Tuesday 28 February 2017

The 20th Anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's STIS Instrument


The Versatile Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) Opens New Vistas in Astronomy
Twenty years ago, astronauts on the second servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope installed the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) aboard Hubble. This pioneering instrument combines a camera with a spectrograph, which provides a "fingerprint" of a celestial object's temperature, chemical composition, density, and motion. STIS also reveals changes in the evolving universe and leads the way in the field of high-contrast imaging. The versatile instrument is sensitive to a wide range of wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet through the optical and into the near-infrared. From studying black holes, monster stars, and the intergalactic medium, to analyzing the atmospheres of worlds around other stars, STIS continues its epic mission to explore the universe.


via Hubble - News feed
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-06

Scientists reach back in time to discover some of the most power-packed galaxies

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When the universe was young, a supermassive black hole heaved out a jet of particle-infused energy that raced through space at nearly the speed of light. Billions of years later, scientists has identified this black hole and four others similar to it that range in age from 1.4 billion to 1.9 billion years old.
via Science Daily
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A White Oval Cloud on Jupiter from Juno

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This storm cloud on Jupiter is almost as large as the Earth. Known as a white oval, the swirling cloud is a high pressure system equivalent to an Earthly anticyclone. The cloud is one of a "string of pearls" ovals south of Jupiter's famous Great Red Spot. Possibly, the Great Red Spot is just a really large white oval than turned red. Surrounding clouds show interesting turbulence as they flow around and past the oval. The featured image was captured on February 2 as NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno made a new pass just above the cloud tops of the Jovian world. Over the next few years, Juno will continue to orbit and probe Jupiter, determine atmospheric water abundance, and attempt to determine if Jupiter has a solid surface beneath its thick clouds.

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SpaceX Plans to Send 2 Tourists Around Moon in 2018

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If the mission proceeds as planned, the private space travelers would be the first humans to venture that far into space in more than 40 years.
via New York Times

Monday 27 February 2017

Nano 'sandwich' offers unique properties

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Nanoclusters of magnesium oxide sandwiched between layers of graphene make a compound with unique electronic and optical properties, according to researchers who built computer simulations of the material.
via Science Daily

Preserving vision for astronauts

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As NASA prepares for its journey to Mars, one researcher is investigating why so many astronauts suffer from poorer vision after they return to Earth.
via Science Daily
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Volcanic hydrogen spurs chances of finding exoplanet life

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Hunting for habitable exoplanets now may be easier: astronomers report that hydrogen pouring from volcanic sources on planets throughout the universe could improve the chances of locating life in the cosmos.
via Science Daily
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Science checkout continues for ExoMars orbiter

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Next week, the ExoMars orbiter will devote two days to making important calibration measurements at the Red Planet, which are needed for the science phase of the mission that will begin next year.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Science_checkout_continues_for_ExoMars_orbiter

Four Quasar Images Surround a Galaxy Lens

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An odd thing about the group of lights near the center is that four of them are the same distant quasar. This is because the foreground galaxy -- in the center of the quasar images and the featured image -- is acting like a choppy gravitational lens. A perhaps even odder thing is that by watching these background quasars flicker, you can estimate the expansion rate of the universe. That is because the flicker timing increases as the expansion rate increases. But to some astronomers, the oddest thing of all is that these multiply imaged quasars indicate a universe that is expanding a bit faster than has been estimated by different methods that apply to the early universe. And that is because ... well, no one is sure why. Reasons might include an unexpected distribution of dark matter, some unexpected effect of gravity, or something completely different. Perhaps future observations and analyses of this and similarly lensed quasar images will remove these oddities.

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Supernova aftermath

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Space Science Image of the Week: Hubble follows the evolution of an expanding supernova remnant over three decades
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Highlights/Supernova_aftermath

Saturn's rings viewed in the mid-infrared show bright Cassini division

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Researchers has succeeded in measuring the brightnesses and temperatures of Saturn's rings using the mid-infrared images taken by the Subaru Telescope in 2008. They reveal that, at that time, the Cassini Division and the C ring were brighter than the other rings in the mid-infrared light and that the brightness contrast appeared to be the inverse of that seen in the visible light. The data give important insights into the nature of Saturn's rings.
via Science Daily
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Mars More Earth-like than moon-like

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Mars' mantle may be more complicated than previously thought, report researchers. Their report documents geochemical changes over time in the lava flows of Elysium, a major martian volcanic province.
via Science Daily
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Sunday 26 February 2017

A Supercell Thunderstorm Cloud Over Montana

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Is that a spaceship or a cloud? Although it may seem like an alien mothership, it's actually a impressive thunderstorm cloud called a supercell. Such colossal storm systems center on mesocyclones -- rotating updrafts that can span several kilometers and deliver torrential rain and high winds including tornadoes. Jagged sculptured clouds adorn the supercell's edge, while wind swept dust and rain dominate the center. A tree waits patiently in the foreground. The above supercell cloud was photographed in 2010 July west of Glasgow, Montana, USA, caused minor damage, and lasted several hours before moving on.

