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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter releases new High-Res Earthrise image

    December 19, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter releases new high-resolution earthrise image

    Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University

    “The image is simply stunning,” said Noah Petro, Deputy Project Scientist for LRO. “The image of the Earth evokes the famous ‘Blue Marble’ image taken by Astronaut Harrison Schmitt during Apollo 17, 43 years ago, which also showed Africa prominently in the picture.” In this composite image we see Earth appear to rise over the lunar horizon from the viewpoint of the spacecraft, with the center of the Earth just off the coast of Liberia (at 4.04 degrees North, 12.44 degrees West). The large tan area in the upper right is the Sahara Desert, and just beyond is Saudi Arabia. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America are visible to the left...

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    New findings from New Horizons shape Understanding of Pluto and its Moons

    December 19, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    New Findings from New Horizons Shape Understanding of Pluto and its Moons

    Zigzagging across Pluto: This high-resolution swath of Pluto (right) sweeps over the cratered plains at the west of the New Horizons’ encounter hemisphere and across numerous prominent faults, skimming the eastern margin of the dark, forbidding region informally known as Cthulhu Regio, and finally passing over the mysterious, possibly cryovolcanic edifice Wright Mons, before reaching the terminator or day-night line. Among the many notable details shown are the overlapping and infilling relationships between units of the relatively smooth, bright volatile ices from Sputnik Planum (at the edge of the mosaic) and the dark edge or “shore” of Cthulhu...

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    Ancient Egyptians described Algol’s Eclipses

    December 19, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Inside the superimposed rectangle is the hieratic writing for the word 'Horus'. Credit: Lauri Jetsu

    Inside the superimposed rectangle is the hieratic writing for the word ‘Horus’. Credit: Lauri Jetsu

    The Ancient Egyptian papyrus Cairo 86637 calendar is the oldest preserved historical document of naked eye observations of a variable star, the eclipsing binary Algol – a manifestation of Horus, a god and a king. This calendar contains lucky or unlucky prognoses for each day of one year. Researchers have performed a statistical analysis of the Cairo Calendar mythological texts. Analysis revealed the periods of Algol (2.85 days) and the Moon (29.6 days) strongly regulate actions of deities in this calendar.

    “Until now, there were only conjectures that many of the mythological texts of the Cairo Calendar describe astronomical phenomena...

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    Black Holes could grow as large as 50 Billion Suns before their food crumbles into Stars, research shows

    December 18, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist's concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    This artist’s concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    In a study titled ‘How Big Can a Black Hole Grow?’, Professor Andrew King from the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy explores supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies, around which are regions of space where gas settles into an orbiting disc.This gas can lose energy and fall inwards, feeding the black hole. But these discs are known to be unstable and prone to crumbling into stars.

    Professor King calculated how big a black hole would have to be for its outer edge to keep a disc from forming, coming up with the figure of 50 billion solar masses...

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