A Blazar in the Early Universe: Details Revealed in Galaxy's Jet 12.8 Billion Light-Years from Earth

Credit: Spingola et al.; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF.

The supersharp radio "vision" of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) has revealed previously unseen details in a jet of material ejected at three-quarters the speed of light from the core of a galaxy some 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy, dubbed PSO J0309+27, is a blazar, with its jet pointed toward Earth, and is the brightest radio-emitting blazar yet seen at such a distance. It also is the second-brightest X-ray emitting blazar at such a distance. 

In this image, the brightest radio emission comes from the galaxy's core, at bottom right. The jet is propelled by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole at the core, and moves outward, toward the upper left. The jet seen here extends some 1,600 light-years, and shows structure within it.

At this distance, PSO J0309+27 is seen as it was when the universe was less than a billion years old, or just over 7 percent of its current age.

An international team of astronomers led by Cristiana Spingola of the University of Bologna in Italy, observed the galaxy in April and May of 2020. Their analysis of the object's properties provides support for some theoretical models for why blazars are rare in the early universe. The researchers reported their results in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Contacts and sources: 

Dave Finley

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory i

Source:https://www.ineffableisland.com

Read More........→December 24, 2020

Woman has abortion, claims fetus is half alien - News - Society

© Screenshot: YouTube

Giovanna, a 41-year-old Italian woman, had an abortion back in 2010 because she claims she was kidnapped and impregnated by an alien life form. She believes that this was not the first time she has become pregnant from aliens. It is suggested that the creatures take the fetus in just two months’ time. (VIDEO)

Extraterrestrial beings have been visiting Giovanna since she was four-years-old, according to her story. They have told her telepathically that their mission is to create a hybrid race which is close to their genetic makeup. She states that the aliens believe there is a biological similarity between the human race and their species. When Giovanna went to the medical clinic to see about her pregnancy, doctors discovered a cardiac rhythm that was close to one of a baby’s. However, doctors could not find a baby and since Giovanna said she was having difficulties with the fetus, an abortion was conducted. The end result was a placenta and hybrid human. The entire abortion was filmed. Documentation of what the half-human half-alien looks like can be seen below at minute five of the video. Piles of other evidence have been collected by Giovanna over the years. She has taken videos and photos from her phone of the spacecraft. Additionally, unknown markings have surfaced on her body without any recollection of how these injuries happened. Medical professionals also spotted an implant in her head but could not find the scar which would have proven how it got there in the first place. Voice of Russia, The Canadian, YouTube Source: Article,

Read More........→January 13, 2014

Birth Of A Giant Planet: Candidate Protoplanet Spotted Inside Its Stellar Womb

Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have obtained what is likely the first direct observation of a forming planet still embedded in a thick disc of gas and dust. If confirmed, this discovery will greatly improve our understanding of how planets form and allow astronomers to test the current theories against an observable target. This artist’s impression shows the formation of a gas giant planet in the ring of dust around the young star HD 100546. This system is also suspected to contain another large planet orbiting closer to the star. The newly-discovered object lies about 70 times further from its star than the Earth does from the Sun. This protoplanet is surrounded by a thick cloud of material so that, seen from this position, its star almost invisible and red in colour because of the scattering of light from the dust. An international team led by Sascha Quanz (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) has studied the disc of gas and dust that surrounds the young star HD 100546, a relatively nearby neighbour located 335 light-years from Earth. They were surprised to find what seems to be a planet in the process of being formed, still embedded in the disc of material around the young star. The candidate planet would be a gas giant similar to Jupiter. “So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations,”

says Sascha Quanz. “If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage.” This composite image shows a view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (left) and from the NACO system on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (right) of the gas and dust around the young star HD 100546. The Hubble visible-light image shows the outer disc of gas and dust around the star. The new infrared VLT picture of a small part of the disc shows a candidate protoplanet. Both pictures were taken with a special coronagraph that suppresses the light from the brilliant star. The position of the star is marked with a red cross in both panels.  HD 100546 is a well-

Credit: ESO/NASA/ESA/Ardila et al.

studied object, and it has already been suggested that a giant planet orbits about six times further from the star than the Earth is from the Sun. The newly found planet candidate is located in the outer regions of the system, about ten times further out [1]. The planet candidate around HD 100546 was detected as a faint blob located in the circumstellar disc revealed thanks to the NACO adaptive optics instrument on ESO’s VLT, combined with pioneering data analysis techniques. The observations were made using a special coronagraph in NACO, which operates at near-infrared wavelengths and suppresses the brilliant light coming from the star at the location of the protoplanet candidate [2]. This image from the NACO system on ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows a candidate protoplanet in the disc of gas and dust around the young star HD100546. This picture was taken with a special coronagraph that suppresses the light from the brilliant star and allows the region of the protoplanet to be seen in great detail. The brightest part of this picture is the candidate protoplanet and the dark disc at the bottom is hiding the very bright. 

