Eye Of Sauron!

Well, okay, not really. This article is about the active black hole in the galaxy NGC 4151, known as the Eye of Sauron, and it’s about 43 million light-years away from Earth. Recent studies showed that the black hole emitted a very healthy amount of X-rays recently as well. The central region of the galaxy, the “pupil” of the eye, is where the supermassive black hole is, and in this picture, you can see that the blue is x-ray emission. Two different scenarios to explain this emission’s been explored: one is that the black hole grew much more quickly around 25,000 years ago, and radiation was so bright it stripped electrons away from the atoms in the gas in its path. X-rays were emitted when electrons recombined with those ionized atoms. Another possibility is also about the inflow of material, but this scenario says it happened fairly recently. Energy released by the inflow made a nice healthy outflow of gas at x-ray emitting temperatures.

While knowing what this black hole is doing is interesting, my primary interest in this event was in the name, the Eye of Sauron. I never knew galaxies could look like NGC 4151, and the x-ray emission is interesting.

Link: http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2011/03/NGC%204151%20active%20black%20hole%20in%20the%20Eye%20of%20Sauron.aspx

Quasar's Belch

In a press release from the Gemini Observatory on 23^rd of February in 2011, it was revealed that they discovered an extreme, large-scale galactic outflow in the super-massive black hole at the center of the galaxy Mrk 231, which is, I believe, merging with another large galaxy—exciting this black hole. As far as I understand it, outflow is a process that takes place while the black hole is acquiring mass as a quasar. The outflows “carry away energy and material, suppressing further growth.” Apparently small-scale outflows had been seen before, but nothing on this scale: the power of this outflow is pretty much blowing this massive galaxy apart with its negative feedback look (a process I don’t understand, regrettably), which is self-destructive because the black hole will soon be unable to get the gas and dust it needs to sustain itself. This process also limits the material that this galaxy can get to make new generations of stars. You’d think this is a moot issue because it’s getting blown apart, but it’s highly relevant, really, because the stars are just fine; it’s just the dust and gas in this galaxy that are getting pushed away. Without this material, they really cannot reproduce.

Scientists are excited about this finding because it’s a fabulous example of outflows caused by negative feedback from black holes like this. It’s relatively close to Earth, and beautifully shows the example of a merging large galaxy that’s “shedding its cocoon and revealing a very energetic central quasar.”

I think this is incredible. The concept of black holes within itself is terrifying, though wonderful at the same time; knowing more about supermassive black holes and the impact they have on their galaxies gives us deeper understanding about our own galaxy.

Link: http://www.gemini.edu/node/11614

Elongated crater in Mars

The article I read was titled Mars Crater Gouged by Multiple Impacts and was about "High-resolution images released today by the European Space Agency reveal new details about an unusually elongated crater on Mars that may have been blasted by several objects striking the planet's surface at a shallow angle." The crater is said to be about 78 kilometers long, approximately 25 kilometers across at its widest point, and about 2 kilometers deep. The three deep spots (shown in blue) suggest that the crater was struck by multiple impacts .

I think this is very interesting and proves that comets colliding onto planets can happen. Also if there were life carrying asteroids as Bayani's post discussed this could help prove that life was started that way. But regardless of that I think this is very interesting.

Hubble Zooms in on a Space Oddity

The Hubble has recently uncovered a very strange green glowing gas cloud. It was first observed by a Dutch school teacher who was using the Internet site http://www.galaxyzoo.org/ to catalog galaxies. It became an issue of great interest because no one knew what it was or why it was there. It at first appeared to only be a floating gas could near a galaxy however NASA has recently discovered that this galaxy could have been essential to the creation of this mystery. It is believed that this galaxy once harbored a Quasar in its center which blasted this blob of gas with energy and light so that it maintains the light even though the Quasar is no longer there.
I think that this discovery is really cool because many things but probably the most exciting thing about this is the way it was discovered. It was first found by a dutch school teacher who was just trying to catalog galaxies when she came across a faint green glow when she was observing one galaxy. She asked a couple astronomers what it may be but no one knew so they applied for some Hubble time in order to take  closer look. It began to get more and more attention and more telescopes began to turn to observe this phenomenon. This shows that you don’t have to be an astronomer in order to make discoverys and that anyone can do it.

