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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Hubble uncovers Thousands of Globular Star Clusters Scattered among galaxies

    November 30, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of a portion of the immense Coma cluster of over 1,000 galaxies, located 300 million light-years from Earth. Hubble's incredible sharpness was used to do a comprehensive census of the cluster's most diminutive members: a whopping 22,426 globular star clusters. Among the earliest homesteaders of the universe, globular star clusters are snow-globe-shaped islands of several hundred thousand ancient stars. The survey found the globular clusters scattered in the space between the galaxies. They have been orphaned from their home galaxies through galaxy tidal interactions within the bustling cluster. Astronomers will use the globular cluster field for mapping the distribution of matter and dark matter in the Coma galaxy cluster. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Mack (STScI) and J. Madrid (Australian Telescope National Facility)

    This is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of a portion of the immense Coma cluster of over 1,000 galaxies, located 300 million light-years from Earth. Hubble’s incredible sharpness was used to do a comprehensive census of the cluster’s most diminutive members: a whopping 22,426 globular star clusters. Among the earliest homesteaders of the universe, globular star clusters are snow-globe-shaped islands of several hundred thousand ancient stars. The survey found the globular clusters scattered in the space between the galaxies. They have been orphaned from their home galaxies through galaxy tidal interactions within the bustling cluster. Astronomers will use the globular cluster field for mapping the distribution of matter and dark matter in the Coma galaxy cluster.
    Credit: NASA, ESA, J...

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    All of the Starlight ever produced by the Observable Universe Measured

    November 30, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This map of the entire sky shows the location of 739 blazars used in the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope’s measurement of the extragalactic background light (EBL). The background shows the sky as it appears in gamma rays with energies above 10 billion electron volts, constructed from nine years of observations by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope. The plane of our Milky Way galaxy runs along the middle of the plot.
    Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

    The team’s measurement, collected from Fermi data, has never been done before. From their laboratories on a rocky planet dwarfed by the vastness of space, Clemson University scientists have managed to measure all of the starlight ever produced throughout the history of the observable universe.

    Astrophysicists believe that our universe, whic...

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    NASA Hears MarCO CubeSats Loud and Clear from Mars

    November 29, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    MarCO-B, one of the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took this image of Mars from about 4,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away during its flyby of the Red Planet on Nov. 26, 2018. MarCO-B was flying by Mars with its twin, MarCO-A, to attempt to serve as communications relays for NASA's InSight spacecraft as it landed on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    MarCO-B, one of the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took this image of Mars from about 4,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away during its flyby of the Red Planet on Nov. 26, 2018. MarCO-B was flying by Mars with its twin, MarCO-A, to attempt to serve as communications relays for NASA’s InSight spacecraft as it landed on Mars.
    Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    NASA’s MarCO mission was built to see whether two experimental, briefcase-sized spacecraft could survive the trip to deep space, and the two CubeSats proved more than able. After cruising along behind NASA’s InSight for seven months, they successfully relayed data back down to Earth from the lander during its descent to the Martian surface on Monday, Nov. 26.

    Nicknamed “EVE” and “WALL-E” after the stars of the 2008 Pixar film, MarCO-A ...

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    InSight Is Catching Rays on Mars

    November 27, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), located on the robotic arm of NASA’s InSight lander, took this picture of the Martian surface on Nov. 26, 2018, the same day the spacecraft touched down on the Red Planet. The camera’s transparent dust cover is still on in this image, to prevent particulates kicked up during landing from settling on the camera’s lens. This image was relayed from InSight to Earth via NASA’s Odyssey spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars.
    Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    NASA’s InSight has sent signals to Earth indicating that its solar panels are open and collecting sunlight on the Martian surface. NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter relayed the signals, which were received on Earth [Nov. 26] at about 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST)...

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