When Galileo went past Jupiter's moon Io, it found parts of it reached temperatures as high as 1,610 degrees Celsius (2,910 Fahrenheit). The moon is so hot because it's continually being squeezed by Jupiter's immense gravity - the friction from the tidal interaction keeps it warm. Observations from Galileo and Earth-based telescopes have seen that the volcanoes are so hot they're vapourizing sodium, potassium, silicon and iron into the moon's atmosphere.
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Here's a 1024x768 wallpaper of a region of Mars called Mangala Valles taken by the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. The region is located on the southwest Tharsis Bulge, and it looks like it was significantly shaped by liquid water some time in the distant past. Similar regions are here on Earth, where volcanic activity causes underground water and ice to suddenly burst forth in a catastrophic flood. In addition to the large outflow channels, there are smaller ones off to the side that could have been caused by rainfall.
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The 8-metre Gemini South telescope has been coated with pure silver to give it more resolution when viewing objects in the infrared spectrum. A total of only 50 grams (2 ounces) of the precious metal were required to coat the entire glass mirror, which had previously been covered with aluminum. It didn't require much silver, but it was extremely difficult to apply. Workers used devices called magnetrons which surround a pure metal bar with a cloud of gas which knocks atoms of silver and allows them to deposit on the mirror at a perfect thickness of 0.1 microns (1/200th the thickness of a human hair).
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Astronomers have used the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite to detect molecular nitrogen in interstellar space. Nitrogen is common in the Earth's atmosphere, and believed to be the fifth most abundant chemical in the Universe, but astronomers hadn't been able to find it in interstellar molecular clouds, where it's believed to be very common. This discovery should help astronomers better understand the formation of stars and planets out of clouds of dust and gas.
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The European Space Agency has decided on how it will contribute to the construction of the next generation James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), due for launch in 2011. The Europeans will work with the USA on the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which is one of four instruments on board JWST. MIRI will be used to study old and distant stellar populations, dust obscured regions of star formation, and comets and Kuiper Belt objects. JWST will be three times larger than Hubble and be able to resolve objects 10 to 100,000 times better depending on the wavelength and type of observation.
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Since its existence was first theorized in the 1960s, scientists have been searching for the mysterious Higgs boson. This subatomic particle is believed to be responsible for mass, and would help explain why objects feel inertia and have momentum. Unfortunately, physicists were unable to find the particle in the 1990s using the world's largest atom smashers. A new estimate for the particle's mass from Berkeley Lab explains why it might have eluded discovery. Fortunately, CERN's new Large Hadron Collider, due to start up in 2007 should have the ability to find the Higgs particle at a heavier mass.
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Now only three weeks from entering orbit around Saturn, it's time for Cassini to begin making some close up observations. Its first target is the tiny moon Phoebe, which is only 220 kilometres (137 miles) across. The images are already better than anything taken by Voyager 2, and show a varied surface, with mountains and craters. Cassini will get its best view on June 11 when it zooms past the moon at a distance of only 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles). It should have enough resolution at the point to see objects the size of office buildings.
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Scheduled for launch in 2006, the New Horizons mission will finally get a close up view of Pluto, the only planet never visited by spacecraft. On board the robotic spacecraft will be the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument, which will measure the interactions between Pluto and the high-speed stream of particles flowing out from the Sun called the solar wind. Since it'll be so far from the Sun, SWAP will be largest aperture device ever built to measure the solar wind. It'll have lots of time to measure; the trip to Pluto will take 9 years.
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A new simulation of galaxy formation developed at the University of Chicago does a much better job of predicting what astronomers actually see when they look through their telescopes. The simulation is based on an extension of the Big Bang theory called the "cold dark matter theory" that describes how early galaxies collided and merged to create the different objects we see today. Dwarf galaxies which orbit larger galaxies seem to be a key to this process.
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Satellites are giving scientists a bird's eye view of deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest, and the impact this is happening on the local environment. The researchers studied many years of data gathered by NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), and found that the land heated up more quickly in the deforested areas. The increased temperatures let to more evaporation and greater rainfall during normally drier seasons. This challenges previous theories that said deforestation would lead to more arid conditions.