Once again, Saturn's moon, Enceladus is catching the interest of astronomers and biologists. This moon holds great potential for life because thanks to the Cassini Space Craft (made by NASA)orbiting Saturn, it has been observed that Enceladus' heat output is much greater than what was previously expected. Cassini's Probe gathered data from the fissures of the southern pole of Enceladus that showed the internal heat, most likely the heat from the suspected internal ocean is about 15.8 gigawatts which is the equivalent of 20 coal powered stations. That's a lot of heat! It is assumed that the heat is genereated by the tidal forces between its neighboring moon, Dione. Observing this much output of heat also contributes to the theory that an internal ocean lies within Enceladus.

This article interested me because I was already aware of the potential for liquid water to exist on Enceladus, and it's exciting to read that more data and observations are backing up this theory. And, if there's liquid water, then there is a greater chance of life to be present. It's always interesting to discover life on another planet or moon because it can give a better understanding of how they operate. Not only am I amazed that this moon probably harbors and internal ocean, but I am impressed with the technology we have created to gather such detailed data.

To read the full article click here or here!

Deepest Galaxy Found

On February 26, 2011, Hubble Telescope found the most distant galaxy anyone has ever found previously. It took Hubble eighty-seven hours to find it! The Hubble Telescope found it with its new infrared camera that excels in finding galaxies at “redshifts 8 and 10 (650 and 500 million years after the Big Bang, respectively).” Hubble had to look through ninety-six percent of the known universe, and it had to look long and hard to find even this galaxy, titled UDFj-39546284. It is a compact galaxy of blue stars. The universe was only “five hundred million years old at that time” when this galaxy was formed. Comparing this time to the current age of the universe, which is an estimated thirteen thousand-seven hundred million years old. It’s estimated that this galaxy is, in fact, 13.2 billion light-years away! Yet UDFj-39546284 is tiny; over “one hundred such mini-galaxies” would make up our Milky Way, which is in no terms a truly large galaxy.

This discovery offers astronomers solid proof of galaxy formation near the beginning of the universe; it solidifies the hierarchical theory of galaxy formation, in which “galaxies grew and merged under the gravitational influence of dark matter.”

I think this is super cool. I have always been fascinated by the idea of the universe—especially of the known universe. I suppose I’m a “big-picture” person, but I think finding the oldest known galaxy is amazing, because not only can this give definitive proof and tools for astronomers, the simple concept of the reach of the known universe and the oldest galaxy at the edge of the universe is incredible.

Site: http://www.universetoday.com/82855/long-ago-in-a-galaxy-far-far-away/

The article I read was “Best Way to Measure Dark Energy Just Got Better” the article talked about a new way to measure the speed of which dark matter is pushing a galaxy away from use. They got new equipment to measures the red and blue shift of type 1a supernovas. They saw the color of the super nova and compared it to some constant and determined the speed the galaxies are moving away from us.

I believe that this is really important because we know that there is some other force accelerating the speed that the planets moving from each other. We know extremely little about dark energy so I think this is really cool because we can see the effects of dark energy even tho we can’t see it.

Real Aliens Yet?

This article briefly talks about a recent discovery made by a NASA scientist. Inside of a rare class of meteorite he found fossils of alien bacteria, using electron-scanning microscopes. Some of the micro-organisms are very similar to Earthly bacteria, but are not yet proven to be of Earth. The scientist released his findings very widely through the scientific community to be extremely-thoroughly analyzed before he published it, which is an extremely rare thing for a scientist to do at all.
This is a breakthrough in astronomy as the first supposed evidence for alien life ever. If this scientist is not full of bull, which I had expected until I finished reading, then this is an enormous landmark for science as a whole and would change many things in NASA. Also this discovery is claimed to be the one of the most thoroughly analyzed paper in all the history of astronomy. This article says there is a massive pile of evidence to back up these alien bacteria claims.

I found this article New Observations of the Giant Planet Orbiting Beta Pictoris on ScienceDaily.com.
Located 63.4 light years from the sun, Beta Pictoris is a relatively young star at about 12 million years old. The star is 75% more massive than the Sun. 25 years ago Beta Pictoris was the first star to be photographed with a “circumstellar disk”.
Have you ever imagined a planet inside the rings of a star?? Well, I never have! It's been recorded that there's a Giant exo-planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris inside it's rings. “With an orbital distance of 8 to 15 astronomical units (AU), β Pictoris b is the closest exoplanet to its star that has ever been imaged.” The planet is almost just as close to it’s host star as Saturn is to the sun. And that’s pretty close! β Pictoris b allows astronomers to study planet formation processes.
I just think this article is quite interesting because I never knew stars had disks let alone planets IN them! This article could be important because maybe the astronomers will find new information on the process of planet formation.

