Space and astronomy news
[/caption] A brand new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope reveals the Lambda Centauri Nebula, a cloud of glowing hydrogen and newborn stars in the constellation of Centaurus. The nebula is also known as IC 2944. But it also has one of the most unique nicknames of any other nebula: …
Continue reading “Can You Spot the Running Chicken in this Nebula?”
[/caption] Our Milky Way Galaxy’s elemental form is hypothesized to be a barred structure – made up of two major spiral arms originating at both poles of the central bar. But from our vantage point, we can only see portions of those arms. Because of huge amounts of dust literally blocking our view, we can’t …
Continue reading “Carbon Monoxide Reveals Distant Milky Way Arm”
[/caption] Cosmic rays are really sub-atomic particles, being mainly protons (hydrogen nuclei) and occasionally helium or heavier atomic nuclei and very occasionally electrons. Cosmic ray particles are very energetic as a result of them having a substantial velocity and hence a substantial momentum. The Oh-My-God particle detected over Utah in 1991 was probably a proton …
Continue reading “Astronomy Without A Telescope – Oh-My-God Particles”
[/caption] There’s a new telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile and what big eyes it has! The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is a wide-field survey telescope with a field of view twice as broad as the full Moon, enabling new, spectacular views of the cosmos. It is the largest telescope in the world designed …
Continue reading “New VLT Survey Telescope Opens Wide Eyes to the Universe”
[/caption] Isn’t this era of astronomy incredible? There are times when I thumb through my old astronomy books with their outdated information and simply marvel over today’s capabilities. Who would have believed just 50 years ago that we’d be peering into the far reaches of our Universe – let alone mapping them? Thanks to an …
Continue reading “From 2MASS To You… The Most Complete 3-D Map of Local Universe”
[/caption] Some sixteen decades ago, Lord Rosse was the first to point out spiral structure in distant “nebula”… and today astrophysicists Thomas Dame and Patrick Thaddeus are discovering it closer to home. Our Milky Way Galaxy was believed to only have six spiral arms, but their research has revealed an outer extension of the Scutum-Centaurus …
[/caption] A new image taken by an array of radio telescopes is the best resolution view ever of particle jets erupting from a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy. An international team of astronomers targeted Centaurus A (Cen A), and the image shows a region less than 4.2 light-years across — less than the …
[/caption] The hypothetical dark flow seen in the movement of galaxy clusters requires that we can reliably identify a clear statistical correlation in the motion of distant objects which are, in any case, flowing outwards with the expansion of the universe and may also have their own individual (or peculiar) motion arising from gravitational interactions. …
Continue reading “Astronomy Without A Telescope – Dark Statistics”
[/caption]For the lucky residents of the Southern Hemisphere, or those fortunate enough to enjoy a vacation in Hawaii or Cancun, there’s a stellar delight that few Northerners know about. It’s called the Southern Cross, a small but beautiful constellation located in the southern sky, very close to the neighboring constellation of Centaurus. Originally known by …
[/caption] Using four years of data from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, astronomers have made the most accurate measurements of the movement of stars in the globular cluster Omega Centauri, and now can predict their movements for the next 10,000 years. This “beehive” of stars is tightly crammed together, so resolving the …
Continue reading “Hubble Predicts the Future of Omega Centauri”