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Saturday 25 February 2017

As thin as an atom: A revolutionary semiconductor for electronics

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Semiconductors that are as thin as an atom are no longer the stuff of science fiction. A new two-dimensional material could revolutionize electronics, say researchers.
via Science Daily

All Planets Panorama

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For 360 degrees, a view along the plane of the ecliptic is captured in this remarkable panorama, with seven planets in a starry sky. The mosaic was constructed using images taken during January 24-26, from Nacpan Beach, El Nido in Palawan, Philippines. It covers the eastern horizon (left) in dark early morning hours and the western horizon in evening skies. While the ecliptic runs along the middle traced by a faint band of zodiacal light, the Milky Way also cuts at angles through the frame. Clouds and the Moon join fleeting planet Mercury in the east. Yellowish Saturn, bright star Antares, and Jupiter lie near the ecliptic farther right. Hugging the ecliptic near center are Leo's alpha star Regulus and star cluster M44. The evening planets gathered along the ecliptic above the western horizon, are faint Uranus, ruddy Mars, brilliant Venus, and even fainter Neptune. A well labeled version of the panorama can be viewed by sliding your cursor over the picture, or just following this link.

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Friday 24 February 2017

Three layers of graphene reveals a new kind of magnet

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Scientists have discovered the magnetism of electrons in three layers of graphene. This study reveals a new kind of magnet and provides insight on how electronic devices using graphene could be made for fundamental studies as well as various applications.
via Science Daily

Official naming of surface features on Pluto and its satellites: First step approved

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The New Horizons flyby of Pluto and its satellites returned a scientific treasure trove of information about these distant and surprisingly complex worlds, showing a vast nitrogen glacier as well as ice mountains, canyons, cliffs, craters and more. Now the categories for official names have been approved and the name proposals can be submitted by the New Horizons team.
via Science Daily
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Neural networks promise sharpest ever images

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Telescopes, the workhorse instruments of astronomy, are limited by the size of the mirror or lens they use. Using 'neural nets', a form of artificial intelligence, a group of Swiss researchers now have a way to push past that limit, offering scientists the prospect of the sharpest ever images in optical astronomy.
via Science Daily
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Blast from the past

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Hubble space telescope captures 30th anniversary image of a massive stellar explosion
via ESA Space Science
http://sci.esa.int/hubble/58848-cosmic-blast-from-the-past/

The Dawn of a New Era for Supernova 1987A


In February 1987, on a mountaintop in Chile, telescope operator Oscar Duhalde stood outside the observatory at Las Campanas and looked up at the clear night sky. There, in a hazy-looking patch of brightness in the sky — the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a neighboring galaxy - was a bright star he hadn't noticed before.

That same night, Canadian astronomer Ian Shelton was at Las Campanas observing stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. As Shelton was studying a photographic plate of the LMC later that night, he noticed a bright object that he initially thought was a defect in the plate. When he showed the plate to other astronomers at the observatory, he realized the object was the light from a supernova. Duhalde announced that he saw the object too in the night sky. The object turned out to be Supernova 1987A, the closest exploding star observed in 400 years. Shelton had to notify the astronomical community of his discovery. There was no Internet in 1987, so the astronomer scrambled down the mountain to the nearest town and sent a message to the International Astronomical Union's Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, a clearing house for announcing astronomical discoveries.

Since that finding, an armada of telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, has studied the supernova. Hubble wasn't even in space when SN 1987A was found. The supernova, however, was one of the first objects Hubble observed after its launch in 1990. Hubble has continued to monitor the exploded star for nearly 30 years, yielding insight into the messy aftermath of a star's violent self-destruction. Hubble has given astronomers a ring-side seat to watch the brightening of a ring around the dead star as the supernova blast wave slammed into it.


via Hubble - News feed
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-08

NGC 3621: Far Beyond the Local Group

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Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra, the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous island universe are loaded with luminous blue star clusters, pinkish starforming regions, and dark dust lanes. Still, for astronomers NGC 3621 has not been just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe. This beautiful image of NGC 3621, is a composite of space- and ground-based telescope data. It traces the loose spiral arms far from the galaxy's brighter central regions for some 100,000 light-years. Spiky foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy and even more distant background galaxies are scattered across the colorful skyscape.

