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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Space Team Discovers Universe is Self-Cleaning

    June 30, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A small glimpse of one region, a tenth of the full area of the Herschel ATLAS images. Everything in this image, apart from the picture of the Moon, which has just been placed there to show the area of sky covered by the survey and the small square that shows the area covered by the Hubble Deep Field, consists of far-infrared emission from cosmic dust. The faint wisps are far-infrared emission from dust grains in the Milky Way but everything else in the image is a dusty galaxy. There are approximately 6000 dusty galaxies detected in this image, while the entire survey contains roughly half a million dusty galaxies, from galaxies similar to our own, to violently star-forming and very dusty galaxies that are being seen as they were over ten billion years ago. This image also shows how the field of hidden astronomy has evolved. The Hubble Deep Field was the first area surveyed by a dust sensitive camera called SCUBA almost 20 years ago. Five galaxies were found and the observations took 50 hrs, meaning it took 10 hours observing time to detect a galaxy. The Herschel-ATLAS maps released today cover an area 100,000 times larger and it took Herschel only 5 seconds on average to detect a galaxy in these images. Credit: The Herschel ATLAS team and the European Space Agency

    A small glimpse of one region, a tenth of the full area of the Herschel ATLAS images. Everything in this image, apart from the picture of the Moon, which has just been placed there to show the area of sky covered by the survey and the small square that shows the area covered by the Hubble Deep Field, consists of far-infrared emission from cosmic dust. The faint wisps are far-infrared emission from dust grains in the Milky Way but everything else in the image is a dusty galaxy. There are approximately 6000 dusty galaxies detected in this image, while the entire survey contains roughly half a million dusty galaxies, from galaxies similar to our own, to violently star-forming and very dusty galaxies that are being seen as they were over ten billion years ago...

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    Hubble Reveals Stellar Fireworks in ‘Skyrocket’ Galaxy

    June 29, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A firestorm of star birth is lighting up one end of galaxy Kiso 5639. The dwarf galaxy is shaped like a flattened pancake, but because it is tilted edge-on, it resembles a skyrocket, with a brilliant blazing head and a long, star-studded tail. Kiso 5639 is a rare, nearby example of elongated galaxies that occur in abundance at larger distances, where we observe the universe during earlier epochs. Astronomers suggest that the frenzied star birth is sparked by intergalactic gas raining on one end of the galaxy as it drifts through space.

    “I think Kiso 5639 is a beautiful, up-close example of what must have been common long ago,” said Debra Elmegreen of Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, NY...

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    Rotating Ring of Complex Organic Molecules discovered around Newborn Star

    June 29, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A schematic illustration of the infalling gas around the protostar. A disk structure with a radius of about 50 AU exists around the protostar. The disk in turn is surrounded by an envelope of gas extended over a 200 AU scale. OCS exists in the envelope gas, while methyl formate mainly exists in the boundary area between the envelope gas and the disk structure. (Lower left) Intensity distribution of methyl formate (HCOOCH3) observed with ALMA. A structure elongated along A-B can be seen centered on the position of the protostar. Methyl formate is located within 50 AU from the protostar. (Lower right) Intensity distribution of OCS (carbonyl sulfide) observed with ALMA. A structure elongated along A-B can be seen centered on the position of the protostar position, similar to the case of OCS. However the distribution of OCS (~200 AU) is more extended than that of methyl formate. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Oya et al.

    A schematic illustration of the infalling gas around the protostar. A disk structure with a radius of about 50 AU exists around the protostar. The disk in turn is surrounded by an envelope of gas extended over a 200 AU scale. OCS exists in the envelope gas, while methyl formate mainly exists in the boundary area between the envelope gas and the disk structure. (Lower left) Intensity distribution of methyl formate (HCOOCH3) observed with ALMA. A structure elongated along A-B can be seen centered on the position of the protostar. Methyl formate is located within 50 AU from the protostar. (Lower right) Intensity distribution of OCS (carbonyl sulfide) observed with ALMA. A structure elongated along A-B can be seen centered on the position of the protostar position, similar to the case of OCS...

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    Minor Mergers are Major Drivers of Star Formation

    June 28, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of the spiral galaxy NGC 7714, which has been dramatically distorted in shape by a close interaction with another nearby galaxy. Minor, but frequent, disturbances such as this cause a burst of star formation, accounting for around half of all new stars being formed in the local Universe. Credit: NASA/ESA

    A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of the spiral galaxy NGC 7714, which has been dramatically distorted in shape by a close interaction with another nearby galaxy. Minor, but frequent, disturbances such as this cause a burst of star formation, accounting for around half of all new stars being formed in the local Universe. Credit: NASA/ESA

    Around half of the star formation in the local Universe arises from minor mergers between galaxies, according to data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The patch of sky called Stripe 82 is observed repeatedly to produce high-quality images of spiral galaxies...

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