constellation – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

A rare crash at the Milky Way’s core: U-Michigan astronomers could be the first to see it

By Guest PostJanuary 10, 2014Scienceconstellation, core, g2, galactic center, galaxy by spring, gaseous g2 object, mark reynolds, Milky Way, mysterious gas cloud, NASA, nathalie degenaar, rare collision, sagittarius, scorpius, supermassive black hole, swift telescope, u michigan astronomers, university of michigan, xray wavelengths

ANN ARBOR — University of Michigan astronomers could be the first to witness a rare collision expected to happen at the center of the galaxy by spring.

With NASA’s orbiting Swift telescope, the U-M team is taking daily images of a mysterious gas cloud about three times the mass of Earth that’s spiraling toward the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s core. From our vantage point, the core lies more than 25,000 light years away in the southern summer sky near the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. (more…)

Nearby Super-Earth Likely a Diamond Planet

By Guest PostOctober 11, 2012Science55 cancri e, atmosphere, cancer, carbon, carbon rich, chemistry, compound, constellation, core, david spergel, Diamond, diamond planet, earth, earth mass, element, fahrenheit, formation, gas planet, graphite, habitable world, hyper speed, interior, kanani lee, mass, mineral, molten iron, mountain formation, nikku madhusudhan, olivier mousis, oxygen, planet, plate tectonics, princeton university, radius, rocky planet, scientist, seismic activity, silicates, silicon carbide, size, specific characteristics, star, stellar composition, super earth, surface, temperature, thermal evolution, volcanism, water, yale university

New research led by Yale University scientists suggests that a rocky planet twice Earth’s size orbiting a nearby star is a diamond planet.

“This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth,” said lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan, a Yale postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy. “The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite.”

The paper reporting the findings has been accepted for publication in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. (more…)

The Helix Nebula: Bigger in Death than Life

By Guest PostOctober 6, 2012Scienceaquarius, carbon, constellation, dwarf star, dying star, evolution, explorer, fuel source, fusion reaction, Galaxy, galex, helium, helix nebula, hydrogen, infrared, light year, NASA, nebula, ngc 7293, nitrogen, nuclear, oxygen, planetary nebulae, Space, space telescope, spitzer, stellar core, ultraviolet, ultraviolet radiation, wise

A dying star is refusing to go quietly into the night, as seen in this combined infrared and ultraviolet view from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), which NASA has lent to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In death, the star’s dusty outer layers are unraveling into space, glowing from the intense ultraviolet radiation being pumped out by the hot stellar core.

This object, called the Helix nebula, lies 650 light-years away in the constellation of Aquarius. Also known by the catalog number NGC 7293, it is a typical example of a class of objects called planetary nebulae. Discovered in the 18th century, these cosmic works of art were erroneously named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets. (more…)

First Habitable-Zone super-Earth Discovered in Orbit Around a Sun-like Star

By Guest PostMarch 12, 2012Sciencealan boss, ames research center, constellation, cygnus, discovery, doppler technique, exoplanet, g5 star, Galaxy, gas giant planets, habitable zone, kepler mission, lyra, NASA, photometric data, radial velocity, space telescope, star, sun, super earth, william borucki

Washington, D.C. — NASA’s Kepler Mission has discovered the first super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a star similar to the Sun. A team of researchers, including Carnegie’s Alan Boss, has discovered what could be a large, rocky planet with a surface temperature of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit, comparable to a comfortable spring day on Earth. This landmark finding will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The discovery team, led by William Borucki of the NASA Ames Research Center, used photometric data from the NASA Kepler space telescope, which monitors the brightness of 155,000 stars. Earth-size planets whose orbital planes are aligned such that they periodically pass in front of their stars result in tiny dimmings of their host star’s light–dimmings that can only be measured by a highly specialized space telescope like Kepler. (more…)

Pair of Black Holes ‘Weigh In’ At 10 Billion Suns, The Most Massive Yet

By Guest PostDecember 5, 2011Science10 billion suns, astronomers, black holes, bright galaxies, chung pei ma, coma berenices, coma cluster, constellation, constellation leo, dark halo, elliptical galaxy ngc 3842, elliptical galaxy ngc 4889, fast moving stars, galactic nuclei, gemini and keck telescopes, george and cynthia mitchell spectrograph, gravitational fields, hawaii, james graham, jeremy murphy, karl gebhardt, masses, massive black holes, mcdonald observatory, nicholas mcconnell, quasars, solar masses, solar system, supercomputer, supermassive black holes, the university of texas at austin, university of california

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of astronomers including Karl Gebhardt and graduate student Jeremy Murphy of The University of Texas at Austin have discovered the most massive black holes to date — two monsters weighing as much as 10 billion suns and threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.

The research is published in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Nature in a paper headlined by graduate student Nicholas McConnell and professor Chung-Pei Ma of the University of California, Berkeley. (more…)

Citizen Scientists Join Search for Earth-like Planets

By Guest PostDecember 19, 2010Scienceastronomers, citizen science project, constellation, cygnus, debra fischer, dimming of light, earth, earth like planets, exoplanets, galaxy zoo, galaxy zoo project, global network, globe, human computing power, jupiter, kepler mission, kevin schawinski, large gas giants, meg schwamb, NASA, planet candidates, planet hunters, solar system, space telescope, sun, web users, yale astronomer, zooniverse

Web users around the globe will be able to help professional astronomers in their search for Earth-like planets thanks to a new online citizen science project called Planet Hunters that launched Dec. 16. at www.planethunters.org.

Planet Hunters, which is the latest in the Zooniverse citizen science project collection, will ask users to help analyze data taken by NASA’s Kepler mission. The space telescope has been searching for planets beyond our own solar system—called exoplanets—since its launch in March 2009. (more…)

WISE Sees an Explosion of Infrared Light

By Guest PostDecember 12, 20101 commentSciencecastor, constellation, dust, emitting light, eta geminorum, exploded star, gas, gas atoms, gemini, halo, ic 443 nebula, infrared light, infrared wavelengths, jet propulsion laboratory, massive stars, NASA, rainbow, shock waves, supernovae, wide field infrared survey explorer, wise, wise image

A circular rainbow appears like a halo around an exploded star in this new view of the IC 443 nebula from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.

When massive stars die, they explode in tremendous blasts, called supernovae, which send out shock waves. The shock waves sweep up and heat surrounding gas and dust, creating supernova remnants like the one pictured here. The supernova in IC 443 happened somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. (more…)

Tag Archives: constellation