UNIVERSE TODAY Update 4
by Mark Thompson on February 8, 2011
UFO’s are tricky little blighters. Those three letters have caused so much controversy over the years and I find myself, yet again, discussing one of the most misrepresented acronyms in the entire Universe. UFO stands for ‘Unidentified Flying Object’ and, if you have never seen a helicopter before, then its a UFO, its unidentified and flying! Forgive me then when I saw the news on January 28, 2011 of yet another UFO sighting and cries of alien visitors as if it were obvious. Well stop right there…..
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by Nancy Atkinson on February 8, 2011
Astronaut Jeffrey Williams doing plant cells vs. microgravity experiments aboard the ISS in December 2009. Credit: NASA
A new opportunity for students to be part of history and fly an experiment on what could be the last space shuttle mission has been announced by the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) for the STS-135, the shuttle mission that might fly in June of 2011.
“We hope to get 50 communities and 100,000 students participating in the initiative which allows grade 5-14 student design of real experiments to fly aboard Atlantis, and engages entire communities,” Dr. Jeff Goldstein, the Director for the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education told Universe Today. “This is very unique opportunity for students and teachers to be part of a high visibility, keystone U.S. national STEM education program of the highest caliber.”
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by Nancy Atkinson on February 8, 2011
The Liberty launch vehicle combines the proven systems from the Space Shuttle and Ariane 5. (PRNewsFoto/ATK)
An idea too good to die, or a case of recycle, reuse, reduce? Two rocket companies are joining forces to use part of the Ares-1 rocket and combine it with elements of the Ariane 5 launcher to create a new launch system called Liberty that they say will “close the US human spaceflight gap.” US company ATK (Alliant Techsystems) and the European firm Astrium announced their collaboration today on a 90-meter (300-ft) rocket that would fit under NASA’s Commercial Crew Development-2 (CCDev-2) procurement. The companies say the new rocket could be ready by 2013.
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by Nancy Atkinson on February 8, 2011
The LROC NAC acquired an oblique view of the Marius Hills pit with just the right angle to reveal an overhang, with a pit below, which is about 65 meters in diameter. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
Follow-up observations of a potential ‘skylight’ in a lava tube on the Moon has revealed a cavernous lunar pit in the Marius Hills region, with a view of the interior and bottom of the pit. The sun angle, camera angle and lighting conditions were just right for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera to look all the way down to the floor of the pit. And this is no small hole in the ground — the LRO team says this pit is about 65 meters in diameter! This latest image confirms this object is actually a subsurface cave; a lava tube close to the surface where part of it has collapsed. These lava tubes could be great locations for lunar bases that could protect human explorers from dangers such as cosmic rays, meteorite impacts, and the extreme temperature differences between the lunar day and night.
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by Vanessa D'Amico on February 8, 2011
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the distribution of dark matter in the center of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689, containing about 1,000 galaxies and trillions of stars. Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Coe (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, and Space Telescope Science Institute), N. Benitez (Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, Spain), T. Broadhurst (University of the Basque Country, Spain), and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)
Our Universe is an enormous place; that’s no secret. What is up for discussion, however, is just how enormous it is. And new research suggests it’s a whopper – over 250 times the size of our observable universe. [click to continue…]
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by Nancy Atkinson on February 7, 2011
Super galaxy, NGC 157. Credit: ESO
Can galaxy NGC 157 leap tall buildings in a single bound, stop a speeding bullet or bend steel in it’s bare hands? This relatively mild-mannered galaxy has a central sweep of stars that resembles a giant “S”, almost just like the comic book hero Superman’s symbol. The image was taken by the HAWK-I (High-Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager) on the Very Large Telescope in Chile. HAWK-I looks in infrared light, allowing us to peer through the gas and dust that normally obscures our view and see parts of NCG 157 that otherwise is hidden from our optical view.
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by Adrian West on February 7, 2011
Artist concept of Nanosail-D in Earth orbit. Credit: NASA
The night sky has many wonderful objects to look at on a clear evening, including many man-made satellites, and the always impressive International Space Station (ISS). Now there’s a new addition to these artificial delights: the first ever solar sail to orbit the Earth, NASA’s Nanaosail-D Satellite. Want to know how you can see it?
