seem to surround galaxy NGC 5907. The arcing structures form tenuous loops extending more than 150,000 light-years from the narrow, edge-on spiral, also known as the Splinter or Knife Edge Galaxy. Recorded only in very deep exposures, the streams likely represent the ghostly trail of a dwarf galaxy -- debris left along the orbit of a smaller satellite galaxy that was gradually torn apart and merged with NGC 5907 over four billion years ago. Ultimately this remarkable discovery image, from a small robotic observatory in New Mexico, supports the cosmological scenario in which large spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, were formed by the accretion of smaller ones. NGC 5907 lies about 40 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Draco.

Good Morning Mars

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Credit: Mars Global Surveyor Project, MSSS, JPL, NASA

Explanation: Looking down on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars on June 1, the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft's wide angle camera recorded this morning image of the red planet. Mars Global Surveyor's orbit is now oriented to view the planet's surface during the morning hours and the night/day shadow boundary or terminator arcs across the left side of the picture. Two large volcanos, Olympus Mons (left of center) and Ascraeus Mons (lower right) peer upward through seasonal haze and water-ice clouds of the Northern Martian Winter. The color image was synthesized from red and blue band pictures and only approximates a "true color" picture of Mars.

LoneRanger · #**162** 06-20-2008, 01:21 PM

Solstice Moonrise, Cape Sounion

Credit & Copyright: Anthony Ayiomamitis (TWAN)

Explanation: Today's solstice marks the northernmost point of the Sun's annual motion through planet Earth's sky and the astronomical beginning of the northern hemisphere's summer. But only two days ago, the Full Moon nearest the solstice rose close to the ecliptic plane opposite the Sun, near its southernmost point for the year. Astronomer Anthony Ayiomamitis recorded this dramatic picture of the solstice Full Moon rising above Cape Sounion, Greece. The twenty-four hundred year old Temple of Poseidon lies in the foreground, also visible to sailors on the Aegean Sea. In this well-planned single exposure, a telescopic lens makes the Moon loom large, but even without optical aid casual skygazers often find the Full Moon looking astonishingly large when seen near the horizon. That powerful visual effect is known as the Moon Illusion.

Pioneer 10: The First 6 Billion Miles

Credit: Pioneer Project, ARC, NASA

Explanation: Q: What was made by humans and is 6.5 billion miles away? A: Pioneer 10 - and last year was the 25th anniversary of its launch. More than 9.5 light-hours distant, Pioneer 10 is presently about twice as far from the Sun as Pluto, bound for interstellar space at 28,000 miles per hour. The distinction of being the first human artifact to venture beyond the Solar System is just one in a long list of firsts for this spacefaring ambassador, including; the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and explore the outer Solar System, the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter, the first to use a planet's gravity to change its course and to reach solar-system-escape velocity, and the first spacecraft to pass beyond the known planets. Pioneer 10's mission is nearing an end - now exploring the distant reaches of the heliosphere it will soon run out of sufficient electrical power to operate science instruments. However, the 570 lb. spacecraft will continue to coast and in 30,000 years or so it will pass within about 3 light years of a nearby star known as Ross 248. Ross 248 is a faint red dwarf just over 10 light years distant in the constellation Taurus. (Note: This year Voyager 1, launched 21 years ago but traveling faster than Pioneer 10, became humanity's most distant spacecraft.) vvvvvv

ะộ§ộะ мя žǒǒŁ ะộ§ộะ · #**163** 06-20-2008, 03:40 PM