s Fermi Catches Thunderstorms Hurling Antimatter into Space NASA's Fermi Catches Thunderstorms Hurling Antimatter into Space Scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before. Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. "These signals are the first direct evidence that thunderstorms make antimatter particle beams," said Michael Briggs, a member of Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Fermi is designed to monitor gamma rays, the highest energy form of light. Although Fermi's GBM is designed to observe high-energy events in the universe, it's also providing valuable insights into this strange phenomenon. "In orbit for less than three years, the Fermi mission has proven to be an amazing tool to probe the universe. Related Links
Beautiful Time-Lapse Video Shows Stars and Earth From Space Station | Wired Science A stunning new time-lapse video shows off the movements of both the stars and our home planet as seen from the International Space Station. While other videos have mostly focused on the nighttime Earth rolling by, photographer Alex Rivest wanted to highlight something new. He enhanced publicly available data from NASA’s Johnson Space Center to focus each shot on the background moving stars. The result is enough to make any backyard stargazer incredibly jealous. “As someone who tries to get away from light pollution to look up and get lost under the stars (I always take star time-lapse movies whenever I get away from the city lights), I am fascinated by what the stars must look like from space,” Rivest wrote in an email to Wired Science. “This particular track, to me, made it feel like one was taking a stroll in low earth orbit, watching the stars.” With amazing shots of shifting green auroras, the slowly rising Milky Way, or the sun peeking over the Earth’s limb, the video is a treat.
The Mind-Matter Mapping Project Almost a century after the quantum mechanics revolution, the nonlocality and measurement problems loom as intractable as ever. At the boundary between matter and consciousness, our experimental models seem to break down: what the mathematics imply, we can’t grasp; and what we can guess, we can’t fit into our common experience. Or can we? The primary task ahead of us, according to Wheeler, “is to make meaning out of observation and from that derive the formalism of quantum theory.” But is there a place for “meaning” in hard experimental sciences? Can we design experimental protocols probing the foundations of quantum mechanics in such a way that the Observer’s state of mind becomes another variable? It turns out that the answer is a resounding Yes. As with any paradigm shift, getting through depends on the size of the prejudices clothing our ego. So to everyone who is ready to join the effort, this is our challenge: Change the Experience, Change the Paradigm!
2012 March 12 - The Scale of the Universe Interactive Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2012 March 12 The Scale of the Universe - Interactive Flash Animation Credit & Copyright: Cary & Michael Huang Explanation: What does the universe look like on small scales? Tomorrow's picture: dust before galaxies Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important NoticesA service of:ASD at NASA / GSFC& Michigan Tech.
NewsCenter - NASA's Hubble Spots Rare Gravitational Arc from Distant, Hefty Galaxy Cluster (06/26/2012) - The Full Story The full news release story: View this image Seeing is believing, except when you don't believe what you see. Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a puzzling arc of light behind an extremely massive cluster of galaxies residing 10 billion light-years away. The galactic grouping, discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was observed when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age of 13.7 billion years. The trouble is, the arc shouldn't exist. "When I first saw it, I kept staring at it, thinking it would go away," said study leader Anthony Gonzalez of the University of Florida in Gainesville. Galaxy clusters are collections of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. The surprise in this Hubble observation is spotting a galaxy lensed by an extremely distant cluster. This unique system constitutes the most distant cluster known to "host" a giant gravitationally lensed arc.
Saturn's Largest Moon Seen in Unprecedented Detail | Wired Science Titan is one of the solar system’s coldest places, but that hasn’t stopped Saturn’s largest moon from being incredibly dynamic.A collection of 13 new studies about Titan show previously undetected craters and river deltas, and provide improved maps of its surface and interior.They also reveal new details about the moon’s mysterious 29.5-Earth-year-long seasonal cycle (the equivalent of one year on Saturn, which orbits the sun at a distance of 890 million miles).“We’re really starting to see quite a lot of profound changes on Titan,” said planetary scientist Ralph Lorenz at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “We’re learning things now that you could only learn after years of repeat observations.”The findings come from nearly 8 years of observations by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in the Saturn system.
