Friday 31 July 2015

Researchers Identify the Fungus Responsible for Shaping the Peculiar “Hair Ice”

original post »

The remarkable “hair ice” – a type of ice that grows on dead wood under certain winter conditions

The post Researchers Identify the Fungus Responsible for Shaping the Peculiar “Hair Ice” has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Image: Hubble sees a dying star's final moments

more »
A dying star's final moments are captured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The death throes of this star may only last mere moments on a cosmological timescale, but this star's demise is still quite lengthy by our standards, lasting tens of thousands of years!

Zazzle Space market place

Black Hole Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: black, hole, nasa, holes, blackhole, blackholes, space, astronomy, universe, galaxy, image, photography, exotic, color

Three hot blobs of matter orbiting a black hole. If placed in our Solar System, this black hole would appear like a dark abyss spread out nearly as wide as Mercury's orbit. And the three blobs (each as large as the Sun) would be as far out as Jupiter. They orbit the black hole in a lightning-quick 20,000 miles per second, over a tenth of the speed of light. Credit: NASA/Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital

»visit the beverlytazangel store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

A cost-effective solution to tuned graphene production

more »
Graphene has been called the miracle material but the single-atomic layer material is still seeking its place in the materials world. Now a method to make 'defective' graphene could provide the answer. Scientists now report that they have developed a simple electrochemical approach which allows defects to intentionally be created in the graphene, altering its electrical and mechanical properties and making the material even more useful.
via Science Daily

Untrustworthy faces are more likely to get the death sentence

Science Focus

original post »

People who have faces that are judged as less trustworthy are given the death penalty more often than people viewed as trustworthy, according to recent research in the journal Psychological Science. The results “paint a somewhat alarming picture of how systems of legal punishment are vulnerable to the same biases in person perception that afflict everyday individuals,” write John Paul Wilson and Nicholas Rule, the authors of the paper.

This study builds on previous research suggesting that people judge the trustworthiness of faces with a high degree of consensus—we more or less agree on which faces count as trustworthy and which don’t.

People with less trustworthy faces are, unsurprisingly, less likely to be trusted by other people. Economic games played in psychology labs show that even children as young as five years old are less likely to trust these individuals, and that this effect holds even when there's information about the other person suggesting that they’re trustworthy.

Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

 
#science 
 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/corfoI0Ixhc/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Scream if you have to

Science Focus

original post »

An international team of neuroscientists from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, New York University and the

The post Scream if you have to has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/H7Ct4p2Y_aM/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Monogram Trifid Nebula, Messier 16 Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, star forming nebulae, trfdnbl, star nurseries, galaxies, nebulae, star factory, trifid nebula, initials, initialled, star clusters, factories for stars, heavens, eso, vista, european southern observatory, monogram, monogrammed, monograms

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic picture from our universe featuring the massive star factory known as the Trifid Nebula.

It was captured in all its glory with the Wide-Field Imager camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile.
So named for the dark dust bands that trisect its glowing heart, the Trifid Nebula is a rare combination of three nebulae types that reveal the fury of freshly formed stars and point to more star birth in the future. The field of view of the image is approximately 13 x 17 arcminutes.
It's an awe-inspiring, breathtaking image that reveals some of the wonder that is our universe.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: trfdnbl

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

The ISS and a Colorful Moon

more »
Tonight's Full Moon, the second Full Moon in July, could be called a blue moon according to modern folklore. But this sharp and detailed mosaic, recorded with telescope and digital camera just before July's first Full Moon, actually does show a colorful lunar surface. The colors have been enhanced in the processed image but are real nonetheless, corresponding to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface. Also easy to see especially when the Moon is near full phase, bright rays from 85 kilometer wide Tycho crater at the upper right extend far across the lunar surface. Against the southern lunar highlands above and right of Tycho is an amazingly detailed silhouette of the International Space Station. Seen from Byron Bay, NSW Australia on June 30, the ISS lunar transit lasted about 1/3 of a second, captured with a fast shutter speed in burst mode.

