Astronomy | Universe Today

Excellent teamwork by astronomers working in two different wavebands – x-ray and optical – has lead to the discovery of a binary quasar being created by a pair of merging galaxies.

"This is really the first case in which you see two separate galaxies, both with quasars, that are clearly interacting," says Carnegie astronomer John Mulchaey who made observations crucial to understanding the galaxy merger.

"The model verifies the merger origin for this binary quasar system," Thomas Cox, now a fellow at the Carnegie Observatories, says, referring to computer simulations of the merging galaxies he produced. When Cox's model galaxies merged, they showed features remarkably similar to what Mulchaey observed in the Magellan images. "It also hints that this kind of galaxy interaction is a key component of the growth of black holes and production of quasars throughout our universe," Cox added.
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(Editor's Note: Ken Kremer is in Florida for Universe Today covering the launch of Endeavour.)

Night literally turned to day as shuttle Endeavour roared off the pad early this morning Feb.8 at 4:14 AM beginning a 2 day chase to link up with the International Space Station and commence the STS 130 mission. It was like Endeavour had set the sky on fire !

Endeavour and her brave crew will deliver two new rooms that will provide a spectacular view of the Earth and cosmos as a fitting legacy to rival the spectacular light show put on today by NASA. Believe me, You must be beyond brave to voluntarily sit on top of such a terrifying beast and lie just a few meters distant from the fuel tanks providing the source of the scorching flames shooting out from the rocket engine nozzles beneath you. Read more…

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The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) science team has finished analyzing seven full years' of data from the little probe that could, and once again it seems we can sum up the universe in six parameters and a model.

Using the seven-year WMAP data, together with recent results on the large-scale distribution of galaxies, and an updated estimate of the Hubble constant, the present-day age of the universe is 13.75 (plus-or-minus 0.11) billion years, dark energy comprises 72.8% (+/- 1.5%) of the universe's mass-energy, baryons 4.56% (+/- 0.16%), non-baryonic matter (CDM) 22.7% (+/- 1.4%), and the redshift of reionization is 10.4 (+/- 1.2).

In addition, the team report several new cosmological constraints – primordial abundance of helium (this rules out various alternative, 'cold big bang' models), and an estimate of a parameter which describes a feature of density fluctuations in the very early universe sufficiently precisely to rule out a whole class of inflation models (the Harrison-Zel'dovich-Peebles spectrum), to take just two – as well as tighter limits on many others (number of neutrino species, mass of the neutrino, parity violations, axion dark matter, …).
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Filed under: Astronomy, Cosmology, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Missions, Physics, galaxies | 7 Comments »

Have you been watching the sweet movements of Mars as it cruises across the starry nights? Perhaps, like many of us, you're snowed in right now and could use a little mental and visual inspiration. If so, then step inside and let's take a look at what it's like to enjoy clear, dark skies while riding on the ecliptic plane… Read more…

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(Editor's Note: Ken Kremer is in Florida for Universe Today covering the upcoming Endeavour launch attempt.)

“We can fly Orion in 2013”, says John Karas, the VP and General Manager of Human Space Flight for Lockheed Martin. Lockheed is the prime contractor for NASA’s Orion capsule.

“There is no doubt in my mind we can do this. And Orion is very safe”. He strenuously repeated this statement to me several times with absolutely no doubt in his mind during a wide ranging interview. I spoke at length with Karas today (Feb. 6) at the NASA Press Center shortly before the scheduled Feb. 7 launch of shuttle Endeavour on the STS 130 mission to the ISS. Read more…

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My dog keeps me in touch with the universe. There are important reasons why he has to go out into the backyard about 9pm and then again around 5.00am – and at both times there are stars out. He has this very particular sound, the canine equivalent of ahem, to let me know it’s time. Read more…

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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! If you're not about to get buried under a blanket of snow, then why not spend some time out under blanket of stars with this weekend's stellar project? This four star adventure is sure to warm you up. Need more? Then I'll show you were to look for a comet and a "snow ball" of stars! Of course, we've got plenty to learn about the history and mystery of what we're looking at, so whenever you're ready? I'll see you in the backyard… Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Observing | 2 Comments »

Are the relativistic jets of long gamma ray bursts (GRBs) produced by brand new black holes? Do some core-collapse supernovae result in black holes and relativistic jets?

