Anne Minard, Author at Universe Today

July 21, 2009April 26, 2016 by Anne Minard

Thirty-Meter Telescope Headed for Mauna Kea

[/caption]

The Thirty Meter Telescope, which is vying to be the inaugural member of an emerging class of giant eyes in the sky, is headed for the Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

That means the other contending site, Cerro Armazones in Chile, is off the drawing board.

Richard Ellis, a TMT board member, said the choice was a tough one, but Mauna Kea had scientific advantages.

“Mauna Kea is a higher site. It is actually drier, and the average temperature fluctuates less from day to day and during the day to night cycle than the Chilean site,” he said, during a press conference this afternoon to announce the decision. “Much of the astronomy will be at infrared wavelengths, where the dryness is an advantage.”

He added that the Hawaii boasts slightly better atmospheric qualities, including lower turbulence over the site.

When completed in 2018, the TMT will enable astronomers to detect and study light from the earliest stars and galaxies, analyze the formation of planets around nearby stars, and test many of the fundamental laws of physics. Based on the scientific model of the twin Keck telescopes, the core technology of TMT will be a 30-meter primary mirror composed of 492 segments.

The TMT project is an international partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and ACURA, an organization of Canadian universities. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) joined TMT as a Collaborating Institution in 2008.

The TMT project has completed its $77 million design development phase with primary financial support of $50 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and $22 million from Canada. The project has now entered the early construction phase, with an additional $200 million pledge from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Caltech and the University of California each have agreed to raise matching funds of $50 million to bring the construction total to $300 million, and the Canadian partners propose to supply the enclosure, the telescope structure, and the first light adaptive optics.

The TMT faces competition from the Giant Magellan Telescope to usher in the age of the giants. See past Universe Today coverage of the race here.

Source: TMT site

July 21, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Heat-Shocked Diamonds Provide New Clue of Horse-Killing Impact

California's Channel Islands, where heat-shocked soot and diamonds are suggesting a killing comsic impact. Courtesy NOAA and UC Santa Barbara

[/caption]

Archeologists have been divided about whether an extraterrestiral impact blasted North America about 12,900 years ago, wreaking havoc on Earth’s surface and sending scores of species — including a pygmy mammoth and the horse — into oblivion.

New clues from California’s Channel Islands should put any doubt to rest, says an international team of researchers.

This transmission electron microscopy close-up shows a single lonsdaleite crystal, left, and associated diffraction pattern. Credit: University of Oregon

The 17-member team, led by University of Oregon archaeologist Douglas J. Kennett, has found what may be the smoking gun.

The team has found shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds in 12,900-year-old sediments on the Northern Channel Islands off the southern California coast.

The tiny diamonds and diamond clusters were buried deeply below four meters (13 feet) of sediment. They date to the end of Clovis — a Paleoindian culture long thought to be North America’s first human inhabitants. The nano-sized diamonds were pulled from Arlington Canyon on the island of Santa Rosa, which had once been joined with three other Northern Channel Islands in a landmass known as Santarosae.

The diamonds were found in association with soot that forms in extremely hot fires, and they suggest associated regional wildfires, based on nearby environmental records.

Such soot and diamonds are rare in the geological record. They were found in sediment dating to massive asteroid impacts 65 million years ago in a layer widely known as the K-T Boundary. The thin layer of iridium-and-quartz-rich sediment dates to the transition of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, which mark the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the Cenozoic Era.

“The type of diamond we have found — Lonsdaleite — is a shock-synthesized mineral defined by its hexagonal crystalline structure. It forms under very high temperatures and pressures consistent with a cosmic impact,” Kennett said. “These diamonds have only been found thus far in meteorites and impact craters on Earth and appear to be the strongest indicator yet of a significant cosmic impact [during Clovis].”

The age of this event also matches the extinction of the pygmy mammoth on the Northern Channel Islands, as well as numerous other North American mammals, including the horse, which Europeans later reintroduced. In all, an estimated 35 mammal and 19 bird genera became extinct near the end of the Pleistocene with some of them occurring very close in time to the proposed cosmic impact, first reported in October 2007 in PNAS.