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Pakistan becomes Associate Member State of CERN

Horsehead Nebula - Our Awesome Universe Wall Graphics

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, hrshdneb, stars, nebulae, star clusters, starfields, star nurseries, horsehead nebula, galaxies, vista, european southern observatory, eso

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous deep space photograph featuring the Horsehead Nebula.
It's actually a composite colour image based on three exposures in the visual part of the spectrum with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN telescope at Paranal.

It was produced from three images, obtained on February 1, 2000, with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN Unit Telescope and extracted from the VLT Science Archive Facility.

The frames were obtained in the B-band (600 sec exposure; wavelength 429 nm; FWHM 88 nm; here rendered as blue), V-band (300 sec; 554 nm; 112 nm; green) and R-band (120 sec; 655 nm; 165 nm; red).

The original pixel size is 0.2 arcsec.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: hrshdneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Quantum matter stuck in unrest

more »
Using ultracold atoms trapped in light crystals, scientists from the MPQ, LMU, and the Weizmann Institute observe a novel state of matter that never thermalizes.

Zazzle Space market place

Orion Nebula iPad Covers

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: orion, nebula, space, image, nasa, hubble, astronomy, pink

A lovely detail of an image of the Orion Nebula thanks to NASA/Hubble.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Scientists bolster ‘phage’ weapons in food safety battle

original post »

In the war to keep food safe from bacteria, Cornell food scientists examine a class of weaponry called

The post Scientists bolster ‘phage’ weapons in food safety battle has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

In the Shadow of Saturn Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: shadow, saturn, nasa, outer, space, universe, galaxy, astronomy, solar, system, eclipse, sun, cassini, ring, new, rings, earth, color

In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn and slightly scattering sunlight, in the above exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the above image. Visible in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus, and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, visible on the image left just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth. Credit: CICLOPS, JPL, ESA, NASA

»visit the beverlytazangel store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Monogrammed Carina Nebula - Breathtaking Universe Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: crnneb, star nurseries, star clusters, galaxies, starfields, awesome astronomy photos, nebulae, carina nebula, eso, european southern observatory, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic astronomy photograph showing a panoramic view of the WR 22 and Eta Carinae regions of the Carina Nebula.

The picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

It's a stunning, mind-blowing, fantastic image that reveals a little of the wonder that is our universe.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: crnneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Carina Nebula - Our Breathtaking Universe Wall Graphics

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: crnneb, star clusters, stars, starfields, astronomy, nebulae, nebula, star forming region, star nurseries, galaxies, european southern observatory, vista, eso

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic astronomy photograph showing a panoramic view of the WR 22 and Eta Carinae regions of the Carina Nebula.

The picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

It's a stunning, mind-blowing, fantastic image that reveals a little of the wonder that is our universe.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: crnneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Stormy seas in Sagittarius

more »
Some of the most breathtaking views in the Universe are created by nebulae -- hot, glowing clouds of gas. This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the center of the Lagoon Nebula, an object with a deceptively tranquil name. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Orion Nebula Caseable Case iPad Folio Covers

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: orion, nebula, space, image, nasa, hubble, astronomy

A lovely detail of an image of the Orion Nebula thanks to NASA/Hubble.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Thursday 30 July 2015

Organic molecules on comets: Philae's first results from Churi prove surprising

more »
Organic molecules never previously observed in comets, a relatively varied structure on the surface but a fairly homogeneous interior, organic compounds forming agglomerates rather than being dispersed in the ice: these are just some of first results provided by Philae on the surface of comet Churi. These in situ findings, which contain a wealth of completely new information, reveal several differences in comparison with previous observations of comets and current models.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Comets: Soft shell, hard core?

more »
Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko poses new riddles: Surface material measurements performed by the Philae landing module indicate that the near surface material might have changed since its formation. Up to now, many researchers had assumed that it has remained in virtually the same state since its formation about 4.5 billion years ago.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Distant Uranus-sized planet discovered through microlensing

more »
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a Uranus-sized exoplanet orbiting far from its central star, discovered through a technique called gravitational microlensing.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