Credit: ESO

star itself According to current theory, giant planets grow by capturing some of the gas and dust that remains after the formation of a star [3]. The astronomers have spotted several features in the new image of the disc around HD100546 that support this protoplanet hypothesis. Structures in the dusty circumstellar disc, which could be caused by interactions between the planet and the disc, were revealed close to the detected protoplanet. Also, there are indications that the surroundings of the protoplanet are potentially heated up by the formation process. This chart shows the position of the young star HD 100546 in the southern constellation of Musca (The Fly). Most of the stars that are visible to the unaided eye from a clear and dark site are shown. The star HD 100546 is surrounded by a ring of dust where a planet appears to be in the process of formation. This star is a little too faint to see with the unaided eye,

Credit: ESO, IAU and Sky & Telescope

but can be picked up easily in binoculars. The planets and the dust ring cannot be seen in small telescopes. Adam Amara, another member of the team, is enthusiastic about the finding. “Exoplanet research is one of the most exciting new frontiers in astronomy, and direct imaging of planets is still a new field, greatly benefiting from recent improvements in instruments and data analysis methods. In this research we used data analysis techniques developed for cosmological research, showing that cross-fertilisation of ideas between fields can lead to extraordinary progress.” This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a visible light view of the outer dust around the young star HD100546.

Credit: ESO/NASA/ESA/Ardila et al.

The position of the newly discovered protoplanet is marked with an orange spot. The inner part of this picture is dominated by artifacts from the brilliant central star, which has been digitally subtracted, and the black blobs are not real. Although the protoplanet is the most likely explanation for the observations, the results of this study require follow-up observations to confirm the existence of the planet and discard other plausible scenarios. Among other explanations, it is possible, although unlikely, that the detected signal could have come from a background source. It is also possible that the newly detected object might not be a protoplanet, but a fully formed planet which was ejected from its original orbit closer to the star. When the new object around HD 100546 is confirmed to be a forming planet embedded in its parent disc of gas and dust, it will become an unique laboratory in which to study the formation process of a new planetary system. This picture shows the sky around the young star HD 100546 in the southern constellation of Musca (The Fly). It was created from images from the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The cross-

Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin

like features that are centred on brighter stars, as well as the coloured circles around them, are artifacts of the telescope and photographic process and are not real. Notes: [1] The protoplanet candidate orbits about 70 times further from its star than the Earth does from the Sun. This distance is comparable to the size of the orbits of outer Solar System dwarf planets such as Eris and Makemake. This location is controversial, as it does not fit well with current theories of planet formation. It is unclear at present whether the newfound planet candidate has been in its current position for the whole time since it formed or whether it could have migrated from the inner regions. [2] The team made use of a special feature called an apodised phase plate that increases the contrast of the image close to the star. [3] To study planet formation, astronomers cannot look at the Solar System, as all the planets in our neighborhood were formed more than four billion years ago. But for many years, theories about planet formation were strongly influenced by what astronomers could see in our local surroundings, as no other planets were known. Since 1995, when the first exoplanet around a sunlike star was discovered, several hundred planetary systems have been found, opening up new opportunities for scientists studying planetary formation. Up to now however, none have been “caught in the act” in the process of being formed, whilst still embedded in the disc of material around their young parent star. More information: This research was presented in a paper “A Young Protoplanet Candidate Embedded in the Circumstellar disc of HD 100546”, by S. P. Quanz et al., to appear online in the 28 February 2013 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. The team is composed of Sascha P. Quanz (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Adam Amara (ETH), Michael R. Meyer (ETH), Matthew A. Kenworthy (Sterrewacht Leiden, Netherlands), Markus Kasper (ESO, Garching, Germany) and Julien H. Girard (ESO, Santiago, Chile). ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor.  At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”. Contacts and sources: Sascha P. Quanz, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, Julien H. Girard, ESO, Santiago, Chile, Richard Hook, ESO , Links, Research paper, Photos of the VLT, Source: Nano Patents And Innovations

Read More........→March 01, 2013

Russian astronomers discover new huge comet

Last year, Russian astronomers Vitaly Nevsky and Artyom Novichonok discovered a new gigantic comet that is currently approaching Earth. The ISON comet, which is expected to become brighter than the full moon, will be visible to the naked eye by late 2013. The astronomers say that given the comet’s unique orbit, its origin may be the Oort Cloud, a cluster of frozen rocks and ices surrounding the solar system, located almost a light-year from the Sun.

The comet is currently passing outside Jupiter, gaining speed and becoming brighter by the day. In September 2012, the Russian astronomers spotted what appeared to be a comet in images taken by a telescope that is part of the worldwide International Scientific Optical Network, or ISON, from which the object draws its name. Thanks to ISON, astronomers can get images taken by remote telescopes in other countries, including in New Mexico, where a Russian automatic observatory is located. The ISON comet never plunged into the inner solar system, and its surface darkened because of the impact of galactic particles. At the same time, the comet avoided being damaged by the so-called solar wind, which is not the case for the Moon, for example. Sergei Smirnov, press secretary of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says that studying surface of the ISON comet may shed more light on evolution of the Universe. "In the future, it would be good to have special space vehicles on standby so that they can approach such celestial objects, something that may finally come true given the ongoing development of air navigation," Smirnov says. Thus far, Comet ISON has only been visible through powerful telescopes. In November 2013, heat from the sun will vaporize ices in the comet’s body, creating what could be a spectacular tail that will be visible in Earth’s night sky without telescopes or even binoculars from about October 2013 through January 2014. Another scenario is that Comet ISON could break apart as it nears the sun, failing to produce a tail of ice particles by the end of November. In December, the comet will be growing dimmer, but, assuming it is intact, it will be visible from both hemispheres of Earth. January 2014 may see a meteor shower produced by streams of debris from the ISON comet. Source: Voice of Russia

