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Scientists Measure Diameter of The Sun With Unprecedented Accuracy

By Guest PostMarch 27, 2012Sciencebrazil, california, diameter, hawaii, isabelle scholl, jeff kuhn, marcelo emilio, mdi, measurement, mercury, michelson doppler imager, NASA, nasa satellite, ponta grossa, rock bush, soho, solar size, solar telescope, spacecraft, stanford university, sun

A group of scientists from Hawaiʻi, Brazil and California has measured the diameter of the Sun with unprecedented accuracy by using a spacecraft to time the transits of the planet Mercury across the face of the Sun in 2003 and 2006.

The measurements of the Sun’s size were made by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Institute for Astronomy scientists Drs. Marcelo Emilio (visiting from Ponta Grossa, Brazil), Jeff Kuhn and Isabelle Scholl in collaboration with Dr. Rock Bush of Stanford University. They used the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) aboard NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) to make the measurements. (more…)

Listen to Solar Storm Activity in New Sonification Video

By Guest PostMarch 15, 2012Scienceaudio waveform, carbon atom, data mining, geiger counter, hertz, high energy particle, jim raines, mercury, messenger spacecraft, NASA, radiation detector, robert alexander, solar storm, sonification, sound, soundtrack, spacecraft, sun, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— What does a solar storm sound like? To get an idea, a University of Michigan researcher has created a “sonification” of measurements from two spacecraft during the most recent storm. Take a listen in this video.

The researcher who created it is Robert Alexander, a University of Michigan design science doctoral student. Alexander is a composer with a NASA fellowship to study how representing information as sound could aid in data mining. (more…)

Scientists Prepare to Take First-Ever Picture of a Black Hole

By Guest PostJanuary 16, 2012Scienceabyss of space, albert einstein, alma, arizona, astrophysicists, atacama large millimeter array, atmosphere, black hole, black void, center of milky way, Chile, cosmic traffic jam, dan marrone, daniel stolte, dimitrios psaltis, earth, einstein, event horizon, event horizon telescope, extreme environment, field of gravity, game changer, general relativity, global array, hawaii, haystack observatory, maelstroms, mass, massachusetts institute of technology, mauna kea, mercury, Mexico, MIT, mt graham, nothingness, optical telescopes, plasma, radio telescopes, radio waves, shadow, sheperd doeleman, south pole, space and time, steward observatory, sun, supermassive black hole, theory of general relativity, tucson, ultra precise timing, universe, university of arizona, virtual telescope, water vapor, wavelengths

*The Event Horizon Telescope is an Earth-sized virtual telescope powerful enough to see all the way to the center of our Milky Way, where a supermassive black hole will allow astrophysicists to put Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to the test.*

Astronomers, physicists and scientists from related fields across the world will convene in Tucson, Ariz. on Jan. 18 to discuss an endeavor that only a few years ago would have been regarded as nothing less than outrageous.

The conference is organized by Dimitrios Psaltis, an associate professor of astrophysics at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, and Dan Marrone, an assistant professor of astronomy at Steward Observatory. (more…)

Upper Atmosphere Facilitates Changes That Let Mercury Enter Food Chain

By Guest PostJanuary 5, 2012Environmentaquatic ecosystems, atmosphere, bacteria, bangor, broomfield, chemical reactor, climate conditions, coal burning in asia, daniel jaffe, ecosystem impacts, Europe, food chain, humans, lower stratosphere, maine, mercury, mercury contaminated fish, mercury emissions, metallic element, methyl mercury, North America, oxidation, oxidized mercury, research aircraft, seth lyman, southwest united states, university of washington bothell, upper atmosphere, upper troposphere, vapor

Humans pump thousands of tons of vapor from the metallic element mercury into the atmosphere each year, and it can remain suspended for long periods before being changed into a form that is easily removed from the atmosphere.