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by Ken Kremer on February 6, 2011
Latest image of the far side of the Sun based on high resolution STEREO data, taken on February 3, 2011 when there was still a small gap between the STEREO Ahead and Behind data. This gap will start to close on February 6, 2011, when the spacecraft achieve 180 degree separation,
and will completely close over the next several days. Credit: NASA.
Note this STEREO image was taken Feb. 3, and is only newly available today Feb. 6.
NASA earlier today released an image taken on Feb. 2. New images are taken every day
See below the two individual images taken by STEREO A and B to construct this spherical projection
Super Bowl SUNday XLV marks a watershed moment in observing our Sun. Today, February 6, 2011, NASA’s twin STEREO solar observatories will reach locations on exact opposite sides of the Sun, called opposition, and they are beaming back uninterrupted images from both the entire front and rear side hemispheres of Earths star in three dimensions and 360 degrees for the first time.
“For the first time in history we can see the entire Sun at one time – both the far side and the near side,” said Joe Gurman, in an interview for Universe Today. Gurman is the Project Scientist for NASA’s STEREO mission at the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, MD. This will significant aid space weather forecasting.
To mark this historic milestone, NASA today released images captured by STEREO on Feb. 2 – slightly prior to opposition – which gives humankind our first ever global look at the whole sphere of our Suns surface and atmosphere in extreme ultraviolet light (EUV). The probes were over 179 degrees apart. See location maps and images below
This article features even newer EUV images – compared to NASA’s press release – that were taken even closer to opposition by STEREO on Feb. 3 and today on Feb. 6 and which I downloaded from the STEREO website. [click to continue…]
May 2nd, 2010
Apologies for the lack of posts the past few days, but here's a round-up across the Universe (and the world wide web) of some of the latest and best space news. Above, watch a video about the site being chosen for the E-ELT.
Dr. Paul Spudis writes in the Air & Space Blog about the "Four Flavors of Lunar Water."
Todd Halvorson of Florida interviews Elon Musk of SpaceX about the upcoming launch of the Dragon spacecraft, schedule for May 11.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Charlie Bolden is taking flack for proposing a generous retirement plan for astronauts.
The SciGuy, Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle interviews Jeffrey Manber, CEO of MirCorp who says NASA must go commercial or it will perish.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory wows again with more spectacular video and Science@NASA describes it as SDO seeing "scorching rain."
April 28th, 2010
Asteroid Itokawa. Credit: JAXA
We usually think of asteroids as dark, dry, lifeless chunks of rock, just like the image of Asteroid Itokawa, above. But some asteroids may be more like "minor planets" after all. Researchers have found evidence on one asteroid – 24 Themis – of water ice and organic materials. This discovery is exciting on two fronts: one, this evidence supports the idea that asteroids could be responsible for bringing water and organic material to Earth, and two, if the proposed path for NASA is to visit an asteroid, having water and organics at the destination makes things a bit more interesting.
March 22nd, 2010
How do the folks from UnmannedSpaceflight do it?!! They keep surpassing themselves with every new flyover video! We've posted some Mars flyover videos before, created by UMSF founder Doug Ellison. Now, colleague Adrian Lark — who has been working on creating animations and enhanced images with data from the Mars missions for several years — has produced new features on the videos. This latest, which flies you around the scarp surrounding Olympus Mons has speed and height information as well as a context map included on the video. "The data I am using is generated from the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter," Adrian told me. "The elevation data has a spatial resolution of 1 meter and the image data has a spatial resolution of 25 centimeters. There is no vertical exaggeration in any of the videos."
Also, Adrian has experimented with You Tube's stereoscopic 3-D player, providing a 3-D experience of flying through Candor Chasma. IMAX, watchout! You've got competition!
So hang on while you watch these incredible videos! See more below, and also Adrian shared with me a little about his software and how he creates these flyover videos.
