How Pillars of Creation May Have Formed Using Computer Animation

In 1995, the Hubble space telescope trained its' optics on a cloud of gas and dust inside the Eagle Nebula some 7 thousand light years from Earth. The resulting image became as iconic as the Apollo "Earth Rise" or Sagen's "Pale Blue Dot". That image became known as "The Pillars of Creation"

From the Space.Com article:

• Scientists think the "pillars" in the image ... formed as cooler interstellar gas was worn away by intense radiation and powerful winds from nearby massive stars......

The massive stars in question that may have formed the "Pillars" were O-type stars, more than 16 times more massive than the sun.  O-type also have surface temperatures over 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.







Scott Balfour, an astronomer at Cardiff University, wanted to see if type O stars, forming inside such a cloud of gas and dust, could indeed form structures like the pillars.   Condensed 1.6 million years of cosmic history into several weeks of computing time:

• "The model neatly produces exactly the same kind of structures seen by astronomers in the classic 1995 image....." Balfour said in a recent statement.

Space.Com article HERE

The Solar System Was Probablly Never a Steady State

 Despite what a lot of solar system pundits would like to believe, Sol's children have not always played nice nor stayed in there own back yards. Jupiter, for instance, may have once been as close to the Sun as Mars is now!

During the formation of the solar system, the gaseous giant planets that make up the outer solar system were pulled much closer to the Sun than they are now, causing absolute chaos in the asteroid belt.

As the gas giants did their dance through the solar system, the planets, from Mercury to Neptune may have been pulled into the asteroid belt. Jupiter most likely caused the most chaos in the asteroid belt by sweeping up all but one tenth of a percent behind.

All of this disruption wasn't a bad thing however. It has long been believed that Earth's water came from asteroid ice. Very likely it was the massive stirring that Jupiter caused brought the material to Earth that was the starting point for complex life.

 View the Daily Galaxy blog for the original HERE

NASA Releases Juno Flyby of Earth Photos of the Earth Moon System.

During October of this year 2013) NASA's  Jupiter bound Juno spacecraft made a close pass of Earth to boost the craft's  speed by almost 9,000 miles-per-hour, captured with it's low-res camera never-before-seen view of the moon orbiting Earth.




Here is the NASA link for the flyby

In short thehe spacecraft, when it arrives in 2018 will be placed in a polar orbit .  There it will study Jupiter's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere.

According to the wiki Juno will also search for clues about how it formed, including whether Jupiter has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, and how its mass is distributed.   Wikipedia URL

***UPDATE*** Evidence Ison Survived

***UPDATE***
Information from the IO9 blog has some pretty disapointing news:

From the blog

• After a weekend of hemming and hawing from experts, the sun-grazing ball of ice and dust has been declared officially dead. Again. Except this time, it's pretty much for sure

As you can see, as of Nov 30 Ison had disintegrated into a dusty smudge.  The Bad Astronomy site has a killer time lapse video
Here

Evidence in the form of  material, appeared, streaming away, on the other side of the sun,  which appeared in  NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory late in the evening on Nov. 28, 2013. This seemed to

indicate that Comet ISON survived, at least in part, it's close encounter with the sun and now it is on a trajectory that will fling it out of the solar system proper.

The question now is whether it is just left over debris  or some portion of the comet's nucleus. Analysis supplied from staff at the NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign suggest that it may be at least a small portion of the comet's nucleus.

For more information on Comet ISON: www.nasa.gov/ison

Voyager Has Left the Building....

Kall asked the question in last week's RUNDOWN segment, where exactly IS Voyager?

Well now, according to Reuters, new research indicates that the craft left the confines of the Solar System last year.  Making it the first man made object to do so.  

This new research is based on conclusions by physicist Marc Swisdak of  the University of Maryland.  Up until this point, scientists have based Voyager's position to magnetic fields.  These fields, according to computer models, will flow away from the sun as long as Voyager is in the Solar System. These fields should stop and the flow then should come from the interstellar medium and flow towards the solar system.  

However Swisdak's findings suggest that Solar System magnetic flows and interstellar's flow are aligned enough that "you can actually pass through without seeing a huge change in direction,"

If this is indeed the case then Voyager's position can only be based upon the amount of particles from Sol or cosmic rays flowing toward the Solar System from the interstellar medium.  This very scenario occurred with Voyager last year, hence the conclusion by Swisdak that Voyager has indeed left the Solar System and did so last year when Voyager detected a sharp drop in particles from Sol and   a corresponding increase in particle influx toward the Solar System. 

From the article:

• Voyager lead scientist Edward Stone, now retired from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said Swisdak's research is interesting but different computer models are portraying different scenarios to explain the Voyager data.

Read complete Reuters article HERE

Mystery Signal From the Past

Astronomers using the 210 foot CSIRO Parks radio telescope located in Australia have detected a radio source from 10 billion light years away!

The drama, though, started in 2007 when astronomers were studying a whole sky survey from 2001.  What immediately stood out was an incredibly powerful and extremely short, about 5 millisecond, a curiously short duration, one that was never again, until seven years to the day.

