Planets orbiting Kepler 444 suggest there’s ancient life in the Milky Way

NASA’s exoplanet hunting Kepler space telescope has encountered a few problems as of late, but there’s still a mountain of data for astronomers to dig through from the last four years. Astronomers analyzing Kepler data recently uncovered something unusual — a solar system about 117 light years away in the direction of Lyra called Kepler-444 with at least five Earth-sized planets. That would be unusual enough, but this planetary system is also extraordinarily ancient at roughly 11.2 billion years.

Astronomers are intrigued by this discovery for several reasons. First, that’s a lot of small rocky planets. Kepler detects alien worlds by the transit method. It watches distant suns for slight dips in brightness that indicate a planet has passed between it and the telescope. These events can be used to calculate the characteristics of the planet, but it works best for larger worlds (super Earths and gas giants). Spotting five planets between the size of Mercury and Venus (basically a little smaller than Earth) is unusual.

 
Artistic Depiction of Kepler 444 with its Star
 The age of Kepler-444 is also something to note. At 11.2 billion years old, the planets orbiting this star were already older than Earth is now when our sun ignited 4.5 billion years ago. The universe itself is only 13.8 billion or so years old, making Kepler-444 one of the oldest stars in the Milky Way. It would have been from the first generation of stars that dotted the sky. Kepler-444 is still very sun-like because it’s 25% smaller and cooler. That means it burns through its nuclear fuel more slowly.

Finding small rocky planets that are billions of years older than Earth suggests that advanced life may have existed in the universe for a very long time. Life on Earth might be very new by comparison. Just think, planets similar to Earth were forming more than 7 billion years before Earth formed, and some of them could have supported life. If other first-generation stars like Kepler-444 have planets, uncountable civilizations could have come into being eons before the first single-cell life appeared on Earth.

The planets orbiting Kepler-444 themselves are not able to support life as we know it. All five planets are packed very close to the parent star with orbits closer than that of Mercury in our solar system. With solar years less than 10 Earth days, they definitely stood out in the Kepler data. The surfaces of these worlds have been baked by the intense heat, reducing any organic material to cinders.

Kepler-444 isn’t a bastion of alien life, but it improves our understanding of planetary formation and points us in a new direction. Astronomers are anxious to find other ancient stars with rocky planets in hopes they might prove more hospitable to life. What if there was still something alive on one of these ancient worlds? That might sound like science fiction right now, but maybe it won’t always be — there’s still a lot of data from Kepler, and future telescopes will improve our ability to spy distant exoplanets.

 Source: Geek.com

SpaceX, Boeing on Track to Take Astronauts to Space Station by 2017

The agency will use the partnership to end dependency on Russia

SpaceX has completed the first certification milestone in its CCP commitment, and will spend much of 2015 testing abort solutions for its formerly cargo-only Dragon capsule. (Abort procedures are more critical in crewed missions.) A launchpad abort will be tested in the next two months at Cape Canaveral, and an in-flight abort test will follow "later this year," according to SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell. Uncrewed missions to the ISS with the new capsule will start in 2016, and the company is still working out the makeup of its first test flight crew.

"I DON'T EVER WANT TO HAVE TO WRITE ANOTHER CHECK TO ROSCOSMOS."

The company is also working on outfitting its Dragon capsule with propulsive landing, Shotwell said, which could improve reusability by dispensing with the need to splash down in water. Instead, the capsule would land right at Johnson Space Center, using rockets on the bottom to help control the descent. That's not the only new technology the company is working on. It hopes to outfit its Falcon 9 rockets with wings and retrorockets so they can land on autonomous barges in the ocean.

Boeing has completed the first two certification milestones for its CST-100 spacecraft. NASA has signed off on parts of its commercial crew operation, including designs for the control center, training systems, flight simulators, and software. Boeing has also started building its crew access tower on the Atlas V launchpad, and that construction will continue in between uncrewed Atlas V launches.

The CST-100 will undergo a critical design review in March, and if approved, will let the company launch "full-bore" into manufacturing, according to VP and General Manager of Boeing Space Exploration John Elbon. Boeing's spacecraft can fit up to seven crew members, and is also being designed with reusability in mind. According to Elbon, the plan is for the capsule to be recovered, refurbished, and reused up to 10 times.

