This
picture of the Flame Nebula, illuminating a cloud of dust, comes from
the second release of data from the WISE mission's sky survey.
"The
new WISE view of the Flame nebula, in which colors are assigned to
different channels of infrared light, looks like what appears to be a
flaming candle sending off billows of smoke.
In
fact, the wispy tendrils in the image are part of the larger Orion
star-forming complex, a huge dust cloud churning out new stars. In the
Flame nebula, massive stars are carving a cavity in this dust.
Intense
ultraviolet light from a central massive star 20 times heavier than our
sun, and buried in the blanketing dust, is causing the cloud to glow in
infrared light. This star would be almost as bright to our eyes as the
three stars in Orion's belt, but the dust makes the star appear 4
billion times fainter than it really is."
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-flame-bright-wise-image.html
[video] A good reason to wake up at dawn, this July:
See
Venus and Jupiter, both passing through the Hyades cluster - a group of
stars 153 light years away - and then see them line up with Aldebaran.
ANd on top of that - there'll be a crescent moon, with Earth-shien
visible on its dark area.
I know it's all just arbitrary motion across the celestial sphere - but it makes cool photos, to see them all in the same photo!
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-good-dawn.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120630.html
Astrophysicists
have taken sequential photographs of the sun, during a solar eruption,
in different wavelengths, to effectively track the motion of material
through the sun's atmosphere.
Each
height in the sun's atmosphere radiates at different wavelengths, so
taking pictures in different wavelengths develops images at different
heights. This knowledge can then be used to reformulate a timed
understanding of sun activity.
The
image shows four separate images of the M5.3 class flare from the
morning of July 4, 2012. In clockwise order starting at the top left,
the wavelengths shown are: 131, 94, 193, and 171 Angstroms.
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-independence-day-fireworks.html
A
filament of dark matter, stretching between two parts of the
supercluster Abell 222/223, 2.7 billion light years away, has been
positively identified for the first time.
Cosmologists
already knew that dark matter exists somewhere, and expected it to
exist in a sort of web, stretching out between galaxies, in these
filaments, but it had not been positively identified before.
"The
results from this study are doubly interesting; one because they
strengthen all of the theories surrounding dark matter, and two, because
the team has found a means of not just demonstrating an example of dark
matter at work, but have done so in a way that is so precise that they
were able to determine the actual shape of a dark matter filament."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528725.200-dark-matter-underpinnings-of-cosmic-web-found.html
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-cosmology-group-evidence-dark-filament.html
UKIRT
astronomers have discovered multiple binary star systems consisting of
pairs of red dwarf stars, but orbiting each other in
prediction-defyingly close orbits - they rotate each other with a period
of just 5 hours!
The
researchers have hypothesised that their orbital distances must have
shrunk as they aged, and therefore magnetic interactions between the
stars might have come into play.
Only further evidence will tell...
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-ukirt-impossible-binary-stars.html
'Humble DNA could help decipher dark matter'
What
is dark matter made of? WIMPs are hypothetical particles (like the
Higgs Boson) that are thought to constitute the dark matter that we
observe (but don't see!).
There
are a variety of experiments, around the world, being conducted, to
detect WIMPs moving through the Earth, and all are using different
techniques.
In
this one, it is hoped that an incoming WIMP would slice through the
strands of RNA, leaving a trail of destruction which would inform not
only of the presence of a WIMP, but also of its direction.
This,
in turn, could inform of the direction of dark matter flow, relative to
our solar system, to inform us of how we are moving through the
universe, relative to the cosmic background occean that is dark matter!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22004-humble-dna-could-help-decipher-dark-matter.html
The Milky Way Over Piton de l'Eau, on Reunion Island
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120625.html
Simeis 188 in Stars, Dust and Gas
This is what a star-forming region of space looks like.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120627.html
Dark Clouds In Aquila
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120629.html
Sunspots And Silhouettes
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120704.html
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