As odd as this sounds, there's more.  The first time it was recorded, the burst was so short it was somewhat doubtful that it had really happened at all.  So when the bursts started again after more than half a decade, astronomers were anxious to study the data.  However their results didn't seem to make sense.  

First, the events seem to come from an unbelievable distance, well outside the Milkyway.  Being as bright as the events were, and the distance involved, they had to be something cataclysmic.  Something along the line of  neutron stars merging or black holes, a dying magnetar, or a black hole feasting on a star, the bursts coming from huge amounts of stellar material dropping through the event horizon.  One thing is clear however.  These bursts came from so far away that when they started the universe was only half as old as it's present age, or 6 to 9 billion years old.

The implications are numerous but it may be very likely that they shed some light on the Universe's missing matter.

One thing however seems to be apparent, the initial "quiet" time between bursts.  It seems that bursts like these should be happening every 10 seconds if the sky could be observed completely by large radio telescopes.

Article in Space Reporter

Andromeda is FULL of Black Holes!

And ones more from my little motorcycle dude..

Discovery.com website writes about a section of the Andromeda galaxy that has recently been under the scrutiny of NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope.

From the article:

• 26 new stellar-mass black hole candidates have been identified, adding to nine previously known and bringing the grand total to 35.

 The photo shows the core of Andromeda's X-Ray candidates and the core.

Check out the complete Discovery article here

What tastes like raspberries & Smells of Rum?

Well according the the Guardian, the galactic center say astronomers!   It seems that in a search for complex molecules in the universe uncovered large "fruity" molecules.  

While exploring a large dust cloud in the Milky Way discovered ethyl formate, which gives raspberries their flavor and also makes up the smell of rum, the conclusion being that the center of the galaxy tastes mildly of fruit and alcohol.

Astronomers have be searching the vast dust cloud surrounding Sagittarius B2, which resides at the center of our galaxy, for amino acids.   Up to this point they have not had any luck finding the building block of life but discovering ethyl formate was interesting.  

Scientists caution that it takes many other molecules to make space raspberries or rum for that matter.

Another  chemical discovered in large amounts was the lethal chemical propyl cyanide  which leads one to suggest that tasting the center of the galaxy may "kill" you.  

read the complete article here

Thanks to listener Courtney for the link. 

NASA Thinking of Giving the Moon a Moon

NASA is reportedly considering capturing an asteroid to put in a high orbit around the moon.  The agency could execute the plan in as little as six to ten years.

But the 10k dollar question is why?

Well according to New Scientist, the Obama administration is really keen on getting a manned mission to an asteroid.   The prevailing now is to robotically   capture  .and  put into orbit around the Moon.  This would give crews a close by platform to practice on.

Capture of the target asteroid is likely one of the most interesting part of the project.  Once launched, the mission outline would have the robotic capture unit heading out to the target asteroid and capturing it in a big bag before bringing it back to the moon.    Estimates have this maneuver taking anywhere from 6 to 10 years.

Not only could this object be used to train crews, it also could be used to explore possible bower and building material for future missions.

Check out the Wired article here

Zoomable Milky Way Mosaic

Here is one short and sweet. Astronomers assembled hundreds of infrared photos of the milky way. All of them put together form a mosaic that is zoomable.

The utility was constructed using images from the nine gigapixel VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory.    This provided a dataset that contains more than ten times more stars than previous studies!  This gives viewers an incredible, zoomable view of the central part of our galaxy.

 You can find this browser based utility here  or click the top photo

Pillars of Creation, Vaporized Thousands of Years Ago?

I had heard speculation of this a few years ago and even noted it.

Now it seems, if not confirmed, thought by today's astronomers to be very likely that the beautiful construct in the Eagle nebula, called the Pillars of Creation, may in fact have been destroyed thousands of years ago by the shock wave from a nearby supernova. This fact will be extremely hard to to confirm however. Because of the distance ( in overall stellar terms the pillars are pretty close, relatively speaking, some 7000 light years distant) it will be at least another millennium before the light from their destruction starts to reach us.

"The Pillars of Creation" was taken by the Hubble telescope in 1995. The Pillars are of great interest by astronomers because these columns of dust and gas are likely places where stars form. which makes the next time they were re-imaged turned out to be a bit melancholy. In 2007 researchers again focused on this region of space using the Spitzer Space Telescope. These new images showed the Pillars and next to them, a giant cloud of hot dust thought to have been heated by the blast of a star that possibly went supernova.
What's more this shock wave could have already reached the Pillars, causing them to disintegrate about 6,000 years ago. (hence the 1000 year estimate before we start to see evidence of the destruction)

Read more at the Daily Galaxy here

And an excellent break down of this information in the Wikipedia here

Hubble Finds Two Galaxies Lined Up For Who Knows What!

Kallamis writes....  

Found this on Space.com. There is no article, just one statement.

   Apparently galaxies NGC3314A and NGC3314B are not on a collision course, but are actually separated by thousands of light years. No real info there but that, but watching it is relaxing, even though it only lasts about 2 minutes, and you of course have an ad first. Here's the link for anyone interested in watching it. They have a lot more there as well.