Source: University of Oregon, via Eurekalert. The results appear in a paper online ahead of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

July 20, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

On Apollo 11’s 40th, Astronauts Reflect on Space Program

Earth rise over lunar surface. Credit: NASA

[/caption]

Seven Apollo astronauts gathered at NASA headquarters this morning to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s lunar landing — on July 20, 1969.

“This is really a national celebration,” said James Lovell, who flew on Apollo 8 and 13. “This is really a celebration for all the people who helped Neil and Buzz and Mike” make the trip to the moon, he said.

But the press conference was bittersweet, as all of the astronauts seemed to agree the space program has not gone where they hoped it would, in the years since that pinnacle of achievement. “I don’t think there was a soul in NASA that wouldn’t have thought we would have been on Mars by the year 2000,” said Walt Cunningham, from Apollo 7.

Among the astronauts, there seemed to be seven different opinions about how to get back on track.

Eugene Cernan, from Apollo 10 and 17, advocated going back to the moon, setting up bases and new telescopes. “The ultimate goal is truly to go to Mars,” he said.

Charles Duke from Apollo 16 says we need to develop better space suits. “Lunar dust, I think, is going to be a real problem,” he said, adding that air locks shoudl be developed to keep lunar dust outside any living quarters.

Buzz Aldrin has different notions altogether: “Why not do those [projects] at the space station?” he mused. “Prolong the life of the space station. We put 100 billion into the space station.” Aldrin questions the rationale that going back to the moon is a logical next step to Mars, since the physical environment on Mars will be different.

The astronauts seemed all over the map about the International Space Station as well, with some questioning its usefulness to science and its expense, and others optimistic that its glory days haven’t yet begun.

Several of the astronauts pointed out that Mars exploration has hit a new and encouraging stride, but all of them also seem to agree that space exploration needs a shot in the arm in terms of both funding, and the will of the people — especially young people.

“Everyone knows who John Glenn is, Neil Armstrong … I defy almost every one in this room to name one or two or three members on the space station today,” Cernan said. “We need to re-inspire that kind of spirit in the minds and hearts — the passion — of these kids.”

Other Universe Today Apollo 11 40th anniversary stories:

Book Review: Magnificent Desolation, by Buzz Aldrin; How to Handle Moon Rocks and Lunar Bugs: A Personal History of Apollo’s Lunar Receiving Lab; Q & A with Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins; LRO Images Apollo Landing Sites (w00t!); NASA Laments Missing Apollo 11 Film, Makes Do With What’s Left; And finally, the treasure trove: Apollo 11 Anniversary Link-O-Rama

July 19, 2009December 7, 2022 by Anne Minard

Book Review: Magnificent Desolation, by Buzz Aldrin

Magnificent Desolation, the new autobiography by Buzz Aldrin

[/caption]

I very much enjoyed chatting with Buzz Aldrin a couple of weeks ago, for some stories leading up to the 40th anniversary of the July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 landing on the moon. I found him honest, personable and generous with his time.

But when his publicist offered to send a copy of his new book, “Magnificent Desolation,” I didn’t set my expectations too high. I didn’t know what to make of an autobiography by a retired Air Force pilot and astronaut. Doesn’t that history put the “Rocket Hero” pretty squarely in the category of techie or a jock — a non-writer type?

Well, color me impressed. The book arrived late last week, and I turned the last page this morning — looking for more to read!

Granted, Aldrin got help when he teamed up with writer Ken Abraham. But no writer can spin a book like “Magnificent Desolation” without an incredible story, and Aldrin is a master of that.

The book opens with a few chapters on the Apollo program that made him famous. Even though I’ve dabbled in some research the past few weeks — including catching up on the movie “In the Shadow of the Moon” and leafing through some books — I learned new details both whimsical and serious.

