Thursday 9 July 2015

Atmosphere of Venus studied through rare transit images

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Two of NASA's heliophysics missions can now claim planetary science on their list of scientific findings. A group of scientists used the Venus transit -- a very rare event where a planet passes between Earth and the sun, appearing to us as a dark dot steadily making its way across the sun's bright face -- to make measurements of how the Venusian atmosphere absorbs different kinds of light.
via Science Daily
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Research points way to designing crack-resistant metals

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Sometimes looking at something at the smallest scale can lead to solutions to big problems. A recent study

The post Research points way to designing crack-resistant metals has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
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Graphene-based sensor is tunable and highly sensitive

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Researchers have developed a sensor made from graphene to detect molecules such as proteins and drugs. This is one of the first devices exploiting the unique electronic and optical properties of graphene for a practical application.
via Science Daily

Astronomers find a massive black hole that outgrew its galaxy

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Astronomers have spotted a super-sized black hole in the early universe that grew much faster than its host galaxy. The discovery runs counter to most observations about black holes, which are massive areas of space with extraordinarily strong gravity that can pull in anything -- even light. In most cases, black holes and their host galaxies expand at the same rate.
via Science Daily
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Graphene gets competition

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Graphene, the only one atom thick carbon network, achieved overnight fame with the 2010 Nobel Prize. But now comes competition: such layers can also be formed by black phosphorus. Chemists have now developed a semiconducting material in which individual phosphorus atoms are replaced by arsenic. In a collaborative international effort, American colleagues have built the first field-effect transistors from the new material.
via Science Daily

Huge new survey to shine light on dark matter

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The first results have been released from a major new dark matter survey of the southern skies using ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VST KiDS survey will allow astronomers to make precise measurements of dark matter, the structure of galaxy halos, and the evolution of galaxies and clusters. The first KiDS results show how the characteristics of the observed galaxies are determined by the invisible vast clumps of dark matter surrounding them.
via Science Daily
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Ghostly shells of galaxy ESO 381-12 imaged

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The ghostly shells of galaxy ESO 381-12 are captured in a new image, set against a backdrop of distant galaxies. The strikingly uneven structure and the clusters of stars that orbit around the galaxy suggest that ESO 381-12 may have been part of a dramatic collision sometime in its relatively recent past.
via Science Daily
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Pale Blue Dot Clean Posters

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


tagged with: pale, blue, dot, space, astronomy, earth

The pixelation from the hubble scope are cleaned up in this one to look a little more wall art friendly.

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Astronomers see black hole come to life

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Radio astronomers are watching a previously dormant black hole wake up in a dramatic display as material falls on to it for the first time for perhaps millions of years.
via Science Daily
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Super graphene can help treat cancer

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Silver is often used as a coating on medical equipment used for chemotherapy. The problem is that this silver coating can break down drugs. Now, researchers have found a graphene coating that will help boost chemotherapy's effects.
via Science Daily

New Horizons map of Pluto: The whale and the donut

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This is the latest map of Pluto created from images taken from June 27 to July 3 by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on New Horizons, combined with lower-resolution color data from the spacecraft's Ralph instrument. The center of the map corresponds to the side of Pluto that will be seen close-up during New Horizons' July 14 flyby.
via Science Daily
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A 'heart' from Pluto as flyby begins

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After a more than nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to Pluto, it's show time for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, as the flyby sequence of science observations is officially underway.
via Science Daily
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Familiar fishes found opportunity in mass extinction

Science Focus

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For mammals, the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous was the crisis that opened the door to evolutionary success. With so many species gone, like the dominant dinosaurs (minus the ancestors of birds), opportunities were plentiful. Our small, furtive ancestors made the most of those opportunities, giving rise to the diversity of mammals around today.

Perhaps the ray-finned fishes—which include almost every fish you can think of apart from sharks and rays and make up almost half of all modern vertebrate species—found similar opportunities. Researchers knew that this group of fish only took off in the last 100 million years (so since the mid-Cretaceous), but the early details were fuzzy. Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Elizabeth Sibert and Richard Norris set out to tighten up that history by picking through seafloor mud for tiny fish teeth.

Those seafloor muds came from deep drilling in multiple locations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Samples of Italian limestone that had been laid down in an ocean long since closed up by plate tectonics rounded out the collection. In all the samples, which spanned from the late Cretaceous (about 75 million years ago) to the mid-Eocene (about 45 million years ago) the researchers sifted out teeth shed by ray-finned fishes and scales belonging to sharks or rays. Both types of fossils are plentiful, as they resist dissolving away on the ocean floor.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/Ddun8WFZXXU/
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New spin on ‘silicon valleytronics’ could revolutionise future technologies

Science Focus

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Latest research from scientists from Department of Physics into cutting-edge ‘spin physics’ could herald the arrival of a revolutionary new

The post New spin on ‘silicon valleytronics’ could revolutionise future technologies has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/EAM811q2OyQ/
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Monogram, Star Cluster Pismis 24, core of NGC 6357 Classic Round Sticker