Read More........→January 27, 2013

UK embracing hi-tech TV

TV-loving UK consumers lead the world in using the latest technology to enhance their viewing experience, Ofcom research has revealed. The UK is ahead of other countries such as Japan and the USA for catching up with TV online and is at the forefront of using new technology such as smart TVs and digital video recorders (DVRs). Ofcom’s report shows that the UK is embracing the latest TV technology, as the country becomes one of the first all-digital nations, following the digital TV switchover which was completed in October. As well as being the leading country for the adoption of digital video recorders, UK consumers are the most likely in the world to access TV content over the Internet. Almost a  quarter  (23 Internet users claimed to do this every week – driven by  per cent) of UK the popularity of online TV catch-up services such as BBC iPlayer, Sky Go and 4OD. The USA ranked second with 17 per cent, with Spain third (16 per cent). The UK also has one of the highest proportions of TV homes with HD – at 41 per cent, higher than France (18 per cent), Germany (28 per cent) and Japan (31 per cent), but behind the US (49 per cent). UK consumers are also embracing the new generation of smart TVs – enabling access to online services such as catch-up TV viewing, social networking and gaming on the TV set. Fifteen per cent of UK consumers say they own a smart TV. This is the same as France, but compares to 10 per cent in the USA. The average UK viewer watches over four hours (242 minutes) of TV every day, with only the USA (293 minutes) and Italy (253 minutes) watching more. Earlier this year, Ofcom revealed that TVs in the UK’s living rooms continue to get bigger. Over a third (35.4 per cent) of TV sets sold in Q1 2012 were either ‘super-large’ (33” to 42”) or ‘jumbo-sized’ (43”+), up from 6.8 per cent in 2005. Source: Advanced Television, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→December 17, 2012

Are 'Yetis' migrating North?

As it seems, a very hot Siberian summer has made the Kuzbass Yetis, which are often referred to as Abominable Snowmen, to migrate to Mountain Shoria (Gornaya Shoriya) in Southern Siberia. The Yetis have appeared more than once in the upper reaches of the Mras-Su River that runs in the Mountain Shoria in the southern part of the Kemerovo Region, north of the Azas Cave, which journalists call the “home of the Yetis”. To believe this or not people decide for themselves. The fishermen of the taiga Village of Toz said that they had seen 2 Yetis drinking water on the bank of the Mras-Su River. They did not answer our greeting, one of the eye-witnesses, Vitaly Vershinin, said. Hominologists believe that the heat might have served as a reson for the migration of the Yetis north of the Azas Cave that was considered to be their home. The Director of the International Centre of Hominology in Moscow Igor Burtsev has been studying the Yetis for nearly half a century now. He has been cooperating with thousands of volunteer researchers all over the world: as you know, there is an opinion that there is no such science as hominologyin the world today. The Yetis live everywhere but most of them live in Mountain Shoria, Igor Burtsev says. "We have come to the conclusion that a Yeti is actually a human being since it can talk and communicate with people. And this is the main criteria for making such a statement. But the fact that they do not resemble people is quite another matter. They are well adapted to nature, and they lead the life of an animal. They use neither instruments of labour nor clothes or fire, but they are sufficiently intellectual. Besides, they are well known for their paranormal capabilities. And another thing of importance here. They live in almost inaccessible areas." Last October an international expedition led by Igor Burtsev that included scientists from the USA, Canada, Sweden, Estonia, and Russia, visited the Azas Cave in the Kuzbass Region. Although they met no Yetis, they discovered a 45-centimetre-long trace of an unknown creature on the clay floor. The examination of the found wool with the help of the scanning electron microscope that was carried out at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg confirmed that the Kuzbass Yeti was not a myth. His wool was identical to the wool of the Snowmen that were discovered in many parts of the world. The famous geneticist Professor Bryan Sikes from the Wolfson College, at Oxford University plans to put a full stop in the many-year dispute over the existence of the Yeti. Using advanced technologies, he has already started to study the remains of the inhabitants of the inaccessible areas. Bryan Sikes plans to make his results public this December. Source: Voice of Russia, Image

Read More........→November 16, 2012

84 Million Stars and Counting

VISTA gigapixel mosaic of the central parts of the Milky Way

Using a whopping nine-gigapixel image from the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, an international team of astronomers has created a catalogue of more than 84 million stars in the central parts of the Milky Way. This gigantic dataset contains more than ten times more stars than previous studies and is a major step forward for the understanding of our home galaxy. The image gives viewers an incredible, zoomable view of the central part of our galaxy. It is so large that, if printed with the resolution of a typical book, it would be 9 metres long and 7 metres tall.