Who knew, for example, that American astronauts traditionally eat steak and eggs prior to launch? Or that Aldrin is such a font of deep thoughts, which has apparently been true for a long time:

“From space there were no observable borders between nations, no observable reasons for the wars we were leaving behind,” he remembers musing as the Earth got smaller in Apollo 11’s windows.

“Magnificent Desolation” is about as revealing as you can get in personal realms. Aldrin engages in a lengthy discussion of his decade of deep depression and alcoholism following the Apollo years, from which he eventually escaped. At his rock bottom, Aldrin had lost faith in himself, had no vision for his purpose in life, and was failing at his job — as a salesman of Cadillacs.

During our interview, Aldrin said he turned his life around by deciding that he could share his experiences for a greater good.

“Do you continue to descend into an abyss? Or do you try to make a difference with what you know best?” he remembers thinking.

These days, Aldrin lives a life fitting for a hero. He hobnobs with greats in every field, from journalists and athletes to international leaders, scientists and movie stars. He and his wife, Lois, have traveled the world for scuba diving excursions, ski trips and unflagging efforts to promote his primary passion (besides Lois): a return to the collective national motivation that helped fuel the lunar landings. He desperately wants to see America lead the charge toward space exploration — to Mars and/or a moon of Mars, and beyond.

Aldrin admits he’s been criticized in the past, even by some of his astronaut peers, for garnering so much publicity as the second man (after Neil Armstrong) to set foot on the moon.

“The truth was, no other astronaut, active or inactive, was out in the public trying to raise awareness about America’s dying space program. None of them,” he writes. He points out that he is not promoting himself: “I did not want ‘a giant leap for mankind’ to be nothing more than a phrase from the past.”

Besides pushing for a new era of space exploration, the book is also a testament to the benefits of citizen space travel, which Aldrin avidly promotes through his outreach efforts, including his non-profit Sharespace Foundation. Among them: “The United States will capture the lion’s share of the global satellite market,” and “NASA’s planetary probes will become far more affordable.”

Aldrin has used traditional channels to advance his ideas, addressing international audiences of all stripes and testifying before Congress. But the really fun stuff comes when he reaches out to younger audiences. He seems to stop at nothing to reach out to the next generations, to ensure that his space exploration dreams will stay alive.

“I look forward to these things happening during my lifetime,” he writes, “but if they don’t, please keep this dream alive; please keep going; Mars is waiting for your footsteps.”

This review is cross-posted at the writer’s website, anneminard.com.

Fun Buzz Aldrin links:

Buzz Aldrin’s Web site

Training Buzz Lightyear for a NASA mission (YouTube video)

Comical interview with Ali G. (YouTube video)

“Rocket Experience” rap with Snoop Dogg

Other Universe Today Apollo 11 40th anniversary stories:

How to Handle Moon Rocks and Lunar Bugs: A Personal History of Apollo’s Lunar Receiving Lab

Q & A with Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins

LRO Images Apollo Landing Sites (w00t!)

NASA Laments Missing Apollo 11 Film, Makes Do With What’s Left

And finally, the treasure trove: Apollo 11 Anniversary Link-O-Rama

July 17, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Solar Cycle Triggers La Nina, El Nino-like Climate Shifts

[/caption]

Researchers have discovered a link between the 11-year solar cycle and tropical Pacific weather patterns that resemble La Niña and El Niño events.

When it comes to influencing Earth’s climate, the Sun’s variability pales in recent decades compared to greehouse gases — but the new research shows it still plays a distinguishable part.

The total energy reaching Earth from the sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the solar cycle. Scientists have sought for decades to link these ups and downs to natural weather and climate variations and distinguish their subtle effects from the larger pattern of human-caused global warming.

Co-authors Gerald Meehl and Julie Arblaster, both affiliated with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, analyzed computer models of global climate and more than a century of ocean temperature records. Arblaster is also affiliated with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

In the new paper and a previous one with additional colleagues, the researchers have been able to show that, as the sun’s output reaches a peak, the small amount of extra sunshine over several years causes a slight increase in local atmospheric heating, especially across parts of the tropical and subtropical Pacific where Sun-blocking clouds are normally scarce.