An exceptional planetary system discovered in Cassiopeia

more »
Astronomers have teased out a secret planetary system hiding in the arms of Cassiopea, just 21 light years away from us. The remarkable system, named HD219134, hosts one outer giant planet and three inner super-Earths, one of which transits in front of the star. The transiting super-Earth has a density similar to the Earth. It is by far the closest transiting planet known today. It provides the ideal candidate for follow-up studies and a deeper understanding of planetary formation, internal composition, and atmospheres. The system is so close that astronomers already dream about taking pictures of the new "Stars."
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Designing 3-D smiles for cancer survivors

original post »

Surgeons have traditionally relied on experience and judgment to shape the bones of people requiring jaw reconstruction. Often

The post Designing 3-D smiles for cancer survivors has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Rosetta’s Philae Lander Discovers a Comet’s Organic Molecules

more »
Analysis of data from the Philae lander has provided insight into the composition, structure and properties of Comet 67P/Churyumov-–Gerasimenko.










via New York Times

Stars in Milky Way have moved

more »
Researchers are part of a team of scientists with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) that created a new map of the Milky Way that shows nearly a third of the stars have dramatically changed their obits.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Science on the surface of a comet

more »

Complex molecules that could be key building blocks of life, the daily rise and fall of temperature, and an assessment of the surface properties and internal structure of the comet are just some of the highlights of the first scientific analysis of the data returned by Rosetta’s lander Philae last November.  


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Science_on_the_surface_of_a_comet

Telescopes Team Up to Find Distant Uranus-Sized Planet Through Microlensing


Get larger image formats

The majority of planets discovered outside our solar system orbit close to their parent stars because these planets are the easiest to find. But to fully understand how distant planetary systems are put together, astronomers must conduct a census of all the planets around a star. So they need to look farther away from the star-from about the distance of Jupiter is from our sun, and beyond.


via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/27/

Whirlpool Galaxy M51 Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: nasa, space, astronomy, prints, posters, photographs, hubble, telescope, beautiful, photography, pictures, picture, print, galaxy, galaxies, stars, star, gifts, gift, fantasy, science fiction

Whirlpool Galaxy M51 Poster.The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust.
This sharpest-ever image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, illustrates a spiral galaxy's grand design, from its curving spiral arms, where young stars reside, to its yellowish central core, a home of older stars. The galaxy is nicknamed the Whirlpool because of its swirling structure.
The Whirlpool's most striking feature is its two curving arms, a of so-called grand-design spiral galaxies. Many spiral galaxies possess numerous, loosely shaped arms which make their spiral structure less pronounced. These arms serve an important purpose in spiral galaxies. They are star-formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new stars. In the Whirlpool, the assembly line begins with the dark clouds of gas on the inner edge, then moves to bright pink star-forming regions, and ends with the brilliant blue star clusters along the outer edge.
Some astronomers believe that the Whirlpool's arms are so prominent because of the effects of a close encounter with NGC 5195, the small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the Whirlpool's arms. At first glance, the compact galaxy appears to be tugging on the arm. Hubble's clear view, however, shows that NGC 5195 is passing behind the Whirlpool. The small galaxy has been gliding past the Whirlpool for hundreds of millions of years.
As NGC 5195 drifts by, its gravitational muscle pumps up waves within the Whirlpool's pancake-shaped disk. The waves are like ripples in a pond generated when a rock is thrown in the water. When the waves pass through orbiting gas clouds within the disk, they squeeze the gaseous material along each arm's inner edge. The dark dusty material looks like gathering storm clouds. These dense clouds collapse, creating a wake of star birth, as seen in the bright pink star-forming regions. The largest stars eventually sweep away the dusty cocoons with a torrent of radiation, hurricane-like stellar winds, and shock waves from supernova blasts. Bright blue star clusters emerge from the mayhem, illuminating the Whirlpool's arms like city streetlights.
The Whirlpool is one of astronomy's galactic darlings. Located 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs), the Whirlpool's beautiful face-on view and closeness to Earth allow astronomers to study a classic spiral galaxy's structure and star-forming processes. Courtesy: NASA.

