Colossus In Coma Cluster One Of Largest Structures In Universe, Enormous Arms Of Hot Gas Stretch Half A Million Light Years

Coma Cluster                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Credit: Chandra A team of astronomers has discovered enormous arms of hot gas in the Coma cluster of galaxies by using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton. These features, which span at least half a million light years, provide insight into how the Coma cluster has grown through mergers of smaller groups and clusters of galaxies...

Read More........→September 24, 2013

Meteorites: the secret signs

Meteorites fall on the Earth (Artist's view) The international expedition to study meteorite catastrophes of the past - a joint Russian-American mission, headed by world-renowned scientist - Dallas Abbott. It belongs to her discovery of a number of such craters on the planet and the hypothesis about the impact of meteorites on Earth evolution. At this time, the scientists are going to dot the "i" in the origin of the two Russian lakes. "Smerdyache" - the most enigmatic and mysterious lake in the Moscow region, near the Shatura. Even the name is scary. It is said that once there was a church. She went into the water together with the priest. Truth or fiction, is not known. However, the landscape around adds mystique ... and unusual shape of the lake - a perfect Smerdyache lake circle. "This lake is the most suspicious of 30-40 lakes in Shatura, - said Vyacheslav Gusiakov, head of the Laboratory of the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics SB RAS. - The origin of the remaining lakes are more or less clear. And here is flat terrain and suddenly there is a ring structure, surrounded by a rampart and further reduction ... " But it is almost perfectly round shape of the lake and attracted fans of extraterrestrial stories. Their version: Lake meteorite origin. Formed ten thousand years from the fall...

Read More........→June 12, 2013

Hubble breaks record for furthest supernova

Record-breaking supernova in the CANDELS Ultra Deep Survey The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has broken the record in the quest to find the furthest supernova of the type used to measure cosmic distances. This supernova exploded more than 10 billion years ago (redshift 1.914), at a time the Universe was in its early formative years and stars were being born at a rapid rate. The supernova, designated SN UDS10Wil [1], belongs to a special class of exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae. These bright beacons are prized by astronomers because they can be used as a yardstick for measuring cosmic distances, thereby yielding clues to the nature of dark Record-breaking supernova in the CANDELS Ultra Deep Survey (compass and scale) energy, the mysterious force accelerating the rate of expansion of the Universe. “This new distance record holder opens a window into the early Universe, offering important new insights into how these supernovae form,” said astronomer David O. Jones of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., lead author on the science paper detailing the discovery. “At that epoch, we can test theories about how reliable these detonations are for understanding the evolution of the Universe and its expansion.” One of the debates surrounding Type Ia supernovae is the nature of the fuse that ignites them....

Read More........→April 07, 2013

Baffling Pulsar Leaves Astronomers in the Dark.

This illustration shows the two states of emission observed from pulsar PSR B0943+10, which is well known for switching between a 'bright' and 'quiet' mode at radio wavelengths. Observations of PSR B0943+10, performed simultaneously with ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory and ground-based radio telescopes, revealed that this source exhibits variations in its X-ray emission that mimic in reverse the changes seen in radio waves. No current model is able to predict what could cause such sudden and drastic changes to the pulsar's entire magnetosphere and result in such a curious emission. In the upper part of the illustration, the artist's impression on the left shows the pulsar with glowing cones of radiation stemming from its magnetic poles – a state referred to as 'radio-bright' mode. Radio emission from pulsars is known to arise from these cones, and we see it pulsate because the pulsar's rotation and magnetic axes are misaligned. The graphs on the right side show data from X-ray observations, performed with XMM-Newton (upper graph), and from radio observations, performed with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR; lower graph). The upper graph shows that, in the 'radio-bright' mode, the pulsar does not shine brightly in X-rays. The lower graph shows a bright and pulsating emission at radio wavelengths. In the lower part of the illustration,...

Read More........→April 05, 2013

World’s largest space observatory opens in Chile

The ALMA space observatory was inaugurated here on a desert plateau some 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) above sea level, at a ceremony attended by President Sebastian Pinera and other dignitaries. “Here in this desert, the driest in the world, it is a great privilege to inaugurate the observatory,” Pinera said. Calling it “the world’s most powerful,” he said the observatory will make “a significant contribution to humanity, enable a better understanding of the universe in which we live, and perhaps assist us discover life beyond Earth.” “ALMA is a huge telescope 16 kilometers (10 miles) in diameter,” said the facility’s director Thijs de Graauw, as it was declared officially opened. Amid excited applause, 59 of the 66 antennas slowly began to rotate and point toward the interior of the universe. By October, all the antennas will be fully installed and operational. Gianni Marconi, an astronomer at the massive ground array of telescopes, recently proudly proclaimed to AFP that ALMA is “the largest observatory that has ever been built.” ALMA — short for the Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array, an acronym which means “soul” in Spanish — is a joint effort among North American, European and Asian agencies. The observatory is located near Pedro de Atacama, a desert town popular with tourists. With almost...

Read More........→March 14, 2013