That small amount of extra heat leads to more evaporation, producing extra water vapor. In turn, the moisture is carried by trade winds to the normally rainy areas of the western tropical Pacific, fueling heavier rains.

As this climatic loop intensifies, the trade winds strengthen. That keeps the eastern Pacific even cooler and drier than usual, producing La Niña-like conditions.

“We have fleshed out the effects of a new mechanism to understand what happens in the tropical Pacific when there is a maximum of solar activity,” Meehl said. “When the sun’s output peaks, it has far-ranging and often subtle impacts on tropical precipitation and on weather systems around much of the world.”

The result of this chain of events is similar to a La Niña event, although the cooling of about 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit is focused further east and is only about half as strong as for a typical La Niña.

True La Niña and El Nino events are associated with changes in the temperatures of surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean. They can affect weather patterns worldwide.

Although the Pacific pattern in the new paper is produced by the solar maximum, the authors found that its switch to an El Niño-like state is likely triggered by the same kind of processes that normally lead from La Niña to El Niño.

The transition starts when the changes of the strength of the trade winds produce slow-moving off-equatorial pulses known as Rossby waves in the upper ocean, which take about a year to travel back west across the Pacific.

The energy then reflects from the western boundary of the tropical Pacific and ricochets eastward along the equator, deepening the upper layer of water and warming the ocean surface.

As a result, the Pacific experiences an El Niño-like event about two years after solar maximum — also about half as strong as a true El Niño. The event settles down after about a year, and the system returns to a neutral state.

“El Niño and La Niña seem to have their own separate mechanisms,” Meehl said, “but the solar maximum can come along and tilt the probabilities toward a weak La Niña. If the system was heading toward a La Niña anyway,” he adds, “it would presumably be a larger one.”

The study authors say the new research may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle.

In an email, Meehl noted that previous work by his team and other research groups has shown that “most of the warming trend in the first half of the 20th Century was due to an increasing trend of solar output, while most of the warming trend in the last half of the 20th Century and ever since has been due to ever-increasing GHG (greenhouse gas) concentrations in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.”

The new paper appears this month in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society. (Sorry, it’s not yet available online.)

Source: Eurekalert

July 17, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Ancient Domes Reveal 3.45-billion-year-old Life History

[/caption]

Ancient, dome-like rock structures contain clues that life was active on Earth 3.45 billion years ago, according to new research — and the findings could help shed light on life’s history on Earth and other planets, including Mars.

Abigail Allwood, who studies planetary habitability at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, led the research. She and her colleagues studied stromatolites, which are dome- or column-like sedimentary rock structures formed in shallow water, layer by layer, over long periods of geologic time.

Geologists have long known that the large majority of the relatively young stromatolites they study—those half a billion years old or so—have a biological origin; they’re formed with the help of layers of microbes that grow in a thin film on the seafloor.

The microbes’ surface is coated in a mucilaginous substance to which sediment particles rolling past get stuck.

“It has a strong flypaper effect,” said John Grotzinger, a Caltech geologist and a study co-author. In addition, the microbes sprout a tangle of filaments that almost seem to grab the particles as they move along. “The end result,” Grotzinger explains, “is that wherever the mat is, sediment gets trapped.”

So in a young stromalite, dark bands like those seen in the close-up cross section at left indicate organic material. But 3.45 billion years ago, in the early Archean period of geologic history, things weren’t quite so simple.

“Because stromatolites from this period of time have been around longer, more geologic processing has happened,” Grotzinger says. Pushed deeper toward the center of Earth as time went by, these stromatolites were exposed to increasing, unrelenting heat. This is a problem when it comes to examining the stromatolites’ potential biological beginnings, he explains, because heat degrades organic matter. “The hydrocarbons are driven off,” he says. “What’s left behind is a residue of nothing but carbon.”

As such, geologists debate whether or not the carbon found in these ancient rocks is diagnostic of life.