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Opportunity has been gingerly testing the edge of Endurance Crater to make sure it's stable enough for the rover to roll in without slipping down the slope. If that works out, the rover will enter the crater today and begin 2-3 weeks of scientific study, analyzing exposed layers of rock to get a better picture of water that covered the area millions of years ago. Scientists are expecting the crater will return a tremendous amount of scientific data because it's much deeper than Eagle Crater, which Opportunity first landed in when it arrived on Mars.
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When life first arose on the Earth, 4.6 billion years ago, the Sun was putting out 20-25% less energy - our planet should have been an iceball... why wasn't it? Evidence from ancient rocks shows that there was a large amount of carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth's atmosphere, which would have helped warm the planet. But these levels were tied to early weather and plate tectonics which carried the greenhouse gasses into and out of the atmosphere, leading to several early ice ages. New research from Stanford has turned up rocks that give an accurate picture of how these gas levels rose and fell over the first few billion years.
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NASA's Opportunity rover is continuing to circle the rocky rim of Endurance Crater, searching for the right place to try and go in. At its deepest point, the crater descends 20 metres (66 feet), so operators are looking for a sheet of stable rock that will stop the rover from slipping in the Martian sand. So far, it looks like the slope is 18 to 20 degrees, which is within the rover's ability to climb back out - just barely. In Eagle crater, where Opportunity landed, the rover was unable to get out from a 17-degree slope because of fine dust at the top of the crater's rim.
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Astronomers studying the famous Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) have discovered important clues which support theories of how spiral arms can last so long in a galaxy without winding themselves too tightly. M51 is seen face on, so astronomers can see the galaxy's entire structure. A group from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory analyzed clouds containing carbon monoxide molecules and found that they regularly pass through a region of higher density and temperature. This stirs up the gas and prevents it from collapsing into regions of active star formation, and allows the spiral formation of the galaxy to last longer.
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The "X" on this image of Saturn indicates the spot where Cassini will cross the ring plane when it goes into orbit around the Ringed Planet. This image of Saturn's rings was taken on May 11, 2003, when Cassini was 26.3 million km (16.3 million miles) from the planet. There are also two moons visible in this image: Janus and Pandora. Cassini will arrive on June 30, 2004.
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We're just hours away from the first transit of Venus across the surface of the Sun since 1882. Sky watchers across Europe, Africa and Asia will be perfectly situated to watch the transit as it happens during the day. Venus' first contact begins on June 8 at 0513 UTC (1:13 am EDT) and completes approximately six hours later. You can watch the transit if you've got the right equipment (a properly set up telescope with a solar filter), but it can be extremely dangerous to watch with the unprotected eye. The Americas won't have a good view this time around, but don't worry, there's another coming in 8 years.
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NASA has given Opportunity the "thumbs up" to drive into Endurance crater; even though it might not be able to get back out again. There's just so much science in there that it's worth the risk. Opportunity has been investigating the rim of the crater since late May to find the best possible place to go in to avoid rolling over. The earliest chance to enter the crater will be next week, when it will drive to the southern edge of the crater and make a final check of the steepness of the slope.
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So you're at this cocktail party and your eye is totally captured by this vivacious and charming individual circling the room. You get your chance and approach. You start talking and when asked what you do, before your brain kicks in, your mouth says, "theoretical physicist". You're doomed. You're a charlatan and you will be exposed in no time. But wait, there is hope. Before your next party, read Brian Greene's book on The Fabric of the Cosmos and though you won't be able to impress graduate students, you will certainly add life to a party's conversation.
