How to See the Best Meteor Showers of 2010: Tools, Tips and 'Sav NASA JPL Home California Institute of Technology Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the universe. (Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. The new full-color XDF image is even more sensitive, and contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view. Magnificent spiral galaxies similar in shape to our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy appear in this image, as do the large, fuzzy red galaxies where the formation of new stars has ceased. Related Link
Mysterious New Object Discovered in Space A strange and mysterious new object in space may the brightest and long-lasting "micro-quasar" seen thus far, a miniature version of the brightest objects in the universe. The object suddenly began pumping out radio waves last year in the relatively nearby galaxy M82, some 10 million light-years away. Its discovery was announced Tuesday. "The new object, which appeared in May 2009, has left us scratching our heads — we've never seen anything quite like this before," said researcher Tom Muxlow, a radio astronomer at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory in England. M82 is a "starburst galaxy," one that churns out new stars at a prodigious rate. Most of these stars die in huge explosions, with supernovas occurring roughly every 20 to 30 years in M82. In comparison, the mystery object turned on very rapidly within a few days and has shown no sign of dying down, even after nearly a year. Quasars big and small More study needed
The James Webb Space Telescope About Webb's Orbit The James Webb Space Telescope will observe primarily the infrared light from faint and very distant objects. But all objects, including telescopes, also emit infrared light. To avoid swamping the very faint astronomical signals with radiation from the telescope, the telescope and its instruments must be very cold. Therefore, Webb has a large shield that blocks the light from the Sun, Earth, and Moon, which otherwise would heat up the telescope, and interfere with the observations. The L2 orbit is an elliptical orbit about the semi-stable second Lagrange point . In three of the solutions found by Lagrange, the bodies are in line (L1, L2, and L3); in the other two, the bodies are at the points of equilateral triangles (L4 and L5). In the case of Webb, the 3 bodies involved are the Sun, the Earth and the Webb. Other infrared missions have selected an L2 orbit, like WMAP and H2L2. Here are a few graphics that illustrate how far away Webb will be.
X-Ray Observations Find Evidence for "Missing Matter" in the Uni [/caption] From a Chandra press release: Scientists have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton to detect a vast reservoir of gas lying along a wall-shaped structure of galaxies about 400 million light years from Earth. In this artist’s impression, a close-up view of the so-called Sculptor Wall is depicted. Spiral and elliptical galaxies are shown in the wall along with the newly detected intergalactic gas, part of the so-called Warm Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM), shown in blue. This discovery is the strongest evidence yet that the “missing matter” in the nearby Universe is located in an enormous web of hot, diffuse gas. The X-ray emission from WHIM in this wall is too faint to be detected, so instead a search was made for absorption spectrum of light from a bright background source by the WHIM, using deep observations with Chandra and XMM. Source: Chandra Like this: Like Loading...
The James Webb Space Telescope H2356-309 :: 11 May 10 Scientists have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton to detect a vast reservoir of gas lying along a wall-shaped structure of galaxies about 400 million light years from Earth. In this artist's impression, a close-up view of the so-called Sculptor Wall is depicted. Spiral and elliptical galaxies are shown in the wall along with the newly detected intergalactic gas, part of the so-called Warm Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM), shown in blue. The X-ray emission from WHIM in this wall is too faint to be detected, so instead a search was made for absorption of light from a bright background source by the WHIM, using deep observations with Chandra and XMM. An X-ray spectrum of the background source is given in the inset, where the yellow points show the Chandra data and the red line shows the best model for the spectrum after including all of the Chandra and XMM data.
Observatory Astronomical observatories[edit] Ground-based observatories[edit] Ground-based observatories, located on the surface of Earth, are used to make observations in the radio and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most optical telescopes are housed within a dome or similar structure, to protect the delicate instruments from the elements. For optical telescopes, most ground-based observatories are located far from major centers of population, to avoid the effects of light pollution. Specific research study performed in 2009 shows that the best possible location for ground-based observatory on Earth is Ridge A – a place in the central part of Eastern Antarctica.[3] This location provides the least atmospheric disturbances and best visibility. Radio observatories[edit] Beginning in 1930s, radio telescopes have been built for use in the field of radio astronomy to observe the Universe in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Highest astronomical observatories[edit]
A hole in space… no really, an actual hole! | Bad Astronomy | Di Space is black. I mean, duh, right? But really, it’s black because it’s almost entirely empty, so even with stars scattered around, there’s nothing to light up. But some parts of space are bright: clouds of gas can be lit up by nearby stars, making them glow. However, just to make things more fun, there can be thicker patches of dust mixed in that block the light from the stars and gas behind them. NGC 1999 — seen here in a famous Hubble picture — has all these ingredients. A lot of the time those dense spots are where stars are being born, and the only way to see them is in the infrared. Here’s the Herschel image they got. Wait, what? So the astronomers followed up with more observations from the ground, and found something astonishing: it really is a hole, an actual empty region in the middle of a dense cloud! It turns out that the fault may lie in the stars themselves. NGC 1999 is a familiar object to a lot of astronomers. Surprises in science are the best results you can get.
Space observatory Space observatories and their wavelength working range Spitzer, Hubble and XMM with their most important parts depicted A space observatory is any instrument (such as a telescope) in outer space that is used for observation of distant planets, galaxies, blackholes ,nebulae , galaxies, and other outer space objects. This category is distinct from other observatories located in space that are pointed toward Earth for the purpose of reconnaissance and other types of information gathering. And collected their information in record. It also search new things in Cosmo's. Introduction[edit] A large number of observatories have been launched into orbit, and most of them have greatly enhanced our knowledge of the extraterrestrial universe. Space-based astronomy is even more important for frequency ranges which are outside the optical window and the radio window, the only two wavelength ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum that are not severely attenuated by the atmosphere. History[edit]
Quantum space monster leaps from a gravity well - space - 17 May GRAVITY may have the power to create quantum monsters. A strong gravitational field can induce a runaway effect in quantum fluctuations in apparently empty space, resulting in a burgeoning concentration of energy that may explode stars or create black holes. So say Daniel Vanzella and William Lima at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Quantum phenomena are not thought to have any significant influence over processes on the astrophysical scale, such as the compression of gas clouds into stars. Now calculations by Vanzella and Lima suggest gravity can trigger a powerful reaction in the fluctuating quantum fields of forces in ...
Planetarium The new planetarium and exhibition centre at ESO Headquarters.[1] A planetarium (plural planetaria or planetariums) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetaria is the large dome-shaped projection screen onto which scenes of stars, planets and other celestial objects can be made to appear and move realistically to simulate the complex 'motions of the heavens'. The celestial scenes can be created using a wide variety of technologies, for example precision-engineered 'star balls' that combine optical and electro-mechanical technology, slide projector, video and fulldome projector systems, and lasers. Whatever technologies are used, the objective is normally to link them together to provide an accurate relative motion of the sky. History[edit] Early[edit] The oldest, still working planetarium can be found in the Dutch town Franeker. Domes[edit]