New Discoveries *4* - ...Solar System, Deep Space, cont'd

Palomar · 2004-12-20 21:53:02

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2004/2 … if]Sunrise over the Alps

*Nope...not the Alps in Europe. This is a two-part animation (separated by an hour's time) of sunshine and shadow on the Lunar Alps :up: The first image is a bit overexposed, the second a bit blurry, but can definitely see the shadows having shortened and other shadow/light changes (including the difference in appearance of that crater to the viewer's lower left).

Surely something I've not seen before.

The animation is being hosted by spaceweather.com (today's date; that web site archives daily), with this caption:

When the sun peeked over the Alps yesterday, French photographer Denis Joye had his camera ready and took their picture. Not the French Alps, the lunar Alps.
Like Earth, the moon has a mountain range called the Alps. When the sun rises there, approximately once a month, jagged peaks cast long shadows across the lava plains of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains). Two of Joye's photos captured one hour apart show how fast these shadows move...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-12-22 09:13:12

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cosmolog … ml]Hotbeds of galaxy birth in portions of our aging universe...

*...may be continuing to spawn -massive- baby galaxies (astronomers previously thought only small galaxies are now forming). Information from Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

These galaxies -- referred to as ultraviolet luminous galaxies --are "relatively close" to us, averaging 2 to 4 billion light years distance. Wow -- may be as young as 100 million to 1 billion years old. (There was an article similar to this which came about approximately 2 weeks ago -- but that concerned *the* youngest new galaxy so far discovered).

Also the chance to determine what our own galaxy may have looked like in its infancy.

Since young stars pack most of their light into ultraviolet wavelengths, young galaxies appear to the spacecraft like diamonds in a field of stones...
The newfound galaxies are about 10 times as bright in ultraviolet wavelengths as the Milky Way. This indicates they are teeming with violent star-forming regions and exploding supernova, which are characteristics of youth.

--Cindy :up:

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-22 22:52:53

Not realy a new discovery but http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/comets/Mac … html]Comet Machholz parallax is quite interesting.

Graeme

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-23 00:26:01

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/p … ew.jpg]NGC 1097

Nice!

Just viewed the 7.9Mb version large file (30 seconds on broadband, but probably 10 mins or so on dial up) http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/p … s.jpg]link

Graeme

Palomar · 2004-12-23 06:54:34

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/p … ew.jpg]NGC 1097
Nice!

*Ah, now that is one truly exquisite island universe. :up: And the bright circle of stars and dust around the center, as if especially showcasing the nucleus.

-*-

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2004/2 … so.jpg]And now for something bizarre

*Not a "new discovery" really, but I've not seen a photo quite like this before. :-\ It looks like an atom bomb going off -- mushroom cloud. Ugh. (If I stepped outdoors and saw that, without benefit of wondering "where's the Moon?," I just might flip out). Anyway, is being hosted at spaceweather.com for today's date.

Gazing across the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea on Dec. 21st, Italian photographer Riccardo Di Nasso saw something weird happen to the moon. As it sank beneath the distant waves, its turned red and drooped like hot taffy...
Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains: "When the moon or sun are rising and setting look out for weird effects. Here the three-quarter moon was miraged into what Jules Verne likened to an Etruscan vase. The upper shape is the real moon--the lower one is an inverted image produced by downward moon rays bent back upwards at the junction between a lower layer of air warmed by the sea and cold air above."

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-12-24 16:15:44

Jupiters]http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/jovian_moon_captured.html?24122004]Jupiter's Moon -- Amalthea: 1st Known "Satellitesimal" - ?

*A "must-read". It's the end of a long week, my fatigued eyeballs are about to drop from their sockets and we've got a dinner party to attend, my brain is half dead, so please excuse me for doing just mostly highlighting from this fab article:

New observations of Jupiter's moon, Amalthea, reveal that it probably didn't form with the giant planet...Amalthea has unusual amounts of water-carrying minerals. These typically form in low temperature environments. Astronomers theorize that Jupiter's moons formed from several small objects merging together, and Amalthea could be an example of one of these building blocks that never had a chance to merge

(During the birth of the Solar System) Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, probably had its own disk of gas and dust. The four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) are likely to have been born from this disk.
In addition to the Galilean moons, Jupiter has two other types of satellites: four small inner moons orbiting Jupiter -within- the orbit of Io, the inner most Galilean satellite...