When asked how this all fits in with the 2016 budget, Bolden said he's "very optimistic." "Congress has, I think, kind of started to understand the critical importance of commercial crew and cargo. They've seen, as a result of the performance of our providers, that this is not a hoax. It's not a myth. It's not a dream," he said. "It's something that really is happening."

Source : theverge

Scientists Discover Exoplanet With Rings Far More Impressive Than Our Saturn

Artist’s conception of the extrasolar ring system circling the young giant planet or brown dwarf J1407b is shown. Credit: Ron Miller

Children and adults alike marvel at the rings around Saturn. In a model of our solar system, Saturn—and its rings—is typically the one that gets the most attention.

But while it is easy to be fascinated by Saturn, astronomers have recently found an exoplanet with an even grander expanse of wings that is sure to wow a new generation of stargazers.

“The star is much too far away to observe the rings directly, but we could make a detailed mode based on the rapid brightness variations in the star light passing through the ring system. If we could replace Saturn’s rings with the rings around J1407b, they would be easily visible at night and be many times larger than the full moon,” explains lead researcher Matthew Kenworthy. “The details that we see in the light curve are incredible. The eclipse lasted for several weeks, but you see rapid changes on time scales of tens of minutes as a result of fine structures in the rings.”

Study co-author Eric Mamaek, who first found the rings of the planet, comments, “The planetary science community has theorized for decades that planets like Jupiter and Saturn would have had, at an early stage, disks around them that then led to the formation of satellites. However, until we discovered this object in 2012, no-one had seen such a ring system. This is the first snapshot of satellite formation on million-kilometer scales around a substellar object.”

The University of Rochester professor of physics and astronomy goes on to say, “This planet is much larger than Jupiter or Saturn, and its ring system is roughly 200 times larger than Saturn’s rings are today. You could think of it as a kind of super Saturn.”

Source : piercepioneer.com

NASA unveils 100-millionth picture of the sun

An instrument onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory captured NASA's 100-millionth image of the sun. Four telescopes work parallel to capture eight images of the sun and cycle through 10 different wavelengths every 12 seconds.

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration instrument aboard a sun-viewing spacecraft has captured its 100-millionth image of the sun.

The instrument, on the Solar Dynamics Observatory, is the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and uses four telescopes. The photo was taken Jan.19, according to NASA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VVxdN79QZY

In the nearly five years since its start in 2010, Solar Dynamics Observatory has captured images of the sun "to help scientists better understand how the roiling corona gets to temperatures some 1,000 times hotter than the sun's surface, what causes giant eruptions such as solar flares, and why the sun's magnetic fields are constantly on the move," NASA says.

Source : USA TODAY

Windows Holographic will let NASA explore what Curiosity sees on Mars

Microsoft announced the futuristic at-home augmented reality project Windows Holographic today, and one of the many different uses the company teased was a collaboration with NASA and the Curiosity rover team. Now, NASA has released more information on the software it built for Holographic, a program called OnSight.

By using Microsoft's HoloLens visor, NASA scientists will be able virtually explore the areas of Mars that Curiosity is studying in a fully immersive way. It will also allow them to plan new routes for the rover, examine Curiosity's worksite from a first-person view, and conduct science experiments using the rover's data.

The science teams at NASA that have worked with Curiosity's data before have had no problem learning plenty just by a computer screen, but Holographic and HoloLens will literally offer a new perspective on how to interpret the findings. Scientists will be able to virtually surround themselves with images from the rover and then explore the surface from different angles.

HERE is the video of Microsoft Hololens which makes Holographic Display near to reality :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aThCr0PsyuA

That's a big deal, according to OnSight's project manager, who's quoted in the release. "This tool gives them the ability to explore the rover's surroundings much as an Earth geologist would do field work here on our planet," he says.

We may still be decades away from landing humans on Mars, but it looks like Holographic and OnSight will help bridge the gap until then. The JPL team will start testing OnSight with Curiosity later this year. Deeper integration into future missions may have to wait until the next proposed Mars rover lands on the red planet in 2020.

Source : theverge

Europe Wants To Send Humans To The Dark Side Of The Moon

(Click Image to Download)

Should we return to the Moon? While Elon Musk, Mars One, and even NASA have their sights set on the Red planet, many think that the Moon is a better option for space exploration .
The European Space Agency (ESA) is one - they just released a new video stating that the Moon is an important and crucial step in mankind's future.