Filed under: Mars | 1 Comment »
March 22nd, 2010
Blueprint of the nanostructure containing the bump in the gold carpet and tailored invisibility cloaking structure underneath.Image © Science/AAAS
Hiding an object with a cloaking device has been the stuff of science fiction, but over the past few years scientists have successfully brought cloaking technology into reality. There have been limits, however. So far, cloaked objects have been quite small, and researchers have only been able to hide an object in 2 dimensions, meaning the objects would be immediately visible when the observer changes their point of view. But now a team has created a cloak that can obscure objects in three dimensions. While the device only works in a limited range of wavelengths, the team says that this step should help keep the cloaking field moving forward.
Filed under: Science, Technology | 3 Comments »
March 22nd, 2010
Artist’s schematic impression of the distortion of spacetime by a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. The black hole will swallow dark matter at a rate which depends on its mass and on the amount of dark matter around it. Image: Felipe Esquivel Reed.
There's the common notion that black holes suck in everything in the nearby vicinity by exerting a strong gravitational influence on the matter, energy, and space surrounding them. But astronomers have found that the dark matter around black holes might be a different story. Somehow dark matter resists 'assimilation' into a black hole.
March 21st, 2010
This artist’s impression of the distant galaxy SMM J2135-0102 shows large bright clouds a few hundred light-years in size, which are regions of active star formation, These “star factories” are similar in size to those in the Milky Way, but one hundred times more luminous, suggesting that star formation in the early life of these galaxies is a much more vigorous process than typically found in local galaxies. Credit: Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Looking back in time – and through a gravitational lens – astronomers found evidence that galaxies in the early Universe went through a "growth spurt" of rapid and vigorous star formation. A distant galaxy, known as SMM J2135-0102 is making new stars 250 times faster than the Milky Way. Due to the amount of time it takes light to reach Earth the scientists observed the galaxy as it would have appeared 10 billion years ago – just three billion years after the Big Bang.
"This galaxy is like a teenager going through a growth spurt," said Dr. Mark Swinbank from Durham University, lead author of a new paper published in Nature. "We don't fully understand why the stars are forming so rapidly but our results suggest that stars formed much more efficiently in the early Universe than they do today. Galaxies in the early Universe appear to have gone through rapid growth and stars like our sun formed much more quickly than they do today."
Filed under: Gravitational Lensing, galaxies | 1 Comment »
March 21st, 2010
Artists rendering of a symbiotic recurrent nova. Image credit: David A. Hardy & PPARC
An alert was raised March 11 when Japanese amateur astronomers announced what might have been the discovery of a new 8th magnitude nova in the constellation of Cygnus. It was soon realized that this eruption was not what it appeared to be. It was actually the unexpected nova-like eruption of a known variable star, V407 Cygni. Typically varying between 12th and 14th magnitude, V407 Cyg is a rather mundane variable star. So what caused this well-behaved star to suddenly go ballistic?
March 21st, 2010
Incoming? This Week in Space looks at the sinister stealthy near earth asteroids that the WISE mission is finding that are lurking dangerously near Earth and only visible in the infrared. Workers at the Kennedy Space Center race to troubleshoot a valve problem with Discovery in hopes of keeping her on track for launch. A string of comets take a death dive, Jupiter's Great Red Spot gets the thermal imaging treatment, fun with crash test
dummies and more with Miles O'Brien and the TWIS team.
Filed under: Podcasts | No Comments »
March 20th, 2010
Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana, left, and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, address human spaceflight during a forum Friday March 19 at Brevard Community College's campus in Cocoa, Florida. (Rik Jesse, FLORIDA TODAY)
"The President made a mistake," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida in referring to President Barack Obama’s recent decision to completely terminate Project Constellation from the 2011 NASA Budget. “Because that is the perception. That he killed the space program."
“I know him [Obama] to be a vigorous supporter of the manned space program”, Nelson added. “But he certainly has not given that impression. The President is going to have to prove that when he comes here on April 15,” said Nelson. He was referring to the upcoming “Space Summit” scheduled to take place at or near the Kennedy Space Center on April 15. Click to continue…
Filed under: NASA, Space Exploration, Space Flight, Space Shuttle | 8 Comments »
March 20th, 2010
Aerial view of the 300 metre diameter Arecibo radio telescope dish
It's about fifty years since Frank Drake sent out our first chat request to the wider universe. I say about as I think the official date is 11 April 1960 – but I notice a lot of fifty year anniversary blogs and interviews are already being published, so what the heck, I'm not waiting either. Click to continue…
Filed under: Astronomy | 11 Comments »
March 20th, 2010
Elementally speaking, Universe Today is a science blog. Screenshot showing a part of David Bradley's Periodic Table of Sciece Bloggers. Can you find UT?