The answer to both questions is 'very likely, yes'! And what recent research points to those answers? Study of an Ic supernova (SN 2007gr), and an Ibc one (SN 2009bb), by two different teams, using archived Gamma-Ray Burst Coordination Network data, and trans-continental Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) radio observations.
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This magnificent image of the giant stellar nursery surrounding NGC 3603 was taken by the Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal, Chile. This nebula is a starburst region, a huge star-making factory where stars form frantically from the nebula’s billowing clouds of gas and dust. It is located 22,000 light-years away from the Sun, and is the closest region of this kind known in our galaxy. Thousands of stars inhabit this region, with most having masses similar to that of our sun. But other stars are some of the most spectacular and massive stars around. In fact, one star, NGC 3603 A1, is the most massive star ever "weighed." Several blue supergiant stars crowd into a volume of less than a cubic light-year, along with three so-called Wolf-Rayet stars — extremely bright and massive stars that will do the supernova gig relatively soon. The Bad Astronomer tells it way better than I, so go check out his gigantisized blog post.

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Now that the Moon is absent from the early evening picture, are you ready to journey around a black hole? It's not an easy observation, but it is one that doesn't require highly specialized equipment and its not difficult to find. Can you identify Capella? Then let's rock… Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Citizen Science, Observing | 7 Comments »

(Editor's Note: Ken Kremer is in Florida for Universe Today covering the upcoming Endeavour launch attempt.)

The six person crew for the STS 130 flight of shuttle Endeavour arrived at the Kennedy Space Center late this evening, Tuesday Feb. 2. The astronauts flew here from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston aboard the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA). They landed at the Cape at approximately 10:10 PM EST at the shuttle landing facility strip which is where the shuttles return from space after completing their orbital mission. The STA is a modified Gulfstream II jet. Read more…

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While this desolate looking red landscape looks like it might be part of the Martian surface, it's actually a bit closer to home. The Great Southern Rail, which launched a luxury train crossing Australia from Darwin to Adelaide, has christened one of its lines the "Ghan" after the original ships of the desert – camels – and its other line the Southern Spirit. The Southern Spirit joins the Ghan, which runs south to north, and the Indian Pacific, which runs east to west, as a grand rail adventure of world standard. The remarkable difference about the Southern Spirit is that it will traverse the country both east to west and north to south and offer an adventure you might never associate with a rail trip… Astronomy! Read more…

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Astronomers have managed to peer past obscuring dust clouds to gain their first peek at the gestation of a massive proto-star W33A which is about 12,000 light years away within the Sagittarius constellation. A spokesperson for the research team, who you may not be surprised to learn is British, described the sight as ‘reassuringly familiar, like a nice cup of tea’. Read more…

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“Golden Gate Bridge, San Fransisco, CA. Beautiful shadow ,” tweeted Astronaut Soichi Noguchi along with a live image he shot from space from inside the International Space Station.

The 5 man crew comprising Expedition 22 aboard the ISS now have the capability to transmit live, unfiltered views and comments from space. And whats more is that starting on Feb. 1 they’ll be streaming live video from the outpost, orbiting some 220 miles above the earth while speeding along at 17,500 MPH. Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Astrophotos, Earth Observation, NASA, Observing, Science, Space Station | 1 Comment »

The “Crown Jewel” of NASA’s solar science research fleet, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, was transported from the Astrotech payload processing facility outside KSC to the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at Launch Complex 41 in the overnight hours of Jan 26. It’s standard operating procedure to transport such highly valuable payloads after midnight, when the least amount of traffic is on the road in order to minimize any possibility for an accident. The $848 million spacecraft was moved at about 10 MPH on a specially designed flat bed truck for a trip lasting roughly four hours. Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Missions, Solar Astronomy, Space Exploration | 1 Comment »