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A new photo of spiral galaxy NGC 4402 shows how it's being stripped of its star forming material as it falls towards the Virgo super cluster - and experiences a wind from the hot cluster gas which can reach millions of degrees. The photo was taken using the WIYN 3.5-metre telescope at Kitt Peak, and it shows how the galaxy is actually being bowed upward from the galactic "wind" blowing from the lower left of the image. Once the cold gas is fully blown out of the galaxy, it will be essentially dead, and incapable of forming new stars like regular galaxies.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft is now less than a month away from its close encounter with Saturn and its moons. It's been traveling for almost seven years and on July 1, 2004 at 0230 UTC (10:30 pm EDT, June 30), the spacecraft will officially enter orbit around the Ringed Planet. On board Cassini are 12 instruments which will be used to analyze Saturn and its moons over the course of 4 years to understand their chemistry, magnetic fields, and interactions. Cassini is carrying a passenger; the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which will be deployed on December 25, 2004 to land on the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
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We're only a few days away from an event that no person alive has ever seen: a transit of Venus across the surface of the Sun. On June 8, 2004, approximately 75% of people on Earth will be able to watch as the tiny black dot marches across the Sun over the course of about six hours. NASA and several observatories around the world have joined forces to broadcast the event live on the Internet for the benefit of those on the wrong side of the planet, or without the right equipment to watch it. If you don't see it this time, don't worry, it'll happen again on June 6, 2012 and then again in another 105 years.
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NASA has announced the guest speakers who will help set the tone for the upcoming Centennial Challenges workshop on June 15/16. The purpose of this workshop will be to define space-related goals which individuals and groups could complete to win prizes - similar to the Ansari X-Prize, which awards $10 million for the first private suborbital spacecraft. The featured speakers are Senator Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Chairman, Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, Dr. John H. Marburger III, Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge, Chairman, President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond and Elon Musk, CEO and CTO, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.
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A new photo released from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a new close-up view of the heart of the Trifid Nebula, also known as M20 and NGC 6514. One part features a region of the nebula that contains a group of young, hot stars which are blasting the surrounding area with ultraviolet radiation, and clearing out gas and dust. Another part of the nebula contains a low mass star which is ejecting a long jet of material. Previous images of the jet taken in 1997 show small but noticeable changes in its shape.
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The latest full colour image of Saturn was taken on May 21, when NASA's Cassini spacecraft was only 15.7 million kilometres (9.8 million miles) from the Ringed Planet. Cassini took images through its blue, green, and red filters using its narrow angle camera, which were combined to create this natural colour view. The photo shows subtle, multi-hued atmospheric bands across the face of the planet, and the rings show slight colour differences. The chemicals the cause these colour differences are still unknown to scientists - that's part of the mystery Cassini is here to solve.
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Well into their extra exploration time, NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are continuing to make discoveries on the Red Planet. Spirit has nearly completed the journey to Columbia Hills, several kilometres from the landing spot, and it can already see what might be layered rock in an outcropping. On the other side of the planet, Opportunity is still on the rim of "Endurance Crater", searching for a potential entrance into the crater, and examining the texture of rocks.
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Combined data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Palomar 200-inch telescope have uncovered the remnant of a gamma-ray burst - one of the most powerful known explosions in the Universe - in our galactic neighborhood. W49B is a barrel-shaped nebula located 35,000 light-years from Earth. In the cosmic wreckage of the explosion, astronomers have found chemicals consistent with the collapsar model of a gamma-ray burst. In this model, a massive star forms inside a cloud of dust and gas and then becomes a black hole, creating a powerful explosion.
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Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory have embarked on a decade-long study of some of the largest structures, galaxy clusters, to try and understand the nature of the earliest Universe. According to the widely accepted "inflationary theory" of the cosmos, tiny fluctuations in the initial state of the Universe were magnified by the Big Bang. Microscopic differences at the beginning have become super-clusters of galaxies. A previous survey used X-ray observatories to identify 447 of the brightest clusters of galaxies, which will now be studied further to map out their shape.
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The first privately built manned spacecraft will rocket into space on June 21 according to a recent announcement from Scaled Composites. The company's SpaceShipOne will fly to an altitude of 100 km (62 miles), and whoever pilots it will be the first private citizen to receive astronaut wings for heading into space. Although SpaceShipOne is aiming for the Ansari X-Prize, it won't be on this attempt, since the spacecraft will only be carrying the pilot. To win the prize, SpaceShipOne will need to carry the equivalent weight for two more passengers and complete the journey to space twice within two weeks.
