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For those of us who had the opportunity to chase Comet Garradd this weekend, half the joy was catching it crossing the “Coathanger” cluster! In this great shot by Mike Romine, the comet appears along the curve of the upside down 2 of the asterism. Mike took this shot without a telescope, using a Canon EOS 50D, 135mm lens, F/5.6, ISO 1600, 90 seconds, mounted on a Celestron SCT on a CG5-GT mount at 12:45 AM. Nice catch! Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group, post in our Forum or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
© tammy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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 Mars-bound astronauts may require different meals than the ones prepared for the shuttle program.
Image Credit: NASA Johnson Space Center (NASA-JSC) NASA has made tremendous progress during the past fifty years with regards to food science. Gone are the days of nutrients in toothpaste style tubes and it’s safe to assume NASA astronauts haven’t had to drink Tang in decades. At a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society, Maya R. Cooper, senior research scientist at NASA’s Space Food Systems Laboratory discussed how feeding astronauts will be one of the most difficult issues to resolve before launching a manned mission to Mars. Despite all the progress NASA has made, what challenges still need to be overcome to feed the crew of a manned mission to Mars?
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Read the rest of Meals for Mars? (564 words)
© Ray Sanders for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: astronaut food, Mars, tang
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For many exoplanet systems that have been discovered by the radial velocity method, astronomers have found excess emission in the infrared portion of the spectrum. This has generally been interpreted as remnants of a disk or collection of objects similar to our own Kupier belt, a ring of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Pluto. But as Kepler and other exoplanet finding missions rake in the candidates though transits of the parent star, astronomers began noticing something unusual: None of the exoplanet systems discovered through this method were known to have debris disks. Was this an odd selection effect, perhaps induced by the fact that transiting planets often orbit close to their parent stars, making them more likely to pass along the line of sight which could in turn, betray different formation scenarios? Or were astronomers simply not looking hard enough? A recent paper by astronomers at the Astrophysikalisches Institut in Germany attempts to answer that question. (...)
Read the rest of Where’s the Debris for Transiting Planets? (394 words)
© jvois for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Extrasolar Planets, Infrared Astronomy
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 Ursa Major over Croatian Beach. Credit: Tihomir Borzan This photo of the Ursa Major, also known as the Big Dipper was captured by Tihomir Borzan above a beach in Croatia on Aug 14th 2011, 00:55 AM local time. Ursa Major is a prominent constellation that’s visible all throughout the year in most locations in the northern hemisphere. Its seven brightest stars form the famous Big Dipper. “The photo was taken with a Panasonic DMC-TZ10 camera, with an F/3.3 aperture and a 60 second exposure time. I didn’t take any telescopes or a tripod of any kind, so I just put the camera down on a rock and made sure it kept still during the exposure time. Some other tech specs on the photo: ISO-80 sensitivity, 4 mm phocal length, all set by the in built night scene program in the camera. A nice feature is the GPS receiver of the camera, so I can give you the exact coordinates where I made the photo: 44° 18′ 39.11″ N, 15° 5′ 53.35″ E.”
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group, post in our Forum or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
© dcast for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Astrophotos
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 Tropical Storm Lee - Visible image from GOES-13 satellite on Sunday, Sept. 4 at 9:32 a.m. EDT
It shows the extent of Lee's cloud cover over Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle and spread into the Tennessee Valley. The thickest clouds and heaviest rainfall stretch from the northeast to southwest of the center. Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project New imagery from NASA and NOAA satellites taken today (Sept 4) shows the extent of a hurricane season storm currently ravaging the US Gulf Coast and another potentially posing a new threat to US East Coast areas still suffering from the vast destruction caused by Hurricane Irene just days ago. Data from the NASA and NOAA satellites is critical in providing advance warning to government officials and local communities to save human lives and minimize property damage. . Slow moving Tropical Storm Lee has unleashed strong thunderstorms and heavy rainfall in several Gulf Coast states. Rainfall amounts of up to 7 to 14 inches over the last 48 hours are currently drenching coastal and inland communities – especially in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama along a wide swath that extends from Texas to the Florida panhandle. Isolated pockets of Gulf State areas may see up to 20 inches of rainfall. Severe flooding to homes and roads has occurred in some locations. Winds have diminished from 60 mph on Saturday (Sept. 3) to 45 mph on Sunday. (...)
Read the rest of Tropical Storm Lee Drenches Gulf Coast as Hurricane Katia Aims for US East Coast (651 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Aqua satellite, Goddard Space Flight Center, GOES 13, GRAIL, Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Katia, hurricane satellite images, hurricanes, NASA, NOAA, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), Tropical Storm Lee
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 Andromeda Galaxy. Credit: Brandon Powers Brandon Powers of Moultrie, Georgia captured this photo of M31, also known as the Andromeda galaxy. You can also see NGC 221 at the top and NGC 205 at the bottom. The Andromeda galaxy is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way at approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth. According to the 2006 observations of the Spitzer Space Telescope, Andromeda galaxy contains around one trillion stars which is approximately twice the number of stars in the Milky Way. Brandon used a Nikon D90 camera attached to 12" LX200 telescope. Check out Brandon's photo on his Flickr page. Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group, post in our Forum or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
© dcast for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Astrophotos
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 Holden crater is 140 km across, filling the left side of the image, while to the right is the remaining part of Eberswalde crater, with a diameter of about 65 km. They are located in the southern highlands of Mars. North is to the right of the image. The image was acquired by Mars Express at approximately 25°S / 326°E during orbit 7208 on 15 August 2009. The images have a ground resolution of about 22 m per pixel. Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum) In the southern highlands of Mars, Eberswalde crater to be exact, ESA’s Mars Express exploration has pinpointed an area which once held a lake. Although it may have been some 4 billion years ago, the geologic remains – called a delta – are still evident in the new images. This region of dark sediments are a shadowed reminder that Mars once had water. (...)
Read the rest of Mars Express Delivers Views Of Martian Lake (215 words)
© tammy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: martian lake, Water on Mars
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 The standard model of the universe has it that the energy density of its contents and the 'dark energy' of its expansion are, just now, of the same order of magnitude. Coincidence? Credit: NASA. Cosmologists tend not to get all that excited about the universe being 74% dark energy and 26% conventional energy and matter (albeit most of the matter is dark and mysterious as well). Instead they get excited about the fact that the density of dark energy is of the same order of magnitude as that more conventional remainder. After all, it is quite conceivable that the density of dark energy might be ten, one hundred or even one thousand times more (or less) than the remainder. But nope, it seems it’s about three times as much – which is less than ten and more than one, meaning that the two parts are of the same order of magnitude. And given the various uncertainties and error bars involved, you might even say the density of dark energy and of the more conventional remainder are roughly equivalent. This is what is known as the cosmic coincidence.(...)
Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – Cosmic Coincidence (556 words)
© Steve Nerlich for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cosmic coincidence
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