Universe Today » Spitzer

Great Observatories Combine for Stunning Look at Milky Way

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:33:58 +0000

All we can say is, "Wow!" In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories — the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory — have collaborated to produce an unprecedented image of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy. This is a never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our home galaxy. The image is being unveiled by NASA to commemorate the anniversary of when Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609. NASA provided this image and the individual images taken by each of the Great Observatories to more than 150 planetariums, museums, nature centers, libraries, and schools across the country.
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Multi-Planet System is Chaotic, Dusty

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:27:36 +0000

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this infrared image of a giant halo of very fine dust around the young star HR 8799. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Ariz.

Just what is going on over at the star HR 8799? The place is a mess! But we can just blame it on the kids. Young, hyperactive planets circling the star are thought to be disturbing smaller comet-like bodies, causing them to collide and kick up a huge halo of dust. HR 8799 was in the news in November 2008, for being one of the first with imaged planets. Now, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has taken a closer look at this planetary system and found it to be a very active, chaotic and dusty system. Ah, youth: our solar system was likely in a similar mess before our planets found their way to the stable orbits they circle in today.
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Post tags: Extrasolar Planets, Spitzer Space Telescope

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Spitzer Watches Planet-Forming Disk Change Quickly

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:50:24 +0000

Something strange is going on around a young star called LRLL 31. Astronomers have witnessed a swirling disk of gas and dust which is changing rather quickly; sometimes weekly. This is likely a planet forming disk, however, planets take millions of years to form, so it's rare to see anything change on time scales we humans can perceive. Another object appears to be pushing a clump of planet-forming material around the star, and this region is offering astronomers with the Spitzer Space Telescope a rare look into the early stages of planet formation.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Planetary Formation, Spitzer Space Telescope

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Trigger-Happy Star Formation in Cepheus B

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:29:53 +0000

Combining data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Spitizer Space Telescope allowed astronomers to create this gorgeous new image of Cepheus B. Besides being incredible eye candy, the new image also provides fresh insight into how some stars are born. The research shows that radiation from massive stars may trigger the formation of many more stars than previously thought.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chandra, Spitzer Space Telescope

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Spitzer Finds Evidence of Violent Planetary Collision

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:23:31 +0000

One of the main theories of how our Moon formed involves a violent cosmic collision between two planets. Astronomers have only been able to hypothesize what this collision was like, but now they have a better idea of what would ensue after such an event. With its infrared eyes the Spitzer Space Telescope has found the aftermath a collision between two planets, and what it shows is brutal. "This collision had to be huge and incredibly high-speed for rock to have been vaporized and melted," said Carey M. Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, "This is a really rare and short-lived event, critical in the formation of Earth-like planets and moons. We're lucky to have witnessed one not long after it happened."

Watch the animation/recreation of the event in the video above.
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Spitzer Changes Its Glasses, Sees Cotton Candy

Anne Minard — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:58:35 +0000

The Spitzer Space Telescope has run out of the liquid helium that kept its optics cool — but the scope has already returned compelling new images as if to say:

I don't need no stinkin' helium.

At five and a half years, Spitzer's prime mission more than doubled initial expectations. It finally ran out of liquid helium in May and was retooled for a new "warm mission" that began July 27. With its two remaining infrared channels, the telescope promises to observe with roughly the same sensitivity as a 30-meter ground-based telescope.

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Spitzer Finds a Cyclops Galaxy!

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:22:29 +0000

Imagine peering through your telescope and having a wild creature with one Cyclops-like eye looking back at you! NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope saw just that when it located galaxy NGC 1097, about 50 million light-years away. It has long, spindly arms of stars, and its one "eye" at the center of the galaxy is actually a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. Plus, this creature looks to be carrying a smaller blue galaxy in its arms!
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The Spitzer Space Telescope Speaks Its Mind

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:58:43 +0000

The Spitzer Space Telescope is close to running out of coolant. Around May 12, the telescope will use up the last drop of the coolant that chills the instruments to just a few degrees above absolute zero. Everyone knew this was coming, but still it is sobering news. However, even though the coolant will be depleted, Spitzer will remain cold enough to still probe the universe with its infrared detectors for at least a couple of years. But we all like to think these missions will go on forever, at least I do anyway. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory shared this news in one of the more creative press releases ever put out by any NASA center: they interviewed the telescope. That's right, the telescope. Not the principal investigator, not the chief engineer, but the telescope itself.
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Why Are Galaxies Smooth? Star Streams

Nancy Atkinson — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:15:51 +0000

Look at the disk of any large spiral galaxy, and outwardly it appears smooth, with stars evenly distributed throughout. But when young stars are forming, they are clustered together in dense clouds of dust and gas. So what happens as the galaxy matures to allow for the smooth distribution seen in galaxies like the Milky Way? Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered streams of young stars flowing from their natal cocoons in distant galaxies. These distant rivers of stars provide an answer to one of astronomy's most fundamental puzzles.
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Ancient Solar Systems Found Around Dead Stars

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:31:21 +0000

Were there once habitable planets long ago around stars that are now dead? A team of astronomers have found evidence that between 1-3 percent of white dwarf stars are orbited by rocky planets and asteroids, suggesting these objects once hosted solar systems similar to our own. White dwarf stars are the compact, hot remnants left behind when stars like our Sun reach the end of their lives. Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers have determined that asteroids are found in orbit around a large number of white dwarfs, perhaps as many as 5 million in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
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Would Life Form Differently Around Cool Stars?