David Bradley is a first-class science writer from the UK, who writes with a chemistry slant at his blog Sciencebase. He's also an interesting guy to follow on Twitter, and coined the term "Scientwists." David also must be incredibly creative (or have more time on his hands than I could ever imagine) as he has created a Periodic Table of Science Bloggers. There you'll find over 100 different science blogs, covering topics from astrobiology to zoology. While the blogs aren't listed in topical groups similar to how the elements on the real periodic table are grouped, most are listed as an element whose abbreviation comes close to the blog or blogger's name. For example, Universe Today is listed as "Uut – Ununtrium." Check out this very cool periodic table to expand your horizons and bit and find some new blogs and new subjects to read about.
Filed under: Blog, Science | 7 Comments »
March 19th, 2010
A wide angle view of Discovery and the payload canister on the rolled back Rotating Service Structure. Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today
Over the weekend, NASA engineers will conduct additional tests to determine if Discovery can launch "as is" or have to be rolled back for repairs — which would mean a three-month delay for the STS-131 mission. Helium regulator assemblies downstream from a failed isolation valve in the shuttle's right rear maneuvering engine pod must work perfectly to provide a system redundancy that would justify proceeding with the flight. If they don't, then the regulator assemblies and the valve would need to be repaired or replaced, and neither can be done at the launchpad – meaning Discovery would have to be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building, de-mated from the SRBs and external tank, and sent to the Orbiter Processing Facility for repairs. But if the regulators check out, and no other problems arise, mission managers could give the 'go' to launch Discovery as is on April 5, 2010.
Today on the launchpad, said NASA Payload Manager Joe Delai was optimistic about the tests. "It's looking good," he said. "They will do a test on Saturday to make sure the two valves farther down the line work, and if that looks good, we'll put the payload on board."
Filed under: Space Shuttle | 2 Comments »
March 19th, 2010
Annotated graphic of Lunokhod 2's travels from Phil Stooke's International Atlas of Lunar Exploration.
The saga of the Soviet Union's Lunokhod moon rovers keeps getting more interesting! If you missed the update on our article about finding the "missing" Russian landers and rovers among the newly released Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images, the Lunokhod 2 rover was not exactly where one researcher initially thought – so there's now an updated image, which you can see at this link. But among all the research and poring over images that has been done since NASA released six month's worth of LRO data to the public earlier this week, Emily Lakdawalla from the Planetary Society uncovered an interesting tidbit about the Lunokhods which she generously passed on to me. After a little research, I found out more about an "extracurricular activity" the two Lunokhod rovers were commanded to do along their traverses on the lunar surface. They each created "memorials" to women on the Moon.
Filed under: Moon | 5 Comments »
March 18th, 2010
Illustration of the X-37 Advanced Technology Demonstrator during flight. Credit: NASA
It's cute. It's little. It's also top secret. The X-37B orbital test vehicle is at Cape Canaveral in Florida, and the word is that it will be launched on board an Atlas V rocket on Monday April 19, 2010 at around 10 pm EDT. Other than that, the Air Force
isn't saying much about this mini-space shuttle look-alike. The reusable unmanned vehicle is capable of staying in orbit for 270 days, but the mission duration hasn't been announced. Additionally, the ship has a payload bay for experiments and deployable satellites, but no word if any payloads will be included on the inaugural flight of this mini space plane.
Filed under: Space Flight, Technology | 8 Comments »
March 18th, 2010
Artist’s impression of Corot-9b. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
Chalk up another exoplanet discovery for the CoRoT satellite. But this planet, while a gas giant, could have temperatures cool enough to host liquid water. Corot-9b orbits a sun-like star at a distance similar to Mercury – one of the largest orbits of any extrasolar planet yet found, and may have an interior that closely resembles Jupiter and Saturn. “This is a normal, temperate exoplanet just like dozens we already know, but this is the first whose properties we can study in depth,” said Claire Moutou, who is part of the international team of 60 astronomers that made the discovery. “It is bound to become a Rosetta stone in exoplanet research.”
