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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Peering back in time to just after the Big Bang: Farthest Galaxy ever detected EGS8p7

    September 5, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Galaxy EGS8p7 as seen from space telescopes.

    Galaxy EGS8p7, as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope (wide and top right) and Spitzer Space Telescope (inset, bottom right), taken in infrared. Credit: I. Labbé (Leiden University), NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech – See more at: http://www.caltech.edu/news/farthest-galaxy-detected-47761#sthash.HzTzLROU.dpuf

    Researchers have reported the detection of the farthest object yet, galaxy EGS8p7. At >13.2 billion years old, it provides a fascinating glimpse of the very early universe, just 600,000 years after the Big Bang.

    Earlier this year, EGS8p7 had been identified as a candidate for investigation based on Hubble and Spitzer data. Using the multi-object spectrometer for infrared exploration (MOSFIRE) at the W.M...

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    ‘Hedgehog’ Robots Hop, Tumble in Microgravity

    September 4, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    While a Mars rover can't operate upside down, the Hedgehog robot can function regardless of which side lands up. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Stanford

    While a Mars rover can’t operate upside down, the Hedgehog robot can function regardless of which side lands up. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Stanford

    Hopping, tumbling and flipping over are not typical maneuvers you would expect from a spacecraft exploring other worlds. Traditional Mars rovers, for example, roll around on wheels, and they can’t operate upside-down. But on a small body, such as an asteroid or a comet, the low-gravity conditions and rough surfaces make traditional driving all the more hazardous.

    Enter Hedgehog: a new concept for a robot that is specifically designed to overcome the challenges of traversing small bodies...

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    Hubble Survey Unlocks Clues to Star Birth in neighbor Andromeda Galaxy

    September 4, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    [Top] -- This is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of 414 photographs of the nearest major galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy (M31). The vast panorama was assembled from nearly 8,000 separate exposures taken in near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. Embedded within this view are 2,753 star clusters. The view is 61,600 light-years across and contains images of 117 million stars in the galaxy's disk. [Bottom-Left] - An enlargement of the boxed field in the top image reveals myriad stars and numerous open star clusters as bright blue knots. Hubble's bird's-eye view of M31 allowed astronomers to conduct a larger-than-ever sampling of star clusters that are all at the same distance from Earth, 2.5 million light-years. The view is 4,400 light-years across. [Bottom-Right] - This is a view of six bright blue clusters extracted from the field. Hubble astronomers discovered that, nature apparently cooks up stars with a consistent distribution from massive blue supergiant stars to small red dwarf stars. This remains a constant across the galaxy, despite the fact that the clusters vary in mass by a factor of 10 and range in age from 4 million to 24 million years old. Each cluster square is 150 light-years across. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler

    [Top] — This is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of 414 photographs of the nearest major galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy (M31). The vast panorama was assembled from nearly 8,000 separate exposures taken in near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. Embedded within this view are 2,753 star clusters. The view is 61,600 light-years across and contains images of 117 million stars in the galaxy’s disk. [Bottom-Left] – An enlargement of the boxed field in the top image reveals myriad stars and numerous open star clusters as bright blue knots. Hubble’s bird’s-eye view of M31 allowed astronomers to conduct a larger-than-ever sampling of star clusters that are all at the same distance from Earth, 2.5 million light-years. The view is 4,400 light-years across...

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    What Happened to early Mars’ Atmosphere? New study Eliminates one theory

    September 3, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This view combines information from two instruments on a NASA Mars orbiter to map color-coded composition over the shape of the ground within the Nili Fossae plains region of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/Univ. of Arizona

    This view combines information from two instruments on a NASA Mars orbiter to map color-coded composition over the shape of the ground within the Nili Fossae plains region of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/Univ. of Arizona

    How did Mars change from a world with water billions of years ago to the arid Red Planet of today. A new analysis of the largest known deposit of carbonate minerals on Mars suggests that the original Martian atmosphere may have already lost most of its CO2 by the era of valley network formation.

    Carbon dioxide makes up most of the Martian atmosphere. That gas can be pulled out of the air and sequestered or pulled into the ground by chemical reactions with rocks to form carbonate minerals...

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