The origin of the four small inner moons remain a mystery, however. They have orbits compatible with the hypothesis that they formed in orbit around Jupiter like the Galilean moons. On the other hand, their small irregular shapes and their comparatively low reflectivity and low densities resemble asteroids and suggest that they were captured by Jupiter's gravitational pull just like the outer moons.

*The new spectrum of this moon shows water signatures, and article mentions "water containing hydrous materials." They say these minerals usually form in low temperatures, which rules out the possibility of Amalthea forming in the high-temperature Jovian neighborhood when Jupiter was forming and based on Amalthea's proximity.

Also says Amalthea's surface resembles regions of Callisto which -aren't- ice covered.

This suggests that Amalthea may have been one of the many small "micro-satellites" orbiting Jupiter that was sucked into an inner orbit when the Galilean moons formed. However, the spectrum of Amalthea has similarities with asteroids orbiting the Sun, suggesting that is was a "micro-planet" that was pulled into Jupiter's orbit when Jupiter itself was forming.

*Here's what's especially cool, IMO (and seems to contradict the article's title and other points, i.e. "captured"):

our results strengthen the argument that Amalthea is one of the few remaining pieces of the material that formed the Galilean moons

Amalthea may have ended up in orbit close to Jupiter rather than get incorporated into a larger moon or Jupiter itself. If this is the case, Amalthea would be the first known example of a 'satellitesimal.'

*Wonders never cease.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-12-26 18:06:31

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020217.html]Local Bubble & Galactic Neighborhood

*What surrounds Sol and our Solar System in this portion of the Milky Way? Scientists' best guess. This is truly cool. :up:

Also "shows" direction of Sol's movement relative to everything else.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-12-30 15:01:33

*A handful of -unrelated- items I've been collecting the past week or so. None of these have been posted previously by me, to the very best of my memory.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020413.html]Pwyll: Icy Crater of Europa

Such artifact! Dot and rays. That "dot" is 26 km in diameter. :-\ Is thought to be one of the youngest of Europa's surface features.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960908.html]Volcano Euboea Fluctus (geez...some of these names!) on Io

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0202 … Reflection Nebula M78

*Eerie blue glow and ominous columns indeed. Pretty, though.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041222.html]A nice and *natural* cosmic collage

*Blooper: First they point out that meteor isn't a Geminid. Later, they call it "the Geminid." :hm: Wires crossed somewhere.

--Cindy

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-31 03:27:08

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041231.html]Fitting Image to end 2004 on I think.

Graeme

Palomar · 2004-12-31 08:05:52

*Yes, Graeme, I agree.

Forgot to include http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041230.html]this item in yesterday's "odd assortment" post.

M81 & M82: GALEX Full Field. Stunning. M81 is comparable in size to our galaxy. There's a patchy grouping of stars to the left of its core and seemingly detached from the galaxy itself. Perhaps is attached to the galaxy by a dark dust lane? Or maybe is indeed separate and a satellite of sorts? Perhaps can't see "trailing" stars between it and the galaxy proper because this is a false-color image?

M82 looks like a firefly.

...near the top, turbulent, irregular galaxy M82 shows the results of extreme rates of star birth and death. Supernovae, the death explosions of massive stars, contribute to a violent wind of material expelled from M82's central regions.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-01-02 18:58:12

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0501/02corona/]Beta Ceti's corona brightens with age

*It is no longer classed as a red giant.

-*-

Fireworks]http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0501/01fireworks/]"Fireworks Galaxy"

*An article a bit on the lengthy side. If stellar pyrotechnics are your thing...