13.2 Billion Light Years Away

found this article on NASA’s website; it’s called NASA's Hubble Finds Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe. What it’s about is the Hubble Space Telescope found a galaxy 13.2 billion light years away. The universe is only 13.7 billion years old, which means this galaxy was created about 480 million years after the Big Bang. It broke the last record of oldest galaxy by about 150 million years. What they found is a mini galaxy which is to small to take a spiral shape. The individual stars are too hard to make out but evidence suggests that it is made up of really hot stars created more than 100 million years earlier from gas trapped in a pocket of dark matter. The deep field picture that they found it in was taken in May of 2009, and took over a year to identify. It came up as an extremely small inferred dot.

This discovery is huge for science. It shows how early galaxies and stars were able to form after the big bang. Hubble has made some of the greatest discoveries ever. The next one to get even better pictures and make even more discovery is The James Webb Telescope. This discovery though is amazing, a galaxy that was created 13.2 billion years ago and we found it. We will learn so much more about how fast stars were able to be created after the big bang.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/farthest-galaxy.html

The Red Planet is closer than ever imagined

In an article that I read on Wired Science I learned that the Russian Federation has recently started funding of a plan to build nuclear powered rockets. This a momentous breakthrough in the future of space exploration. In this article I learned that if Russian President Dimitry Medvedev approves the plan for a nuclear powered rocket it would be built by 2012, and ready for use as early as 2015-2018. Through further research I learned that this plan has long sense been approved and the Russians, along with some slight co-cooperation from the EU, are well on their way to building this rocket.

If such a rocket is built than the future of space exploration is a very bright and fruitful one. At this current time modern rockets, such as this Russian Soyuz Rocket, can only propel objects into space and no farther. This means that objects in space have to relay on the gravitational pull of planets in order to travel through space. With the current technology it would take years to travel to Mars, and the crew would be forced to spend that time in cramped and miserable conditions. With a nuclear powered rocket scientists estimate that it will only take 6 months to reach Mars. Nuclear engines are more than twice as powerful as conventional engines, are drastically smaller, do not require conventional fuel and can run for more than 20 years with out maintenance. This translates to being able to lift large amounts of objects, or humans, in great comfort and distances in an extremely short time. If a nuclear powered rocket is built, than it is only a short matter of time before humans are on Mars.

A Ninth Planet Lurking in our Solar System?

Two researchers from the University of Louisiana, John Matese and Daniel Whitmire have long theorized that our Solar System contains a ninth planet. They believe that this planet, which they have named 'Tyche', is composed of hydrogen and helium, and is a dark, Jupiter-sized planet that lies at the very edges of out solar system past Pluto in the Oort Cloud.

In addition, they believe that this possible planet has it's own moon, and could be the culprit that is hurling comets towards the inner solar system, where we can observe them. The reason that they think this is because having observed these comets, they have found that they have very strange orbits. The cause for they're funny orbits could possibly be this mystery planet.

An article by The Daily Galaxy explains the scientists thinking well in this quote,

"By analyzing patterns that comets make in space the researchers were able to concur that 20 percent of comets in the Oort Cloud would "need a nudge from a distant object about the size of Jupiter.""

It is expected that we will know with in the next five to ten years wether or not Thyce is indeed hanging out there on the edges of our solar system, throwing giant balls of ice at us.

Clues on Planetary System Formation Reveled

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope most recent project has been studying a short lived disk of material surrounding a newly formed star, T Cha. This is a sun sized star that is 750 million years old and is 350 light years away. Astronomers have found a gap in the disk that they are thinking is either a brown dwarf or a planet. This is the first star that has a “might be planet” orbiting a transitional disk. The gap lies about 700 million miles away from the star. T Cha gives astronomers a chance to see how planetary systems form. Unfortunately, since it is so far away from Earth, they will have to tweek the VLT in order to get as much information as possible.

Neutron Star With Odd Nuclear Matter

blog by: Brandon Rodgers

Two astrophysicists teams say they have found evidence of an odd type of nuclear matter inside a neutron star. The neutron star Cassiopeia A contains a nuclear matter that flows without any resistance like superconductivity with electricity throught solid earthy materials. They believe that a super hot super condenced neutron star creates a "superfluidity" about its nuclear material. They can tell this because when the crust of a spinning neutron star(Pulsar) interacts with the superfluidity of the nuclear matter it emits streams of electromagnetic pulses. This discovery of a superhot pulsar that is cooling down every second emiting electromagnetic pulses with the cause being a superfluid within the core is one of the biggest discoveries this year in astronomy.