Wide-field view of the Milky Way, showing the extent of a new VISTA gigapixel image

“By observing in detail the myriads of stars surrounding the centre of the Milky Way we can learn a lot more about the formation and evolution of not only our galaxy, but also spiral galaxies in general,” explains Roberto Saito (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de Valparaíso and The Milky Way Millennium Nucleus, Chile), lead author of the study.

Optical/infrared comparison of the central parts of the Milky Way

Most spiral galaxies, including our home galaxy the Milky Way, have a large concentration of ancient stars surrounding the centre that astronomers call the bulge. Understanding the formation and evolution of the Milky Way’s bulge is vital for understanding the galaxy as a whole. However, obtaining detailed observations of this region is not an easy task. “Observations of the bulge of the Milky Way are very hard because it is obscured by dust,” says Dante Minniti (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile), co-author of the study. “To peer into the heart of the galaxy, we need to observe in infrared light, which is

Colour–magnitude diagram of the Galactic bulge

less affected by dust.”the The large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive infrared detectors of ESO’s 4.1-metre Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) make it by far the best tool for this job. The team of astronomers is using data from the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea programme (VVV) [1], one of six public surveys carried out with VISTA. The data have been used to create a monumental 108 200 by 81 500 pixel colour image containing nearly nine billion pixels. This is one of the biggest astronomical images ever produced. The team has now used these data to compile the largest catalogue of the central concentration of stars in the Milky Way ever created [2].

Annotated map of VISTA’s view of the centre of the Milky Way

To help analyse this huge catalogue the brightness of each star is plotted against its colour for about 84 million stars to create a colour–magnitude diagram. This plot contains more than ten times more stars than any previous study and it is the first time that this has been done for the entire bulge. Colour–magnitude diagrams are very valuable tools that are often used by astronomers to study the different physical properties of stars such as their temperatures, masses and ages [3]. “Each star occupies a particular spot in this diagram at any moment during its lifetime. Where it falls depends on how bright it is and how hot it is. Since the new data gives us a snapshot of all the stars in one go, we can now make a census of all the stars in this part of the Milky Way,” explains Dante Minniti. Video above: Infrared/visible light comparison of VISTA’s gigapixel view of the centre of the Milky Way. The new colour–magnitude diagram of the bulge contains a treasure trove of information about the structure and content of the Milky Way. One interesting result revealed in the new data is the large number of faint red dwarf stars. These are prime candidates around which to search for small exoplanets using the transit method [4]. “One of the other great things about the VVV survey is that it’s one of the ESO VISTA public surveys. This means that we’re making all the data publicly available through the ESO data archive, so we expect many other exciting results to come out of this great resource," concludes Roberto Saito. Notes: [1] The VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey is an ESO public survey dedicated to scanning the southern plane and bulge of the Milky Way through five near-infrared filters. It started in 2010 and was granted a total of 1929 hours of observing time over a five-year period. Via Lactea is the Latin name for the Milky Way. [2] The image used in this work covers about 315 square degrees of the sky (a bit less than 1% of the entire sky) and observations were carried out using three different infrared filters. The catalogue lists the positions of the stars along with their measured brightnesses through the different filters. It contains about 173 million objects, of which about 84 million have been confirmed as stars. The other objects were either too faint or blended with their neighbours or affected by other artefacts, so that accurate measurements were not possible. Others were extended objects such as distant galaxies. The image used here required a huge amount of data processing, which was performed by Ignacio Toledo at the ALMA OSF. It corresponds to a pixel scale of 0.6 arcseconds per pixel, down-sampled from the original pixel scale of 0.34 arcseconds per pixel. [3] A colour–magnitude diagram is a graph that plots the apparent brightnesses of a set of objects against their colours. The colour is measured by comparing how bright objects look through different filters. It is similar to a Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram but the latter plots luminosity (or absolute magnitude) rather than just apparent brightness and a knowledge of the distances of the stars plotted is also needed. [4] The transit method for finding planets searches for the small drop in brightness of a star that occurs when a planet passes in front of it and blocks some of its light. The small size of the red dwarf stars, typically with spectral types K and M, gives a greater relative drop in brightness when low-mass planets pass in front of them, making it easier to search for planets around them. More information: This research was presented in a paper “Milky Way Demographics with the VVV Survey I. The 84 Million Star Colour–Magnitude Diagram of the Galactic Bulge“ by R. K. Saito et al., which was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A, 544, A147). The team is composed of R. K. Saito (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile; Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile; The Milky Way Millennium Nucleus, Chile), D. Minniti (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Vatican Observatory), B. Dias (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil), M. Hempel (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), M. Rejkuba (ESO, Garching, Germany), J. Alonso-García (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), B. Barbuy (Universidade de São Paulo), M. Catelan (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), J. P. Emerson (Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom), O. A. Gonzalez (ESO, Garching, Germany), P. W. Lucas (University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom) and M. Zoccali (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile). The year 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 40-metre-class European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”. Links: Research paper (A&A, 544, A147): http://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201219448, Photos of the VISTA telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&subject_name=Visible%20and%20Infrared%20Survey%20Telescope%20for%20Astronomy, Images taken with the VISTA telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&facility=30, Image, Text, Credits: ESO/VVV Consortium/Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo, Martin Kornmesser/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)/Videos: ESO/VVV Consortium/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)/Music: Delmo -- Acoustic (disasterpeace.com)/Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo, Martin Kornmesser., Greetings, Orbiter.ch, Source: Orbiter.ch Space News

