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.