"In the future, the Moon can become a place where the nations of the world can come together to understand our common origins, to build a common future, and to share a common journey beyond. A place where we can learn to move onwards into the solar system," ESA explains in the video "Destination: Moon" .

ESA envisions future manned missions to the far side of the Moon - also known as the dark side of the Moon because it never faces the Earth (though it isn't shrouded in darkness at all). This alien landscape is a rugged terrain, scarred with billions of years worth of impact craters, including one of the largest impact craters in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken basin.



Photograph of the far side of the moon taken by a crew member on Apollo 16.

Scientists think the crater formed around 4 billion years ago. Inside of this 8.1-mile-deep crater, certain parts are shrouded in perpetual, freezing darkness, but at the crater's rim, shown below, are high, mountainous peaks that bathe in almost-constant sunlight. It's here, on these lunar mountains that ESA plans to send robots and eventually humans.

By sending future missions to the Moon we will be able to answer questions like:

• Is there water elsewhere on the Moon?


• If so, how much?


• Where did it come from?


• And what can it teach us about the origins of water and life on Earth?

If the Moon proves to have an abundant store of water under it surface, then future human generations can use the hydrogen and oxygen atoms for rocket fuel.

To Check out the full video Goto to Business Insider

Researchers: Solar system may have Planet X , Planet Y

The presence of two additional planets might explain the unexpected orbital features of some trans-Neptunian objects.

Scientists have postulated the existence of possibly two undiscovered planets beyond the orbit of Neptune to explain discrepancies in the orbits of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNO). The objects have orbits that take them beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune.

Theory predicts that they be randomly distributed and that their orbits must have a semi-major axis with a value around 150 AU; an orbital inclination of nearly zero degrees; and an angle of perihelion, the point in the object’s orbit at which it is closest to the Sun, of zero to 180 degrees.

However, a dozen ETNO do not fit these orbital criteria. These objects have semi-major axis values of 150 to 525 AU, orbital inclinations of around 20 degrees, and angles of perihelion far from 180 degrees.

According to a statement, a new study by astrophysicists at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and University of Cambridge have calculated that these orbital discrepancies could be explained by the existence of at least two additional planets beyond the orbits of Neptune and dwarf planet Pluto. Their study suggests that the gravitational pulls of those two planets must be disturbing the orbits of some smaller ETNO.

However, there are two difficulties with the hypothesis. One is that current models of the formation of our solar system do not allow for additional planets beyond Neptune. Secondly, the team’s sample size is very small, only 13 objects. However, additional results are in the pipeline, which will expand the sample.

“This excess of objects with unexpected orbital parameters makes us believe that some invisible forces are altering the distribution of the orbital elements of the ETNO and we consider that the most probable explanation is that other unknown planets exist beyond Neptune and Pluto,” said Carlos de la Fuente Marcos of UCM and lead author on the study.

The new findings have been published in two papers published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

Source : thespacereporter

Philae sleeps, but Rosetta's not done yet

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook

Its battery dead, the European lander is lost in a crater somewhere on a huge comet. But the orbiter that brought it there still has plenty of science left to do.



As of Saturday morning, the Philae lander is in a digital coma somewhere on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. But even if the history-making little robot never wakes again, the Rosetta mission and the orbiter of the same name still have a long journey ahead of them.

The plan was for Philae to land at a targeted site on the comet, firing harpoons into the surface of the icy rock to keep itself locked in place for a long trip around the sun. The strong grip was particularly important since a comet this size has only a tiny fraction of the gravity of a place like Earth, leaving little Philae at risk of floating off into space.

But when showtime came, there were problems with Philae's downward thrusters and with firing the harpoons. The European Space Agency reports that the lander bounced off the surface of the comet twice and eventually landed somewhere else without much access to the sunlight its solar panels need to keep it functioning.

Friday evening, Philae used its remaining energy to upload all its data before going into hibernation mode. There was a time slot early this morning during which, the ESA had reported, communication with the lander was possible, but that time has now come and gone.

Still, Rosetta remains.

Even if Philae stays lost in a comet crater for the next year, the orbiter that traveled almost half a billion miles to get to this point will continue to orbit the comet and its lost lander.