The US Ground Based O/IR System | ast.noao.edu The entire suite of telescopes owned, operated, or partnered in by U.S. institutions make up the U.S. System. Since the 2000 Decadal Survey report, NOAO has undertaken to lead the development of the U.S. ground-based OIR System. Unlike ESO, the US System is not centralized and there are many competing groups and diverse centers of activity. NOAO works with funding agencies to gain resources to help build the System both through NOAO and non-NOAO groups and sponsors a number of community based meetings and panels to help do this in a way that supports efficeint use of federal funding across the System. The System Road Map NOAO has organized a committee of astronomers from across the US community to participate in the development of a System Road Map. Workshop and Committee Reports Since 2000, NOAO has conducted community-wide workshops to encourage discussions on needed capabilities and their scientific drivers. ReSTAR Future Instrumentation US TMT Liaison
GRAIL Sends Back First Video of the Moon’s Far Side Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter A first look from GRAIL, showing the lunar far side! A camera aboard ‘Ebb’ — one of NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the Moon. The camera is the MoonKAM, which is part of a special program for students to study the Moon. “The quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM students as they prepare to explore the Moon,” said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator. GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, and each are equipped with a MoonKam. Information on participating in the MoonKAM project. Source: NASA Tagged as: GRAIL Lunar mission, Missions, Moon
Google Image Result for In 2002, during the Xth Brazilian School of Cosmology and Gravitation (BSCG), we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the School, that has been organized since 1977 by the Group of Cosmology and Gravitation of the CBPF. To commemorate this unique moment, a web page is being launched with all the 93 lectures and seminars of the first nine schools* : more than 4500 pages in pdf format, provided by many of the most important scientists in Cosmology, Gravitation, Astrophysics, and Field Theory. It is an important contribution for students and researchers in these areas, which shows the historical evolution of physics in the last 25 years. CosmologyClassical CosmologyQuantum CosmologyObservational Cosmology
The Best of Hubble: 22 Years of Amazing Images Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter 22 years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope launched into orbit. After overcoming initial problems, Hubble has gone on to become legendary, helping scientists to rewrite astronomy textbooks. To celebrate Hubble’s 22nd anniversary, here’s a slideshow from ESA’s Hubblecast that shows some of the best images from over two decades in orbit, set to specially commissioned music. Here’s a list of the images shown and their descriptions: 1990: Saturn Among the first images to be sent back from Hubble after its launch in April 1990, this image of Saturn is good by the standards of ground-based telescopes, but slightly blurry. 1991: Orion Nebula Although not perfectly sharp, this early image of the Orion Nebula nevertheless shows the rich colors and structures of this bright star-forming region. 1993: Messier 100 In late 1993, Hubble’s teething problems were resolved in the first servicing mission. 2012: ???
Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe The farthest and one of the very earliest galaxies ever seen in the universe appears as a faint red blob in this ultra-deep–field exposure taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This is the deepest infrared image taken of the universe. Based on the object's color, astronomers believe it is 13.2 billion light-years away. The most distant objects in the universe appear extremely red because their light is stretched to longer, redder wavelengths by the expansion of the universe. The dim object is a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the Big Bang, only four percent of the universe's current age. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field infrared exposures were taken in 2009 and 2010, and required a total of 111 orbits or 8 days of observing. Credit: NASA, ESA, G.
Mathematic Proof That The Universe Had A Beginning Cosmic Unity Consciousness Cassini Exposes Phoebe As More Planet Than Moon Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Color-composite image of Phoebe as seen by Cassini in 2004. Saturn’s curious moon Phoebe features a heavily-cratered shape and orbits the ringed planet backwards at a considerable distance of over 8 million miles (12.8 million km). According to recent news from the Cassini mission Phoebe may actually be a Kuiper Belt object, having more in common with planets than it does with any of Saturn’s other satellites. 132 miles (212 km) in diameter, Phoebe is the largest of Saturn’s irregular moons — a cloud of small, rocky worlds held in distant orbits at highly inclined paths. In fact it’s now thought that Phoebe may be a remnant from the formation of the Solar System — a planetesimal — with its own unique history predating its adoption into Saturn’s extended family of moons. Although Phoebe is heavily eroded and irregularly-shaped today at one time it may have been much rounder. Map of Phoebe's surface.