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:29:34 +0000

"Life as we know it" seems to be the common caveat in our search for other living things in the Universe. But there's also the possibility of life "as we don't know it." A new study from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope hints that planets around stars cooler than our sun might possess a different mix of potentially life-forming, or "prebiotic," chemicals. While life on Earth is thought to have arisen from a hot soup of different chemicals, would the same life-generating mix come together around other stars with different temperatures? (And should we call it 'The Gazpacho Effect?') "Prebiotic chemistry may unfold differently on planets around cool stars," said Ilaria Pascucci, lead author of the new study.
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New Image Reveals M33 is Bigger Than Thought (and it's Headed Our Way)

Anne Minard — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:15:13 +0000

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured this new image of M33, also known as the Triangulum Galaxy, and released it as part of the "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" event for the International Year of Astronomy.

Besides the pretty colors, the new image reveals something else about M33: it's more than meets the eye.

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The Two Shall Become One (Galaxy, that is)

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:31:52 +0000

An imminent collision of biblical proportions has been captured by the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. The image here offers a rare view of a collision about to happen between the cores of two merging galaxies, each powered by a black hole with millions of times the mass of the sun. Already this union is considered to be one galaxy: NGC 6240, located 400-million light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. Millions of years ago, each core was the dense center of its own galaxy before the two galaxies collided and ripped each other apart. Now, these cores are approaching each other at tremendous speeds and preparing for the final cataclysmic collision. They will crash into each other in a just a few million years.
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Stars at Milky Way Core 'Exhale' Carbon, Oxygen

Anne Minard — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:04:27 +0000

Carbon and oxygen have been spotted in the dust around stars in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, suggesting that the stars have undergone recent disruptions of some kind — and hinting how stars can send heavy elements — like oxygen, carbon, and iron — out across the universe, paving the way for life.

Scientists have long expected to find carbon-rich stars in our galaxy because we know that significant quantities of carbon must be created in many such stars. But carbon had not previously shown up in the clouds of gas around these stars, said Matthew Bobrowsky, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland and a co-author of a new study reporting the discovery.

“Based on our findings, this is because medium-sized stars rich in carbon sometimes keep that carbon hidden until very near the end of their stellar lives, releasing it only with their final ‘exhalations’,” explained Bobrowsky.

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Hubble, Spitzer Collaborate for Stunning Panorama of Galactic Center

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:44:29 +0000

Two of the biggest space telescopes have combined forces to create a HUGE panorama of the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This sweeping, composite color panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. Revealed in the image are a new population of massive stars and new details of complex structures in the hot gas and dust swirling around, created by solar winds and supernova explosions. The image shows an area about 300 light-years across. Click here for options in seeing this image in small, medium or super-sized extra large resolution! Click here for a stunning movie showing the location and more detail of this image in visible light. Astronomers at the American Astronomical Society meeting pointed out the actual galactic center is in the large white region near the lower right side of the image. If you need something to keep you occupied for awhile, try counting the number of stars in this image!

More about this image…
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Powerful Rivers of Gas Imaged Around Star-Forming Swan Nebula

Ian O'Neill — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:57:17 +0000

The turbulent and dynamic Swan Nebula (M17) has been imaged by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, producing the clearest view yet of the star-forming region. Within the twisted cloud of gas and dust, violent stellar winds constantly blast the medium, generating flows around stars, creating vast bow shocks. A few massive stars in the centre of M17 are the main source of the relentless stellar "rivers" of gas, immersing smaller stars in the the flow, acting like stationary rocks on a riverbed…
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An Inside Look at Comet Holmes

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:25:49 +0000

The astronomy world buzzed in the Fall of 2007 when Comet Holmes – a normally humdrum, run-of-the-mill comet — unexpectedly flared and erupted. Its coma of gas and dust expanded away from the comet, extending to a volume larger than the Sun. Professional and amateur astronomers around the world turned their telescopes toward the spectacular event. Everyone wanted to know why the comet had suddenly exploded. The Hubble Space Telescope observed the comet, but provided few clues. And now, observations taken of the comet after the explosion by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope deepen the mystery, showing oddly behaving streamers in the shell of dust surrounding the nucleus of the comet. The data also offer a rare look at the material liberated from within the nucleus. "The data we got from Spitzer do not look like anything we typically see when looking at comets," said Bill Reach of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech.
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Star Blasting Water From Its Surroundings