»visit the astara store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

A trip into bipolar brains

Science Focus

original post »

While people with Type I and the less-severe Type II bipolar disorder share some of the same symptoms, there are significant differences in the physical structure of their brains. Type I sufferers have somewhat smaller brain volume, researchers report in the Journal of Affective Disorders, while those with Type II appear to have less robust white matter.

As brain imaging technologies have advanced and matured over the past few decades, there's been considerable interest in understanding whether and how there are differences between the brains of people with mental illness and those without. In particular, neuroscientists studying depression have been interested in structural variation, such as differences in total brain volume. Still, the various forms of bipolar disorder have received somewhat less attention than others, such as major depression, schizophrenia, or autism.

That led Jerome Maller and colleagues at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, to look into whether there were structural differences among the brains of people with different sorts of bipolar disorder. Using standard MRI scans — much the same as you would get if you'd had a concussion or bleeding in the brain — on 16 Type I and 15 Type II bipolar patients along with 31 healthy control subjects, the team examined whether there were differences in gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid. The team also used a relatively new technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to measure the integrity of the brains' white matter, the long nerves called axons that connect different brain regions to each other.

Overall, there was less total brain volume — gray and white matter volume added together — and more cerebrospinal fluid volume in bipolar patients than in healthy controls, consistent with other recent studies suggesting a connection between brain volume and depression. After controlling for total brain volume, however, Type II patients' brains were essentially the same as controls' brains, while Type I patients had relatively higher volume in the caudate nucleus and other areas associated with reward processing and decision making. DTI studies, meanwhile, revealed that while patients with Type I and II bipolar disorder had reduced white matter integrity relative to controls, the effect was stronger among those with Type II, particularly in the frontal and prefrontal cortex, suggesting that Type II bipolar disorder is in some way a cognitive dysfunction.

Though the results are intriguing, the authors point out that their study is just the start. The team didn't have access to data on how long patients had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, let alone how long they'd actually had the disease, which often goes undiagnosed for years or even decades. In addition to addressing those issues in future studies, the researchers also hope to improve sample sizes and gather additional data about factors such as medications, family history, and genetics.

Pacific Standard grapples with the nation's biggest issues by illuminating why we do what we do. For more on the science of society, sign up for its weekly email update or subscribe to its bimonthly print magazine.

More from Pacific Standard...

 
#science 
 » see original post http://theweek.com/articles/441708/trip-into-bipolar-brains
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Studies find genetic signature of native Australians in the Americas

Science Focus

original post »

The exact process by which humanity introduced itself to the Americas has always been controversial. While there's general agreement on the most important migration—across the Bering land bridge at the end of the last ice age—there's a lot of arguing over the details. Now, two new papers clarify some of the bigger picture but also introduce a new wrinkle: there's DNA from the distant Pacific floating around in the genomes of Native Americans. And the two groups disagree about how it got there.

Prior to the advent of cheap DNA sequencing, there were all sorts of ideas regarding the peopling of the Americas. While migration across the Bering land bridge was the consensus opinion, it wasn't clear how many migrations took place—or even who, exactly, did the migrating. Because of the physical diversity of modern Native American populations, people have suggested additional migrations across the Pacific or even from Europe or Africa.

The Clovis people, who had what appears to have been the continents' first distinctive technology and culture, caused further confusion. Some argued that these represented the first humans in the Americas, while others argued they represented a distinct migration into a sparsely populated hemisphere. Language groups created their own confusion.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

 
#science 
 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/bNWiQ1rX1-4/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

‘White graphene’ structures can take the heat

Science Focus

original post »

Three-dimensional structures of boron nitride might be the right stuff to keep small electronics cool, according to scientists

The post ‘White graphene’ structures can take the heat has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/X5uKscIhdw0/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Monogrammed Helix Nebula, Galaxies and Stars Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: star nurseries, star clusters, galaxies, stars, astronomy, nebulae, helixneb, helix nebula, initialled, monogrammed, starfields, heavens, eso, european southern observatory, vista, monogram, initials, monograms

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic colour-composite image of the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293). It was created from images obtained using the Wide Field Imager (WFI), an astronomical camera attached to the 2.2-metre Max-Planck Society/ESO telescope at the La Silla observatory in Chile.