Compares this galaxy to ours:

Astronomers suspect that massive stellar giants have been ending their lives in supernova explosions throughout NGC 6946 in rapid-fire fashion for tens of millions of years.
"In order to sustain this rate of supernova activity, massive, quickly evolving stars must form or be born at an equally rapid rate in NGC 6946," said Gemini North Associate Director, Jean-Rene Roy. "Its stars are exploding like a string of firecrackers!"
Astronomers speculate that if just a million years of this Galaxy's history were compressed into a time-lapse movie lasting a few seconds, there would be nearly constant outbursts of light as new stars flare into view, while old ones expire in spectacular explosions. Over the past century, eight supernovae have exploded in the arms of this stellar metropolis, occurring in 1917, 1939, 1948, 1968, 1969, 1980, 2002, and 2004. This makes NGC 6946 the most prolific known galaxy for supernovae during the past 100 years.
By comparison, the average rate for such catastrophic stellar outbursts in the Milky Way is about one per century, and only four have been recorded over the last thousand years.

*It also boasts a much higher star formation rate than -all- large galaxies in our local cosmic neighborhood.

--Cindy :up:

Palomar · 2005-01-05 14:22:39

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … 5]Magnetic fields shape nebulae?

The reason why most planetary nebulae are not spherical is not well understood. Several hypotheses have been considered so far. One of them suggests that the strange shapes of planetary nebulae might be due to some centrifugal effect that results from the fast rotation of red giants. Another theory is that the symmetry of the star's wind may be affected by a companion star. However, the most recent and convincing theories explaining the shapes of the nebulae involve magnetic fields.

The presence of magnetic fields would nicely explain the complicated shapes of planetary nebulae, as the ejected matter is trapped along magnetic field lines. This can be compared to iron filings trapped along the field lines of a bar magnet - a classic demonstration in high school physics classrooms. Since strong magnetic fields at the surface of the star also exert pressure on the gas, matter can more easily leave the star at the magnetic poles where the magnetic field is strongest.

*Of all astronomical objects, I enjoy nebulae the most. They can be so very dramatically different and unique.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-01-07 12:10:56

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0501 … anicouagan Impact Crater -- Canada

*Okay, so it's not a new discovery, but I'm sure I've not see this before. Pic taken by shuttle Columbia in 1983. Is one of Earth's oldest known impact craters.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050104.html]What our Milky Way Galaxy probably looks like :up:

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0202 … ](Partial) Solar System Portrait

An oldie but a goodie. I've been meaning to post it; this is as good a time as any. Ironically (for us), Mars was "hidden by sunlight scattered in the camera's optical system" and thus couldn't be photographed; Mercury (because of being so close to Sol) and Pluto are also not in the image.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-01-10 12:09:19

You will love the nebula photo's that are part of this article Cause of Strange Cosmic Shapes Pinned Down. Thank's go to Hubble and the other space telescopes used in this research.

Few objects in the sky have more magnetic personalities than planetary nebulas. Astronomers have been drawn to the strange objects since early telescopes in the 1700s revealed them as fuzzy patches of light that resembled the giant planets of our outer solar system.
More recently, the Hubble Space Telescope and others have produced stunning images of the zoo of bizarre shapes and intense colors these objects display.
A new study seems to confirm one crucial aspect of what's behind the mysterious shapes, that they are sculpted in large part by the magnetic field of the dying star that spawns them.

Palomar · 2005-01-10 13:44:15

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … 12005]Vega & Spitzer: Aftermath of Collision

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a dusty ring of material orbiting nearby Vega which was probably the result of a series of protoplanets smashing into each other.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has seen the dusty aftermath of this "run-in." Astronomers think embryonic planets smashed together, shattered into pieces and repeatedly crashed into other fragments to create ever-finer debris. Vega's light heats the debris, and Spitzer's infrared telescope detects the radiation.

*May have occurred within a million years (which of course is very recently, cosmologically speaking). Says these particles won't stay long in Vega's vicinity, as its intense light is blowing them away, etc.

The planets/planetoids involved may have been about the size of Pluto.

--Cindy

P.S.: This "disc event" will be short-lived; the particles average a few microns in size and will dissipate into space in less than 1000 years. However --

The mass of these short-lived grains implies a high dust-production rate. The Vega disc would have to have an improbably massive reservoir of planet-building material and collisions to maintain this amount of dust production throughout the star's life (350 million years, 13 times younger than our sun).

Its radius is 20 times that of our Solar System.