Read More........→October 26, 2012

Typhoon's bid to UAE will include new radar technology

The UAE will get the benefits of a new technology development in the Eurofighter Typhoon if it selects the aircraft for its multi-role combat type, the European partnership said today. On behalf of the four core nations in the Eurofighter programme, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, a Request for Proposal (RFP) has been issued by NETMA (NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency) to Eurofighter GmbH for the development of an Active Electronically Scanned Array Radar (E-Scan). Eurofighter Chief Executive Officer, Enzo Casolini said: “The timescale is to answer the RFP by October this year and to have an agreement with the nations by the end of the year. The target is to have a contract by the middle of next year and to have an E-Scan entering into service by 2015.”Source: Naval Open Source INTelligence

Read More........→October 04, 2012

India launches 100th space mission successfully

Making history in its space odyssey, India on Sunday successfully launched its 100th mission with its workhorse PSLV-C21 placing in orbit two foreign satellites in a flawless flight from the spaceport here. The third wholly commercial launch with no Indian satellite was a textbook mission as ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle placed in orbit French spacecraft SPOT 6 and Japanese micro satellite Proiteres some 18 minutes after lift-off at 9.53 am.The lift-off was delayed by two minutes at the end of the 51-hour countdown to avoid collision with space debris. The historic mission was described as a 'spectacular success' by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who keenly watched the launch sequence at the mission control centre at Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, about 110 km from Chennai. "I warmly congratulate the Department of Space and all members of Indian Space Research Organisation fraternity for this spectacular success," he told the scientists minutes after the successful launch. Describing the mission as a milestone  in  the  nation's space capabilities, he said the launch was 'testimony to the commercial competitiveness of the Indian space industry and is a tribute to Indian innovation and ingenuity'. A beaming ISRO chief K. Radhakrishnan told the post-launch media conference that with today's successful mission the agency has launched 62 satellites, one space recovery module and 37 rockets, making it a grand 100. Each Indian rocket going up is considered a mission as also each Indian satellite being placed in orbit. The 44-metre PSLV took off on its 22nd flight, zoomed into the overcast skies carrying the French satellite with a lift-off mass of 712 kg, the heaviest ever to be launched by India for an international client, and the 15 kg Japanese micro spacecraft. The mission was a historic landmark for ISRO in its five- decade old space programme since beginning on a humble note with the launch of the indigenous 'Aryabhatta' on board a Russian rocket on April 19, 1975. PSLV yet again proved its versatility and robustness scripting its 21st successful mission in a row after its first flight in September 1993 ended in a failure. SPOT-6 is the biggest commercial lift so far since India forayed into the multi-billion dollar global commercial satellite launch market after 350 kg Agile of Italy, put in orbit in 2007 by PSLV. Twelve other foreign commercial satellites launched by ISRO weighed below 300 kg. Significantly, France's five earlier SPOT satellites were launched by European Araine rocket. SPOT-6 is an earth observation satellite, while Proiteres is intended to observe Kansai district of Japan through high-resolution camera. Radhakrishnan said the launch originally scheduled for 9.51 am was adjusted to 9.53 am following analysis of space debris for the past few days. According to American space agency NASA, over 500,000 pieces of debris or 'space junk' are tracked as they orbit the Earth. The debris, which travel at speed up to 17,500 mph, could damage a satellite or a spacecraft. Radhakrishnan declined to divulge the cost of today's mission, saying it was paid by the customers. Mission director Kunhali Krishnan termed the launch a 'grand success' and said all four stages of the rocket performed 'exceedingly well'.  Source: Deccan Chronicle

Read More........→September 10, 2012

LHC experiments bring new insight into matter of the primordial universe

Heavy-ion collision recorded by ALICE in 2011 (Image: CERN)

