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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…)

Predicting Sea Level Rise: Understanding How Icebergs Form Could Lead to Better Forecasts

By Guest PostNovember 23, 2010Environmentamery ice shelf, Antarctica, climate warms, east antarctica statistical methodology, glaciers, ice sheets, ice-retreat process, iceberg calving, icebergs, jeremy bassis, larsen b ice shelf, NASA, predictions, sea-level rise, shrinking ice sheets

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— In an effort to understand how fast sea level could rise as the climate warms, a University of Michigan researcher has developed a new theory to describe how icebergs detach from ice sheets and glaciers.

This process of “iceberg calving” isn’t well understood. While scientists believe it currently accounts for roughly half of the mass lost in shrinking ice sheets, current sea level rise models don’t take changes in iceberg calving into account in their predictions, says Jeremy Bassis, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. (more…)

Soot From Space Tourism Rockets Could Spur Climate Change

By Guest PostOctober 24, 2010Environmentaerospace corporation, carbon dioxide emissions, climate impact, complex global pattern, darin toohey, global climate change, michael mills, NASA, solar energy, space tourism rockets, stratospheric layer, university of colorado

WASHINGTON—Rocket exhaust could become a significant contributor to global climate change in coming decades, according to a new study. The research finds that soot emitted by rockets — not their carbon dioxide emissions — has the greater potential to contribute to global climate change in coming decades. (more…)

Powered Lift: Novel GTRI Design Would Let Commercial Jets Use Smaller Airports While Reducing Noise

By Guest PostOctober 21, 2010Science, Technologyairplane, boeing 737, california polytechnic state university, cestol aircraft, circulation-control technology, conventional wing, cruise-efficient, design, estol program, fixed-wing jet aircraft, graham blaylock, hybrid wing body low noise, lift coefficient, NASA, nicholas moore, performance, reducing engine noise, rick gaeta, robert englar, robert j englar, short take-off and landing aircraft, short takeoff and landing performance, stol

Research underway at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) could enable fixed-wing jet aircraft to take off and land at steep angles on short runways, while also reducing engine noise heard on the ground.

About the image: This computer-generated graphic shows a model of the cruise-efficient, short take-off and landing (CESTOL) aircraft design that GTRI researchers are investigating. Image credit: California Polytechnic State University (more…)

Giant Star Goes Supernova — and is Smothered by Its Own Dust

By Guest PostOctober 16, 20105 commentsScience10-meter keck telescope, active galactic nuclei, agn, astronomers, christopher kochanek, deep wide field survey, eta carinae, Galaxy, giant star, hawaii, homunculus nebula, hypernova, krzysztof stanek, light years, Milky Way, milky way galaxy, NASA, ohio state university, spitzer space telescope, star system, super-massive black holes, supernovae, szymon kozlowski, wide field infrared explorer, wise

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A giant star in a faraway galaxy recently ended its life with a dust-shrouded whimper instead of the more typical bang.

Ohio State University researchers suspect that this odd event — the first one of its kind ever viewed by astronomers – was more common early in the universe. (more…)

CU Student-Built Dust Counter Breaks Distance Record As It Heads for Pluto

By Guest PostOctober 13, 20101 commentSciencealan stern, andrew poppe, boulder, dust grains, johns hopkins university, jupiter, kuiper belt, mihaly horanyi, NASA, neptune, new horizons mission, orbit, pluto, satellite, sdc, sme, solar mesosphere explorer, solar system, space dust, student dust counter, university of colorado, uranus, venetia burney

A University of Colorado at Boulder space dust counter designed, tested and operated by students that is flying aboard NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto now holds the record for the most distant working dust detector ever to travel through space. (more…)

CU-Boulder-Led Hubble Astronomy Team Uncovers Evidence of Early Heated Universe

By Guest PostOctober 8, 2010Scienceastrophysical and planetary sciences, big bang, black hole, black holes, charles danforth, cos, cosmic origins spectrograph, dwarf galaxies, galaxies, global warming, hubble, Hubble Space Telescope, kevin france, michael shull, NASA, quasar beacon, radiation, remote universe, small galaxies, universal warming, universe, university of colorado at boulder

If you think global warming is bad, 11 billion years ago the entire universe underwent what might be called universal warming. The consequence of that early heating was that fierce blasts of radiation from voracious black holes stunted the growth of some small galaxies for a stretch of 500 million years. (more…)

What Lives in the Sea? – First Census of Marine Life Reveals Thousands of New Species

By Guest PostOctober 6, 2010Nature, Scienceanimal plankton, autonomous underwater vehicles, auvs, celebes sea, census of marine life, chris german, cmarz, coml, decade of discovery, deep-sea imaging systems, deep-water chemosynthetic ecosystems, larry madin, lost city, marine geochemist, marine zooplankton, mid-atlantic ocean, NASA, peter wiebe, remotely operated vehicles, rovs, sonar, squidworm, tentacles, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution

The Census of Marine Life, a ten-year project to catalog all life in the sea, discovered more than 6,000 new species during its “decade of discovery,” scientists reported as they unveiled its results at a finale event in London Oct. 4-6. The collaboration combined the efforts of scientists from research organizations in more than 80 nations, including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). (more…)

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