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2010/01/04

Universe Today - 25 new stories for 2010/01/05

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25 new stories for 2010/01/05

Probing the Explosive History of Eta Car

Eta Carinae as imaged by the Gemini South telescope in Chile with the Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) using adaptive optics to reduce blurring by turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. In this image the bipolar lobes of the Homunculus Nebula are visible with the never-before imaged

I can't seem to stop writing about Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) stars this week. And new research discussed at the AAS conference this week continues the trend. As part of a series of short talks on exploding stars, John Martin of the University of Illinois, Springfield spoke on his work with the LBV Eta Carinae.(...)
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Moon Rock Will Return to Space Aboard Endeavour

In May of last year, we followed the story of former astronaut Scott Parazynski, as he climbed Mt. Everest to collect a piece of the mountain and test out equipment for NASA. During the climb, Parazynski carried a Moon rock that was brought to the Earth by the Apollo 11 mission. Though the journey of this rock has been rather long, it is about to come to an end.(...)
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New Studies on the Vela Star Forming Region

A false-color infrared image of the star forming complex in Vela. Two new studies have measured for the first time the dust emission at very long infrared wavelengths, and found a set of young stars that are accreting material and flaring. Credit: NASA and the Spitzer Space Telescope

This week at the AAS meeting scientists revealed two new studies on a star forming region in Vela. The first used the Balloon-borned Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST, a proptotype detector for the one to be placed on the new Herschel Space Telescope) to classify the young stars and begin mapping the warm dust in the region. The second searched the nebula for flaring young stars. Both studies are to appear in an upcoming publication of the Astrophysical Journal.

(...)
Read the rest of New Studies on the Vela Star Forming Region (464 words)


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Could A Faraway Supernova Threaten Earth?

Supernovae, just like any other explosions, are really cool. But, just like any other explosion, it's preferable to have them happen at a good distance. The star T Pyxidis, which lies over 3,000 light-years away from the Earth in the constellation Pyxis, was previously thought to be far enough away that if anything happened in the way of a supernova, we'd be pretty safe.

According to Edward Sion, Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Villanova University, T Pyxidis may be in fact a "ticking time bomb," and potential threat to the Earth if it were to go supernova, which it may do sometime in the future, though very, very far in the future on our timescale: by Scion's calculations, at least 10 million years.(...)
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Intergalactic Connection is Older, Longer than Thought

Our galaxy has a streamer, though it's not like the ones you had on your bike as a kid: this streamer is a flow of largely hydrogen gas that originates in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two of our closest galactic neighbors. New observations of the stream have helped to revise its age and extent, and show it to be longer and much older than previous estimates.(...)
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Dual Black Holes Spinning in a Cosmic Dance – Complete with Disco Ball


Caption: An image of the galaxy COSMOS J100043.15+020637.2 taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. Image courtesy Dr. Julia Comerford.

Astronomers have discovered 33 pairs of merging black holes in cosmic dances around each other, a finding that was predicted or 'choreographed' by Isaac Newton. "These results are significant because we now know that these 'waltzing' black holes are much more common than previously known," said Dr. Julia Comerford of the University of California, Berkeley, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, DC. "Galaxy mergers are causing the waltzing, can use this finding to determine how often mergers occur. The black holes dancing towards us are shifted towards blue light, and those moving away from us are shifted toward the red. So it is like a cosmic disco ball showing us where the black holes are dancing."
(...)
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Carnival of Space #135 — New Year Edition

The tent is up over at Steve's Astro Corner, with this week's Carnival of Space is hosted by Steve Tilford.

Click here to read the Carnival of Space #135.

And if you're interested in looking back, here's an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you've got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, let Fraser know if you can be a host, and he'll schedule you into the calendar.

Finally, if you run a space-related blog, please post a link to the Carnival of Space. Help us get the word out.


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Stellar Destruction Could Be from Intermediate Black Hole


NGC 1399, an elliptical galaxy about 65 million light years from Earth. Credit: NASA, Chandra

A dense stellar remnant has been ripped apart by a black hole a thousand times as massive as the Sun. If confirmed, this discovery would be a cosmic double play: it would be strong evidence for an intermediate mass black hole — which has been a hotly debated topic — and would mark the first time such a black hole has been caught tearing a star apart. Scientists believe a mysterious intense X-ray emission, called an "ultraluminous X-ray source" or ULX is responsible for the destruction. "Astronomers have made cases for stars being torn apart by supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies before, but this is the first good evidence for such an event in a globular cluster," said Jimmy Irwin of the University of Alabama, who led the study.
(...)
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Kepler Discovers Planets-like Objects Hotter Than Stars