Heavy-ion collision recorded by ALICE in 2011 (Image: CERN)Experiments using heavy ions at CERN’s (1*) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are advancing understanding of the primordial universe. The ALICE, ATLAS and CMS collaborations have made new measurements of the kind of matter that probably existed in the first instants of the universe. They will present their latest results at the Quark Matter 2012 conference, which starts today in Washington DC. The new findings are based mainly on the four-week LHC run with lead ions in 2011, during which the experiments collected 20 times more data than in 2010. Just after the big bang, quarks and gluons – basic building blocks of matter – were not confined inside composite particles such as protons and neutrons, as they are today. Instead, they moved freely in a state of matter known as "quark–gluon plasma". Collisions of lead ions in the LHC, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, recreate for a fleeting moment conditions similar to those of the early universe. By examining a billion or so of these collisions, the experiments have been able to make more precise measurements of the properties of matter under these extreme conditions. “The field of heavy-ion physics is crucial for probing the properties of matter in the primordial universe, one of the key questions of fundamental physics that the LHC and its experiments are designed to address. It illustrates how in addition to the investigation of the recently discovered Higgs-like boson, physicists at the LHC are studying many other important phenomena in both proton–proton and lead–lead collisions,” said CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer. At the conference, the ALICE, ATLAS and CMS collaborations will present more refined characterizations of the densest and hottest matter ever studied in the laboratory – 100,000 times hotter than the interior of the Sun and denser than a neutron star. ALICE will present a wealth of new results on all aspects of the evolution of high-density, strongly interacting matter in both space and time. Important studies deal with “charmed particles”, which contain a charm or anticharm quark. Charm quarks, 100 times heavier than the up and down quarks that form normal matter, are significantly decelerated by their passage through quark–gluon plasma, offering scientists a unique tool to probe its properties. ALICE physicists will report indications that the flow in the plasma is so strong that the heavy charmed particles are dragged along by it. The experiment has also observed indications of a thermalization phenomenon, which involves the recombination of charm and anticharm quarks to form “charmonium”. “This is only one leading example of the scientific opportunities in reach of the ALICE experiment,” said Paolo Giubellino, spokesperson of the ALICE collaboration. “With more data still being analysed and further data-taking scheduled for next February, we are closer than ever to unravelling the properties of the primordial state of the universe: the quark–gluon plasma.” In the 1980s, the initial dissociation of charmonium was proposed as a direct signature for the formation of quark–gluon plasma, and first experimental indications of this dissociation were reported from fixed-target experiments at CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron in 2000. The much higher energy of the LHC makes it possible for the first time to study similar tightly-bound states of the heavier beauty quarks. The hypothesis was that, depending on their binding energy, some of these states would “melt” in the plasma produced, while others would survive the extreme temperature. The CMS experiment now observes clear signs of the expected sequential suppression of the “quarkonium” (quark–antiquark) states. “CMS will present important new heavy-ion results not only on quarkonium suppression, but also on bulk properties of the medium and on a variety of studies of jet quenching,” said CMS spokesperson Joseph Incandela. “We are entering an exciting new era of high-precision research on strongly interacting matter at the highest energies produced in the laboratory.” 

CERN - LHC

The quenching of jets is the phenomenon in which highly energetic sprays of particles break up in the dense quark–gluon plasma, giving scientists detailed information about the density and properties of the produced matter. ATLAS will report new findings on jet quenching, including a high-precision study of how the jets fragment in matter, and on the correlations between jets and electroweak bosons. The results are complementary to other exciting ones, including groundbreaking findings on the flow of the plasma. “We have entered a new phase in which we not only observe the phenomenon of quark–gluon plasma, but where we can also make high-precision measurements using a variety of probes,” said ATLAS spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti. “The studies will contribute significantly to our understanding of the early universe.”  Note: 1*.CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession. Israel and Serbia are associate members in the pre-stage to membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have observer status. Source: Orbiter.ch Space News

Read More........→August 14, 2012

Poor funding could lead to Dark Age in astrophysics

The future of astrophysics in the 21st century is connected with the quantity and quality of new data about the universe supplied by space and ground-based telescopes. What are the prospects of this branch of space research in the context of the constantly increasing cost and complexity of missions? What is in store for space research in the coming decades? Have the “Dark Ages” of this field of science come to replace its “Golden Era”? These issues were touched upon in the report by Pietro Ubertini, Director of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Planetology in Rome (National Institute of astrophysics, Italy) at the Scientific Assembly of the International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). Mr. Ubertini represents the “Future of Space Astronomy” working group of COSPAR, and his report reflects the point of view of the group on the working plan of the specialists in this area in the upcoming decades.Until now, the upgrading of space-based telescopes has basically proceeded along the path of increasing their size, price, and technical complexity. These efforts have been justified – many of these apparatuses have worked and are still working for a decade or more (for example, in October the INTEGRAL international x-ray observatory celebrates the 10th anniversary of its launch). However, against the background of the financial crisis, the question of price becomes decisive. The future launch of the James Webb space telescope, the cost of which exceeded initial estimates by several billion dollars, has become the talk of the town. The project won’t be cancelled (though this option was under consideration for some time), but analysts have repeatedly stated that its exaggerated budget was dramatically reducing funding for other branches of space research. Tags: Opinion & Analysis, World, space exploration , Sci-Tech, astronomy, итать далее ,Source: Voice of Russia. 