Filed under: Extrasolar Planets | 6 Comments »
March 5th, 2010
Mars Gorilla. Credit: NASA/JPL, inset Io9
Classify this one under the same nonsense as the "Bigfoot on Mars" the wooden plank on Mars, or perhaps even the "Face on Mars." Just an optical illusions, folks from a very, very zoomed in image from the Mars rovers. The Sun newspaper seemingly started this foolishness on what must have been a slow news day.
Filed under: Mars | 14 Comments »
March 5th, 2010
Garver and Bolden after they were sworn into office. Credit: NASA
Several news sources reported Thursday that NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden had asked senior managers to come up with an alternate plan for the newly proposed NASA budget after members of Congress indicated they wanted to reject a White House
proposal to cancel the Constellation program and hire private companies to bring astronauts to the ISS. But today, Bolden issued a memo saying there is no "Plan B" and that he only asked two agency directors to help develop an accelerated plan for research and development on a heavy lift launch vehicle. The lack of heavy lift capability is one of the big sticking points for many on the new plan.
"I have not asked anyone to develop an alternative to that budget and plan," Bolden wrote, "and I don't want anybody to do so. Rather, I have asked – and am asking – for input on how the exceptional talents and capabilities we have developed in our organization can best be applied going forward to advance the elements of our new plan."
Filed under: NASA | 11 Comments »
March 5th, 2010
A mosaic image of Phobos composed by 53 pictures. Credits: ESA/ DLR (S. Semm, M. Wählisch, K.Willner)/ FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, there was some speculation that Mars moon Phobos could possibly be hollow due to the its unusual orbital characteristics. While scientists now agree that the moon is very likely not hollow, vast caverns may exist within the moon, and it might be a porous body instead of solid. The Mars Express spacecraft made a close flyby of Phobos on Wednesday to help provide more data on the interior of Phobos, and all indications are the event was a big success. The spacecraft skimmed smoothly over the odd-shaped moon at just 67 km, the closest any manmade object has ever been. No images were taken from this flyby. Instead all the instruments were turned off so that ground stations could listen for a pure radio signal of how Phobos "tugged" on the spacecraft. Scientists say the data collected could help unlock the origin of Phobos and other ‘second generation’ moons.
Filed under: Mars | 8 Comments »
March 5th, 2010
The answer is now available for this week's Where In The Universe Challenge. Find it back on the original post. Thanks to Jason Major for submitting the image for this week!
And check back next week for another test of your visual knowledge of the cosmos.
Filed under: Where In the Universe? | No Comments »
March 5th, 2010
The view from the KSC TV control room looking out at the press auditorium where press conferences are held. Image: Nancy Atkinson
Listen to the audio of this podcast at this link.
You can also read the interviews below.
Hi, this is Nancy Atkinson from Universe Today. Right now I'm at Kennedy Space Center, and I've had the opportunity to see a couple of launches and cover other events that normally, I'd be back home watching on NASA TV. Since NASA TV is part of my daily diet of space media, I was very interested to see the newsroom, step in the auditorium where all the press conferences are held, and also talk with some of the people who work at NASA TV at Kennedy Space Center, or KSC TV as they call it, to find out about the work that they do, and also what it's like to provide some of the most unique and exciting coverage anywhere on — and off — the planet. I chatted with producers, directors, technicians and other people who work behind the scenes, plus I also had the good fortune to talk with one of the voices of NASA TV, George Diller.
Here are some of our conversations.
