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Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars

By Guest PostMay 19, 2011Scienceastronomers, dark of space, david bennett, earth, gaseous bodies, giant wingless, gravitational microlensing events, jupiter, mario perez, microlensing observations in astrophysics, milky way galaxy, moa, NASA, new zealand, nuclear fuel, ogle, optical gravitational lensing experiment, orphan planets, star, star forming clusters, takahiro sumi, telescope in chile, turbulent solar systems

PASADENA, Calif. — Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems.

The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The newfound planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light-years from Earth. (more…)

Dawn Reaches Milestone Approaching Asteroid Vesta

By Guest PostMay 5, 2011Scienceasteroid, asteroid belt, asteroid vesta, cape canaveral air force station, celestial body, christopher russell, cosmic rays, dawn spacecraft, earth, earth orbiting telescopes, florida, gamma ray, interplanetary travel, marc rayman, NASA, neutron detector, orbit, planet, protoplanet, radio signal, spacecraft, terra incognita, vesta

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has reached its official approach phase to the asteroid Vesta and will begin using cameras for the first time to aid navigation for an expected July 16 orbital encounter. The large asteroid is known as a protoplanet — a celestial body that almost formed into a planet.

At the start of this three-month final approach to this massive body in the asteroid belt, Dawn is 1.21 million kilometers (752,000 miles) from Vesta, or about three times the distance between Earth and the moon. During the approach phase, the spacecraft’s main activity will be thrusting with a special, hyper-efficient ion engine that uses electricity to ionize and accelerate xenon. The 12-inch-wide ion thrusters provide less thrust than conventional engines, but will provide propulsion for years during the mission and provide far greater capability to change velocity. (more…)

WISE Delivers Millions of Galaxies, Stars, Asteroids

By Guest PostApril 17, 2011Scienceastronomers, blue star, celestial objects, colorful images of the cosmos, earth, edward wright, entire sky, fengchuan liu, galaxies, infrared wavelengths, nasa. wide field infrared survey explorer, polar orbit, roc cutri, solar system, star forming complexes, universe, wise, zeta ophiuchi

Astronomers across the globe can now sift through hundreds of millions of galaxies, stars and asteroids collected in the first bundle of data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.

“Starting today thousands of new eyes will be looking at WISE data, and I expect many surprises,” said Edward (Ned) Wright of UCLA, the mission’s principal investigator. (more…)

Stars Gather in ‘Downtown’ Milky Way

By Guest PostMarch 20, 2011Science120 degree view, astronomers, earth, galactic center, Galaxy, infrared array camera, milky way galaxy, multiband imaging photometer, myriad of stars, NASA, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, spitzer image, spitzer space telescope, starlight

The region around the center of our Milky Way galaxy glows colorfully in this new version of an image taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

The data were previously released as part of a long, 120-degree view of the plane our galaxy (see https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2680-ssc2008-11a-Spitzer-Finds-Clarity-in-the-Inner-Milky-Way). Now, data from the very center of that picture are being presented at a different contrast to better highlight this jam-packed region. In visible-light pictures, it is all but impossible to see the heart of our galaxy, but infrared light penetrates the shroud of dust giving us this unprecedented view. (more…)

Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction: Is It Almost Here?

By Guest PostMarch 4, 2011Environment, Scienceanimal species, anthony barnosky, big five, biodiversity, biodiversity baseline, disease, earth, extinction, extinction rate for mammals, fossil record, global warming, habitat fragmentation, hazard of climate change, human activities, invasive species, mammals, mass extinction, richard lane, road to extinction, species, storm of threats

*Steep decline of many animal species warns that Earth is on the brink*

With the steep decline in populations of many animal species, scientists have warned that Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction like those that have occurred just five times during the past 540 million years.

Each of these “Big Five” saw three-quarters or more of all animal species go extinct.

In results of a study published in this week’s issue of journal Nature, researchers report on an assessment of where mammals and other species stand today in terms of possible extinction compared with the past 540 million years.

They find cause for hope–and alarm. (more…)

‘Thawing Permafrost Likely Will Accelerate Global Warming in Coming Decades’

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Environmentalaska, Arctic, atmosphere, carbon, carbon dioxide concentration, climate change, CO2, earth, environmental sciences, fossil fuel emissions, frozen in soil, greenhouse gases, industrial age, kevin schaefer, last glacial period, lori bruhwiler, noaa, permafrost, Siberia, tingjun zhang, warming temperatures

Up to two-thirds of Earth’s permafrost likely will disappear by 2200 as a result of warming temperatures, unleashing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

The carbon resides in permanently frozen ground that is beginning to thaw in high latitudes from warming temperatures, which will impact not only the climate but also international strategies to reduce fossil fuel emissions, said CU-Boulder’s Kevin Schaefer, lead study author. “If we want to hit a target carbon dioxide concentration, then we have to reduce fossil fuel emissions that much lower than previously thought to account for this additional carbon from the permafrost,” he said. “Otherwise we will end up with a warmer Earth than we want.” (more…)

Ice Cores Yield Rich History of Climate Change

By Guest PostFebruary 4, 2011EnvironmentAntarctica, atmosphere, borehole, carbon dioxide, climate history, climate record, concentration of greenhouse gases, core, coring, earth, gases, human activity, ice, ice core, isotopic composition, julie palais, kendrick taylor, krypton, logging, russia, sample, temperature of the ocean, vostok station, wais, west antarctic ice sheet divide, xenon

*Research project completes drilling for the year, reaching two miles below West Antarctic Ice Sheet*

On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth’s climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core.

As part of the project, begun six years ago, the team, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been drilling deep into the ice at the WAIS Divide site and recovering and analyzing ice cores for clues about how changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have influenced the Earth’s climate over time. (more…)

NASA Satellite Tracks Menacing Australian Cyclone

By Guest PostFebruary 1, 20111 commentEnvironment, Science3d map, airs, anthony, aqua satellite, atmospheric infrared sounder, atmospheric temperature, australia, cairns, clouds, crippling floods, deep convective, earth, forecasters, heavy precipitation, infrared image, NASA, northeastern australia, queensland, saffir simpson scale, thunderstorm, tropical cyclone, water vapor, yasi

Fresh on the heels of a series of crippling floods that began in December 2010, and a small tropical cyclone, Anthony, this past weekend, the northeastern Australian state of Queensland is now bracing for what could become one of the largest tropical cyclones the state has ever seen.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite, built and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., captured this infrared image of Yasi on Jan. 31, 2011, at 6:29 a.m. PST (9:29 a.m. EST). The AIRS data create an accurate 3-D map of atmospheric temperature, water vapor and clouds, data that are useful to forecasters. The image shows the temperature of Yasi’s cloud tops or the surface of Earth in cloud-free regions. The coldest cloud-top temperatures appear in purple, indicating towering cold clouds and heavy precipitation. The infrared signal of AIRS does not penetrate through clouds. Where there are no clouds, AIRS reads the infrared signal from the surface of the ocean waters, revealing warmer temperatures in orange and red. (more…)

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