I think this article is important to astronomy because it is more and more information about neutron stars. Neutron stars are something that we are still newly learning about and we don't know much about them. This completly changes the way we look at the core of a star at the end of its cycle. I think it's intresting because it is something that people dont really learn about often because it is so rare. Also seeing a neutron star in real life through a telescope would be amazing.

The link for the article this blog was about is posted here: click this

According to an article in Science News, "Black Holes Take Light for a Spin," spinning black holes could affect light passing around them, causing it to spin as well. It has already been theorised as an extension of Eintein's theory of relativity that spinning massive objects would bend spacetime around them, but has never been extended to include the angular momentum of light. Assuming that light is a wave, this angular momentum change would cause it to change from a wave to a helix centered around the direction of movement of the light. New telescopes can be fitted with devices to test this effect directly, although this has not been done yet. If the angular momentum of photons can be detected, then we can reverse the calculations to determine how fast objects in the universe are spinning.

The article explains a ridiculous theory, that's actually not very new. First, a little background knowledge on Black Holes, they're infinitely dense, small, and hot, and vacuum up everything near it. Supposedly Black Holes instantly eliminate out of existence all the matter it sucks in, and is so dense it does not emit light. But this theory says that there is actually another doorway in every Black Hole, the other side is called the White Hole, and all the matter it sucks in ends up on that other side. So that other side would be an entire parallel, alternate universe. Then that matter slowly forms back into planets and stars again. So the big idea is that our universe is infinitely sinking back down the drain - all the Black Holes - and fills up into another universe, a constant fluctuation between two universes.
This theory is extremely far out and is not taken very seriously or importantly by most major atronomers in the world. it completely breaks far away from many very old, concrete laws and logic in astronomy. The article explains the testable flaws and the proababilities and possibilities. Personally I can't ever even grasp the concept of the epic known universe so I can't understand why this theory could be possible or impossible, but I think it's a frigging cool idea.

Check it out here.

Smallest Exoplanet Found

Smallest Exoplanet Found

During NASA’s Kepler mission, they found the rocky exoplanet which is now named Kepler-10b. After eight months of observing, they have found that it is 1.4 times the size of Earth and is the smallest exoplanet found so far. They found this with Kepler’s ultra-precise photometer that saw the planet pass by its star, Kepler 10. This star is the first one that scientists have found that could potentially harbor a small transiting planet and is the brightest star that Kepler is documenting. This means that they are able to get a lot of information about orbiting planets. Since it is so small, the star only dimmed a small amount when it was seen. It orbits its star every .84 days which means it is 20 times closer to its star then Mercury is. This is proof that life on this planet is extremely unlikely. The W.M Keck Observatory in Hawaii was able to measure tiny changes in the stars spectrum called Doppler shifts, caused by tug exerted by the orbiting planet on the star.
 

Video about Kepler 10b

Enceladus, one of the moons next to Saturn's ring has proven to be quite an interesting place. Thanks to NASA's Cassini probe, it was implied that this small moon most-likely harbors an internal ocean that could potentially carry microbial life. But, unlike oceans Earth is used to, it is assumed that the water is "fizzy" similar to carbonated water. During one of Cassini's flybys, it detected water vapors shooting out fissures, or the "tiger stripes" of the ice surface. Salt was found in the ice particles spewing out of the fissures further implying an ocean to exist beneath the ice. Scientists believe the geysers act in the same way that a soda would. Gases are dissolved in the water that create bubbles and because it's density is less than the ice's, it rushes to the surface and explodes through the ice. But how does the water stay a liquid inside the ice capsule? It is thought that as Enceladus orbits Saturn, it creates internal friction which warms the water and keeps it from freezing.
I'm fascinated by this article because I have always assumed moons to be dead, life-less rocks that are just around, and I now know they're not. I found it amazing that we were even able to collect that much information about Enceladus (because it's so far away). It's interesting to think about an underground ocean too, especially one that is fizzy. The part though, that stuck out the most is that it is a potential host for life.



Check out the article!

Mars 500

Mars500 crew 'arrives at Red Planet' on simulated mission

    This article is about an experiment that is currently going on that might help us plan for a future expedition to Mars. The ESA (European Space Agency) is helping with this simulation but Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems is actually conducting and facilitating this experiment. The test subjects have just entered the “orbit of mars” stage and have not run across many signs of any physical or psychological effects, however they have not been able to stimulate the zero gravity of space so the results my not be accurate. This simulation is called Mars500 because it is expected to take 520 days to complete a trip to mars however it is estimated to take a lot longer. They are trying to test for multiple problems that could go on and for a day they cut power to simulation and the crew had to work to restore it. This could be a major step towards sending humans to Mars however it could still be a while before we have to funding for such a huge expedition.

