The large-field WISE [12–4.6] µm infrared image around the Tycho’s supernova remnant (SNR). The red circle shows the position and size of the shell-like structure in the Tycho’s SNR, while the yellow dashed ellipse shows the cavity found in the MWISP CO images. The three white dashed lines are shown to guide the eye for the stream-like structures seen in the CO images. The white arrows mark the positions of the pillar-like structures found in the WISE image. Credit: Chen et al., 2016.
August 23, 2016,
Astronomy/Space, Physics
Mystery of ‘Eclipse wind’ solved after 300 years
Edmund Halley – of Halley’s Comet fame – noted the ‘Chill and Damp which attended the Darkness’ of an eclipse in 1715, causing ‘some sense of Horror’ among the spectators. Now we know why. The eerie eclipse weather experienced by Halley – and during last year’s partial solar eclipse across the UK – was more than just a trick of the mind, scientists have confirmed. The ‘eclipse wind’ is a change in wind direction as the moon temporarily blocks out the sun, but up until now scientists have been baffled as to what causes it...
Read More
August 22, 2016,
Astronomy/Space
This 360-degree panorama was acquired by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover as the rover neared features called ‘Murray Buttes’ on lower Mount Sharp. This 360-degree panorama was acquired by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover as the rover neared features called “Murray Buttes” on lower Mount Sharp. The view combines more than 130 images taken on Aug. 5, 2016, during the afternoon of the mission’s 1,421st sol, or Martian day, by Mastcam’s left-eye camera. This date also was the fourth anniversary of Curiosity’s landing. The dark, flat-topped mesa seen to the left of Curiosity’s robotic arm is about 300 feet (about 90 meters) from the rover’s position. It stands about 50 feet (about 15 meters) high...
August 22, 2016,
Astronomy/Space
Artist’s impression of the disc and outflow around the massive young star. Credit: A. Smith, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.
A young star, located almost 11,000 light years away could help us understand how the most massive stars in the Universe are formed. This young star, already >30 times the mass of our Sun, is still in the process of gathering material from its parent molecular cloud, and may be even more massive when it finally reaches adulthood. The researchers, led by a team at the University of Cambridge, have identified a key stage in the birth of a very massive star, and found that these stars form in a similar way to much smaller stars like our Sun – from a rotating disc of gas and dust.
In our galaxy, massive young stars – those with a mass at least 8X greater than the Sun ...
Read More
Recent Comments