Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Engineers show light can play seesaw at the nanoscale

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University of Minnesota electrical engineering researchers have developed a unique nanoscale device that for the first time demonstrates

The post Engineers show light can play seesaw at the nanoscale has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Whirlpool Galaxy M51 Posters

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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.

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Price slowly rising on carbon emissions in US cap-and-trade states

Science Focus

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New York, one of the RGGI states, has nearly two Gigawatts of installed wind capacity.

Economists and policymakers frequently talk about the "social cost of carbon"—the price that society as a whole pays for disruptions caused by climate change and ocean acidification. Although there are various ways of calculating it that give different results, the US currently estimates the cost at $37 a ton. At least nationally, however, there have been no attempts to get anyone to actually pay this price for their emissions.

But locally, a number of states are trying. Most of the Northeast has banded together to form the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. This is a cap-and-trade system, where emissions allowances are auctioned by the group. Unfortunately, plans for the auctions were made prior to the boom in fracking, which has dramatically lowered the emissions of electricity generation in the US. As a result, RGGI emissions allowances have been auctioned off at the legal minimum, just under $2 a ton—well below just about any estimate of the social cost of carbon.

As a result, the group decided to take two actions. To begin with, it reduced its total cap on CO2 emissions by 45 percent. Then, it reduced the number of allowances auctioned off. It does so by holding back a pool of allowances until the auction price reaches a preset value. Currently, that value is $4/ton. As a result, three consecutive auctions have resulted in prices above $4. The reserve price is set to rise by $2 every year until it hits $10, then rise by 2.5 percent each following year.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/Q23a3pp0s80/
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Neutrino trident production may offer powerful probe of new physics

Science Focus

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The standard model (SM) of particle physics has four types of force carrier particles: photons, W and Z

The post Neutrino trident production may offer powerful probe of new physics has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Mechanical behavior of twinned aluminum revealed

Science Focus

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A research group led by Dr. Xinghang Zhang, associate professor and the Gulf Oil/Thomas A. Dietz Career Development

The post Mechanical behavior of twinned aluminum revealed has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Name, Butterfly Nebula in Scorpius space image Gift Wrap

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tagged with: galaxies and stars, stellar winds, btbgneb, butterfly nebula, bug nebula, scorpius constellation, ngc 6302, sculptured gas clouds, outer space, astronomy

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series NGC 6302, more popularly called the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula, lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius.
The central dying star cannot be seen because it's hidden within a doughnut-shaped ring of dust, which appears as a dark band pinching the nebula in the centre. The thick dust belt constricts the star's outflow, creating the classic "bipolar" or hourglass shape displayed by some planetary nebulae.
The nebula's reddish outer edges are largely due to light emitted by nitrogen, which marks the coolest gas visible in the picture. The white-coloured regions are areas where light is emitted by sulphur. These are regions where fast-moving gas overtakes and collides with slow-moving gas that left the star at an earlier time, producing shock waves in the gas (the bright white edges on the sides facing the central star).
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image credit: NGC 6302 was imaged on 27 July 2009 with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in ultraviolet and visible light. Filters that isolate emissions from oxygen, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur were used to create this composite image.

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Nanotube cathode beats large, pricey laser

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Scientists are a step closer to building an intense electron beam source without a laser. Using the High-Brightness Electron Source Lab at DOE's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a team led by scientist Luigi Faillace of RadiaBeam Technologies is testing a carbon nanotube cathode—about the size of a nickel—that completely eliminates the need for a room-sized laser system. Tests with the nanotube cathode have produced beam currents a thousand to a million times greater than the one generated with a large, pricey laser system.



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A Full Circle Rainbow over Australia

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Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula, NGC 2264 Wall Decals

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


tagged with: xmastrclst, star clusters, cone nebula, stars, starfields, nebulae, european southern observatory, christmas tree cluster, galaxies, amazing astronomy images, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous outer space photograph featuring a colour image of the region known as NGC 2264 - an area of sky that includes the sparkling blue baubles of the Christmas Tree star cluster and the Cone Nebula.