Possible habitable zones around stars. Credit: Kepler mission

The Kepler mission announced the discovery of 5 new extrasolar planets today at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, DC, each with some very unusual properties. But additionally, the space telescope has spotted some Jupiter-sized objects orbiting stars, and these objects are hotter than the host star. The science team has no idea what these objects could be, but they are part of 100 planetary candidates Kepler has observed that are still being analyzed.
(...)
Read the rest of Kepler Discovers Planets-like Objects Hotter Than Stars (337 words)


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ALMA Telescope Links Third Antenna

Well, they're 1/22 of the way there: the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), planned to be one of the largest ground-based observatories in the world, successfully linked 3 of its 66 antennas together. This is the next step in working out all of the bugs associated with linking together the whole array, which should happen sometime in 2012.(...)
Read the rest of ALMA Telescope Links Third Antenna (349 words)


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Hubble Repairman to Lead Space Telescope Science Institute

Self proclaimed "Hubble Hugger" and telescope repairman Dr. John Grunsfeld has been appointed Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, the organization that coordinates all the science done with HST. Grunsfeld's new job starts today, January 4, 2010. "This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for me to work at a focal point of top astronomers at the leading edge of scientific inquiry. The team at STScI has a demonstrated record of meeting the high performance challenges of operating the Hubble Space Telescope, and preparing for the James Webb Space Telescope. I look forward to working with this excellent team as we continue to explore the mysteries of the universe."
(...)
Read the rest of Hubble Repairman to Lead Space Telescope Science Institute (181 words)


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Water on the Moon Revisited


Undoubtedly, one of the biggest space news stories of 2009 was the double news story of finding water on the Moon. First, in September, scientists from three different space missions announced they had detected widespread water across the surface of the Moon. Then in November, the LCROSS science team held a press briefing to announce they had detected "buckets" of water inside the crater the LCROSS impactor created inside Cabeus Crater on the lunar south pole. On the January 2 edition of 365 Days of Astronomy, I discuss the the findings and include audio clips from the press conference and soundbites from the scientists. Check it out, and I hope you enjoy it!

Also, in case you haven't heard, the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast is continuing in 2010, and we are still looking for podcasters throughout the year. So far, over 200 days have been spoken for, but that still leaves about 165 other days to schedule. To find out more, visit the 365 Days of Astronomy website, or listen to me discuss the podcast on the January edition of The Jodcast.


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New Year's Greetings from TEAM ISS and 2010 ISS Calendar

The newly enlarged crew of Team ISS sends New Year's greetings welcoming in 2010 to all earthlings over this holiday weekend. "We thank you for your support and interest in this current chapter of human exploration and discovery. We wish you a very fruitful and happy New Year".

New Year's is one of the few holidays in common to everyone aboard the International Space Station. The current multicultural Expedition 22 staff comprises five cosmonauts and astronauts; 2 Russians, 2 Americans and 1 Japanese. The last three crew members arrived bearing Christmas presents and Santa on Dec 22. (...)
Read the rest of New Year's Greetings from TEAM ISS and 2010 ISS Calendar (799 words)


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Answer to WITU Challenge Now Posted


Whoops! Between holiday travel and festivities, I am tardy in providing the answer to this week's Where In The Universe Challenge. But you can now find it back on the original post. Thanks for playing (and for your patience!) and check back later for a new WITU challenge later this week!


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Get Ready for "Largest Meeting in Astronomy History"

Here comes the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held during January 3-7, 2010 in Washington, DC. With over 2,500 registrants, the AAS has billed this as "the largest meeting in astronomy history." The AAS 215 will undoubtedly produce some amazing new astronomical announcements, press releases and briefings, and we at Universe Today will work hard to bring you all the news. So get ready for a ridiculous amount of coverage. And if you're into exoplanets, word has it there will be lots of exoplanet news this week. Stay tuned!

Plus, you can watch public events and press conferences from Astronomy Cast Live's UStream channels at these web addresses:
Public Events
Press Conferences
Random Roving Reporting


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Do Eruptions of P Cygni Point to a Companion?

The other day, I wrote an article on Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) which made reference to P Cygni as a well established LBV to which a group made comparisons. While P Cygni is a good example of an LBV, it has many interesting characteristics in its own right. Prior to August 8, 1600, the star was not known to exist, when suddenly, it appeared, flaring to 3rd magnitude. Over the next hundred years it continued to undergo outbursts, fading and brightening.

New research by Amit Kashi of the Israel Institute of Technology suggests this series of flares may be due to the presence of a second star in orbit around P Cygni.(...)
Read the rest of Do Eruptions of P Cygni Point to a Companion? (506 words)


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Blue Moon Eclipse Photos from Santhosh Nandakumar

Blue Moon Eclipse Photos

We couldn't see the eclipse from my house on Vancouver Island, but Santhosh Nandakumar was kind enough to send in this sequence of images of the eclipse from Coimbatore, TN, India.