New research shows that the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere work to transform elemental mercury into oxidized mercury, which can easily be deposited into aquatic ecosystems and ultimately enter the food chain. (more…)

Extreme Space Weather at Mercury Blasts the Planet’s Poles

By Guest PostOctober 4, 2011Scienceatmosphere, aurora borealis, charged particles, earth, exosphere, fast imaging plasma spectrometer, fips, fundamental science about the sun, jim raines, magnetosphere, mercury, messenger spacecraft, NASA, oxygen particles, polar regions, sodium, solar system, solar wind sandblasts, space environment, squall of hot plasma, surface of planet mercury, thomas zurbuchen, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The solar wind sandblasts the surface of planet Mercury at its poles, according to new data from a University of Michigan instrument on board NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft.

The sodium and oxygen particles the blistering solar wind kicks up are the primary components of Mercury’s wispy atmosphere, or “exosphere,” the new findings assert. Through interacting with the solar wind, they become charged in a mechanism that’s similar to the one that generates the Aurora Borealis on Earth. (more…)

Clocking Neptune’s Spin

By Guest PostJune 29, 2011Scienceamerican astronomical society, astronomer giovanni cassini, clocking neptune's spin, earth and mars, erich karkoschka, giant gas planets, Icarus, jupiter, jupiter's red spot, lighthouse in space, magnetic field, mercury, NASA, neptune, neptune’s atmosphere, planet's inner core, radio telescopes, rocky planets, saturn, swirling and roiling, tracking atmospheric features on neptune, ua planetary scientist, ua's lunar and planetary laboratory, university of arizona, uranus, venus

*By tracking atmospheric features on Neptune, a UA planetary scientist has accurately determined the planet’s rotation, a feat that had not been previously achieved for any of the gas planets in our solar system except Jupiter.

A day on Neptune lasts precisely 15 hours, 57 minutes and 59 seconds, according to the first accurate measurement of its rotational period made by University of Arizona planetary scientist Erich Karkoschka.

His result is one of the largest improvements in determining the rotational period of a gas planet in almost 350 years since Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini made the first observations of Jupiter’s Red Spot. (more…)

Pan-STARRS Telescope Spots New Distant Comet

By Guest PostJune 22, 2011Scienceastronomers, automated software, c 2011 l4 comets, canada france hawaii telescope, earth, haleakala, larry denneau, marco micheli, massachusetts, maui, mauna kea, mercury, mikael granvik, minor planet center cambridge, panstarrs, panstarrs 1 telescope, parabolic, potentially hazardous asteroids, richard wainscoat, robert jedicke, sensitive electronic detector, telescope images, tommy grav, university of hawaii at manoa

Astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa have discovered a new comet that they expect will be visible to the naked eye in early 2013.

Originally found by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Haleakala, Maui, on the night of June 5-6, it was confirmed to be a comet by UH Mānoa astronomer Richard Wainscoat and graduate student Marco Micheli the following night using the Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope on Mauna Kea. (more…)

How Tattoos ‘Move’ With Age

By Guest PostJune 6, 2011Culture, Sciencecadmium, dyes, fibroblast cells, fluid mechanics, ian eames, initial immune response, ink particles, iron, lead, lymphatic system, mathematical framework, mathematical model, mathematics today, mercury, nickel, skin, surface of the skin, suspension of particles, tattoos, white blood cells, zinc

The dyes which are injected into the skin to create tattoos move with time – permanently altering the look of a given design. In this month’s Mathematics Today Dr Ian Eames, a Reader in Fluid Mechanics at UCL, publishes a mathematical model enabling us to estimate the movement of these ink particles and predict how specific tattoo designs will look several years in the future.

“Tattoos are incredibly popular worldwide with more than a third of 18-25 year olds in the USA sporting at least one design,” says Dr Eames. “A great deal of work has already been done on the short term fate of ink particles in the skin, tracking them over periods of just a few months – but much less is known about how these particles move over longer periods of time. (more…)

Tag Archives: mercury

*By tracking atmospheric features on Neptune, a UA planetary scientist has accurately determined the planet’s rotation, a feat that had not been previously achieved for any of the gas planets in our solar system except Jupiter.