It was created from data taken through four different filters (B, V, R and H-alpha) with the Wide Field Imager at ESO's La Silla Observatory, 2400 m high in the Atacama Desert of Chile in the foothills of the Andes.

The image shows a region of space about 30 light-years across.

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image code: xmastrclst

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

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Nebula iPad Mini 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: turquoise, stars, nebula, space, clouds, gases, brown, blue, green, astronomy, beauty, nature, astronomer, hubble

Colorful turquoise sky and stars in a nebula as seen through the Hubble telescope

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iPhone Chemistry: Elements of a smartphone

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By now, we’ve got all the details about Apple’s latest iPhone, and the lines are probably forming somewhere

The post iPhone Chemistry: Elements of a smartphone has been published on Technology Org.

 
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DNA Galaxy Print

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


tagged with: galaxy, milky way, milky way galaxy, space art, astronomical illustration, lynette cook, astronomy, astronomy magazine, dna, dna galaxy, double helix, chromosomes, life in space

A spiral galaxy metamorphoses into the DNA double helix. Chemical structures and chromosomes are visible, symbolic of life in space. From a mixed media illustration created for Astronomy magazine. The original art is in a private collection.

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Name, Star Cluster Pismis 24 outer space image Gift Wrapping Paper

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tagged with: galaxies, star cluster, pismis 24, sculpting ultaviolet ionisation, super massive stars, sclustpsms, nebula ngc 6357, astronomy pictures, outer space

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 credit: NASA/ESA Hubble

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Constellation Puppis, NGC 2467 - Table Ornament Room Decal

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


tagged with: stlrnrsry, star clusters, stars, starfields, nebulae, awesome astronomy pictures, constellation puppis, the stern, star nurseries, galaxies, european southern observatory, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous outer space picture showing the area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis ("The Stern"). With an age of a few million years at most, it is a very active stellar nursery, where new stars are born continuously from large clouds of dust and gas.

The image, looking like a colourful cosmic ghost or a gigantic celestial Mandrill, contains the open clusters Haffner 18 19, as well as vast areas of ionised gas.

The bright star at the centre of the largest pink region on the bottom of the image is HD 64315, a massive young star that is helping shaping the structure of the whole nebular region.

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ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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Glaciers in the Grand Canyon of Mars?

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For decades, planetary geologists have speculated that glaciers might once have crept through Valles Marineris, the 2000-mile-long chasm that constitutes the Grand Canyon of Mars. Using satellite images, researchers have identified features that might have been carved by past glaciers as they flowed through the canyons; however, these observations have remained highly controversial and contested.

via Science Daily

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Cassini watches mysterious feature evolve in hydrocarbon sea on Saturn's moon Titan

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NASA's Cassini spacecraft is monitoring the evolution of a mysterious feature in a large hydrocarbon sea on Saturn's moon Titan. The feature covers an area of about 100 square miles (260 square kilometers) in Ligeia Mare, one of the largest seas on Titan. It has now been observed twice by Cassini's radar experiment, but its appearance changed between the two apparitions.

via Science Daily

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Simulations reveal an unusual death for ancient stars

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Certain primordial stars -- between 55,000 and 56,000 times the mass of our sun, or solar masses -- may have died unusually. In death, these objects -- among the universe's first generation of stars -- would have exploded as supernovae and burned completely, leaving no remnant black hole behind.

via Science Daily

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Hubble's Sharpest View of the Orion iPad Mini 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, ipad, mini, case

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

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Monday, 29 September 2014

American-made wind turbine blades

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Sandia National Laboratories is helping makers of wind turbine blades improve the labor productivity associated with blade fabrication

The post American-made wind turbine blades has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Monogram Christmas Tree Cluster - NGC 2264 Oval Sticker

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


tagged with: star clusters, stars, awesome astronomy pictures, xmastrclst, cone nebula, galaxies, nebulae, christmas tree cluster, monogram, monograms, starfields, european southern observatory, eso, vista, initials, initialled, monogrammed

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous outer space photograph featuring a colour image of the region known as NGC 2264 - an area of sky that includes the sparkling blue baubles of the Christmas Tree star cluster and the Cone Nebula.