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New Year's Eve Blue Moon Eclipse from Cornwall

New Year's Eve Eclipse. Photo by Nathanial Burton-Bradford

Happy New Year! Thanks to Nathanial Burton-Bradford for sharing his photo of the New Year's Eve Blue Moon Eclipse. "Very hazy high level clouds over Cornwall so not very clear, unfortunately," Nathanial wrote this morning. But beautifully breathtaking nonetheless!

Onward to 2010!


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MN112 – A New Luminous Blue Variable Found From Its Nebula?

Eta Carinae

Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) are a rare class of extremely massive stars that teeter on the very edge of being stable. The most famous of this class of stars is the well studied Eta Carinae. Like many other LBVs, Eta Carinae is shrouded in a nebula of its own making. The instability of the star causes it to throw off large amounts of mass even during its brief main sequence lifetime. What makes these stars so unstable is an open question which has been difficult to answer do the the paucity of known LBVs. Given that the initial mass function predicts that such massive stars should be rare, this is not surprising, but identifying these stars is often made even more difficult due to the reddening caused by their nebulae.

However, an international team working from Russia and South Africa proposes that the nebula itself may be able to help identify potential candidates of LBVs. (...)
Read the rest of MN112 – A New Luminous Blue Variable Found From Its Nebula? (392 words)


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Sailing the Seas of Titan

The first interplanetary nautical craft may be a boat to explore the methane seas of Titan. A proposed mission to Titan would explore some of its largest seas, including Ligeia Mare (pictured) or the Kraken Mare, both of which are in the northern hemisphere of the foggy moon of Saturn. The concept has been studied for over two years by scientific team led by Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research, Inc. in Washington DC, and has recently been submitted to NASA.(...)
Read the rest of Sailing the Seas of Titan (424 words)


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New Year's Resolution: Find the Mars Polar Lander


Finding hidden treasure would be a great way to start the new year, don't you think? And somewhere in this patterned landscape the remains of a missing spacecraft could be hidden, just waiting to be found. The Mars Polar Lander arrived at the Red Planet 10 years ago in December of 1999, but just before the lander entered the Martian atmosphere, MPL went silent. An immediate search began for the remains of the MPL using images from Mars Global Surveyor, and now the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is continuing the search with high resolution images of the area in which MPL is most likely to have landed. The image here is another image in a series of images from HiRISE to look for MPL.
(...)
Read the rest of New Year's Resolution: Find the Mars Polar Lander (181 words)


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Will the Spirit Rover Survive 2010?


In just a few days, the Spirit rover will celebrate six incredible years on Mars. But JPL put out a press release today, as well as the video above, saying the outlook for Spirit's survival is not good. Being stuck in a sand trap with wheels that aren't working well are challenges to Spirit's mobility that could prevent the rover team from using a key survival strategy — positioning the rover's solar panels to tilt toward the sun to collect power for heat to survive the severe Martian winter. "The highest priority for this mission right now is to stay mobile, if that's possible," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the rovers.

I'm still holding out hope, however, that the rover team will work another miracle, and that 2010 will be another happy year for Spirit on Mars — see the image below created by Stu Atkinson.
(...)
Read the rest of Will the Spirit Rover Survive 2010? (408 words)


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Mayon Volcano Threatens Major Eruption


Mayon Volcano, on the Philippine island of Luzon, has been exhibiting activity suggesting a major eruption is imminent. Described as an "intense level of unrest" by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Mayon exhibited 7 ash explosions, dozens of earthquakes related to the movement of magma beneath the volcano, over 100 rock falls from the summit, and 3 active lava flows. The Philippine government is enforcing evacuations in a danger zone extending 7 kilometers (4 miles) north and 8 kilometers (5 miles) south of the summit. Tens of thousands of people living within the danger zone (up to 8 kilometers away) of Mayon Volcano in the Philippines were forced to evacuate to emergency shelters in mid-December 2009.
(...)
Read the rest of Mayon Volcano Threatens Major Eruption (102 words)


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This Week's Where In The Universe Challenge


Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here's #85! Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. As usual, 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.

UPDATE: Answer has been posted below!
(...)
Read the rest of This Week's Where In The Universe Challenge (74 words)


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Dreamtime Meteor Impact Found with Google Earth

Duane Hamacher a PhD student from Australia's Macquarie University found an ancient meteor impact crater in a remote location of the Northern Territory by searching Google Earth and following clues from an ancient dreamtime legend told by the indigenous Arrernte people.(...)
Read the rest of Dreamtime Meteor Impact Found with Google Earth (420 words)


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