New Discoveries #5 - Deep space, galactic, solar system, etc.

Palomar · 2005-10-13 05:56:50

*Not a "new discovery," but one heckuva gorgeous photo:

Those stars are aprox 1500 l/y distant. As the name implies, they're much more massive than Sol, and hotter.

Can see Horsehead and Flame nebulas. I've seen this region in my own small 'scope many times; of course this photo is much more spectacular (understatement).

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-14 11:23:58

Something old, something new...

*...something borrowed, something blue -- er, ultraviolet.

Is M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, as imaged by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer in ultraviolet light (which makes it "new"). Is our 2nd-closest galactic neighbor; the Andromeda Galaxy is 1st.

The majority of M33's stars are believed to be rather young at a few hundreds of millions of years old.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-17 16:05:38

M32 punched through M31

*From Spitzer. Involves dwarf galaxy M32, which is a satellite of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy). At some point in their mutual history, M32 plowed through M31, which is described as an "explosive uppercut punch." Thanks to Spitzer, scientists can see the jagged hole resulting from that trauma; the hole is approximately 10,000 light years across.

Spitzer is also revealing additional features not previously seen:

bright, new stars and spiral arcs swirling out from the galaxy's center.

Article includes visible-light and infrared (Spitzer) images for comparison.

M31 is part of the Local Group to which our Milky Way also belongs, and is the largest of the LG spiral galaxies. We'll collide with it in 3 billion years...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-10-26 13:53:42

NGC 7331: Milky Way's twin?

*Scientists speculate this galaxy is a "twin" to ours (info in the caption). Was taken by amateurs with the assistance of a pro via the Kitt Peak program. NGC 7331 lies aprox 50 million l/y distant "in" the constellation Pegasus. It is aprox 30,000 l/y wide.

Other galaxies visible in the background. Nice shot.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-02 13:17:32

Hints of earliest stars found?

*Ned Wright of UCLA is skeptical. Interesting article.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-05 06:46:03

*Just because it's beautiful:

M78

-*-

Cosmic Cloudshine

A spectacular development:

Harvard astronomers have pioneered a new way to peer below the surface using near-infrared light that is invisible to the human eye. The resulting images are both beautiful and scientifically valuable because they can be used to map the structure of interstellar matter.
"We can now see the structure of gigantic star-forming regions over vast distances with a resolution 50 times better than before..."

"By using cloudshine, astronomers can study star-forming regions at a very small scale," said Padoan. "We will be able to learn much more about the physics of star formation."

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-07 08:18:37

*Beautiful Bubble Nebula:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051107.html

Is towards Cassiopeia, aprox 10 light years across.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-07 14:55:20

*Acoustics the explanation for supernovae?

http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1622_1.asp

For years theorists have used computer simulations to try to understand exactly how massive stars explode as supernovae. But they kept running into a problem: their simulated supernovae usually fizzled. Explaining how supernovae blow up so violently has remained one of the great unsolved problems of astrophysics.

The group...serendipitously discovered in a recent simulation that acoustic waves generated deep in a collapsing stellar interior have the oomph to blow apart massive stars. "This could be a completely new paradigm for supernovae..."

In short, infalling material starts hammering the core preferentially on one side. The core starts oscillating violently like a loudspeaker woofer, converting the gravitational energy of infalling material into acoustic waves that propagate outward on the opposite side of the star. The sound waves ram into one another and merge into a powerful shock wave that has sufficient energy and momentum to blow the star to Kingdom Come.

Fascinating. I'm recalling that Sol "rings like a bell" (sound oscillations) during its typical "daily" activity.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-09 14:51:22

The Mountains of Creation

*Not to be confused with the famous "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula. The pillars in the MoC are 10 times larger than those in the PoC, and are located on the eastern edge of region W5 which is "in" the constellation Cassiopeia and roughly 7,000 light years away.

This is a Spitzer (infrared) image. Thanks to Spitzer, the largest "finger" reveals hundreds of embryonic stars not previously seen; and also dozens of embryonic stars in the other "fingers."