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:10:10 +0000

The Spitzer Space Telescope has spied water in a cloud of gas and dust around a nascent star. That's interesting in itself, but even more remarkable, the water is being blasted apart by the young star's laser-like jets. Spitzer's spectrometer was used to get a better look at these jets and analyze the jet's molecules. To the astronomers' surprise, Spitzer picked up the signature of rapidly spinning fragments of water molecules, called hydroxyl, or OH. "This is a truly unique observation that will provide important information about the chemistry occurring in planet-forming regions, and may give us insights into the chemical reactions that made water and even life possible in our own solar system," said Achim Tappe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
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Spitzer Takes Family Portrait of Stars Amid Another "Celestal Geode"

Nancy Atkinson — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:44:50 +0000

A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals generations of stars amid a cavity carved from a colorful cosmic cloud. The striking infrared picture shows a region, called W5, which is similar to N44F, or the "Celestial Geode" that was discussed in a Universe Today article last week. The gas cavity, which looks similar to a geode-like cavity found in some rocks, is carved by the stellar wind and intense ultraviolet radiation from hot stars. W5 is studded with stars of various ages, and provides new evidence that massive stars â€“ through their brute winds and radiation â€“ can trigger the birth of new stars.
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No Life Possible at Edges of the Pinwheel Galaxy

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:47:58 +0000

Another beautiful image from the Spitzer Space Telescope; in this case, itâ€™s Messier 101, more commonly known as the Pinwheel Galaxy. But the pretty red highlights at the edges of the galaxy are bad news for anyone looking for evidence of life. "If you were going look for life in Messier 101, you would not want to look at its edges," said Karl Gordon of the Space Telescope Science Institute. "The organics can't survive in these regions, most likely because of high amounts of harsh radiation." The red color highlights a zone where organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are present throughout most of the galaxy, suddenly disappear.
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Baby Boomer Galaxy Found

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:37:08 +0000

This galaxy, Zw II 96 (about 500 million light-years away) resembles the Baby Boom galaxy which lies about 12.3 billion light-years away and appears in images as only a smudge.

A group of telescopes got together recently to check out a little hanky-panky going on in a galaxy in a very remote part of the universe. The Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, Japan's Subaru Telescope, the James Clerk Maxwell and the Keck Telescopes, all on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and the Very Large Array in New Mexico pooled their various optical, infrared, submillimeter and radio capabilities to see why a distant galaxy appears to be conceiving stars at a tremendously fast rate. This galaxy, which has now been dubbed the "Baby Boom" galaxy, is giving birth to about 4,000 stars per year. In comparison, our own Milky Way galaxy turns out an average of just 10 stars per year. These telescopes weren't just playing the part of a Peeping Tom; astronomers want to find out more about this incredibly fertile galaxy.
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Mysterious Omega Centauri Dazzling in Infrared: New Spitzer Observations

Ian O'Neill — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:31:41 +0000

By combining ground-based optical observations with space-borne infrared images from Spitzer, an incredible new view of mysterious Omega Centauri has been revealed. Astronomers have had a hard time identifying what type of galaxy Omega Centauri actually is, so any new information on the cluster of millions of stars is needed. By combining observations in different wavelengths, stars of different ages are highlighted, possibly aiding our understanding about the origins of Omega Centauri and answer the question: Why is this galaxy so strange?
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Time Traveling With Spitzer

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:05:20 +0000

While time travel is seemingly impossible, we can actually look back in time with our telescopes to learn about the conditions of our universe in times past. The Spitzer Space Telescope has found some very dim and distant galaxies located at the edge of our universe that have never been seen before. Approximately 12.5 billion light-years away from Earth, weâ€™re seeing these galaxies as when our universe was just one billion years old. With Spitzer's infrared capability, astronomers have been able to take infrared portraits and even "weigh" many of these early galaxies. "Understanding the mass and chemical makeup of the universe's first galaxies and then taking snapshots of galaxies at different ages, gives us a better idea of how gas, dust and metals– the material that went into making our Sun, solar system, and Earth –has changed throughout the Universe's history," said Spitzer scientist Dr. Ranga Ram Chary.
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Could AA Tauri Hold the Biochemical Key to Extra-Terrestrial Life?

Ian O'Neill — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:19:53 +0000

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has measured huge quantities of water and organic compounds surrounding the star AA Tauri, 450 light years from Earth. AA Tauri is a young star, only a million years old, not too dissimilar to our Sun when it was a baby. What makes AA Tauri even more special is that it appears to have the "spectral fingerprint" for a system that could allow life to form. Finding a star system similar to our own, with organic compounds was always bound to cause excitement, but finding a star so close to us provides a fantastic opportunity to study AA Tauri. This will, in turn, help us understand the evolution of our own solar system and how life is able to form…
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Spitzer Sees a Baby Star Blowing Bubbles

Fraser Cain — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:00:05 +0000

A new image released from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a baby star blowing bubbles, just like, I guess, a kid with bubblegum. But let's see your kid hurl out material hundreds of kilometres a second across light-years of space. Those are some big bubbles.
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