Astronomy
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Scientists Discover The Oldest, Largest Body Of Water In Existence--In Space | Fast Company
Around a black hole 12 billion light years away, there's an almost unimaginable vapor cloud of water--enough to supply an entire planet's worth of water for every person on earth, 20,000 times over. Researchers found a lake of water so large that it could provide each person on Earth an entire planet’s worth of water--20,000 times over. Yes, so much water out there in space that it could supply each one of us all the water on Earth--Niagara Falls, the Pacific Ocean, the polar ice caps, the puddle in the bottom of the canoe you forgot to flip over--20,000 times over. The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy (such an active black hole is called a quasar), and the waves of energy the black hole releases make water by literally knocking hydrogen and oxygen atoms together.
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LiftPort Space Elevator - LiftPort v2.0!
We’ve just created a whole new blog to describe the art we are creating for the Elevators in Space – both the new Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure, and our decade long effort for the Terrestrial Space Elevator. Most of the people coming to this site are looking for information about the Space Elevator . And for better or worse, for 10 years, I’ve been working on that super-project… But my team and I are shifting gears. I’m a little famous for my oft-used quote: “ There is a profound difference between difficult, very very hard and impossible. ” Well, I hate to say it, but after 10 years of progress on the theory behind building an Elevator from Earth to Space, it is still impossible. We simply do not have the materials to build this structure (YET)!
A New Explanation
One of the most fascinating questions that occurs when contemplating the universe is whether there other life exists, equally or more intelligent than we. Are there alien eyes looking at our star or our galaxy and do these creatures ask the same cosmological questions we ask? Nobody knows, although the straightforward application of the Copernican Principle suggests that we cannot be unique in the universe. Is there other life in the universe? How can we begin to answer that question, in the absence of direct evidence to answer the question in the affirmative? One way is through something known as the Drake equation, named after the astronomer Frank Drake.
Moonless Earth Could Potentially Still Support Life, Scientists Say | Space.com
Scientists have long believed that, without our moon, the tilt of the Earth would shift greatly over time, from zero degrees, where the Sun remains over the equator, to 85 degrees, where the Sun shines almost directly above one of the poles. A planet's stability has an effect on the development of life . A planet see-sawing back and forth on its axis as it orbits the sun would experience wide fluctuations in climate, which then could potentially affect the evolution of complex life.ASTR 1230, Whittle [Fall 2009]. Lecture Notes
Last modified September 2008 by rwo Text copyright © 1998-2008 Robert W. O'Connell. All rights reserved.
This large Chandra image shows the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way, a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. For a larger version, click on the image above. Credit: ASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al. University Park, Pa. — According to a wealth of new data from NASA's X-ray Observatory , what scientists are calling a "supernova factory" has come to life in the Carnia Nebula, located a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. This discovery may help astronomers to better understand how some of the Milky Way Galaxy's heaviest and youngest stars race through their lives and release newly-forged elements into their surroundings. "The Carina Nebula is one of the best places we know about to study how young massive stars live and die," said Leisa Townsley of Penn State, who led the large Chandra campaign to observe Carina.
Penn State Live - Nearby supernovas may aid in understanding of star lifecycles
8 Wonders of the Solar System, Made Interactive: Scientific American
Interactive Features | Space What might future explorers of the solar system see? Find out by taking an interactive tour through the eyes of Hugo Award-winning artist Ron Miller.Ten things you don’t know about black holes | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Black hole forms by heat and pressure as huge amounts mass falls back into centre point of nova explosion till the forces there defeat the atoms ability to maintain its shape--collapses atom into neutron [star], quark [star] or what-ever in black hole. Our own sun will pulsate as it dies, but this pulsating will not allow the mass falling back down to gain the pressures and temperatures to form a black hole. by Sep 25
Gliese 581d is the outlying planet in the Gliese 581 system, and orbits its parent star every 66.8 days. It may be covered by a large and deep ocean and is the first serious 'waterworld' candidate discovered beyond our Solar System. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
First 'habitable' exoplanet confirmed | COSMOS magazine
EarthLOS
The line of sight from Earth to Mars pinpoints how Mars moves against the distant background of fixed stars. This motion is identical in the Ptolemaic and Copernican models (simplified here to circular orbits.) The toggle buttons show the line of sight, and the Ptolemaic Martian orbit.Digg Facebook Google MySpace Reddit