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Thursday 23 February 2017

Seven Worlds for TRAPPIST-1

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Seven worlds orbit the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, a mere 40 light-years away. In May 2016 astronomers using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) announced the discovery of three planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Just announced, additional confirmations and discoveries by the Spitzer Space Telescope and supporting ESO ground-based telescopes have increased the number of known planets to seven. The TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely all rocky and similar in size to Earth, the largest treasure trove of terrestrial planets ever detected around a single star. Because they orbit very close to their faint, tiny star they could also have regions where surface temperatures allow for the presence of liquid water, a key ingredient for life. Their tantalizing proximity to Earth makes them prime candidates for future telescopic explorations of the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets. All seven worlds appear in this artist's illustration, an imagined view from a fictionally powerful telescope near planet Earth. Planet sizes and relative positions are drawn to scale for the Spitzer observations. The system's inner planets are transiting their dim, red, nearly Jupiter-sized parent star.

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Farewell to the “queen of carbon science”

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The material science community says farewell to a legend – Mildred Dresselhaus, Professor Emerita at MIT, died at the age of 86.

Nicknamed “the queen of carbon science”, prof. Dresselhaus studied various aspects of graphite, including nanomaterials such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, and fullerene. She made some fundamental discoveries on the electronic structure of semi-metals, having co-authored about 1,700 journal papers and eight books on the topic.

A member of the MIT faculty for 50 years, prof. Dresselhaus mentored several students that are now department heads at the university. Her scientific contributions were recognized with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award a civilian can receive from the US government, a Medal of Science, given to US national top scientists, the IEEE Medal of Honor, the Enrico Fermi Award, and many others.

Mildred was the first woman to attain full professorship at MIT, the first solo recipient of a Kavli Prize, and the first woman to win the National Medal of Science in Engineering. She will be remembered as a strong role model for women in STEM. Dresselhouse also served in numerous science leadership roles, including as the director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy, as president of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as chair of the governing board of the American Institute of Physics, as co-chair of the recent Decadal Study of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, and as treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences.

The whole Graphenea team will miss her inspiration and tireless dedication.


via Graphenea

Wednesday 22 February 2017

7 New Planets Could Host Alien Life

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These new Earth-size planets orbit a dwarf star named Trappist-1 about 40 light years from Earth. Some of them could have water on their surfaces.
via New York Times

From rocks in Colorado, evidence of a 'chaotic solar system'

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Plumbing a 90 million-year-old layer cake of sedimentary rock in Colorado, a team of scientists has found evidence confirming a critical theory of how the planets in our solar system behave in their orbits around the sun. The finding is important because it provides the first hard proof for what scientists call the ''chaotic solar system.'
via Science Daily
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NASA telescope reveals largest batch of Earth-size, habitable-zone planets around single star

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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.
via Science Daily
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NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star


NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are located in an area called the habitable zone, where liquid water is most likely to thrive on a rocky planet. The system sets a new record for the greatest number of habitable zone planets found outside our solar system. Any of these seven planets could have liquid water, the key to life as we know it. The exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1 and is only 40 light-years away. Following up on the Spitzer discovery, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has initiated the screening of four of the planets, including the three inside the habitable zone. These observations aim at assessing the presence of puffy, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres, typical for gaseous worlds like Neptune, around these planets. In May 2016, the Hubble team observed the two innermost planets and found no evidence for such puffy atmospheres. This finding strengthened the case that the planets closest to the star are terrestrial in nature. Astronomers plan follow-up studies using NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018. With much greater sensitivity, Webb will be able to detect the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone, and other components of a planet's atmosphere. Webb also will analyze planets' temperatures and surface pressures — key factors in assessing their habitability.