Allwood and her team turned to the texture and morphology of the rocks themselves, from samples gathered in Western Australia. The samples, says Grotzinger, were “incredibly well preserved.” Dark lines of what was potentially organic matter were “clearly associated with the lamination, just like we see in younger rocks. That sort of relationship would be hard to explain without a biological mechanism.”

Allwood set about trying to find other types of evidence. She looked at what she calls the “microscale textures and fabrics in the rocks, patterns of textural variation through the stromatolites and—importantly—organic layers that looked like actual fossilized organic remnants of microbial mats within the stromatolites.”

She saw “discrete, matlike layers of organic material that contoured the stromatolites from edge to edge, following steep slopes and continuing along low areas without thickening.” She also found pieces of microbial mat incorporated into storm deposits, which disproved the idea that the organic material had been introduced into the rock more recently, rather than being laid down with the original sediment.

“In addition,” Allwood notes, “Raman spectroscopy showed that the organics had been ‘cooked’ to the same burial temperature as the host rock, again indicating the organics are not young contaminants.”

Allwood said she, Grotzinger, and their team have collected enough evidence that it’s no longer a great leap to accept the stromatolites as biological in origin. And the researchers say the implications of the findings don’t stop at life on Earth.

“One of my motivations for understanding stromatolites,” Allwood says, “is the knowledge that if microbial communities once flourished on Mars, of all the traces they might leave in the rock record for us to discover, stromatolite and microbial reefs are arguably the most easily preserved and readily detected. Moreover, they’re particularly likely to form in evaporative, mineral-precipitating settings such as those that have been identified on Mars. But to be able to interpret stromatolitic structures, we need a much more detailed understanding of how they form.”

Both images courtesy of Abigail Allwood.

Source: Eurekalert, a media service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The research appeared in online June 10 and in print June 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

July 16, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

NASA Laments Missing Apollo 11 Film, Makes Do With What’s Left

Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin examine film taken of their mission. Credit: NASA

[/caption]

The engineers who helped beam images of the lunar surface to Earth in 1969 are doing a little hand-wringing these days – because original film of the historic event got recycled at NASA rather than preserved.

Still, the agency has teamed up with a Hollywood restoration team to collect and improve on backup copies of the Apollo 11 feat. The clearer, digitized versions will be available in a few months.

Dick Nafzger, a NASA engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center who oversaw television production of Apollo 11, said the initial tape was stored in the national archives until the Apollo program no longer needed the data it contained.

Sometime after that, NASA thinks, the tapes were pulled from their boxes, erased and used to record data for subsequent missions.

It wasn’t until years later that Nafzger and others understood the historical value of the tapes — and the gravity of their loss.

“When I was a 28-year-old engineer, maybe I didn’t understand that. But I certainly do now,” said Nafzger, who spoke at a NASA press conference on Thursday. He hastened to add that he wasn’t in the loop when the tapes were being erased; he and others discovered the tapes’ fate only later, when they became interested in improving the notoriously grainy footage.

Because backup tapes of the mission weren’t so readily discarded after the celebrated lunar landing on July 20, 1969, the engineer-turned-historian has been given another chance.

Nafzger was joined at the press conference by Stan Lebar, the now-retired Westinghouse electric program manager who spearheaded the lunar camera, and Mike Inchalik, president of Lowry Digital in Burbank, California. Together, the men have managed to secure tapes from Sydney, Australia and the archives at CBS, where the live footage was streamed from Houston on that monumental day.

They’re bringing the best of digital technology to bear on what was at the time the cutting edge of videography, even though it was made harder on the eyes of television audiences by conversion to broadcast form. For restoration purposes, the original footage that’s been recovered is actually quite useful, Inchalik said.

“Every frame in that sequence has some information that it shares with others … if you can extract what doesn’t belong, you can make those pictures clearer,” he said.

The team showed four short clips from the $230,000 restoration project at the press conference — including moments where both Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on the lunar surface. The “after” images are indeed clearer, with more accurate lightning and sharper contrast.