The blue-green glow in the centre of the Helix comes from oxygen atoms shining under effects of the intense ultraviolet radiation of the 120 000 degree Celsius central star and the hot gas.

Further out from the star and beyond the ring of knots, the red colour from hydrogen and nitrogen is more prominent. A careful look at the central part of this object reveals not only the knots, but also many remote galaxies seen right through the thinly spread glowing gas.
more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: helixneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

SESAME: a bright hope for the Middle East

(Image: SESAME)

Appropriately in the International Year of Light, SESAME, the first light source for the Middle East, is nearing completion in Amman in Jordan. In the latest edition of CERN Courier, the current president of the SESAME Council and former Director-General of CERN, Chris Llewellyn Smith, and Zehra Sayers, chair of the SESAME Scientific Advisory Committee, write about the project’s origins, the technical developments it has required, and the science it will support. A working example of Arab-Israeli-Iranian-Turkish-Cypriot-Pakistani collaboration, SESAME is on its way to becoming the region's first truly international centre of excellence.

Read more: "SESAME: a bright hope for the Middle East" – CERN Courier


via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/07/sesame-bright-hope-middle-east

Milky Way over Uluru

more »
The central regions of our Milky Way Galaxy rise above Uluru/Ayers Rock in this striking night skyscape. Recorded on July 13, a faint airglow along the horizon shows off central Australia's most recognizable landform in silhouette. Of course the Milky Way's own cosmic dust clouds appear in silhouette too, dark rifts along the galaxy's faint congeries of stars. Above the central bulge, rivers of cosmic dust converge on a bright yellowish supergiant star Antares. Left of Antares, wandering Saturn shines in the night.

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Lagoon Nebula - Our Awesome Universe Room Graphics

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: lgnnbl, star nurseries, galaxies, nebulae, european southern observatory, awesome astronomy images, lagoon nebula, clusters of stars, eso, starfields, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic outer space picture showing the third image of ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project. It's an amazing vista of the Lagoon Nebula taken with the 67-million-pixel Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.

The image covers more than one and a half square degrees - an area eight times larger than that of the Full Moon. It's based on images acquired using three different broadband filters (B, V, R) and one narrow-band filter (H-alpha).

It's a mind-expanding, wonderful image that reveals a little of the wonder that is our universe.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: lgnnbl

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Orion Nebula Caseable Case iPad Cases

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: orion, nebula, space, image, nasa, hubble, astronomy

A lovely detail of an image of the Orion Nebula thanks to NASA/Hubble.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

New Technique to Synthesize Nanostructured Nanowires

original post »

A new approach to self-assemble and tailor complex structures at the nanoscale, developed by an international collaboration led

The post New Technique to Synthesize Nanostructured Nanowires has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Turbulent Star-Birth Region Selection Print

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: hubble, nasa, stars, star, galaxy, galaxies, space, astronomy, telescope, beautiful, postcard, postcards, photos, photograph, gift, gifts, nebula, nature, landscapes

In commemoration of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope completing its 100,000th orbit in its 18th year of exploration and discovery, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., have aimed Hubble to take a snapshot of a dazzling region of celestial birth and renewal. Hubble peered into a small portion of the nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074 (upper, left). The region is a firestorm of raw stellar creation, perhaps triggered by a nearby supernova explosion. It lies about 170,000 light-years away near the Tarantula nebula, one of the most active star-forming regions in our Local Group of galaxies. The three-dimensional-looking image reveals dramatic ridges and valleys of dust, serpent-head "pillars of creation," and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation. The region is on the edge of a dark molecular cloud that is an incubator for the birth of new stars. The high-energy radiation blazing out from clusters of hot young stars already born in NGC 2074 is sculpting the wall of the nebula by slowly eroding it away. Another young cluster may be hidden beneath a circle of brilliant blue gas at center, bottom. In this approximately 100-light-year-wide fantasy-like landscape, dark towers of dust rise above a glowing wall of gases on the surface of the molecular cloud. The seahorse-shaped pillar at lower, right is approximately 20 light-years long, roughly four times the distance between our Sun and the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. The region is in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. It is a fascinating laboratory for observing star-formation regions and their evolution. Dwarf galaxies like the LMC are considered to be the primitive building blocks of larger galaxies. This representative color image was taken on August 10, 2008, with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Red shows emission from sulfur atoms, green from glowing hydrogen, and blue from glowing oxygen. Source: NASA