For illustrations and more information about the TRAPPIST-1 system, visit: http://exoplanets.nasa.gov


via Hubble - News feed
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-07

7 Earth-Size Planets Identified in Orbit Around a Dwarf Star

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Astronomers are excited by the discovery, which suggests that some of these exoplanets — planets around stars other than the sun — could support life and may be awash in oceans.
via New York Times

Possible dark matter ties in Andromeda Galaxy

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NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a signal at the center of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy that could indicate the presence of the mysterious stuff known as dark matter. The gamma-ray signal is similar to one seen by Fermi at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.
via Science Daily
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Daphnis and the Rings of Saturn

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What's happening to the rings of Saturn? Nothing much, just a little moon making waves. The moon is 8-kilometer Daphnis and it is making waves in the Keeler Gap of Saturn's rings using just its gravity -- as it bobs up and down, in and out. The featured image is a wide-field version of a previously released image taken last month by the robotic Cassini spacecraft during one of its new Grand Finale orbits. Daphnis can be seen on the far right, sporting ridges likely accumulated from ring particles. Daphnis was discovered in Cassini images in 2005 and raised mounds of ring particles so high in 2009 -- during Saturn's equinox when the ring plane pointed directly at the Sun -- that they cast notable shadows.

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Tuesday 21 February 2017

Brightest neutron star yet has a multipolar magnetic field

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Scientists have identified a neutron star that is consuming material so fast it emits more x-rays than any other. Its extreme brightness can only be explained if the star has a complex multipolar magnetic field, the researchers say.
via Science Daily
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Why are there different 'flavors' of iron around the Solar System?

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New work shows that interactions between iron and nickel under the extreme pressures and temperatures similar to a planetary interior can help scientists understand the period in our Solar System's youth when planets were forming and their cores were created.
via Science Daily
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Prediction: More gas-giants will be found orbiting Sun-like stars

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New planetary formation models indicate that there may be an undiscovered population of gas giant planets orbiting around Sun-like stars at distances similar to those of Jupiter and Saturn.
via Science Daily
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Mapping the family tree of stars

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Astronomers are borrowing principles applied in biology and archaeology to build a family tree of the stars in the galaxy. By studying chemical signatures found in the stars, they are piecing together these evolutionary trees looking at how the stars formed and how they are connected to each other. The signatures act as a proxy for DNA sequences. It's akin to chemical tagging of stars and forms the basis of a discipline astronomers refer to as Galactic archaeology.
via Science Daily
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Experiments call origin of Earth's iron into question

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New research reveals that the Earth's unique iron composition isn't linked to the formation of the planet's core, calling into question a prevailing theory about the events that shaped our planet during its earliest years.
via Science Daily
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Scalable 100% yield production of conductive graphene inks

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Conductive inks are useful for a range of applications, including printed and flexible electronics such as radio frequency identification (RFID) antennas, transistors or photovoltaic cells. The advent of the internet of things is predicted to lead to new connectivity within everyday objects, including in food packaging. There is a clear need for cheap and efficient production of electronic devices using stable, conductive and non-toxic components.
via Science Daily

170221

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Record high frequency RF graphene transistors on flexible substrates

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Graphene has long been regarded as an ideal candidate channel material for radio frequency (RF) flexible electronics. Scientists from IEMN-CNRS, Graphenea, and Nokia have now demonstrated flexible graphene transistors with a record high cut-off frequency of 39 GHz. The graphene devices, made on flexible polymer substrates, are stable against bending and fatigue of repeated flexing.

Flexible electronics has become a very active research and application field, driven by a potentially enormous market for smart devices and wearables. It is expected that in the near future people will be wearing medical, recreation, and entertainment devices on their clothes, a goal which requires sensors to be placed on a large variety of flexible supports. These sensors and devices will communicate to each other, which will require an extra layer of flexible RF electronics.

Transistors form the main building blocks of RF electronic components such as amplifiers and mixers, thus a new generation of flexible RF transistors is key to enabling the smart devices and wearables markets. Graphene, a flexible, strong, thin material with outstandingly high carrier mobility is a perfect candidate channel material for such transistors. Flexible graphene transistors are an active research direction but this most recent work, published in the journal Nanoscale, demonstrates a record high frequency by bringing device fabrication to a new level.

Figure: Flexible graphene RF transistor (reproduced from Nanoscale 2016, 8, 14097-14103 with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry).

The graphene field effect transistor (GFET) is made from high quality CVD grown graphene with a carrier mobility of ~2500 cm2 V-1 s-1 on a flexible Kapton substrate with a thin alumina dielectric spacer in the channel region. The use of such sophisticated and optimized materials leads to the record high frequency performance as well as stability against bending. The GFET continues to operate even after 1,000 bending cycles and can be flexed to a radius of 12 mm with a cutoff frequency shift of up to 10%.

Finally, the device is tested for thermal stability. Thermal stability is an important issue in flexible electronics, due to the poor thermal conductivity of the polymer substrates generally used in such devices. The researchers show that at high voltage bias, the device heats up and performance degrades irreversibly.