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NASA announced on Tuesday that it was officially considering sending a robotic mission to save the Hubble Space Telescope, instead of de-orbiting it in a few years. The agency has called for proposals from the aerospace community to come up with a robot that can be controlled from the ground, and perform the complex upgrades and repairs that previously required astronauts. They need to hurry, though, since the observatory is expected to begin failing around 2007.
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The latest image released from the Spitzer Space Telescope is of galaxy M33, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy. It's a very familiar object to visible astronomy, but in Spitzer's infrared gaze, the galaxy reveals some of its "coolest" features; clouds of dust created in novae and supernovae, and then blown around the galaxy in winds from giant stars. M33 is 50,000 light years across and nearly perfectly face on, so you can see right to its centre - a place obscured by gas and dust in our own Milky Way.
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Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found what they believe is an intermediate sized black hole at the heart of a nebula in a nearby galaxy. Since black holes themselves are invisible, they located it because a spot inside the nebula is emitting a tremendous amount of X-rays, and illuminating a 100 light-year swath. By calculating the amount of X-rays pouring out, astronomers estimate that the black hole has about 25-40 solar masses. It's unknown how these intermediate-sized black holes form, since so few of them have ever been seen.
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Most research seems to indicate that planets form around stars in only the first few million years. Many stars have protoplanetary disks at one million years, but they're all gone by 10 million years. The trick for astronomers is to find stars in that in-between age, and catch planets in the act of forming around the parent stars. One star, Trumpler 37, seems to be at that middle age and is actively accreting material at the equivalent of 10 Jupiter masses in a million years.
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A team of European astronomers has used a virtual observatory to find 30 previously undiscovered black holes. The team combined images from several observatories (Hubble, Chandra, ESO) in many wavelengths of light (from infrared to X-ray) into a comprehensive computer catalog of the night sky. They uncovered these new black holes by looking at galaxies which are edge on, so the supermassive black holes at their centre are obscured by a cloud of gas and dust. By comparing between the different wavelengths of light, they were able to spot the new black holes.
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In this latest image of Saturn taken by Cassini, you can see several of the storms that rage across the planet's atmosphere. The largest of these storms is 3,000 km across (1,800 miles). There are also light-coloured, lacy cloud patterns that show atmospheric turbulence. This photo was taken on May 7, when Cassini was 28.2 million km (17.5 million miles) away.
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A Russian cargo spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station on Thursday, bringing much needed supplies to the astronauts. On board the Progress 14P spacecraft are 2.5 metric tonnes (2.76 tons) of water, food, air, propellant, as well as scientific equipment. The ship also carries a Russian Orlan-M spacesuit, which will replace a malfunctioning US-built one. It will be needed when the astronauts make a spacewalk in June to fix a power control and circuit breaker box for one of the station's four gyroscopes.
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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has peered through the dusty haze into the construction zones for new planets and found organic molecules. A team from the University of Rochester surveyed five very young stars in the constellation of Taurus and found these icy organic molecules around all of them. They also found a gap in the planetary disc around a million-year old star, which indicates that a young planet is already forming. This is much earlier than predicted by previous models of planet formation.
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Astronomers can measure the reflectivity of the Earth's atmosphere by watching "Earthshine" on the Moon. They found that a gradual dimming of this light from Earth reflected against the Moon matches the warming of the planet's lower atmosphere over the last two decades. The possibility that decreased cloud cover could cause climate change is still controversial, and many scientists are skeptical about this new research. Interestingly, the astronomers who produced this recent study have found that the trend is reversing, with Earthshine increasing again.
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It seems that our Milky Way is producing stars much more rapidly than previously predicted by many astronomers. This is according to new research supported by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was focused on Nebula RCW49. In visible light, there isn't much to see because its heart is shrouded in dust, but in the infrared spectrum, which largely ignores the blocking effect of the dust, astronomers have spotted more than 300 proto-stars in this stellar nursery. And there are many regions like this throughout our galaxy; and probably all galaxies.