Palomar · 2005-01-10 16:28:54

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … iants_dc]3 largest-yet red supergiant stars identified

*They are KW Sagitarii, V354 Cephei and KY Cygni. Each "dwarf" Betelguese (in Orion) and are larger than Herschel's Garnet Star (in Lepus) -- the previous champ.

All three boast diameters of 1 billion miles, which is 1500 times Sol's diameter. Wow. :up:

If they were in the same location as the Sun...their outer layers would extend to a point between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.

Poor Antares (my favorite) doesn't even factor in for comparison! :;):

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2005-01-10 16:57:15

Cindy:-

(Partial) Solar System Portrait
An oldie but a goodie. I've been meaning to post it; this is as good a time as any. Ironically (for us), Mars was "hidden by sunlight scattered in the camera's optical system" and thus couldn't be photographed; Mercury (because of being so close to Sol) and Pluto are also not in the image.

I hadn't seen this perspective of our home System before. You know, with all those cosy colourful pictures of our Solar System in the files and in the average 'Space Atlas', you can forget how vast it really is on a human scale.
As massive as we perceive our Earth and other planets to be, especially Jupiter and Saturn, they're all just tiny specks in the colossal volume of space bounded by Pluto's orbit. And that's ignoring the even more mind-numbing expanses of space out to the far side of the Kuiper Belt ... then there's the Oort Cloud ... then, twice as far again, there's the nearest star .. !!
And still, that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of how big space is in comparison to the infinitesimally small human world.

I wish you hadn't posted that picture, Cindy. I think I'm getting a headache! ??? :laugh:

SpaceNut · 2005-01-11 05:33:19

I wish they would also give diameters in light years across also.

Palomar · 2005-01-11 06:49:42

I wish they would also give diameters in light years across also.

*Sometimes they can't. Considering a light year is 9.5 trillion km, some of the cosmic entities discussed are a fraction of that size yet.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-01-11 07:40:19

I searched for the B Flat article a sound that a star might make but did not find it.
Here is another Rapidly rotating star dubbed 'King of Spin' by research team

New ultraviolet observations indicate a Milky Way star is spinning nearly 200 times faster than Earth's sun, the probable result of a merger between two sun-like stars whose binary orbit recently collapsed, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder astronomer.

I wonder what note that is.

Palomar · 2005-01-11 08:43:02

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050108.html]X-ray Mystery in RCW 38

*Hmmmm...weird mix of young stars, a diffuse cloud of mysterious x-rays enveloping them and the apparent absence of previously "known" causes. ??? Only 6000 ly distant, "in" constellation Vela.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050110.html]Dust Sculptures in Rosette Nebula

*Globules, dark dust, etc.

Left alone long enough, the molecular-cloud globules would likely form stars and planets.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-01-11 08:57:50

It is great how all these different space telescopes, peering at the stars are increasing the knowledge of there birth formations, there life and of course there death depending on the neighborhood that they live within.

Palomar · 2005-01-12 06:34:00

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.htm … ong-Period Comets: Solar System's "Rosetta Stone"

*What's left over from previous tantrumy behavior on the part of Jupiter and Saturn particularly. :;):

Pristine condition of these comets are believed to hold clues as to the origins/formation of the planets.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-01-12 06:56:24

Interesting how the Spitzer Space telescope uses the Earth as a solar shield from the sun.

Palomar · 2005-01-12 10:59:35

AAAAAahhhHHhh!!

It's http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=15873]THE BLOBS!! :laugh:

*Yet to be classified. They're composed of "intensely glowing" material which surrounds faraway galaxies -- in fact, they contain some of the most violent and brightest galaxies yet known.

They're wondering if galaxy mergers might form the cores of these blobs.

Their observations reveal monstrously bright galaxies and suggest that blobs might surround not one, but multiple galaxies in the process of merging together.

Blobs were first discovered about five years ago with visible-light telescopes. They are located billions of light-years away in ancient galactic structures or filaments, where thousands of young galaxies are clustered together. These large, fuzzy galactic halos are made up of hot hydrogen gas and are about 10 times as large as the galaxies they encompass. Astronomers can see glowing blobs, but they don't know what provides the energy to light them up.

Stay tuned...have your popcorn and soda within reach!

--Cindy

New Mars Forums

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#51 2004-12-20 21:53:02

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