»visit the Galactica store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Initialled Spiral Galaxy - NGC 253 Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: spgxy253, breathtaking astronomy images, galaxies, stars, horsehead nebula, spiral galaxy, initials, initialled, monogrammed, monogram, european southern observatory, eso, vista, monograms

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous image that reveals a little of the wonder that is our universe.

Measuring 70 000 light-years across and laying 13 million light-years away, the nearly edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 253 is revealed here in an image from the Wide Field Imager (WFI) of the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope at the La Silla Observatory.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: spgxy253

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Trifid Nebula, Messier 16 Wall Skin

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, star forming nebulae, trfdnbl, nebulae, star factory, trifid nebula, clusters of stars, factories for stars, star nurseries, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic picture from our universe featuring the massive star factory known as the Trifid Nebula.

It was captured in all its glory with the Wide-Field Imager camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile.
So named for the dark dust bands that trisect its glowing heart, the Trifid Nebula is a rare combination of three nebulae types that reveal the fury of freshly formed stars and point to more star birth in the future. The field of view of the image is approximately 13 x 17 arcminutes.
It's an awe-inspiring, breathtaking image that reveals some of the wonder that is our universe.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: trfdnbl

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Hubble's Sharpest View of .. DODO iPad Folio Case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: hubble's, sharpest, view, orion, nebula., dodo, ipad, folio, case

Hubble's Sharpest View of the Orion Nebula. Thousands of stars are forming in the cloud of gas and dust known as the Orion nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

»visit the Ronspassionfordesign store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Wednesday 29 July 2015

Finding the origins of life in a drying puddle

original post »

Anyone who’s ever noticed a water puddle drying in the sun has seen an environment that may have

The post Finding the origins of life in a drying puddle has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

New technique to synthesise nanostructured nanowires

original post »

Researchers have developed a new method for growing ‘hybrid’ crystals at the nanoscale, in which quantum dots –

The post New technique to synthesise nanostructured nanowires has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Dense star clusters shown to be binary black hole factories

more »
The merger of two black holes is one of the most sought-after observations of modern astronomy. The first observatories capable of directly detecting gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of spacetime predicted by Albert Einstein -- will begin observing the universe later this year. When these waves rolling in from space are detected on Earth for the first time, astrophysicists predict astronomers will 'hear,' through these waves, five times more colliding black holes than previously expected.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

'Failed stars' host powerful auroral displays

more »
By observing a brown dwarf 20 light-years away using both radio and optical telescopes, astronomers have found that such so-called failed stars host powerful auroras near their magnetic poles -- additional evidence that brown dwarfs are more like giant planets than small stars.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Brown dwarf stars host powerful aurora displays, astronomers discover

more »
Brown dwarf stars host powerful aurora displays just like planets, astronomers have discovered.

Zazzle Space market place

The Carina Nebula Hubble Print

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: astronomy, space, hubble, nasa, print, prints, posters, cool, beautiful, photographs, pictures, gifts, photography

The Carina Nebula Hubble Print. In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth — and death — is taking place. This image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of neutral hydrogen during March and July 2005. Color information was added with data taken in December 2001 and March 2003 at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission. Courtesy: NASA.