"We believe that the star clusters lighting up the tips of the pillars are essentially the offspring of the region's single, massive star," said Lori Allen, lead investigator of the new observations from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "It appears that radiation and winds from the massive star triggered new stars to form."
Visible-light images of this same region show dark towers outlined by halos of light. They are not as dramatic because the clouds block the light coming from the embryonic stars.

Older blue stars residing in cloud cavities also mentioned, and a bit of speculation regarding our own Sun's birth comparable to the MoC scenario.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-10 06:34:23

Runaway star

*This from European astronomers. Is designated HE 0437-5439, a massive star traveling in excess of 2.6 million kilometers per hour. There's speculation as to its age, origins and how it came to be traveling so swiftly. It's currently positioned near the Large Magellanic Cloud.

They're wondering if the LMC contains a massive black hole, the gravitational effect of which might have given this star a walloping kick ... or if the star originates intergalactically. Such massive stars are not usually found in the Milky Way's halo, but rather in its disc.

More studies forthcoming...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-10 15:59:26

Oh. My. God.

*Adjectives fail.

Is located in the Small Magellanic Cloud; 210,000 light years distant.

A torrent of radiation from the hot stars in the cluster NGC 346, at the centre of this Hubble image, eats into denser areas around it, creating a fantasy sculpture of dust and gas. The dark, intricately beaded edge of the ridge, seen in silhouette, is particularly dramatic. It contains several small dust globules that point back towards the central cluster, like windsocks caught in a gale.
Energetic outflows and radiation from hot young stars are eroding the dense outer portions of the star-forming region, formally known as N66, exposing new stellar nurseries. The diffuse fringes of the nebula prevent the energetic outflows from streaming directly away from the cluster, leaving instead a trail of filaments marking the swirling path of the outflows.

Dazzling. I'm in love.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-15 11:55:37

*Not a "new discovery" per se, but am reluctant to create a new thread just for it. Tonight's full moon marks "Frost Moon" (folklore). Spaceweather.com is hosting a photo of last evening's Moon, including this bit of information which I'm sure we all know but it's one of those interesting reminders:

But there's nothing frosty about it. The surface temperature of a full moon exceeds 100 C. Why so hot? The moon has no atmosphere to dim the sun. Sunlight hits the ground full blast, making the Frosty Moon hot enough to boil water. Strange, but true.

Yeah...interesting to reconsider that. No goin' barefoot on Luna.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-15 12:39:11

NGC 1333: A harvest of stars

*Article involves recent Spitzer discovery. Is a nebula aprox 1,000 l/y distant "in" Perseus, found to contain "a bounty" of young stars aprox less than 1 million years old; stellar babies. The article mentions NGC 1333's shock fronts, cold gas, jets and warm dust.

A notable quote: "The sheer number of separate jets that appear in this region is unprecedented."

Of especial note: Perhaps 80 of these stars are surrounded by discs of dusty material where planets might be forming.

The area seen in the photo spans 4 light years in diameter.

The stars of NCG 1333 are split into two groups: One to the north, near the red nebulosity and the other towards the south, near the green shocks.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-16 07:12:28

Unique photo

*Two supernova remnants side by side. I've not seen such a photo before.

Is from Chandra. The pair is dubbed DEM L316 and they reside in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The gas shell at the upper-left contains considerably much more iron, so it's probably the product of a Type 1a, triggered by the infall of matter from a companion star onto a white dwarf. The lower-right shell is a Type II supernova, the remains of a massive star that exploded a few million years into its short life.

This composite X-ray (red and green)/optical (blue) image reveals a cat-shaped image

Cat-shaped...lol! It does look like a cat (without a tail). Hmmmm...so that's where Radar went.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-18 07:42:21

The 37 Cluster

*This and the "Coat hanger" asterism (previously posted long ago, can search APOD archives for it) are the coolest. It's the brighter stars of NGC 2169, an open cluster which is aprox 3,600 l/y distant towards the constellation Orion. It's rather small, spanning 7 light years in width. Its stars are young, only 8 million years old.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-22 08:50:55

A cosmic guitar?

*It does resemble an electric guitar. 8)

All those myriad stars...