This new research on flexible GFETs not only sets a new record for the bandwidth but also proves that degradation commonly seen in these devices at high bias comes from thermal deformation of the substrate. As research in this direction advances, it is becoming obvious that flexible GFETs are here to stay as important building blocks of future wearable technology.

 


via Graphenea

The brightest, furthest pulsar in the Universe

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ESA’s XMM-Newton has found a pulsar – the spinning remains of a once-massive star – that is a thousand times brighter than previously thought possible.


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

Monday 20 February 2017

Out There: Cosmos Controversy: The Universe Is Expanding, but How Fast?

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A small discrepancy in the value of a long-sought number has fostered a debate about just how well we know the cosmos.
via New York Times

Almost Three Tails for Comet Encke

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How can a comet have three tails? Normally, a comet has two tails: an ion tail of charged particles emitted by the comet and pushed out by the wind from the Sun, and a dust tail of small debris that orbits behind the comet but is also pushed out, to some degree, by the solar wind. Frequently a comet will appear to have only one tail because the other tail is not easily visible from the Earth. In the featured unusual image, Comet 2P/Encke appears to have three tails because the ion tail split just near to the time when the image was taken. The complex solar wind is occasionally turbulent and sometimes creates unusual structure in an ion tail. On rare occasions even ion-tail disconnection events have been recorded. An image of the Comet Encke taken two days later gives a perhaps less perplexing perspective.

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The thread of star birth

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Space Science Image of the Week: Herschel reveals stars growing along the filaments of a giant cloud of gas and dust
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/02/Star_formation_on_filaments_in_RCW106

Historic detection of gravitational waves

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A scientist who has been involved with nearly every aspect of the development and ultimate success of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), will give a talk about the project's historic detection of gravitational waves.
via Science Daily
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Sunday 19 February 2017

SpaceX Launches Rocket to Internation Space Station

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A Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, SpaceX, was launched at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, carrying supplies, experiments and cargo to the International Space Station.
via New York Times

Black Sun and Inverted Starfield

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Does this strange dark ball look somehow familiar? If so, that might be because it is our Sun. In the featured image from 2012, a detailed solar view was captured originally in a very specific color of red light, then rendered in black and white, and then color inverted. Once complete, the resulting image was added to a starfield, then also color inverted. Visible in the image of the Sun are long light filaments, dark active regions, prominences peeking around the edge, and a moving carpet of hot gas. The surface of our Sun can be a busy place, in particular during Solar Maximum, the time when its surface magnetic field is wound up the most. Besides an active Sun being so picturesque, the plasma expelled can also become picturesque when it impacts the Earth's magnetosphere and creates auroras.

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Saturday 18 February 2017

Hubble spotlights a celestial sidekick

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Technically, this picture is merely a sidekick of the actual object of interest -- but space is bursting with activity, and this field of bright celestial bodies offers plenty of interest on its own.
via Science Daily
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SpaceX Scrubs Rocket Launch

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The company may try again as soon as Sunday to launch the rocket, which carries materials for the space station.
via New York Times

Penumbral Eclipse Rising

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As seen from Cocoa Beach Pier, Florida, planet Earth, the Moon rose at sunset on February 10 while gliding through Earth's faint outer shadow. In progress was the first eclipse of 2017, a penumbral lunar eclipse followed in this digital stack of seaside exposures. Of course, the penumbral shadow is lighter than the planet's umbral shadow. That central, dark, shadow is easily seen on the lunar disk during a total or partial lunar eclipse. Still, in this penumbral eclipse the limb of the Moon grows just perceptibly darker as it rises above the western horizon. The second eclipse of 2017 could be more dramatic though. With viewing from a path across planet Earth's southern hemisphere, on February 26 there will be an annular eclipse of the Sun.

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Friday 17 February 2017

Planeterrella recreates earth's vivid lightshows in miniature

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A new device has been built to recreate Earth's auroras and other space phenomena in miniature. The planeterrella is one of just a handful in the United States.
via Science Daily
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Turning up the heat for perfect (nano)diamonds

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For use in quantum sensing, the bulk nanodiamond crystal surrounding the point defect must be highly perfect. Any deviation from perfection will adversely affect the quantum behavior of the material. Highly perfect nanodiamonds are also quite expensive and difficult to make. A cheaper alternative, say researchers, is to take defect-ridden, low-quality, commercially manufactured diamonds, and then 'heal' them.
via Science Daily

Star Shower - outer space shower curtain collection

From Hubble, Nasa et al, these fabulous outer space shower curtains are brilliant for anyone working anywhere on a space or astronomy programme.