Right now, Rosetta has been pulling out to a 30 kilometer orbit of the comet. It will come closer again early next month to get more details on the comet -- some of its flybys will be as close as 8 kilometers to the comet. There's a whole lot of potential science and data about comets, planets and our solar system packed in that process, building up to the trio's closest encounter with the sun, next August.

Before that point there may also be better opportunities to rouse Philae.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crbnOY8WeB8#t=15

10 Wonders Of The Universe

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook

What's the biggest thing in the universe? Find out here, along with 9 other incredible astronomical wonders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUbQnHvXYEI

3D-printed engine parts future of space launches: NASA

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook



A team of NASA researchers has found that 3D manufactured copper parts could withstand the heat and pressure required of combustion engines used in space launches.

The US space agency and California-based rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) conducted 19 hot-fire tests on four injector and thrust chamber assembly configurations at NASA's Glenn Research Centre.

"The successful hot fire test of engine components provides confidence in the additive manufacturing process and paves the way for full-scale development," said Tyler Hickman, lead engineer for the test at Glenn.

3D printing approach is changing the speed, cost and flexibility of designing and building future machines for space and earth applications.

The work is a major milestone in the development and certification of different materials used in the manufacturing process.

Copper alloys offer unique challenges to the additive manufacturing processes.

"Additively manufactured metal propulsion components are truly a paradigm shift for the aerospace industry," added Paul Senick, Glenn project manager.

This will improve efficiency and bring down the cost of space launches and other earth applications, he concluded.

Source : business standard

A Universe of Blue Dots? --"Water Common During the Formation of All Planetary Systems"

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook



The new SciFi blockbuster, Interstellar, shows astonauts from post apocalyptic earth, destroyed by what appears to be a modern dust-bowl, catapulted into the unknown of outer space in the hopes of finding a new home for the human race, only to discover an extraterrestrial tidal wave on a distant exo planet. How realistic is the premise of an alien water planet? New findings suggest it's based on solid science.
"This is an important step forward in our quest to find out if life exists on other planets," said Tim Harries, from the University of Exeter's Physics and Astronomy department, who was part of the research team. "We know that water is vital for the evolution of life on Earth, but it was possible that the Earth's water originated in the specific conditions of the early solar system, and that those circumstances might occur infrequently elsewhere. By identifying the ancient heritage of Earth's water, we can see that the way in which our solar system was formed will not be unique, and that exoplanets will form in environments with abundant water. Consequently, it raises the possibility that some exoplanets could house the right conditions, and water resources, for life to evolve."
The implication of these findings is that some of the solar system's water must have been inherited from the Sun's birth environment, and thus predate the Sun itself. If our solar system's formation was typical, this implies that water is a common ingredient during the formation of all planetary systems.

To date, the Kepler satellite has detected nearly 1,000 confirmed extrasolar planets. The widespread availability of water during the planet-formation process puts a promising outlook on the prevalence of life throughout the galaxy.

A pioneering new study has shown that water found on Earth predates the formation of the Sun – raising hopes that life could exist on exoplanets, the planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. The ground-breaking research set out to discover the origin of the water that was deposited on the Earth as it formed.

It found that a significant fraction of water found on Earth, and across our solar system, predates the formation of the Sun. By showing that water is 'inherited' from the environment when a star is born, the international team of scientists believe other exoplanetary systems also had access to an abundance of water during their own formation.

As water is a key component for the development of life on Earth, the study has important implications for the potential for life elsewhere in the galaxy.

Scientists have previously been able to understand the conditions present when stars are formed by looking at the composition of comets and asteroids, which show which gases, dust and, most importantly, ices were circling the star at its birth.

The team of international scientists were able to use 'heavy water' ices – those with an excess of water made with the element deuterium rather than hydrogen – to determine whether the water ices formed before, or during, the solar system's formation.

ISS crew lands, brings space-born flies to Earth

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook



Three crew members of the International Space Station have safely returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz-13M spacecraft, bringing back good memories and results of their 165-day shift in orbit – including a space-born generation of experimental fruit flies.

The spacecraft carrying the commander of the ISS Expedition 41 Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev, as well as two flight engineers, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, landed some 80 km from Arkalyk, Kazakhstan.