Inchalik said his company is sensitive to preserving the historical integrity of the footage, and aware that any missteps could fuel conspiracy theories that the lunar landing was faked.

“There are elements in the original where we’re not touching or making corrections we would normally make,” he said. “There’s some value in the fact that we’re not a special effects house; we’re a restoration house.”

Nafzger was careful to point out that no new footage will be issued of the landing; all the restored tape comes from video that has already been released. The final product is expected in September.

July 16, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Moon For All Mankind

[/caption]

The archipelago of Malta has coordinated a global campaign to take images of sections of the Moon’s surface as seen from 40 countries, and combine them in this commemorative, symbolic whole called the “Moon for All Mankind.”

The composite was released today, which marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. Monday will be the anniversary of the landing.

Update: The Malta IYA Committee wrote to share this link with UT readers — a really fascinating animation they created. Check it out!

Sea of Tranquility on the moon, credit Mark Sibole

On the composite, the United States was assigned the region of the Sea of Tranquility, the location of the Apollo 11 landing on July 20, 1969. The U.S. image was provided by amateur astronomer Mark Sibole of Fife Lake, Michigan, the builder and operator of Mark’s Tin Shed Observatory (MTSO). The image was captured on June 12, 2009, using Meade LX200R 10-inch telescope and a DSI PRO III imager. The final composition is a stack of 100 images at 0.14 seconds autostacked in Envisage.

“I’ve done many lunar images, but this is the first time that I set out to zero in on one specific area,” Sibole said. “Everyone wants to ‘capture’ the Moon, and I’m pretty happy with the result.”

Besides Apollo 11, the image commemorates the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), as well as the 50th anniversary of the first robotic lunar landing by the Russian Luna 2 probe. Other countries to have launched spacecraft to the Moon include Japan, Europe, China and India; these probes are also featured in the image.

Most of the images were taken during the May or June full moons of 2009 but some were older, and Italy’s was a four hundred year-old sketch by Galileo Galilei.

Malta is an archipelago of small islands in the Mediterranean with a population of just over 400,000 people. It has a rich history and is home to the oldest free-standing stone structures in the world. It is claimed that these temples, which are thousands of years old, were aligned to the solstice and so there has been a strong astronomical tradition in Malta for many centuries.

Source: IYA2009, via the American Astronomical Society (AAS) press wire. To find out more about Mark Sibole and his observatory on the Web, visit astronomy.qteaser.com.

July 16, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

The Eagle Has … Arrived

Eagle Nebula, courtesy of the European Southern Observatory

[/caption]

We’re still a few days out from the 40th anniversary of the touchdown of Apollo 11’s lunar lander, the Eagle. (The launch went off 40 years and just an hour or so ago.)

Presumably to hold us over, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released this stunning new image of the Eagle Nebula.

Located 7000 light-years away, towards the constellation of Serpens (the Snake), the Eagle Nebula is a dazzling stellar nursery, a region of gas and dust where young stars are currently being formed and where a cluster of massive, hot stars, NGC 6611, has just been born. The powerful light and strong winds from these massive new arrivals are shaping light-year long pillars, seen in the image partly silhouetted against the bright background of the nebula. The nebula itself has a shape vaguely reminiscent of an eagle, with the central pillars being the “talons.”

The star cluster was discovered by the Swiss astronomer Jean Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745–46. It was independently rediscovered about 20 years later by the French comet hunter Charles Messier, who included it as number 16 in his famous catalogue and remarked that the stars were surrounded by a faint glow. The Eagle Nebula achieved iconic status in 1995, when its central pillars were depicted in this stunning image obtained with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The newly released image, obtained with the Wide-Field Imager camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile, covers an area on the sky as large as the full Moon, and is more than 200 times more extensive than the iconic Hubble visible-light image. The whole region around the pillars can now be seen in exquisite detail.

The “Pillars of Creation” are in the middle of the image, with the cluster of young stars, NGC 6611, lying above and to the right. The “Spire” — another pillar captured by Hubble — is at the center left of the image.