It was created from data taken through four different filters (B, V, R and H-alpha) with the Wide Field Imager at ESO's La Silla Observatory, 2400 m high in the Atacama Desert of Chile in the foothills of the Andes.

The image shows a region of space about 30 light-years across.

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image code: xmastrclst

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

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Name, Orion Nebula Pillars of Dust space image Gift Wrap

Get your out-of-this-world gift wrap here! Perfect for Christmas gifts for anyone who is fascinated by what the universe holds in store for us!


tagged with: orion nebula, hubble images, outer space, emission nebulae, ultraviolet radiation, podoneb, dust pillars, astronomy picture, star galaxies, deep space universe pictures, star nursery, interstellar gas clouds, dust gas clouds

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous deep space photograph featuring dark pillars of dust doing their best to resist erosion by the intense ultraviolet radiation from the most massive of Orion's stars.
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image code: podoneb

Image credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

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Unusual Rocks near Pahrump Hills on Mars

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Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Orion Nebula Hubble Space Room Stickers

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


tagged with: orion nebula, nebula, star formation, stars, nasa, astronomy, universe, hubble photo, nature, cool astronomy, milky way, cosmos, esa, outer space, hubble telescope, hubble space telescope, astronomical, cosmology, deep space, space, natural, science, advanced camera for surveys, acs, messier 42, messier 43, space picture, space photo, space image, nebula picture, nebula photo, nebula image, pink, purple, cool space

This Hubble photograph of the Orion Nebula is a great choice for astronomy lovers!

This space photograph shows the massive Orion Nebula, and was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Orion Nebula is the birthplace of many new stars, and over 3000 stars are present in this image, surrounded by swirling clouds of gas and dust. The colours of the original photo have been enhanced slightly, and include rich oranges, pinks and purples.

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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CERN turns 60, celebrates peaceful collaboration for science

Craters on the edge

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Space Science Image of the Week: ESA’s SMART-1 snaps a trio of craters on the edge of the Luna Incognita

via ESA Space Science

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2007/02/Craters_on_the_edge

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

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Initialled Spiral Galaxy - NGC 253 Stickers

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.

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ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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Name, The Swan, Constellation Cygnus space image Gift Wrapping Paper

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tagged with: star nurseries, new star s106ir, outer space, universe, hubble images, cygnus constellation, the swan, star galaxies, star birth, hrbstslr cygsb, young hot stars, interstellar gas clouds, star forming activity, glowing hydrogen, turbulence

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous star forming region in Constellation Cygnus (The Swan). This Hubble image shows a dust-rich, interstellar gas cloud with a new-born star in the centre of the hour-glass shape. The glowing blue of the hydrogen in this nebula is due to the jets being emitted from the forming star as dust falls into into it and this causes the heating and turbulence of the hydrogen. The star, known as S106 IR, is reaching the end of its birth and will soon enter the much quieter period of adulthood known as the main stage.
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Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Eta Carinae Nebula Wall Skin

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


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This spectacular panoramic view combines a new image of the field around the Wolf–Rayet star WR 22 in the Carina Nebula (right) with an earlier picture of the region around the unique star Eta Carinae in the heart of the nebula (left).