»visit the astara store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Graphene supercurrents go ballistic

more »
Researchers have demonstrated superconducting electric currents in the two-dimensional material graphene that bounce between sheet edges without scattering. This first direct observation of the ballistic mirroring of electron waves in a 2d system with supercurrents could lead to the use of graphene-based Josephson junctions in applications such as advanced digital logic circuits, ultrasensitive magnetometers and voltmeters.
via Science Daily

Secrets of stars unlocked through aluminium

more »
Physicists have revealed a new understanding of nucleosynthesis in stars, providing insight into the role massive stars play in the evolution of the Milky Way and the origins of the Solar System.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Monogram Crab Nebula in Taurus Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: crbneb, astronomy, messier 1, neutron stars, star ejecta, pulsars, supernovae explosions, galaxies, outer space pictures, monogram initials, heavens, european southern observatory, eso, vista, monograms, initialled, monogrammed

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A great outer space picture featuring a three colour composite of the well-known Crab Nebula (also known as Messier 1), as observed with the FORS2 instrument in imaging mode in the morning of November 10, 1999.

It's the remnant of a supernova explosion at a distance of about 6,000 light-years, observed almost 1,000 years ago, in the year 1054. It contains a neutron star near its center that spins 30 times per second around its axis (see below).

In this picture, the green light is predominantly produced by hydrogen emission from material ejected by the star that exploded. The blue light is predominantly emitted by very high-energy ("relativistic") electrons that spiral in a large-scale magnetic field (so-called synchrotron emission). It's believed that these electrons are continuously accelerated and ejected by the rapidly spinning neutron star at the centre of the nebula and which is the remnant core of the exploded star.

This pulsar has been identified with the lower/right of the two close stars near the geometric center of the nebula, immediately left of the small arc-like feature, best seen in ESO Press Photo eso9948.

Technical information: ESO Press Photo eso9948 is based on a composite of three images taken through three different optical filters: B (429 nm; FWHM 88 nm; 5 min; here rendered as blue), R (657 nm; FWHM 150 nm; 1 min; green) and S II (673 nm; FWHM 6 nm; 5 min; red) during periods of 0.65 arcsec (R, S II) and 0.80 (B) seeing, respectively. The field shown measures 6.8 x 6.8 arcminutes and the images were recorded in frames of 2048 x 2048 pixels, each measuring 0.2 arcseconds. North is up; East is left.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: crbneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

First detection of lithium from an exploding star

more »
The chemical element lithium has been found for the first time in material ejected by a nova. Observations of Nova Centauri 2013 made using telescopes at ESO's La Silla Observatory, and near Santiago in Chile, help to explain the mystery of why many young stars seem to have more of this chemical element than expected.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

The Deep Lagoon

more »
Ridges of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inhabit the turbulent, cosmic depths of the Lagoon Nebula. Also known as M8, The bright star forming region is about 5,000 light-years distant. But it still makes for a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius, toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Dominated by the telltale red emission of ionized hydrogen atoms recombining with stripped electrons, this stunning, deep view of the Lagoon's central reaches is about 40 light-years across. Near the center of the frame, the bright hourglass shape is gas ionized and sculpted by energetic radiation and extreme stellar winds from a massive young star.

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Fires of the Flame Nebula - NGC 2024 in Orion Wall Graphic

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, hfflmnb, flames nebulae, star forming, orion constellation, young stars clusters, orions belt, orion the hunter, european southern observatory, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous outer space picture featuring the spectacular star-forming region known as the Flame Nebula, or NGC 2024, in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter) and its surroundings.

In views of this evocative object in visible light the core of the nebula is completely hidden behind obscuring dust, but in this VISTA view, taken in infrared light, the cluster of very young stars at the object’s heart is revealed. The wide-field VISTA view also includes the glow of the reflection nebula NGC 2023, just below centre, and the ghostly outline of the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) towards the lower right.

The bright bluish star towards the right is one of the three bright stars forming the Belt of Orion. The image was created from VISTA images taken through J, H and Ks filters in the near-infrared part of the spectrum.

The image shows about half the area of the full VISTA field and is about 40 x 50 arcminutes in extent. The total exposure time was 14 minutes and was the first to be released publicly from VISTA, the world’s largest survey telescope.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: hfflmnb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place