Category Astronomy/Space

Galaxy Messier 94 Image credit: ESA/NASA

Galaxy Messier 94, which lies in the small northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs, about 16 million light-years away. Within the bright ring or starburst ring around Messier 94, new stars are forming at a high rate and many young, bright stars are present within it.

The cause of this peculiarly shaped star-forming region is likely a pressure wave going outwards from the galactic center, compressing the gas and dust in the outer region. The compression of material means the gas starts to collapse into denser clouds. Inside these dense clouds, gravity pulls the gas and dust together until temperature and pressure are high enough for stars to be born.
http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/a-hubble-view-of-starburst-galaxy-messier-94

Every morning in late October, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars will rise in the east an hour or so before the sun. Together, they form a triangle in the pre-dawn sky. Venus and Jupiter are the brightest vertices – visible even after the black pre-dawn sky turns cobalt blue. Once you find them, you will have little trouble locating the dimmer Red Planet, which completes the triangle while the sky is still black.

Although any morning in late October is a good time to look, the six day stretch from Oct. 24th – 29th is the best. That’s because during this time, the triangle of planets will shrink until it is less than 5 degrees wide.

Typical binoculars can see a patch of sky about 6 or 7 degrees wide...

This is a picture of the comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) on 22 Feb. 2015. Credit: Fabrice Noel

Comet Lovejoy lived up to its name by releasing large amounts of alcohol as well as a type of sugar into space, according to new observations by an international team. The discovery marks the first time ethyl alcohol, the same type in alcoholic beverages, has been observed in a comet. The finding adds to the evidence that comets could have been a source of the complex organic molecules necessary for the emergence of life.

“We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity,” said Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory, France...

Artistic representation (not to scale) of a red giant star with strong internal magnetic fields. Waves propagating through the star become trapped within the stellar core when a strong magnetic field is present, producing a “magnetic greenhouse effect” that reduces the observed amplitude of stellar pulsations. Credit: Rafael A. García (SAp CEA), Kyle Augustson (HAO), Jim Fuller (Caltech) & Gabriel Pérez (SMM, IAC), Photograph from AIA/SDO

Using asteroseismology, which uses sound waves generated by turbulence on the surface of stars to determine their inner properties scientists found the fusion-powered cores of red giants, stars that are evolved versions of our sun, are strongly magnetized. The findings will help astronomers better understand the evolution of stars.

“In the same way medi...