Filed under: NASA | 3 Comments »
March 4th, 2010
GOES-P launches from Kennedy Space Center. Image Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today.
rumbled and roared off launch pad 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Thursday evening, sending the GOES-P satellite soaring into a crisp and clear night sky. With liftoff at 6:57 p.m. EST, the rocket could be seen for several minutes after launch, and booster separation was clearly visible to observers on the NASA Causeway. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P, or GOES-P, is the latest in a series of meteorological satellites designed to watch for storm development and weather conditions on Earth as well as detect hazards with its emergency beacon support and Search and Rescue Transponder. It will take ten days for the satellite to maneuver to its geostationary equatorial orbit at 35,888 km (22,300 miles). Once there, GOES-P will get a new name: GOES-15.
Filed under: Satellites | 4 Comments »
March 4th, 2010
Over the years, scientists have debated the cause of the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Now, a panel of 41 international experts says it's official: a massive asteroid around 15 kilometers wide slamming into Earth at Chicxulub, Mexico is the culprit. After surveying a wide variety of evidence for the competing theories, the panel said the telling evidence was the structures preserved in the interior of the crater. Computer models predicted how much rock was vaporized or ejected by the impact. "Our work lets us visualize the astonishing events of the few minutes after impact," said Dr. Penny Barton, who led the group. "The front of the asteroid hit the Earth while the far side was still out in the upper atmosphere, punching a hole though the Earth's atmosphere."
Filed under: Asteroids | 29 Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
The Goddard Space Flight Center has a Flickr account showcasing a series of images of our own home planet. Called "Blue Marble," these spectacular images are the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations in 2001 of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. Your tax dollars at work, these images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. This record includes preview images and links to full resolution versions up to 21,600 pixels across.
Filed under: Earth, Earth Observation | 11 Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
Mosaic of microscopic images of Spirit underbelly on Sol 1925 (June 2009) showing the predicament of being stuck at Troy with wheels buried in the sulfate-rich martian soil. The sulfate deposits formed by aqueous (water-related) processes when this area dubbed “Home Plate’ was volcanically active. This false color mosaic has been enhanced and stretched to bring out additional details about the surrounding terrain and embedded wheels and distinctly show a pointy rock perhaps in contact with the underbelly. Spirit fortuitously discovered extensive new evidence for an environment of flowing liquid water at this location on Mars adjacent to ‘Home Plate’, an eroded over volcanic feature. Credit: Marco Di Lorenzo, Ken Kremer - NASA/JPL/Cornell
The plucky Mars rover ‘Spirit’ may yet rove again !
She’ll just have to outwit and outlast the unavoidably harsh cold and desperately low power levels of the looming winter in Mars southern hemisphere. Rather long odds to be sure – but she’s done it before. Remember – at this moment on Sol 2192, Spirit is 75 months into her 3 month mission ! That’s 25 times beyond her “warrenty” as Rover Principal Investigator Prof. Steve Squyres of Cornell University
is extremely fond of saying. Click to continue…
Filed under: Mars, Missions, NASA, Solar System, Space Exploration, Space Flight | 9 Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
Here's another Where In The Universe Challenge, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. This week's image was submitted by UT reader Jason Major, who is hoping this one will pose a challenge for everyone. But you know what to do: take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the instrument responsible for the image. We’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.
Good Luck!
Filed under: Where In the Universe? | 24 Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
A newly discovered red giant star is a relic from the early universe — a star that may have been among the second generation of stars to form after the Big Bang. Located in the dwarf galaxy Sculptor some 290,000 light-years away, the star has a remarkably similar chemical make-up to the Milky Way’s oldest stars. Its presence supports the theory that our galaxy underwent a “cannibal” phase, growing to its current size by swallowing dwarf galaxies and other galactic building blocks.
Filed under: milky way | 19 Comments »
March 2nd, 2010
Discovery rolls out of the VAB. Image: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today.
It was a dark and windy night. But then the Xenon spotlights hit space shuttle Discovery as it inched out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, lighting up the darkness. The lights didn't help the wind any, but the gleaming shuttle stack on top of the crawler/transporter was a beautiful sight to behold. I was told that first motion of the shuttle out of the VAB hasn't been open to the press for many years, (since the return to flight mission in 1988) and so I felt privileged to witness the event. Especially stunning was a unique silhouette shadow of the shuttle stack that formed against the clouds as the spotlights glared (see below). Photographer Alan Walters and I both snapped some shots, and I've now updated this post to include daylight photos of Discovery at the pad.
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