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


tagged with: stars, galaxies, astronomy, peel off, envelope sealers, star cluster, pismis 24, sculpting ultaviolet ionisation, super massive stars, sclustpsms, nebula ngc 6357

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series The star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 that extends one degree on the sky in the direction of the Scorpius constellation. Part of the nebula is ionised by the youngest (bluest) heavy stars in Pismis 24. The intense ultraviolet radiation from the blazing stars heats the gas surrounding the cluster and creates a bubble in NGC 6357. The presence of these surrounding gas clouds makes probing into the region even harder. One of the top candidates for the title of "Milky Way stellar heavyweight champion" was, until now, Pismis 24-1, a bright young star that lies in the core of the small open star cluster Pismis 24 (the bright stars in the Hubble image) about 8,000 light-years away from Earth. Pismis 24-1 was thought to have an incredibly large mass of 200 to 300 solar masses. New NASA/ESA Hubble measurements of the star, have, however, resolved Pismis 24-1 into two separate stars, and, in doing so, have "halved" its mass to around 100 solar masses.

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image code: sclustpsms

Image credit: NASA/ESA Hubble

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Huge new survey to shine light on dark matter

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The first results have been released from a major new dark matter survey of the southern skies using ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VST KiDS survey will allow astronomers to make precise measurements of dark matter, the structure of galaxy halos, and the evolution of galaxies and clusters. The first KiDS results show how the characteristics of the observed galaxies are determined by the invisible vast clumps of dark matter surrounding them.

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5 Million Miles from Pluto

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An image snapped on July 7 by the New Horizons spacecraft while just under 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) from Pluto is combined with color data in this most detailed view yet of the Solar System's most famous world about to be explored. The region imaged includes the tip of an elongated dark area along Pluto's equator already dubbed "the whale". A bright heart-shaped region on the right is about 1,200 miles (2,000) kilometers across, possibly covered with a frost of frozen methane, nitrogen, and/or carbon monoxide. The view is centered near the area that will be seen during New Horizons much anticipated July 14 closest approach to a distance of about 7,750 miles (12,500 kilometers).

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Orion Nebula iPad Air Cover

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, green

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

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Cutting through martian history

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This colourful image resembles an abstract watercolour, but it is in fact a colour-coded topographic map of one of the most geologically diverse regions on Mars.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Cutting_through_martian_history

‘Pick & mix’ smart materials for robotics

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Researchers have successfully combined multiple functions into a single smart life-like material for the first time. These ‘designer’

The post ‘Pick & mix’ smart materials for robotics has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
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Eye - Stellar Nursery R136 on nebula background Square Sticker

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


tagged with: astronomy, envelope sealers, eye, stellar nursery, r136, 30 doradus nebula, massive stars, tarantula nebula, hrbstslr dorneblmc, galaxy stars, large magellanic cloud, star cluster, amazing hubble images

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series On a background of the Pelican and North American nebulae, an eye made from hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds appear in this the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus (or Tarantula) Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. These hefty stars are destined to pop off, like a string of firecrackers, as supernovas in a few million years. The image, taken in ultraviolet, visible, and red light by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, spans about 100 light-years.
The movement of the LMC around the Milky Way may have triggered the massive cluster's formation in several ways. The gravitational tug of the Milky Way and the companion Small Magellanic Cloud may have compressed gas in the LMC. Also, the pressure resulting from the LMC plowing through the Milky Way's halo may have compressed gas in the satellite. The cluster is a rare, nearby example of the many super star clusters that formed in the distant, early universe, when star birth and galaxy interactions were more frequent.
The LMC is located 170,000 light-years away and is a member of the Local Group of Galaxies, which also includes the Milky Way. The Hubble observations were taken Oct. 20-27, 2009. The blue color is light from the hottest, most massive stars; the green from the glow of oxygen; and the red from fluorescing hydrogen.

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image code: dorneblmc

image credit: Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3

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Pandora's Cluster Detail iPad Air Cover

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: abell 2744, pandora's cluster, blue, pink, purple, magenta, galaxy, galaxies, pretty, colorful, beautiful, awesome, abell2744

A colorful space image galaxy cluster Abell 2744, otherwise known as Pandora's Cluster. Source of image is NASA/Hubble programs.

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The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Surfer-shaped waves found in near-Earth space

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The universe overflows with repeating patterns. From the smallest cells to the largest galaxies, scientists are often rewarded by observing similar patterns in vastly different places. One such pattern is the iconic surfer's waves seen on the ocean - a series of curled hills moving steadily in one direction. The shape has a simple cause. A fast fluid, say wind, moving past a slower one, say water, naturally creates this classic shape. Named Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in the late 1800s after their discoverers, these waves have since been discovered all over the universe: in clouds, in the atmospheres of other planets, and on the sun. Now two recently published articles highlight these shapely waves at the boundaries of near-Earth space.
via Science Daily
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