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    Category Astronomy/Space

    NASA’s New Horizons has produced this updated panchromatic (black-and-white) global map of Pluto

    May 1, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    global map of Pluto

    The map includes all resolved images of Pluto’s surface acquired between July 7-14, 2015, at pixel resolutions ranging from 18 miles (30 kilometers) on the Charon-facing hemisphere (left and right edges of the map) to 770 feet (235 meters) on the hemisphere facing New Horizons during the spacecraft’s closest approach on July 14, 2015 (map center). The non-encounter hemisphere was seen from much greater range and is, therefore, in far less detail.

    The latest images woven into the map were sent back to Earth as recently as April 25, and the team will continue to add photos as the spacecraft transmits the rest of its stored Pluto encounter data. All encounter imagery is expected on Earth by early fall. The team is also working on improved color maps. http://www.nasa...

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    Unique Fragment from Earth’s Formation returns after billions of years in cold storage

    April 30, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Unique fragment from Earth's formation returns after billions of years in cold storage

    Artist’s impression of the unique object C/2014 S3 (PANSTARRS). Observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope, and the Canada France Hawai`i Telescope, show that this is the first object to be discovered that is on a long-period cometary orbit, but that has the characteristics of a pristine inner Solar System asteroid. It may provide important clues about how the Solar System formed.Because the object has spent most of its life away from the inner Solar System it suffered very few collisions, and its surface displays few or no craters. As it formed in the same region as the Earth did, it is mostly rocky, and therefore has only very limited cometary activity. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

    C/2014 S3 (PANSTARRS) formed in the inner Solar System at the same time as the Earth itself...

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    Are we alone? Setting some limits to our planet’s uniqueness

    April 30, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology

    Illustration of the Drake equation and the Frank equation. In 1961, astrophysicist Frank Drake developed an equation to estimate the number of advanced civilizations likely to exist in the Milky Way galaxy. The Drake equation (top row) has proven to be a durable framework for research, and space technology has advanced scientists' knowledge of several variables. But it is impossible to do anything more than guess at variables such as L, the probably longevity of other advanced civilizations. In new research, Adam Frank and Woodruff Sullivan offer a new equation (bottom row) to address a slightly different question: What is the number of advanced civilizations likely to have developed over the history of the observable universe? Frank and Sullivan's equation draws on Drake's, but eliminates the need for L. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Rochester

    Illustration of the Drake equation and the Frank equation. In 1961, astrophysicist Frank Drake developed an equation to estimate the number of advanced civilizations likely to exist in the Milky Way galaxy. The Drake equation (top row) has proven to be a durable framework for research, and space technology has advanced scientists’ knowledge of several variables. But it is impossible to do anything more than guess at variables such as L, the probably longevity of other advanced civilizations...

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    Don’t Touch: How Scientists Study the Reactions Inside Stars

    April 29, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Left: Chart of nuclides and important astrophysical reactions. Right: SOHO-EIT image from 14 September 1997 showing a huge eruptive prominence in the resonance line of singly ionized helium (He II) at 304 Angstroms in the extreme ultraviolet. The material in the eruptive prominence is at temperatures of 60,000 - 80,000 K, much cooler than the surrounding corona, which is typically at temperatures above 1 million K. Credit: Image courtesy of Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute and NASA

    Left: Chart of nuclides and important astrophysical reactions. Right: SOHO-EIT image from 14 September 1997 showing a huge eruptive prominence in the resonance line of singly ionized helium (He II) at 304 Angstroms in the extreme ultraviolet. The material in the eruptive prominence is at temperatures of 60,000 – 80,000 K, much cooler than the surrounding corona, which is typically at temperatures above 1 million K. Credit: Image courtesy of Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute and NASA

    How old is the universe? What causes a star to catastrophically explode? Answering these and other questions about stellar evolutions requires knowing the rates of the reactions involved...

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