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As Saturn grows larger in Cassini's camera, scientists have turned many instruments on the ringed planet, including the Hubble Space Telescope. This latest release from Hubble matches up a photo of Saturn taken by the great observatory on May 22 with one taken by Cassini on May 16. It's only Hubble's incredible optics that give it a similar view to Saturn, but that's about to end as Cassini is now only a month away from its destination. The colour differences between the images are due to the different filters used on Hubble and Cassini.
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Today's image released by NASA, and taken by its Cassini spacecraft is a close up view of Saturn's rings, and several of its moons: Mimas, Epimetheus, and Enceladus. The image was taken on May 10 with Cassini's narrow angle camera when the spacecraft was 27.1 million kilometres away (16.8 million miles).
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In case you haven't seen it with your own eyes yet, here's a 1024x768 desktop wallpaper of Comet NEAT, which is currently fading from the evening sky. The image was taken using the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's 0.9 metre WIYN at Kitt Peak, with the Mosaic I camera. The small star cluster at the lower right of the image is Melotte 72. Comet NEAT was discovered in August 24, 2001 by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking system managed by NASA's JPL.
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An unmanned Soyuz rocket launched a Progress cargo spacecraft towards the International Space Station on Tuesday. It lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 1234 UTC (8:34 am EDT), and placed the spacecraft into the proper orbit a few minutes later. Progress 14P is carrying propellant, oxygen, air, and water, as well as 1.2 tonnes of dry cargo, like food and equipment. The spacecraft will reach the station on Thursday.
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Quasars are some of the brightest and most distant objects ever observed, and astronomers used to believe they only existed inside giant or disrupted galaxies, with supermassive black holes relentlessly consuming matter at their cores. But new research using the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii shows that they live in some of the more boring galaxies in the Universe. Under the current theories, the powerful twin 8-metre telescopes should have found enormous galaxies in chaos, but they didn't. Only one galaxy could actually be detected, and it wasn't much different from our own Milky Way galaxy.
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NASA has released more detailed requirements for its upcoming mission to Jupiter's icy moons. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter would travel to the Jovian system, and then spend time orbiting Callisto, Ganymede and Europa; each of which might have liquid oceans under their icy surfaces. The mission would be powered by a nuclear reactor, and use ion propulsion to get into and out of various orbits. The Request for Proposal has been delivered to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, and they have until July 16, 2004 to deliver their conceptual designs.
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The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft is scheduled to meet up with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 10 years. It'll get to do some science before then, however, starting with Comet LINEAR, which is 95 million kilometres away (59 million miles). On April 30, Rosetta took a photograph of the comet using its OSIRIS camera system, which was already scheduled for commissioning on that date. Rosetta studied the comet in different wavelengths, from ultraviolet to microwave, and took a high resolution image in blue light.
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To celebrate Cassini's arrival at Saturn, the imaging team is going to be releasing a new photograph every day detailing some different aspect of the planet and its moons until the spacecraft enters the system in July. The latest photograph was taken on May 10, and is of swirling bands of turbulent clouds in Saturn's atmosphere. It was taken when Cassini was only 27.2 million km (16.9 million miles) away from the planet.
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Astronomers with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found the heaviest star ever seen - 80 times the mass of our Sun - and it's got a twin. Located 20,000 light-years from Earth, the two massive stars in WR 20a go around each other every 3.7 days. These two stars are very young, probably only 2-3 million years old, and highly unstable. It'll only be a few more million years before they explode, one after the other as supernovas.
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It seems that when an asteroid struck the Earth 65 million years ago, the resulting heat pulse incinerated every dinosaur on the planet in just a few hours; only those that were in burrows or underwater likely survived. When the 10 km (6 mile) asteroid hit Chicxulub in the Yucatan, it struck with the force of 100 million megatons of TNT. A new paper published by several US university researchers calculates how ejected material would have heated the atmosphere to the equivalent of a global oven set on broil.
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