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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Hubble Uncovers a Galaxy Pair coming in from the Wilderness

    August 13, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the glow of new stars in these small, ancient galaxies, called Pisces A and Pisces B. The dwarf galaxies have lived in isolation for billions of years and are just now beginning to make stars. Credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Tollerud (STScI)

    NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured the glow of new stars in these small, ancient galaxies, called Pisces A and Pisces B. The dwarf galaxies have lived in isolation for billions of years and are just now beginning to make stars. Credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Tollerud (STScI)

    Hubble has uncovered 2 tiny dwarf galaxies that have wandered from a vast cosmic wilderness into a nearby “big city” packed with galaxies. After being quiescent for billions of years, they are ready to party by starting a firestorm of star birth. “These Hubble images may be snapshots of what present-day dwarf galaxies may have been like at earlier epochs,” said Erik Tollerud of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland...

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    Astronomers use Empty Space to study the Universe

    August 12, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This simulation of the large-scale structure of the universe reveals the cosmic web of galaxies and the vast, empty regions known as voids. Credit: Image by Nico Hamaus, Universitäts-Sternwarte München, courtesy of The Ohio State University

    This simulation of the large-scale structure of the universe reveals the cosmic web of galaxies and the vast, empty regions known as voids. Credit: Image by Nico Hamaus, Universitäts-Sternwarte München, courtesy of The Ohio State University

    A lot of information contained in cosmic voids, study suggests. An international team of astronomers reports that they were able to achieve 4X better precision in measurements of how the universe’s visible matter is clustered together by studying the empty spaces in between. Researchers looking for new ways to probe gravity and dark energy adopted a new strategy: looking at what’s not there.

    Paul Sutter, Ohio State University, said that the new measurements can help bring astronomers closer to testing Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which des...

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    Mars Gullies likely Not formed by Liquid Water

    August 12, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The highly incised gullies on the eastern rim of the 150 km × 125 km Hale crater (located at 35.7°S, 323.4°E) as seen in the HiRISE image (top) resemble gullies on Earth and appear to have been carved by liquid water. However, when the gullies are observed with the addition of mineralogical information from CRISM (bottom), unaltered mafic material (light blue) from the crater rim is carved and transported downslope along the gully channels. No hydrated minerals are observed within the gullies in the CRISM image, indicating limited to no interaction of the mafic material with liquid water. These findings suggest that a different mechanism that does not involve liquid water may be responsible for carving these gullies on Mars. The top image is a HiRISE image (HiRISE PSP_002932_1445), and the bottom image is the same HiRISE image with a CRISM mineral map (CRISM FRT00004AF7) overlaid on top. Credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona/JHUAPL

    The highly incised gullies on the eastern rim of the 150 km × 125 km Hale crater (located at 35.7°S, 323.4°E) as seen in the HiRISE image (top) resemble gullies on Earth and appear to have been carved by liquid water. However, when the gullies are observed with the addition of mineralogical information from CRISM (bottom), unaltered mafic material (light blue) from the crater rim is carved and transported downslope along the gully channels. No hydrated minerals are observed within the gullies in the CRISM image, indicating limited to no interaction of the mafic material with liquid water. These findings suggest that a different mechanism that does not involve liquid water may be responsible for carving these gullies on Mars...

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    Stellar Lab in Sagittarius

    August 11, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The star cluster Messier 18 and its surroundings. Credit: ESO

    The star cluster Messier 18 and its surroundings. Credit: ESO

    The small smattering of bright blue stars in the upper left of this vast new 615 megapixel ESO image is the perfect cosmic laboratory in which to study the life and death of stars. Known as Messier 18 this star cluster contains stars that formed together from the same massive cloud of gas and dust. This image, which also features red clouds of glowing hydrogen and dark filaments of dust, was captured by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile.

    Messier 18 was discovered and catalogued in 1764 by Charles Messier during his search for comet-like objects...

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