I think that is experiment could be highly useful but at the same time it is a little controversial. From this we could find out how to accommodate for deep space travel and how prolonged isolation alters a person. However the fact that they are locking six people up in a facility and then testing them to see how they can mess them up by cutting the power or creating other malfunctions is a bit strange. I understand that they volunteered to do this but it seems obvious that isolating humans for 520 days will alter there physical and physiological state. I hope that there is some good data that comes from this because I find space travel very interesting and the idea of sending people to mars is very fascinating to me. 

Imagine That

On May 29, 2009 a “picture-perfect” disk galaxy was discovered. The galaxy is 22 million light years away in the constellation Hydra the Water Snake. The spiral galaxy, named NGC 3621, has a “flat pancake shape” and no bulge in the center of the spiral; this indicates that the galaxy hasn’t come into contact with any other galaxies. The contact with another galaxy would disturb the thin layer of stars and create a bulge in the middle. These types of galaxies are actually fairly common. This galaxy is interesting to astronomers because they can study it and learn more about stellar nurseries “and pulsating stars called Cepheid variables, which astronomers use as distance markers in the universe.” It was discovered that there is at least 69 Cepheid variables in this galaxy.
I think this galaxy is important because astronomers can study it and maybe someday they will discover something really interesting or important. I also find it interesting that it is a perfectly thin galaxy and hasn’t collided or combined with any other galaxies, at least so we think.


variable stars: measure of brightness changes over time

Worlds Orbiting Kepler 11

It has been discovered that six worlds orbit the sun-like star Kepler 11. Five of the six planets have an orbit closer to Kepler 11 than Mercury has to the sun. All six planets are bigger than Earth, and from what we can tell, they are made up of rock and gas. The years on these planets range from 10-47 days. Kepler 11 is 2000 light years away, in the constellation Cygnus. As NASA discovered wednesday, there are also over 1200 exoplanets in the Kepler system, making it the fullest exoplanetary system known to man. This discovery was based on observations made by NASA's Kepler Spacecraft. The measurements were taken by looking at pictures of the planets crossing the Kepler 11 star. They determined the size and density of the planets by how dim they made the massive star. These results are important because they open up the possibility of a habitable planet orbiting a star in our galaxy!

Picture of the Kepler 11 System

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

6 New Exoplanets

I read an article from Science.com titled "A Disturbingly Weird Exoplanet System". It is about how there were six new exoplanets discovered recently with the Kepler Telescope launched in March of 2010. Five of the six planets in the system orbit their star closer than Mercury orbits the Sun, while the sixth orbits closer to Venus' position to the Sun. This tightly packed solar system has almost stumped researchers as to where planets are created in relationship to their star. Their models have shown planets being created far away from the sun and moved closer after time, but they think that this solar system proves differently.

I think that this is really interesting in that it could prove a totally different idea of where planets are created. I also think it is amazing that we are still finding exoplanets that we didn't even knew existed, although these six are gas giants so they cannot support life it is still very cool. The closeness of these planets has really created a mystery because "Making all five Kepler-11 planets far out and moving them in is so complicated it's unlikely" "But forming them about where they are now would require an unrealistic amount of solid particles to form a rocky core".

Extragalaxtic Planet Found

Scientists have recently (meaning in December of last year) discovered a planetary system that appears to have originated in another galaxy. The star, named HIP 13044, is part of the Helmi Stream, a satellite galaxy that was absorbed into the Milky way 6 to 9 billion years ago. It contains much less of the heavier elements than our sun does, and it is about the same size, but it is much older; scientists predict that it has already passed it’s red giant stage and contracted back down, and it is now burning helium.

The planet, which has the mass of about 1.25 Jupiters, orbits closer than Mercury does to our sun. This is surprising, because if the star had at one time been a red giant, it would have swallowed up a planet orbiting as close as this planet does. Researchers observing the planet hypothesize that the star’s expansion into a red giant caused a chaotic reaction with other planets that may have been orbiting the star, speeding its rotation, and knocking the large planet into a closer orbit. In any case, scientists hope to learn more about the contents of other galaxies by determining the composition of HIP 13044 and its planet.