Read More........→July 26, 2012

Colombia's tinted gold passes for precious stones

All that glitters is gold under a new thermochemical process developed by Colombian engineers for colour-tinting the precious metal to make it look like sapphires, rubies or emeralds. The tinting can increase the value of gold by a factor of five, meaning the chemically-altered precious metal is likely to appear in jewellers' display window s worldwide soon, according to University of Antioquia engineers. "It does not involve painting the gold or covering it with some material that disguises the traditional white, yellow or pink of the precious metal," said Maria Eugenia Carmona, the principal researcher on the project. "It involves subjecting it to an elaborate thermochemical process of eight to 10 hours, after which not only does its colour become red, blue or green, among others, but also its market price increases significantly," she said. Colombia extracted 56 tons of gold from its mines in 2011, representing a 4 per cent increase over the previous year. Colombia's gold exports were valued at $2.8 billion in 2011, a 31.4 per cent increase, according to official figures. Colombia, Peru and Mexico are Latin America's biggest gold producers. "We are sitting on a mine and it's sad to see large companies take our gold as a raw material to other countries where it is processed to return here at a high price," Carmona said.A better option, she suggested, is to give the gold added value that would allow Colombians to export a new product. Well-known Bogota jeweller Eladio Rey said the thermochemical transformation produced an outcome that is ‘wonderful, so innovative.’ "It is undoubtedly attractive to traders and buyers because of the diversity of colours, and much better if a high quality for the metal can be guaranteed," Rey said. The only similar tinting process the University of Antioquia researchers could find was done in Italy, where blue gold was produced. The University of Antioquia process involves mixing 24-carat gold with reactive metals in a four-to-one ratio. The mixture is then subjected to a thermal process in special ovens, which changes its colour. After cooling, the material has the appearance of precious stones, and can be coated with a protective resin and mounted in rings, brooches or pendants.Rey says he likes the colouring process, not only because it allows gold to be combined with other gemstones, but also because it allows the product to be labelled ‘made in Colombia.’Source: Deccan Chronicle

Read More........→July 15, 2012

Cassini Finds Likely Subsurface Ocean on Saturn Moon

This artist's concept shows a possible scenario for the internal structure of Titan, as suggested by data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: A. Tavani. 

Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed Saturn's moon Titan likely harbors a layer of liquid water under its ice shell. Researchers saw a large amount of squeezing and stretching as the moon orbited Saturn. They deduced that if Titan were composed entirely of stiff rock, the gravitational attraction of Saturn would cause bulges, or solid "tides," on the moon only 3 feet (1 meter) in height. Spacecraft data show Saturn creates solid tides approximately 30 feet (10 meters) in height, which suggests Titan is not made entirely of solid rocky material. The finding appears in today's edition of the journal Science. "Cassini's detection of large tides on Titan leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that there is a hidden ocean at depth," said Luciano Iess, the paper's lead author and a Cassini team member at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. "The search for water is an important goal in solar system exploration, and now we've spotted another place where it is abundant." Titan takes only 16 days to orbit Saturn, and scientists were able to study the moon's shape at different parts of its orbit. Because Titan is not spherical, but slightly elongated like a football, its long axis grew when it was closer to Saturn. Eight days later, when Titan was farther from Saturn, it became less elongated and more nearly round. Cassini measured the gravitational effect of that squeeze and pull. Scientists were not sure Cassini would be able to detect the bulges caused by Saturn's pull on Titan. By studying six close flybys of Titan from Feb. 27, 2006, to Feb. 18, 2011, researchers were able to determine the moon's internal structure by measuring variations in the gravitational pull of Titan using data returned to NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). "We were making ultrasensitive measurements, and thankfully Cassini and the DSN were able to maintain a very stable link," said Sami Asmar, a Cassini team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The tides on Titan pulled up by Saturn aren't huge compared to the pull the biggest planet, Jupiter, has on some of its moons. But, short of being able to drill on Titan's surface, the gravity measurements provide the best data we have of Titan's internal structure."

Image above: The colorful globe of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true color snapshot from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

An ocean layer does not have to be huge or deep to create these tides. A liquid layer between the external, deformable shell and a solid mantle would enable Titan to bulge and compress as it orbits Saturn. Because Titan's surface is mostly made of water ice, which is abundant in moons of the outer solar system, scientists infer Titan's ocean is likely mostly liquid water. On Earth, tides result from the gravitational attraction of the moon and sun pulling on our surface oceans. In the open oceans, those can be as high as two feet (60 centimeters). While water is easier to move, the gravitational pulling by the sun and moon also causes Earth's crust to bulge in solid tides of about 20 inches (50 centimeters). The presence of a subsurface layer of liquid water at Titan is not itself an indicator for life. Scientists think life is more likely to arise when liquid water is in contact with rock, and these measurements cannot tell whether the ocean bottom is made up of rock or ice. The results have a bigger implication for the mystery of methane replenishment on Titan. "The presence of a liquid water layer in Titan is important because we want to understand how methane is stored in Titan's interior and how it may outgas to the surface," said Jonathan Lunine, a Cassini team member at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "This is important because everything that is unique about Titan derives from the presence of abundant methane, yet the methane in the atmosphere is unstable and will be destroyed on geologically short timescales." A liquid water ocean, "salted" with ammonia, could produce buoyant ammonia-water liquids that bubble up through the crust and liberate methane from the ice. Such an ocean

Image above: The shape of the moon changes along its orbit because of the varying tidal pull from Saturn such that it is stretched into a rugby-ball shape at its closest point to the gas giant and is more spherical at its most distant point. The change in shape causes a redistribution of mass in the moon and therefore a change in the gravity field, which is measured by Cassini in the form of the change in acceleration of the spacecraft as tracked by microwave radio links with the ground antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network.

could serve also as a deep reservoir for storing methane.The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. DSN, also managed by JPL, is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. Cassini's radio science team is based at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov andhttp://www.esa.int/esaMI/Cassini-Huygens/ Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA / ESA / Dwayne Brown / JPL / Jia-Rui Cook / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.Source: Orbiter.ch Space News

