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aamukherjee Entropie -
alchymista Alchymista -
crownedrose Hymn To The Sea -
epistemophobiarunsdeep Falling Over Myself. -
expose-the-light Quarks to Quasars -
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pieceinthepuzzlehumanity This Is The Right One -
project-argus Hello, Universe. -
torgothegreat God Delusion
Three-color filter image of the smallest Galilean satellite, Europa.
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NASA to Reveal Hubble Discovery of Milky Way’s Violent Fate
Figure: Galactic Cannibalism of two galaxies that wandered too close to each other’s orbit.
NASA will reveal new discoveries about the violent fate of our Milky Way galaxy on Thursday (May 31), the space agency has announced.
NASA will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) Thursday at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Scientists will discuss new Hubble Space Telescope findings about the inevitable crash of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, which will occur billions of years from now.
“Because of uncertainties in Andromeda’s motion, it has not been possible to determine whether the Milky Way will have a head-on collision or glancing blow with the neighboring galaxy billions of years in the future,” NASA officials said in a media alert Friday (May 25). “Hubble’s precise observations will settle this question.”
‘Laser Comb’ May Aid Search for Earth-Like Alien Planets
Image: This picture illustrates part of a spectrum of a star obtained using the HARPS instrument on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. Credit: ESO
Astronomers searching for alien planets may be a step closer to finding true Earth-like worlds around sun-like stars, by using a new tool that promises to increase the accuracy of planet-hunting instruments tenfold, scientists say.
The laser frequency comb is a calibration tool specifically designed for large ground-based telescopes that search for alien planets through the “wobble method,” which identifies extrasolar planets by the gravitational effect (the wobble) they have on their parent stars.
Today instruments such as the European Southern Observatory’s High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph on a telescope in Chile observe planets via the wobble method. But precision is key, and the hollow cathode lamps used to calibrate those spectrometers have their limitations, researchers said — they are not adjustable, can be difficult to gauge, and allow the spectrometers to track the wobble of a star only down to about 30 centimeters per second.
“To detect low-mass planets — down to the Earth mass — in Earth-like orbits requires a precision 10 times better,” study co-author Gaspare Lo Curto of the European Southern Observatory said.
On June 5, 2012, Venus will pass across the face of the sun, producing a silhouette that no one alive today will likely see again.
Transits of Venus are very rare, coming in pairs separated by more than a hundred years. This June’s transit, the bookend of a 2004-2012 pair, won’t be repeated until the year 2117. Fortunately, the event is widely visible. Observers on seven continents, even a sliver of Antarctica, will be in position to see it.
50 years ago, Scott Carpenter flew the second American manned orbital flight on May 24, 1962. He piloted his Aurora 7 spacecraft through three revolutions of the earth.
In this photo, taken on May 24, 1962, Astronaut M. Scott Carpenter looks into his Mercury-Atlas 7 spacecraft, the Aurora 7, before being inserted to begin the launch.
Stunning view of the Milky Way appears above coconut palms at the shores of Ilha Grande, Brazil. Note Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila, above the palms.
Earth Experiences Back-to-Back Asteroid Close Encounters
Two small asteroids buzzed by Earth, zooming well within the moon’s orbit, over the last 48 hours. Neither posed any danger, but the events were eagerly captured by amateur astronomers, and the second encounter was a record-setter.
The first asteroid, designated 2012 KP24, was first detected last week and passed within 32,000 miles of Earth on May 28. It is less than 70 feet across, approximately the size of a blue whale.
The second asteroid, named 2012 KT42, zipped by at midnight PDT on May 29, coming within 8,950 miles of Earth. That’s closer than the orbit of geosynchronous satellites, making the KT42 encounter one of the top 20 closest approaches ever recorded. The asteroid was discovered only a day before its flyby, but is a puny 15 feet across, not much bigger than a minivan.
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