Kennedy's Search For Antimatter

Kennedy Space Center is planning on sending a machine into space to search for antimatter and dark matter. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer or AMS was built at CERN in Switzerland where it was then sent to Noordwijk, Netherlands to be adjusted and searched for mistakes. There they decided to switch out the superconducting magnet with the magnet from the original AMS-01 wich was in space in 1998. After the netherlands it was sent back to CERN and then to the Keendedy Space Center in Florida. It lies resting there until its much antisipated launch later on. If you wish to read the article you can see the link here. --- link

This article seemed really interesting to me because it seems like our country's space program doesn't give or recieve any help from other country's space programs yet here we are working with switzerland and the netherlands to get an AMS into space. I was also captivated by the article because it was about antimatter which is kind of a weird thing to be in existence. If we do find that that there is a lot of darkmatter and antimatter in space we might have to rethink what our universe is made of because althought a lot of scientist say are universe is mostly hydrogen some say that 90% of our universe is made of dark matter.

Methane a sign of life on Mars?

Scientists have recently discovered Mars is a hot spot for Methane. Here on Earth, Methane is produced by many living organisms, and scientists believe that the release of methane proves that mars is alive. Whether alive biologically or geologically, scientists are still un-sure and it will take a while for NASA to investigate this methane release thoroughly and to discover the origin of this gas release. Recently, scientists at the observatories in mauna key, Hawaii have been observing the gas release over time, and they have noted the fact that the methane release seems to peak in the summer and spring like seasons on Mars. They believe that whatever is producing the gas lies far below the surface, and that when the planet is in the warmer months, ice beneath the surface evaporates and the gas release is stronger during this time. Could this lead to a discovery of live bacteria beneath the surface of Mars? Only time will tell.

People always wonder whether there is actually extraterrestrial life in the galaxy, or even our solar system. Many people doubt we will find life anywhere near Earth, but discoveries like this one suggest otherwise. We haven't contacted any alien Civilizations or little green men, but discoveries like these are the first steps in discovering life other than on our very own Earth.

To view the article, click here.

Mars: No Return Trip

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/human-mars-mission.html
    We are capable of sending humans to Mars soon.  However we cannot afford a return trip. According to the article I read, “A One-Way Trip to Mars”, it might be as much as ten times as expensive. There are many reasons to still send people though. Humans are far more effective at research than the machines we already have up there. There wouldn’t be a shortage of volunteers. Despite many assumptions, the people would not be left to die, supplies would be sent every few years and maybe more people. Some scientists have even gone as far too say that we might be able to colonize mars. There are others who point out that even at our science research centers in the arctic, there is a rotation of people. The conditions are just not hospitable enough to send someone to live on Mars.
    I found this article interesting because the idea of sending people to Mars is, well plainly put, exciting. Colonization almost sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. If they go through with this, I wonder who would really be willing to live out the rest of their life with very little companionship on an alien world. This is an important step in science because what humans might find on Mars would far surpass anything we’ve found thus far.
Mars: http://www.solarviews.com/eng/mars.htm

Nuclear Explosions in Space

A few months ago, an article was written about Gamma-Ray Bursts. Gamma-Ray Bursts are basically "spot lights" made by a huge star having an extremely violent death. When a star eight times larger than the sun or bigger dies, a spectacular supernova occurs that is bright enough to temporarily outshine nearby galaxies. It was discovered in the 1960's by military satelites that were for looking for nuclear weapons. These satelites picked up on the gamma ray bursts becuase they carried gamma ray sensors because nuclear explosions produce gamma-rays. A Gamma-Ray Burst is very powerful, and scientists believe, if a nearby massive star were to experience such a death, because of the powerful spotlight like beams the stars give off, the Earth could be directly effected. scientists aslo speculate that these "spot lights" could knock electrons of atoms in the atmosphere, creating a blinding light that can last up to ten seconds. Brian Thomas believes this ultra violet flash is bright enough to blind someone if they happened to be looking up at the sky at the time of the Gamma-ray Burst. Many scientists also agree that photosynthesis would be chemically halted as a result of such intense light exposure. This is not substantially concerning because after the light burst subsides, plants would have no trouble picking up right where they left off with converting sunlight into energy. The most concerning thing about this prospect is that simple organisms such as plankton could be substantially effected by this burst. It is widely accepted that the plankton's DNA could be slightly damaged. Plankton play a vital part in the eco system of our oceans, and a loss in plankton could result in a hole in the food chain, which would effect fishing and other industrial companies, not to mention the wildlife in the water. There is also speculation that mass extinction in the Earth's past could have been partly caused by a particularly strong Gamma-Ray Bursts. The good news is the star has to be pretty close to the Earth, about 6,000 light years away. Scientists believe that a star that close will only create a Gamma-Ray Burst every 15 million years. So it is extrememly unlikely we will be effected anytime soon.