As part of their mission, the crew completed some 2,640 orbits covering more than 70 million miles and have participated in a number of experiments, including breeding of fruit flies that could potentially shed light on long-term space flight effects on human beings.

Evidence of 'Starquakes' on Neutron Star

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook



An earthquake can be a pretty awe-inspiring natural event - a testament to the sheer power and size of shifting landmass. But what about seismic activity on a star? NASA's Fermi satellite recently spotted evidence of seismic waves rippling throughout a high-energy neutron star, resulting in an intense "storm" of high-energy blasts.

The star in question, called SGR J1550-5418, is a magnetar - an incredibly dense and highly magnetized neutron star that spins at an exceptionally high speed. The typical neutron star boasts a magnetic pull trillions of times stronger than the Earth's. A magnetar, by comparison, is about 1,000 times more magnetic than that.

Within the last four decades, only 23 magnetars in all have been identified, and among these stars, only three massive flares have ever been seen. The flares were related to "starquakes," in which instability of a neutron's pressing magnetic field literally shakes its surface.

"Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has captured the same evidence from smaller and much more frequent eruptions called bursts.

Source : nature world news

Amazing photo of Saturn and its Titan moon looks like high art in deep space

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook



This amazing image shows Saturn and its moon Titan as crescents on Aug. 11, 2013. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE

An amazing photo taken by a NASA probe shows Saturn and its large moon Titan shining as pretty crescents in deep space.

The two cosmic bodies were imaged by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been exploring the Saturn system for about 10 years. The image -- released on Monday (Nov. 3) -- was captured as the robotic ship was flying about 1.1 million miles (1.7 million kilometers) from the ringed wonder on Aug. 11, 2013, according to NASA. Some of Saturn's ring plane can even be seen in the black and white image.

"More than just pretty pictures, high-phase observations -- taken looking generally toward the sun, as in this image -- are very powerful scientifically since the way atmospheres and rings transmit sunlight is often diagnostic of compositions and physical states," NASA officials said in an image description. "In this example, Titan's crescent nearly encircles its disk due to the small haze particles high in its atmosphere scattering the incoming light of the distant sun."

Mars bombarded by once-in-8-million-year meteor storm: NASA

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook



This handout artist's concept provided by NASA/JPL shows the Comet Siding Spring approaching Mars, shown with NASA’s orbiters preparing to make science observations of this unique encounter.

A pristine distant comet created a once-in-8-million-year fireworks show above Mars last month. But no one got to see it live.

New NASA data from satellites circling Mars shows that when the comet named Siding Spring skimmed the red planet, tons of comet dust bombarded the Martian sky with thousands of fireballs an hour. It warped the Martian atmosphere leaving all sorts of metals and an eerie yellow afterglow on Oct. 19.

A meteor shower from magnesium, sodium, iron and five other metals may have been so heavy that it might be even considered a meteor storm, said University of Colorado scientist Nick Schneider. Spikes in magnesium physically changed the atmosphere around Mars, while sodium left a yellowish glow in the sky after the meteor showers finished, he said.

“It would have been truly stunning to the human eye,” said Schneider, who was the lead instrument scientist for one of NASA’s Martian satellites. “It would have been really mind-blowing.”

The best view would have been from the Martian surface, where NASA had the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity looking up. But the rovers could only take stills, said agency chief planetary scientist Jim Green. There was no video to capture the shooting stars that made it a spectacular light show.

Instead, NASA’s satellites recorded lots of scientific data, which allowed astronomers to describe what it must have been like.

The core of the spinning comet moved by Mars at more than 125,000 mph and could have been as large as 1.2 miles wide, astronomers said.

It was not only big, but the dust assault was far larger than NASA anticipated, Green said. NASA’s models estimated that the dust wouldn’t be enough to harm the satellites around Mars, but the agency moved them to the other side of the planet just in case. That turned out to be wise, he said.

The comet came from the Oort Cloud, which is at the very edge of our solar system. Comets from there are rare so this was the type of event that happens once every 8 million years. And when they come toward the sun they aren’t as dusty as others, more pristine, astronomers said.

“We never before had the opportunity to observe an Oort Cloud comet up close,” Green said. “Instead of going to the comet, it came to us.”

Source: new york post

Hubble spots massive 'eye in the sky'

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook

It might look like a giant eye in the sky, or something from a science fiction fiction film, but in fact this incredible image reveals just how violent planet formation is.

Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, it shows the huge dusty debris discs around stars.

Created by collisions between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old in Nasa's images.

The researchers discovered that no two "disks" of material surrounding stars look the same.

“We find that the systems are not simply flat with uniform surfaces,” Schneider said.

Source: dailymail

Half of universe's stars are orphans with no galaxy

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook



Celestial orphans are relatively small, less massive, cooler than our sun, expert says

New observations from suborbital rocket launches and an orbiting observatory show that as many as half the stars in the universe may be orphans with no galaxy scientists said on Thursday. They found that the dim light these stars produce from the far reaches of the cosmos equals the amount coming from all the galaxies.

'The night sky on a planet around such a star would be profoundly boring and black to human eyes - no other stars, or at least very few, no Milky Way band, only distant galaxies.'                                        - Michael Zemcov, Caltech experimental astrophysicist

The phenomenon of the orphan star has been well known. Astronomers have witnessed tidal streams of stars being stripped away from colliding pairs of galaxies.

The data suggests orphan stars are probably relatively small, less massive and cooler than our Sun, but typical of most stars in the universe, said Caltech experimental astrophysicist Michael Zemcov.

The night sky as seen from Earth is brimming with starlight. But these orphans would be so distant from other stars that a view from one would offer almost complete nothingness.

"The night sky on a planet around such a star would be profoundly boring and black to human eyes - no other stars, or at least very few, no Milky Way band, only distant galaxies. You might be lucky and see your parent galaxy off in the distance like we see Andromeda," Zemcov said.

Zemcov said scientists have traced the origin of galaxies to about 13.2 billion years ago, 500 million years after the Big Bang that created the universe.

"Galaxies have been forming and interacting continuously since then, with a peak in the star formation rate about two billion years after the Big Bang," Zemcov said. "You have enough interactions over enough time, and you end up stripping out a lot of stars."

Source : cbc.ca

Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole Reveals Identity of Strange Object at Center of Our Galaxy

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook




 What are Supermassive Black Hole ?

Supermassive black hole (SMBH) is the largest type of black hole, on the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most—and possibly all—galaxies are inferred to contain a supermassive black hole at their centers.In the case of the Milky Way, the SMBH is believed to correspond with the location of Sagittarius A*.

For years, astronomers have been puzzled by a bizarre object in the center of the Milky Way that was believed to be a hydrogen gas cloud headed toward our galaxy's enormous black hole. Having studied it during its closest approach to the black hole this summer, UCLA astronomers believe that they have solved the riddle of the object widely known as G2.

A team led by Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy in the UCLA College, determined that G2 is most likely a pair of binary stars that had been orbiting the black hole in tandem and merged together into an extremely large star, cloaked in gas and dust — its movements choreographed by the black hole's powerful gravitational field. The research is published today in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"We are seeing phenomena about black holes that you can't watch anywhere else in the universe," Ghez added. "We are starting to understand the physics of black holes in a way that has never been possible before."

Ghez, who studies thousands of stars in the neighborhood of the supermassive black hole, said G2 appears to be just one of an emerging class of stars near the black hole that are created because the black hole's powerful gravity drives binary stars to merge into one. She also noted that, in our galaxy, massive stars primarily come in pairs. She says the star suffered an abrasion to its outer layer but otherwise will be fine.

Astronomers had figured that if G2 had been a hydrogen cloud, it could have been torn apart by the black hole, and that the resulting celestial fireworks would have dramatically changed the state of the black hole. "G2 survived and continued happily on its orbit; a simple gas cloud would not have done that," said Ghez, who holds the Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Chair in Astrophysics. "G2 was basically unaffected by the black hole. There were no fireworks."

Black holes, which form out of the collapse of matter, have such high density that nothing can escape their gravitational pull — not even light. They cannot be seen directly, but their influence on nearby stars is visible and provides a signature, said Ghez, a 2008 MacArthur Fellow.

The image below shows Sagittarius A* — the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy — appears dim in this composite image because very little material is falling into it.

Ghez and her colleagues — who include lead author Gunther Witzel, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar, and Mark Morris and Eric Becklin, both UCLA professors of physics and astronomy — conducted the research at Hawaii's W.M. Keck Observatory, which houses the world's two largest optical and infrared telescopes.