Finger-like features protrude from the vast cloud wall of cold gas and dust, not unlike stalagmites rising from the floor of a cave. Inside the pillars, the gas is dense enough to collapse under its own weight, forming young stars. These light-year long columns of gas and dust are being simultaneously sculpted, illuminated and destroyed by the intense ultraviolet light from massive stars in NGC 6611, the adjacent young stellar cluster. Within a few million years — a mere blink of the universal eye — they will be gone forever.

Source: ESO. More videos there allow you to zoom in on the Eagle Nebula, pan across it, or cross-fade into several views — all while listening to music that is quite ethereal.

July 15, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Mercury’s Craters Get Artsy New Names

[/caption]

The MESSENGER mission has been revealing more of Mercury’s surface, including plenty of craters so interesting that geologists have been christening them with names.

The International Astronomical Union released new names for 16 impact craters this week. All of the craters were discovered during the flyby in October, which is also when MESSENGER snapped these images–five minutes apart–as it left.

The IAU has been the arbiter of planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919. In keeping with the established naming theme for craters on Mercury, all of the craters are named after famous deceased artists, musicians, or authors. The newly named craters include:

Abedin, after Zainul Abedin, a Bangladeshi painter and printmaker who first attracted attention with his sketches of the Bengal famine of 1943.

Benoit, after Rigaud Benoit, an early member of the Haïtian art movement known as Naive Art, so-called because of its members’ limited formal training.

Berkel, after Sabri Berkel, a Turkish painter and printmaker.

Calvino, after Italo Calvino, an Italian writer of short stories and novels.

de Graft, after Joe Coleman De Graft, a prominent Ghanaian writer, playwright, and dramatist who was appointed the first director of the Ghana Drama Studio in 1962.

Derain, after Andre Derain, a French painter and co-founder of the Fauvism movement with Henri Matisse.

Eastman, after Charles A. Eastman, a Native American (Sioux) author, physician, and reformer who helped found the Boy Scouts of America.

Gibran, after Kahlil (Khalil) Gibran, a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer, best known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of philosophical essays written in English prose.

Hemingway, after Ernest Hemingway, an American writer and journalist who had a significant influence on the development of 20^th century fiction.

Hodgkins, after Frances Hodgkins, a New Zealander painter.

Izquierdo, after María Izquierdo, a Mexican painter who used the landscape and traditions of Mexico as inspirations for her artwork.

Kunisada, after Utagawa Kunisada, a Japanese woodblock printmaker considered the most popular, prolific, and financially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in 19^th century Japan.

Lange, after Dorothea Lange, an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration

Matabei, after Iwasa Matabei, a Japanese artist who specialized in genre scenes of historical events and illustrations of classical Chinese and Japanese literature, as well as portraits.

Munkácsy, after Mihály Munkácsy, a Hungarian painter who lived in Paris and earned international reputation with his genre pictures and large-scale biblical paintings

Ngoc Van, a master in Vietnamese oil painting whose painting style was influenced by the French impressionist, Gauguin

Some of the names were suggested by MESSENGER team members, some were suggested by members of the public, and others were selected from a list of names that the IAU had previously approved for use on Mercury.

“Exploring new landforms on Mercury is a special experience that should be shared by everyone on our planet,” says MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “It is highly appropriate that the naming of such features similarly acknowledges the contributions that individuals from all cultures have made to mankind’s advances.”

More information about the names of features on Mercury and the other objects in the Solar System can be found at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Planetary Nomenclature Web site.

The addition of these craters, along with the 27 features previously named, brings the total to 43 newly named surface features on Mercury since MESSENGER’s first flyby of the innermost planet. In September 2009 MESSENGER will complete a third and final flyby of Mercury before becoming the first spacecraft to orbit the planet, beginning in March 2011.

Lead image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington. A portion of the same sequence, totaling 198 images in all, has also been made into a movie.

Source: MESSENGER