I think this article is really interesting. The subject of Gamma-Ray Bursts is a relatively new one and is stil being experimented and discussed. The fact that this can possibly explain mass extinction and it is capable of knocking electrons around to create a flash and halting photosynthesis is astounding. I also think this is a good example of how the cosmos can effect everyday life. although the chances are slim, a Gama-Ray Burst could effect our habitat, our economy and our market in the long run.

For other websites with information on this topic, click Here or Here

Solar Research

Ten years ago was the first time scientists made a direct connection between there being holes in the Sun’s corona and the possible climate changes. They conducted studies that looked deeper at the Suns magnetic activity, and how this effects an atmospheric change on Earth. There was, in fact a clear drop in temperatures on our atmosphere after the magnetic activity had peaked on the sun. This is linked to the holes found on the corona because with the gaps, supersonic particles, or otherwise known as solar winds pour into space. These solar waves stream in rings larger than the sun and sweep through space before finding their way back to the Sun’s surface, if they ever make it there. The clear effects this could have on earth are that the solar waves might have an effect on the proprieties of water clouds, influencing the lower troposphere, decreasing temperature as cloud coverage begins to grow. Another theory is that the charged particles may be disturbing the chemistry in our upper ozone.
The new study that is being conducted is N.A.S.A’s attempting mission to study our sun and the Earth-Sun relationships in our solar system. They have created a new instrument that allows us to see the inner-most corona on the sun; it actually allows us to see all the way to the earth’s surface. These new images that are being created separate between the gas being captured by the magnetic field of the sun, and the gas that is escaping out into space. CfA astronomer Steven Cranmer states that "The AIA solar images, with better-than-HD quality views, show magnetic structures and dynamics that we've never seen before on the Sun," and that "This is a whole new area of study that's just beginning."
The beginning of this field will be a great factor in how we view our relationship with the sun in the future. We have so much to learn about the realities of climate change, and what exactly is causing them that this will help narrow down the topic. In the first article I found on Earth-sun relationships, the scientists made sure that they weren’t discrediting the fact that their results do not rule out that Co2 levels are rising and the possible climate influence of man-made fossil fuels. I have evidence now to believe that there is much more to climate change then JUST the excess use of fossil fuels.


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/news20110111-corona-hole.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000315080417.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110104114313.htm

Super Massive Black Hole found in Dwarf Galaxy

A supermassive black hole was discovered in a nearby dwarf galaxy. Henize 2-10, the Galaxy where the black hole was found, is 30 million light-years form Earth. Scientists have for a long time studied Henize 2-10, this galaxy has been forming stars extremely fast. This black hole is a million times bigger than the sun. Amy Reines of the University of Virginia stated; "This Galaxy gives us important clues about a very early phase of galaxy evolution that has not been observed before". Generally supermassive black holes exist in full sized galaxies. The size of the black hole usually related to the size of it's galaxies "bulge". A discovery a couple of years ago suggested that black holes form before the formation of the surrounding galaxy due to the fact that a galaxies off balance ratio to it's black hole. Another quote from Reines says, "Now, we have found a dwarf galaxy with no bulge at all, yet it has a supermassive black hole. This greatly strengthens the case for the black holes developing first, before the galaxy's bulge is formed."

The astronomers also found that radio waves are strongly emitted from an area near the center of the galaxy, which they say indicates a "black-hole-powered galactic nucleus". There have been black holes found that have been similar in size to this one, but the Henize 2-10 galaxy is of a very abnormal shape, small size, and also has a very strange star formation of very dense star clusters. This is an exciting discovery because it leads us closer to understanding how galaxies and black holes formed in a very young Universe.

"This galaxy probably resembles those in the very young Universe, when galaxies were just starting to form and were colliding frequently. All its properties, including the supermassive black hole, are giving us important new clues about how these black holes and galaxies formed at that time," Johnson said.

Thought To Have Never Been Possible
Max Nordby
A new star discovered in the Tarantula Nebula is the largest, heaviest, and hottest star ever discovered. It’s 265 times larger than our sun 10 million times brighter than it too, its surface can surpass 40,000c which is seven times hotter than our sun. Astronomers believed that stars were only able to get up to 150 solar masses but this new giant can be up to as much as 320 solar masses. It was discovered by Paul Crowther in Chili and by the Hubble telescope, 165,000 light years away. Crowther said that it doesn’t seem likely that this star was created jut by gas and dust but with other smaller stars to create one massive one. The star is middle aged and has actually been getting smaller. The largest of stars only live to about three million years old. Other people think that it could possibly be two very large stars right next to each other because it is so hard to differentiate from that far way.
The reason I think that this is important is because we were wrong about how large stars could get. So now we have to make sure that this star is for real and not two stars really close to each other, and it’s just awesome! Now we have a new scale that we have to use not 150 solar masses but now up to 320, that’s huge. It just shows how little we have actually found in the universe and how much more there is to discover. There is a cool little video that I am posting that shows just how tiny we are, but it doesn’t have this new star on it.

