Recent Comments

    Milky Way tagged posts

    Milky Way now Hidden from 1/3 of Humanity

    June 11, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    Milky Way now hidden from one-third of humanity

    Light pollution now blots out the Milky Way for eight in 10 Americans. Bright areas in this map show where the sky glow from artificial lighting blots out the stars and constellations. An international team of researchers has released the new World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness, in a paper published in Science Advances today. Credit: Falchi et al, Science Advances; Jakob Grothe/National Park Service, Matthew Price/CIRES/CU-Boulder.

    The Milky Way is but a faded memory to one third of humanity and 80% of Americans, according to a new global atlas of light pollution. In most developed countries, the ubiquitous presence of artificial lights creates a luminous fog that swamps the stars and constellations of the night sky...

    Read More

    Computer Simulations Shed Light on the Milky Way’s Missing Red Giants

    June 8, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A sequence of snapshots from a simulation showing a red giant star tunneling through a high density gas clump. The star is moving downward in the illustration, as indicated by the bow-shaped "onion skin" surfaces of constant density. Soon after the star plunges into the clump, it develops a high temperature "blister" at the point of impact and a full turbulent wake behind it. Credit: Georgia Tech

    A sequence of snapshots from a simulation showing a red giant star tunneling through a high density gas clump. The star is moving downward in the illustration, as indicated by the bow-shaped “onion skin” surfaces of constant density. Soon after the star plunges into the clump, it develops a high temperature “blister” at the point of impact and a full turbulent wake behind it. Credit: Georgia Tech

    Why is the center of the Milky Way filled with young stars but has very few old ones. According to the theory, the remnants of older, red giant stars are still there – they just aren’t bright enough to be detected with telescopes...

    Read More

    ATLASGAL Survey of Milky Way completed

    February 24, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This part image of the Milky Way has been released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL). The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimeter wavelengths -- between infrared light and radio waves -- and in finer detail than recent space-based surveys. The APEX data, at a wavelength of 0.87 millimeters, shows up in red and the background blue image was imaged at shorter infrared wavelengths by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope as part of the GLIMPSE survey. The fainter extended red structures come from complementary observations made by ESA's Planck satellite. The full-resolution image is available on the ESO web page: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1606a/ Credit: ESO/APEX/ATLASGAL consortium/NASA/GLIMPSE consortium/ESA/Planck

    This part image of the Milky Way has been released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL). The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimeter wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves — and in finer detail than recent space-based surveys. The APEX data, at a wavelength of 0.87 millimeters, shows up in red and the background blue image was imaged at shorter infrared wavelengths by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope as part of the GLIMPSE survey. The fainter extended red structures come from complementary observations made by ESA’s Planck satellite. The full-resolution image is available on the ESO web page: https://www.eso...

    Read More

    Monstrous Cloud Boomerangs back to our Galaxy

    January 29, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This composite image shows the size and location of the Smith Cloud on the sky. The cloud appears in false-color, radio wavelengths as observed by the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The visible-light image of the background star field shows the cloud's location in the direction of the summer constellation Aquila. The cloud is 15 degrees across in angular size -- the width of an outstretched hand at arm's length. The apparent size of the full moon is added for comparison. Credit: B. Saxton and F. Lockman (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and A. Mellinger

    This composite image shows the size and location of the Smith Cloud on the sky. The cloud appears in false-color, radio wavelengths as observed by the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The visible-light image of the background star field shows the cloud’s location in the direction of the summer constellation Aquila. The cloud is 15 degrees across in angular size — the width of an outstretched hand at arm’s length. The apparent size of the full moon is added for comparison. Credit: B. Saxton and F. Lockman (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and A. Mellinger

    New Hubble telescope observations suggest a high-velocity H gas cloud was launched from the outer regions of our own galaxy around 70 million years ago...

    Read More