NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captured this image of the Orion Nebula using its Infrared Array Camera. In this infrared view, intricate structures made up of gas and dust in the nebula are revealed. Spitzer’s camera took 10,000 exposures of the region, which were combined on computer to make up the full image. The telescope has already uncovered nearly 2,300 planet-forming disks in the region, which would be hidden to visible light telescopes like Hubble.
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Officials Propose 12 Planets in the Solar System
The International Astronomical Union, currently meeting in Prague, has announced a proposal that would boost the number of planets in the Solar System to 12. Under their new classification, the asteroid Ceres, Pluto’s moon Charon, and the newly discovered UB313 (aka Xena) would join the traditional 9 planets we’re familiar with. Any additional large bodies would also be described as planets. The IAU will make a final vote on this proposal on August 24.
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What’s Up this Week: August 14 – August 20, 2006
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! I hope everyone had an excellent Perseid weekend? With the Moon further and further from early evening, studies begin again with planetary nebula, bright star clusters, globular challenges and distant galaxies. The coming weekend offers up the Delta Cygnid meteor stream and well as some great binocular studies! Get ready to rock, because…
Here’s what’s up!
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Nothing But Rings
This photograph is a close-up view of Saturn’s A ring taken by Cassini. Look closely and you’ll see that the dark regions appear to widen and then narrow, and the thin bright regions disappear altogether. Cassini took this image on July 23, 2006 when it was 285,000 kilometers (177,000 miles) from Saturn.
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Hourglass-Shaped Magnetic Field Discovered
Astronomers have finally discovered an object that has long been theorized: an hourglass-shaped magnetic field in a star forming region. The field is located in the protostellar system NGC IRAS 4A, which is located about 980 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. Theorists predicted that the magnetic fields of collapsing clouds of gas and dust would form this hourglass shape because of the competing forces of magnetism and gravity.
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Book Review: Beyond Earth
Does humanity have a destiny? Are we to accomplish a task before ending as a species, or do we perhaps continue on, ever evolving and exploring? The explorers amongst us certainly want to continue, and their hopes are pointedly directed to the stars. The book Beyond Earth is a compilation of essays from visionaries who are committed to achieving this goal. Their ideas and plans show a decided conviction on a destiny that includes advancing our frontier off of Earth.
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Satellites Measure Melting Greenland Ice
NASA’s GRACE satellites have measured an increasing rate of ice melt in Greenland. According to new analysis by researchers at the University of Arizona at Austin, the loss of ice from Greenland’s southeastern region has sped up between 2002 and 2005. Approximately 239 cubic kilometers (57 cubic miles) is now lost each year. Greenland contains 10% of the Earth’s fresh water, and this melting ice is contributing 0.56 mm (.02 inches) to globally rising sea levels.
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James Van Allen Dies
Renowned space scientist Dr. James A. Van Allen died this morning at the age of 91. Although he had a lifetime’s worth of contributions to astronomy, space science and space exploration, Dr. Allen was best known for his discovery of the radiation belts that surround the Earth. An experiment he designed for the spacecraft Explorer 1 gauged the Van Allen belts using tiny Geiger counters to measure radiation. He retired from full time teaching at the University of Iowa in 1985, but continued to write, oversee research, and monitor data sent back by spacecraft he was involved with.
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Astrophoto: The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) by Karel Teuwen
Every clear evening, as twilight dissolves into night, untold thousands of telescopes scattered across the globe turn toward the great beyond that lies above. But, increasingly, a camera is replacing the eyepiece as the favorite way to study the heavens. Taking deep space pictures was once the purview of a small, dedicated group of amateur astronomers. The technology available was daunting, expensive and time consuming. Luck was an important factor in producing an image that resembled its subject. But all that has changed in the past few years- producing deep space images, such as the one seen here, while still not a point-and-click exercise, has become much easier.
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Rigel Passes Behind Saturn
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this image of the star Rigel passing behind Saturn’s atmosphere. Rigel is well known to astronomers, as one of the brightest stars in the constellation of Orion. This event allows Cassini to measure the haze structure and opacity of Saturn’s upper atmosphere as the star is dimmed. Cassini took this image on June 30, 2004 when it was 446,000 kilometers (277,000 miles) from Saturn.
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