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Largest Meteorite Hunt in History Yields Treasure for UA

By Guest PostMay 16, 2012Sciencean ounce, california, carbonaceous chondrites, daniel stolte, dante lauretta, dolores hill, ed beshore, greg hupe, hiroshima bom, meteorite, meteorite hunt, michael farmer, NASA, nevada, nuclear explosion, osiris rex mission, planetary science, robert ward, scientists, sierra nevada, sky, solar system, spacecraft, sutters mill, university of arizona

Thanks to the generosity of three professional meteorite hunters, the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory will own three samples of a rare kind of meteorite leftover from the earliest beginnings of the solar system.

To the untrained eye, the black, smooth-edged lump that is sitting under a glass cover looks similar to a piece of charcoal. But to scientists Dante Lauretta and Ed Beshore from the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, it is one of the most intriguing stones they have ever seen.

“This meteorite is the oldest rock you’ll ever find on Earth. In fact, it formed 50 to 60 million years before the Earth even existed,” said Lauretta, who is a professor of planetary science and principal investigator of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which will send a spacecraft to return a sample from an asteroid in 2023. (more…)

A NASA Weather ‘Eye in the Sky’ Marks 10 Years

By Guest PostMay 7, 2012Environment, Scienceairs, amsu a, atmosphere, atmospheric infrared sounder, bae systems, boston, carbon dioxide, climate change, climate research, earth, energy cycle, eric fetzer, eye, global water, greenhouse gases, hyperspectral sounding, instrument, jet propulsion laboratory, model, monster, moustafa chahine, NASA, sky, tom pagano, water vapor, weather forecasting, weather satellites

For 10 years, it has silently swooped through space in its orbital perch 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth, its nearly 2,400 spectral “eyes” peering into Earth’s atmosphere, watching. But there’s nothing alien about NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, or AIRS, instrument, a “monster” of weather and climate research that celebrates its 10th birthday in orbit May 4.

AIRS, built by BAE Systems, Boston, under the direction of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is one of six instruments flying on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft as part of NASA’s Earth Observing System. AIRS, along with its partner microwave instrument, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A), has faithfully measured our planet’s atmospheric temperature, water vapor, clouds and greenhouse gases with unprecedented accuracy and stability. Over the past decade, AIRS and AMSU-A have improved our understanding of Earth’s global water and energy cycles, climate change and trends and how Earth’s climate system is responding to increased greenhouse gases. (more…)

Echoes From an Exploding Star

By Guest PostFebruary 16, 2012Sciencearmin rest, astronomers, astronomical equivalent, brightness, british astronomer, canyon, double star system, earth, erupting stars, eta carinae, fahrenheit, great eruption, hubble images, Hubble Space Telescope, kelvin, light, light echo, luminous blue variables, milky way galaxy, nathan smith, nebula, peak, physical models, sir john herschel, sky, spectroscopic observations, stellar class, supernova

*Astronomers watch a delayed broadcast of a powerful stellar eruption.*

Astronomers are watching the astronomical equivalent of streaming live video of a spectacular outburst from the unstable, behemoth double-star system Eta Carinae, which initially was seen on Earth nearly 170 years ago.

Dubbed the “Great Eruption,” the outburst lasted from 1837 to 1858 and caught the attention of sky-watchers at the time, including the British astronomer Sir John Herschel. He did not have the benefit of the imaging cameras and spectrographs that modern astronomers use to learn about stars, so we only have a historical record of the star’s visual brightness. (more…)

Astronomy Team That Includes UCLA Finance Professor Discovers Nearby Dwarf Galaxy

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2012Scienceaaron romanowsky, astronomer, big bang, c28 telescope, centurion 28, christine black, david martinez delgado, david reitzel, dwarf galaxy, francis longstaff, frazier park, Galaxy, gravitational attraction, gravitational tug, gravity, griffith observatory, halo population, Hubble Space Telescope, hydrogen gas, james riffle, kern county, light, light years, living fossil, michael rich, Milky Way, milky way galaxy, ngc 4449, night sky, polaris observatory association, r jay gabany, sagittarius dwarf galaxy, sky, star formation, telescope, transient stage