Video link here

Space Bread by NASA?

From Dvice blog I read about the linchpin of civilization BREAD, that has fed civilized man for thousands of years with little change in ingredients, flour water sugars some binding fats and the living ingredient yeast. Anyone with strong arms and patience could at least feed themselves within reason. Now NASA has put the patience portion of the formula up for grabs - as part of NASA'sSpace Apps Challenges/BakerFaire: how to make bread in space. In just three hours, comes a 16 year old. Sam Wilkinson has managed to come up with a way to make bread rise instantly in microgravity without using yeast. By using CO2 Wilkinson can get his space bread to rise in 5 seconds flat! Check out the proof of concept video below.

Black Hole Observed Destroying Star

A team of astronomers at John Hopkins University have witnessed an event that is believed to only happen once every ten thousand years. A super-massive black hole destroying and absorbing an orbiting star.

The super massive black-hole in question resides in the center of a galaxy 2.7 billion light-years distant from the Milkyway. The John Hopkins team of astronomers led by Dr Suvi Gerzari was looking for ultraviolet light from the center of a galaxy, which is often a clue that a black hole has recently absorbed a star at some point in the past. Much to their surprise the team noticed a bright glare coming from the center of a distant galaxy. This bright light is an indication that a black hole is in the process of consuming a star in close orbit around it. This happens so infrequently that the astronomers have been looking for years to observe the phenomenon.


was looking for a bright flare in ultraviolet light from the nucleus of a galaxy, which is a lingering clue that a black hole has consumed a star. Instead, they discovered an active black hole in the process of consuming a star.

Read complete Australian Geographic article here

Thanks to Dan for the heads up on this article

WOW That Was CLOSE!

Anyone feel like ducking Friday?  Why?  Well Wednesday astronomers got a bit of a nasty surprise.   Asteroid 2012 BX34  was spotted quite literally in our back door.  What's worse BX34 was going to get MUCH closer.  By Friday it was one fifth the distance to the Moon or 36,750 miles!  And yes sports fans, that is one of the closest approaches on record.  

In all fairness I ought to tell you the good news - BX34 will pass by, close, but a miss and it is small  - about 37 feet across.  Oh and it passed by at 10:30 est.  

Voyager 1 : Truly In Interstellar Space Now?!

For the first time, Voyager's instruments have begun to detect gusts of charged particles blowing back towards our sun, so many scientists now are confident to say that voyager has indeed reached interstellar space. Of course this now begs the questions, if not from the sun then where do these charged particles originate?

Tracking puts Voyager 1 at about 11 billion miles from the sun. Roughly three or four times farther away than Pluto. The probe should have enough fuel and propellant to continue operating until at least 2020, by which time it'll be about 12.5 billion miles from us. Damn that has got to make ya proud about something!

Dvice article

3d Vesta flyover from Dawn Spacecraft

Here we go for the fans of 3d - From the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a short over-flight of the proto planet Vesta. This 3-D video incorporates images from the framing camera instrument aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft from July to August 2011. The images were obtained as Dawn approached Vesta and circled the giant asteroid during the mission's survey orbit phase. Survey orbit took place at an altitude of about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers).

You will need red/green or blue 3d specs to see the film best. NASA lists a few sites but in truth I found the best deals on Ebay.








Embedded video from


NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

Russian Failed Mars Mission Could Mean Charges?

Russia's failed Mars exploratory rover mission failure mean that scientists and engineers behind the Phobos-Grunt mission could face criminal prosecution - This directly from the country's president, Dmitry Medvedev.

Another highly visible failures consists of the botched Russian cargo shipment, intended for the International Space Station, that came crashing to Earth minutes after blastoff back in August.

According to IO9 punishment could take the form of either financial or, disciplinary or even criminal punishment.

It seems that Medvedev's comments were more directed toward Lavochkin, the company that built the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft.

More at the IO9 article site

Images Of Planet Forming

Tim Sayell sends in an article from Yahoo News that says "Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet being born." Now if that isn't exciting enough...."it's the youngest planet ever observed. The previous record holder was about five times older." Adam Kraus, of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, along with Michael Ireland from Macquarie University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory, Using the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, said that the planet is forming from a ring of dust and debris circling a 2-milion-year-old star about 450 light years from Earth.

Just two million years old? I would have put planetary formation would take place at a minimum of three times that long!

The complete Yahoo News article is here and it is very informative


oooooooooooooohhhh Lookie what Dave Tackett found!!!! From the Huffington Post the actual telescope's photo! Thanks Dave!

Vesta from Dawn

This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. The video below is a series of photos built up from the same framing camera on Dawn. These images will go a long way towards helping scientists determine the processes that formed Vesta's striking features. As the film shows, Vesta has a massive impact event recorded in the southern hemisphere as well as striking formation of ridges running around the equator of the asteroid. These images were obtained when Dawn was about 1,700 miles above Vesta's surface. Later this year, most likely in October, NASA plans to have Dawn lower it's orbital height to gain even higher resolution photographs.