Wouldn't you just love to go on and on throughout the universe? They say there's a limit to the universe, that it's not infinite...but I hope they're wrong and it
is. Never-ending beauty and always more to learn.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-25 06:14:23

NGC 1333

*This newly released from Spitzer; false-color image. Is aprox 1,000 l/y distant, "in" the constellation Perseus.

Notably, greenish streaks and splotches that seem to litter the region trace the glow of cosmic jets blasting away from emerging young stellar objects as the jets plow into the cold cloud material. In all, the chaotic scene likely resembles one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago.

Optical light photo

Beautiful either way.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-11-28 18:02:34

*Cosmic moth:

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … 51128.html

Interesting how it has "mirror-image" globules at the end of each "taper." I wonder why...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-12-01 07:05:12

Not a new discovery per se...

*...but the most detailed photo of the Crab Nebula yet, courtesy of HST.

Mentions the history of the supernova in 1054, observed and documented by Japanese and Chinese astronomers, which created the nebula. It is aprox 6,500 light years distant and is powered by what remains of the SN -- a dense, "city sized" neutron star which rotates 30 times per second. Article says the neutron star "spits" twin beams of radiation from its poles during rotation.

Gives explanation as to the bluish color.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-12-09 08:07:45

Spiral arm of Milky Way looms closer than thought

Now if I only knew which direction the sun is moving with respect to the arms on either side we could figure out how long it would be before we would have new neighbors...

DonPanic · 2005-12-09 11:37:04

Hello
The History of the Baryon Budget : Cosmic Logistics in a Hierarchical Universe

Palomar · 2005-12-09 12:57:47

Stellar traffic jams

*Is a movie -- a series of images obtained by HST over 5 years; jets of plasma expelled from a newborn star.

Like traffic on a freeway, plasma spewing from the poles of newborn stars moves in clumps that travel at different speeds...Faster moving particles crash into slower moving material, and the resulting traffic jams create the spectacular shapes in space...the resulting "traffic jams" create massive shock waves that travel trillions of miles.

"When it comes to actually showing exactly what's going on, there's just nothing like a movie..."

--Cindy

DonPanic · 2005-12-09 16:31:49

LO
Black Energy or cosmological constant ?

Palomar · 2005-12-13 14:17:55

*New information about Sirius B:

Article

It's a white dwarf (have known that); and now it's been discovered that it apparently it possesses 98% the mass of Sol. :shock:

Study done with the assistance of HST.

"Sirius B, at just 7,450 miles in diameter, has an intense gravitational field. A person weighing 150 pounds on Earth would weigh 55 million pounds [on Sirius B]..."

It was a favorite mystery dwarf of "old" astronomy books. And as the article mentions, Sirius is in the winter constellation Canis Major (The Greater Dog), just to the east of Orion and is now on the rise. But of course Sirius B is invisible to most telescopes (understatement).

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-12-13 14:36:07

Here is another Astronomers use Hubble to 'weigh' Dog Star's companion otherwise known as Sirius B.

Artist comparison of Earth to Sirius B

Hubble imaging was used to take an over exposure to obtain the images.

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#126 2005-10-13 05:56:50

Re: New Discoveries #5 - Deep space, galactic, solar system, etc.

#127 2005-10-14 11:23:58

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#128 2005-10-17 16:05:38

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#129 2005-10-26 13:53:42

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#130 2005-11-02 13:17:32

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#131 2005-11-05 06:46:03

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#132 2005-11-07 08:18:37

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#133 2005-11-07 14:55:20

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#134 2005-11-09 14:51:22

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#135 2005-11-10 06:34:23

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#136 2005-11-10 15:59:26

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#137 2005-11-15 11:55:37

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#138 2005-11-15 12:39:11

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#139 2005-11-16 07:12:28

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#140 2005-11-18 07:42:21

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#141 2005-11-22 08:50:55

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#142 2005-11-25 06:14:23

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#143 2005-11-28 18:02:34

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#144 2005-12-01 07:05:12

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#145 2005-12-09 08:07:45

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#146 2005-12-09 11:37:04

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#147 2005-12-09 12:57:47

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#148 2005-12-09 16:31:49

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