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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Earth’s extremes point the way to extraterrestrial life

    August 26, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology

    A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Astrobiologists draw upon what is known about Earth’s most extreme lifeforms and the environments of Mars and Titan, Saturn’s moon, to paint a clearer picture of what life on other planets could be like. Some of the most unusual organisms found on Earth provide insights for Washington State University planetary scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch to predict what life could be like elsewhere in the universe.

    NASA’s discovery last month of 500 new planets near the constellations Lyra and Cygnus, in the Milky Way Galaxy, touched off a storm of speculation about alien life...

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    Twin Jet Nebula: The shimmering wings of the Butterfly

    August 26, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Twin Jet Nebula, or PN M2-9, is a striking example of a bipolar planetary nebula. Bipolar planetary nebulae are formed when the central object is not a single star, but a binary system, Studies have shown that the nebula's size increases with time, and measurements of this rate of increase suggest that the stellar outburst that formed the lobes occurred just 1200 years ago. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

    The Twin Jet Nebula, or PN M2-9, is a striking example of a bipolar planetary nebula. Bipolar planetary nebulae are formed when the central object is not a single star, but a binary system, Studies have shown that the nebula’s size increases with time, and measurements of this rate of increase suggest that the stellar outburst that formed the lobes occurred just 1200 years ago. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

    The new image highlights nebula PN M2-9 shells and its knots of expanding gas in striking detail via NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. 2 iridescent lobes of material stretch outwards from a central star system. Within these lobes 2 huge jets of gas are streaming from the star system at speeds in >1 million km/ hour.

    The M in the name PN M2-9 refers to Rudolph Mi...

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    Some Dying Stars, White Dwarfs, suffer from ‘Irregular Heartbeats.’

    August 26, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Diagnostics of the pulsations before (red), during (green) and after (blue) the seventh outburst observed on PG 1149+057. The top panel shows the K2 light curve, while the bottom panels show the FT of each subset. Signals exceeding the significance thresholds (see text) are marked with appropriate-colored dots and show differences in the excited pulsation spectra. Amplitudes are essentially all lower after outburst, but subsequently grow (see Figure 5). Significant pulsations are also visible during the brightening event (green squares), and appear at shorter periods (higher frequencies) and higher amplitudes. The top right panel shows the window function of each subset. Credit: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.06319.pdf

    Diagnostics of the pulsations before (red), during (green) and after (blue) the seventh outburst observed on PG 1149+057. The top panel shows the K2 light curve, while the bottom panels show the FT of each subset. Signals exceeding the significance thresholds (see text) are marked with appropriate-colored dots and show differences in the excited pulsation spectra. Amplitudes are essentially all lower after outburst, but subsequently grow (see Figure 5). Significant pulsations are also visible during the brightening event (green squares), and appear at shorter periods (higher frequencies) and higher amplitudes. The top right panel shows the window function of each subset. Credit: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.06319.pdf

    Research confirms rapid brightening events in otherwise normal pulsating whi...

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    Sea Ice in the Greenland Sea

    August 25, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    Swirls of sea ice along the coast and dark blue waters of the Arctic

    Swirls of sea ice along the coast and dark blue waters of the Arctic Image Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

    As the northern hemisphere experiences the heat of summer, ice moves and melts in the Arctic waters and the far northern lands surrounding it. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of sea ice off Greenland on July 16, 2015.

    Large chunks of melting sea ice can be seen in the sea ice off the coast, and to the south spirals of ice have been shaped by the winds and currents that move across the Greenland Sea. Along the Greenland coast, cold, fresh melt water from the glaciers flows out to the sea, as do newly calved icebergs...

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