When two stars near the black hole merge into one, the star expands for more than 1 million years before it settles back down, said Ghez, who directs the UCLA Galactic Center Group. "This may be happening more than we thought. The stars at the center of the galaxy are massive and mostly binaries. It's possible that many of the stars we've been watching and not understanding may be the end product of mergers that are calm now."

Ghez and her colleagues also determined that G2 appears to be in that inflated stage now. The body has fascinated many astronomers in recent years, particularly during the year leading up to its approach to the black hole. "It was one of the most watched events in astronomy in my career," Ghez said.

Ghez said G2 now is undergoing what she calls a "spaghetti-fication" — a common phenomenon near black holes in which large objects become elongated. At the same time, the gas at G2's surface is being heated by stars around it, creating an enormous cloud of gas and dust that has shrouded most of the massive star.

Witzel said the researchers wouldn't have been able to arrive at their conclusions without the Keck's advanced technology. "It is a result that in its precision was possible only with these incredible tools, the Keck Observatory's 10-meter telescopes," Witzel said.

The telescopes use adaptive optics, a powerful technology pioneered in part by Ghez that corrects the distorting effects of the Earth's atmosphere in real time to more clearly reveal the space around the supermassive black hole. The technique has helped Ghez and her colleagues elucidate many previously unexplained facets of the environments surrounding supermassive black holes.

The image at the top of the page is a simulation showing the possible behavior of a gas cloud that has been observed approaching the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Source :  daily galaxy

ISRO plans second mission to Mars in 2018

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook




The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch second mission to Mars with a lander and rover to carry out more experiments on the red planet.

The proposed plans come after the Indian space agency has successfully placed its unmanned Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft to the Martian orbit in September.

ISRO satellite centre director Shiva Kumar was quoted by IANS as saying: "We plan to launch a second mission to Mars in 2018, probably with a lander and rover, to conduct more experiments for which we have to develop new technologies.

"We will be able to take the Mars-2 mission after launching the second mission to the moon (Chandrayaan-2) in 2016 with our own lander and rover, which will help us develop a separate lander and rover for the red planet."

The agency is looking to launch the programme in 2018 as the missions to Mars can be launched at two year intervals.

ISRO intends to have fully operational heavy rockets ready by then to carry communication satellites weighing around 3t into the geo-stationary orbits around the earth.

In line with this plans, the agency has developed the geo-synchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV Mark I-III) to launch heavier communication satellites.

GSLV Mark-III is scheduled to take its first partial test flight in early December.

ISRO chairman Radhakrishnan was quoted by The Hindu as saying that the test flight will lead to a 'future workhorse vehicle that will stay with us for many years'.

Tests will be conducted on unmanned crew module of the three-stage launch vehicle, to evaluate heating during its re-entry and its behaviour in the crucial space phase.

Source : aerospace-technology

NASA rocket to click 1,500 images of Sun in 5 minutes

Follow us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook




This image provided by NASA shows the sun emitting a significant X3.2-class flare erupting from the lower half of the sun, peaking at 5:40 p.m. EDT on Oct. 24, 2014. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly and captured images of the event.

A sounding rocket fitted with technology to gather 1,500 images of the Sun in flat five minutes is set for launch on Monday.

Capturing five images per second, the Rapid Acquisition Imaging Spectrograph Experiment (RAISE) mission will focus in on the split-second changes that occur near active regions on the Sun.

These are areas of intense and complex magnetic fields that can give birth to giant eruptions on the Sun that shoot energy and particles out in all directions, the U.S. space agency said in a statement.

“Even on a five-minute flight, there are niche areas of science we can focus on well. There are areas of the Sun that need to be examined with the high-cadence observations we can provide,” said Don Hassler, solar scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

RAISE will create a kind of data product called a spectrogram which separates the light from the sun into different wavelengths.

“The Sun has been extremely active recently, producing several X-class flares in the past few weeks. The team will aim their instrument at one of these active regions to try to understand better the dynamics that cause these regions to erupt,” Mr. Hassler explained.

The team hopes to see how heat and energy move through such active regions, which, in turn, helps scientist understand what creates the regions and perhaps even what catalyses the sun’s eruptions.

RAISE’s launch time is planned for 2.07 p.m. (EST) from the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, New Mexico.