Web sites: http://www.news.com.au/technology/obese-star-r136a1-265-times-bigger-than-the-sun/story-e6frfro0-1225895352201
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jan-feb/83
Sun Video http://megavideo.com/?v=4R2Y3TWF

Aminomen

In a recent article posted on ScienceDaily scientists have come through with a major breakthrough on how life came to this planet. The secret to this success is in a tiny acid called amino. Amino acids build proteans which in turn are used to create life. Their are two types of amino acids in the known universe, left handed and right handed. All life on earth uses left handed amino acids. Recent research has come to the conclusion that their is a large quantity of left handed amino acids in asteroids. Scientists believe that life on earth was created when asteroids containing left handed amino acids crashed on earth and deposited their life forming materials.
I think that this is astronomically important for one obvious reason. As this article implies it is possible that life on this earth was created by an amino acid carrying asteroid. If this is the case than it is nearly impossible for the rest of the universes planets to have escaped being visited by one of these asteroids. This article has lead me to start thinking of asteroids as transporters of life. I belive that this just one more step forward in the proof that their is life in our universe.

Unlimited Possibility's

In the article Odds of Finding Earth-Size Exoplanets Are 1-in-4 they talked about how they conducted there study about looking at stars with and without planets. In this study the stars that were examined were 120,000 stars in the Hipparcos Catalog. The study was to examine how many stars have planets orbiting. The study was using interments to see how much the sun wobbles when the planet moves around the star and interments to record to blink when the planet pass through the sun’s light. Using the information gathered from the interments they were able to calculate the distance and the mass of the planets. When they were looking at the stars with planets they found that there were a lot of earth mass planets near the sun. The planets are about 4 times closer to there star than the earth is to the sun. This was recorded at most of the suns that have planets around them. Scene earth mass planets are more common further from the star than the ones found they predict that one in four sun like stars are probably hosting earth size planets.
I think this is important because to find other planets that may host life is extraordinary and beneficial to the understanding how life works. This also led to a habitable planet, so one day we may go research or live on a new world. With every day I think its important to find new also because to see its past life's which I think is amazing in every way. To understand and what makes a planet have possible life is one of the best uses of astronomy. This is very valuable in the field because there is a far better chance of finding an exoplanet one that is similar in the earth in many ways.


By Adam Bowers

Dancing Galaxies

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/pia13454.html

NASA’S Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), recently took a picture of two galaxies—three, technically, with NGC 3077 on the bottom, but it’s fairly insignificant—and posted it to NASA.gov. Messier 81 is the “typical ‘grand design’” spiral galaxy on the bottom of the image. Messier 82, on the top, is also a spiral galaxy, but we can only see it edge-on, as seen in this image. Until 2005, when astronomers “teased out” evidence of its spiral structure from near-infrared images, Messier 82 was actually classified as an irregular galaxy. From our point of view, it seems to have a long, thin bar shape—hence its common name the Cigar Galaxy.

These two galaxies are called “dancing galaxies” because they brushed by each other a few hundred million years ago—a relatively recent meeting. They brushed close enough to trigger an amazing torrent of star formation in Messier 82, and a fair amount of star formation in Messier 81 as well. Messier 81’s gravitational influence made gas close to the centre of Messier 82 to precipitously compress, causing an explosion of star formation concentrated, obviously, near the core of the galaxy. This is why Messier 82 is currently also a starburst galaxy, because it is currently forming stars at an extraordinarily high rate. And as you can see, there are also yellow/orange areas around Messier 82 extending “up” and “down” in the photograph. These areas are what is known as a “superwind,” a massive amount of gas and dust blowing perpendicular to the plane of Messier 82. It’s caused by the intense radiation from all the newly formed stars. The superwind consists mostly of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, common products of combustion found here on Earth. In this case, it can be literally thought of as the smoke from the cigar.

As for Messier 81, is has more pronounced and well-defined spiraling arms than is usually seen in other isolated spiral galaxies—and they also show areas of compressed gas and dust, which is evidence of star. This has been caused by its gravitational interaction with Messier 82.

This image was made from all four infrared detectors on WISE, overlapped to make one image. Blue and cyan represent wavelengths 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is typically light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is primarily emission from warm dust.