Read More........→June 29, 2012

Mount Vesuvius, One of World's Most Dangerous Volcano

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Mount Vesuvius with it's crater seen from a plane. (Source)

Mount Vesuvius is a stratovolcano located in the east of Naples, Italy. It is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. It is considered as one of world's most dangerous volcano because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby. The most famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius happened in AD 79 that led to the destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and

Mount Vesuvius seen from City of Pompeii which was destroyed in the eruption of AD 79. (Source)

Herculaneum and the death of 10,000 to 25,000 people.  The summit of Mount Vesuvius is open to visitors and tourists and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends. There is also an access by road to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the summit, but thereafter access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the mountain from the

Inside the Mount Vesuvius crater where tourists can take a pictures. (Source)

road to the crater. The Mount Vesuvius area it is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. The area around it was officially declared a national park on June 1995. Source: Worlds Natural Wonder

Read More........→June 18, 2012

Einstein was right

Scientists on Friday said that an experiment which challenged Einstein's theory on the speed of light had been flawed and that sub-atomic particles -- like everything else -- are indeed bound by the universe's speed limit. Researchers working at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) caused a storm in 2011 when they published experimental results showing that neutrinos could out-pace light by some six kilometres (3.7 miles) per second. The findings threatened to upend modern physics and smash a hole in Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which described the velocity of light as the maximum speed in the cosmos. But CERN now says that the earlier results were wrong and faulty kit
was to blame. "Although this result isn't as exciting as some would have liked, it is what we all expected deep down," said the centre's research director Sergio Bertolucci.? "The story captured the public imagination, and has given people the opportunity to see the scientific method in action. "An unexpected result was put up for scrutiny, thoroughly investigated and resolved in part thanks to collaboration between normally competing experiments. That's how science moves forward."  The neutrinos were timed on thenear  journey from CERN's giant underground lab Geneva to the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy, after travelling 732 kilometres (454 miles) through the Earth's crust. To do the trip, the neutrinos should have taken 0.0024 seconds. Instead, the particles were recorded as hitting the detectors in Italy 0.00000006 seconds sooner than expected, the preliminary experiment had shown. Researchers updated the science community on Friday at the International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics, being held in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto. "The previous data taken up to 2011 with the neutrino beam from CERN to Gran Sasso were revised taking into account understood instrumental effects," the team said. "A coherent picture has emerged with both previous and new data pointing to a neutrino velocity consistent with the speed of light." The initial findings had been greeted with a combination of excitement and scepticism, even from those involved in the experiment, who urged other physicists to carry out their own checks to corroborate or refute what had been seen. "If this result at CERN is proved to be right, and particles are found to travel faster than the speed of light, then I am prepared to eat my shorts, live on TV," Jim Al-Khalili, a professor of theoretical physics at Britain's University of Surrey, declared at the time. Source: Hindustan Times, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→June 08, 2012

Wrist watch mobile phone maker company enters in Indian market

News Track India: Taking a leapfrog from Europe to India, a Netherland based wrist watchmobile phone making company on Friday has put its first step in India by opening its three outlets in capital and capital region and launching its some models to attract customers. A  Netherland - based  company Burg that Manufactures innovative wrist watch mobile phone Friday launched its five models Burg 9, Burg 10,
Burg 11, Burg 12 and Burg 13 in Delhi and Gurgaon outlets. The price of the launched ranges between Rs.9,000 to Rs.24,000. Describing the features of Burg?s product, Company?s global sales director Koen Pieters said that these wrist watch mobile phone is equipped with all features of mobile phones and wrist watch. Using their device, you can make and receive phone calls, send and receive SMS, access internet, take snapshots from its camera, do video recording and all those which a modern smart phone

contains, he said. Moreover, the features of bluetooth, image viewer and file manager are also included in it. Koen also informed that company, which is now targeting to open 20 outlets in India across the country viewing its rich and broad market. "India is emerging as one of the key market for technology products as India's expanding economy and rising disposable incomes are fostering demands for such gadgets," Koen Pieters said. "India is the next focus destination for Burg in its global road map. We will keep introducing our wide range of futuristic products for Indian consumers at their door steps," he added.  Burg already has significant presence in Italy, Germany, Russia, Mexico, United States of America, Spain, Chile, Venezuela, Norway and Switzerland. --With Agencies Inputs-- Source: News Track India

Read More........→April 16, 2012

First robotic fish tested

Hindustan Times, IANS, The world's first robotic fish has successfully debuted among real fish, paving the way for better understanding of animal behaviour, an expert said. The robot, capable of imitating real fish, has been accepted into a school of fish and even became their leader, Stefano Marras, a researcher with Italy's National Research Council (CNR) who carried out the test, said. The robotic fish is jointly developed by CNR and the New York University, Xinhua reported, Wednesday. Researchers found that fish were more attracted towards the robot when its tail was beating rather than when it was statically immersed in the water. The experiment may enable a better understanding of fish' collective behaviour and open new horizons in the methodologies for their conservation, experts said. For example, a robotic fish could be used for guiding fish away from areas contaminated by oil spills.Source: Hindustan Times

Read More........→April 12, 2012