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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Hubble witnesses Shock Wave of Colliding Gases in Running Man Nebula

    November 25, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Hubble imaged a small section of the Running Man Nebula, which lies close to the famed Orion Nebula and is a favorite target for amateur astronomers to observe and photograph.
    Credits: NASA, ESA, J. Bally (University of Colorado at Boulder), and DSS; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

    Mounded, luminous clouds of gas and dust glow in this Hubble image of a Herbig-Haro object known as HH45. Herbig-Haro objects are a rarely seen type of nebula that occurs when hot gas ejected by a newborn star collides with the gas and dust around it at hundreds of miles per second, creating bright shock waves. In this image, blue indicates ionized oxygen (O II) and purple shows ionized magnesium (Mg II)...

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    Research sheds new light on effects of Dietary Restriction

    November 24, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Research at MDI Biological Laboratory sheds new light on effects of dietary restriction
    C. elegans. Credit: MDI Biological Laboratory

    In new research, Aric N. Rogers, Ph.D., who studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging at the MDI Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, has discovered that muscle may be a protected tissue under conditions of dietary restriction, or DR.

    Dietary restriction, in which calories are restricted without malnutrition, is one of the most robust anti-aging interventions. When confronted with a scarcity of nutrients, an organism conserves resources by lowering the translation, or production, of proteins, which is one of the most energetically expensive processes in the cell. Proteins serve as the building blocks for tissues and organs and perform vital physiological functions.

    The conservation of cellular resources through red...

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    Hubble finds Flame Nebula’s Searing Stars may Halt Planet Formation

    November 24, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Hubble imaged a small portion of the Flame Nebula, which is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex along with the Horsehead Nebula.
    Credits: NASA, ESA, K. Stapelfeldt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), ESO, DSS2, and D. De Martin; Processing; Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

    The Flame Nebula or NGC 2024 is a large star-forming region in the constellation Orion that lies about 1,400 light-years from Earth. Hubble studied this nebula to look for protoplanetary disks, or “proplyds”—disks of gas and dust around stars that may one day form new solar systems.

    Hubble found four confirmed proplyds and four possible proplyds in the nebula, but the proplyds are being worn away by the intense radiation of nearby stars and may never have the chance to form planets as a result.

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    LightSail 2 has been Flying for 30 months now, paving the way for Future Solar Sail Missions

    November 20, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    LightSail 2 has been flying for 30 months now, paving the way for future solar sail missions
    This image taken by The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 spacecraft on May 31, 2021 shows Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arabian Sea. The Caspian Sea is at lower left. The shadows of the spacecraft’s solar panels can be seen on the sail. North is approximately at the top left. This image has been color-adjusted and some distortion from the camera’s 180-degree fisheye lens has been removed. Credit: The Planetary Society

    Even after 30 months in space, The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 mission continues to successfully “sail on sunbeams,” demonstrating solar sail technology in Earth orbit. The mission is providing hard data for future missions that hope to employ solar sails to explore the cosmos.

    LightSail 2, a small cubesat, launched in June 2019 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, as ...

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