A team led by UCLA research astronomer Michael Rich has used a unique telescope to discover a previously unknown companion to the nearby galaxy NGC 4449, which is some 12.5 million light years from Earth. The newly discovered dwarf galaxy had escaped even the prying eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The research is published Feb. 9 in the journal Nature. (more…)

NASA Telescopes Help Solve Ancient Supernova Mystery

By Guest PostOctober 25, 2011Sciencebill danchi, brian j williams, chandra xray observatory, chinese astronomers, european space agency, exploding star, guest star, infrared observations, NASA, peaceful death of a star, rcw 86, sky, spitzer space telescope, stellar explosion, sun, supernova remnant, type ia supernova, wide field infrared survey explorer, wise, xmm newton observatory

PASADENA, Calif. — A mystery that began nearly 2,000 years ago, when Chinese astronomers witnessed what would turn out to be an exploding star in the sky, has been solved. New infrared observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, reveal how the first supernova ever recorded occurred and how its shattered remains ultimately spread out to great distances.

The findings show that the stellar explosion took place in a hollowed-out cavity, allowing material expelled by the star to travel much faster and farther than it would have otherwise. (more…)

First Observational Test of the ‘Multiverse’

By Guest PostAugust 5, 2011Sciencealternative universes, big bang, bubble, bubble universes, cmb, cmb radiation, cmb sky, cosmic microwave background radiation, daniel mortlock, european space agency, hiranya peiris, modern theories of fundamental physics, multiverse, NASA, physicists, planck satellite, powerful computer algorithm, signs of bubble universe collisions, sky, stephen feeney, theory, ucl, universe, university college london, wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe, wmap

The theory that our universe is contained inside a bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside their own bubbles – making up the ‘multiverse’ – is, for the first time, being tested by physicists.

Two research papers published in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D are the first to detail how to search for signatures of other universes. Physicists are now searching for disk-like patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation – relic heat radiation left over from the Big Bang – which could provide tell-tale evidence of collisions between other universes and our own. (more…)

NASA’s WISE Mission Offers a Taste of Galaxies to Come

By Guest PostMay 28, 2011Scienceblue colors, california institute of technology, colorful galaxies, edward wright, flocculent galaxies, grand design spirals, ic 342, messier 51, messier 83, Milky Way, NASA, ngc 2403, ngc 5907, sky, spiral arms, tom jarrett, wide field infrared survey explorer mission, wise

PASADENA, Calif. — An assorted mix of colorful galaxies is being released today by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, or WISE. The nine galaxies are a taste of what’s to come. The mission plans to release similar images for the 1,000 largest galaxies that appear in our sky, and possibly more.

“Galaxies come in all sorts of delicious flavors,” said Tom Jarrett, a WISE team member at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, who studies our Milky Way’s neighboring galaxies. “Our first sample shows what WISE is capable of. We can produce spectacular high-resolution images of the largest galaxies.” (more…)

Four Planets Huddle Up Before Dawn Next Week

By Guest PostMay 8, 2011Scienceanimation, beautiful astronomical photos, binoculars, ecliptic, jupiter, mars, mcdonald observatory, mercury, moon, page sky almanac, planets, sky, skymaps, skywatching events, stardate magazin, venus

AUSTIN, Texas — Four of the five planets visible to the unaided eye huddle quite close together in the pre-dawn sky next week, according to the editors of StarDate magazine.

On the morning of May 10, Venus and Jupiter will stand side by side, quite low in the east, as dawn brightens. If you have a horizon clear of buildings and trees, they will be easy to spot. They are the brightest objects in the night sky after the moon. Venus is the brighter of the two. Jupiter is to its left. (more…)

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