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'Milky Way explorer' tours the solar system

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Imagine seeing the Sun, planets, and a myriad other objects in our Solar System as you have never seen them before -- in invisible radio light! The National Radio Astronomy Observatory released a new Solar System installment of its Milky Way Explorer.

via Science Daily

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Sunday, 28 September 2014

Spacesuits of the future may resemble a streamlined second skin

original post »

For future astronauts, the process of suiting up may go something like this: Instead of climbing into a

The post Spacesuits of the future may resemble a streamlined second skin has been published on Technology Org.

 
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The Crab Nebula Posters

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, nebula, science, fantasy, science fiction

The Crab Nebula is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans. This composite image was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. It is one of the largest images taken by Hubble and is the highest resolution image ever made of the entire Crab Nebula. Source; NASA.

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The little-known Soviet mission to rescue a dead space station

Science Focus

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The view of Salyut 7 from Soyuz T-13 after undocking and beginning the journey home.

The following story happened in 1985 but subsequently vanished into obscurity. Over the years, many details have been twisted, others created. Even the original storytellers got some things just plain wrong. After extensive research, writer Nickolai Belakovski is able to present, for the first time to an English-speaking audience, the complete story of Soyuz T-13’s mission to save Salyut 7, a fascinating piece of in-space repair history.

It’s getting dark, and Vladimir Dzhanibekov is cold. He has a flashlight, but no gloves. Gloves make it difficult to work, and he needs to work quickly. His hands are freezing, but it doesn’t matter. His crew’s water supplies are limited, and if they don’t fix the station in time to thaw out its water supply, they’ll have to abandon it and go home, but the station is too important to let that happen. Quickly, the sun sets. Working with the flashlight by himself is cumbersome, so Dzhanibekov returns to the ship that brought them to the station to warm up and wait for the station to complete its pass around the night side of the Earth. [1]

He’s trying to rescue Salyut 7, the latest in a series of troubled yet increasingly successful Soviet space stations. Its predecessor, Salyut 6, finally returned the title of longest manned space mission to the Soviets, breaking the 84-day record set by Americans on Skylab in 1974 by 10 days. A later mission extended that record to 185 days. After Salyut 7’s launch into orbit in April 1982, the first mission to the new station further extended that record to 211 days. The station was enjoying a relatively trouble-free start to life. [4]

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/EOhCuOCmu8E/
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Physicists find a new way to push electrons around

Science Focus

original post »

When moving through a conductive material in an electric field, electrons tend to follow the path of least

The post Physicists find a new way to push electrons around has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Breath test for TB developed

Science Focus

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US researchers develop the first breath test for TB, which they say shows promise in animal studies. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29342006#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Monogram Fires of the Flame Nebula - in Orion Oval Sticker

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


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, hfflmnb, star forming, orion constellation, young stars clusters, orion the hunter, flame nebula, awesome space picture, monogram, initialled, heavens, orions belt, european southern observatory, eso, vista, initials, monogrammed, monograms

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.

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ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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Name, Carina Nebula, Gas-cloud outer space image Wrapping Paper

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tagged with: star forming activity, star nurseries, stellar winds, young hot stars, carina nebula, galaxy stars, hubble space photography, gas clouds, outer space sculpture, hrbstslr cnbigc

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A beautiful space photograph featuring the 7500 light year distant Carina Nebula. This Hubble image shows rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new stars. As a proto star forms, the gas clouds get dragged to its surface and some gets emitted as tight jets of material travelling at hundreds of miles per second. These in turn help sculpt the gas clouds into weird and grotesque shapes, some looking like strange worms, swimming through space.
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image code: cnbigc

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Two Black Holes Dancing in 3C 75

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Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Planet, stars and Sun in Galaxy Fantasy Art Room Sticker

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


tagged with: planets, galaxy, universe, solar system, fantasy art, nebula, stars, cosmos, sun, astronomy, sci fi, science fiction

Planet, stars and sun in the galaxy fantasy art design with a graphic design of a gas planet with rings in colors of beige against a solar system of pink, mauve, and light purple, and a sun with a solar flare, and a nebula. Stars dot the cosmic sky. This fantasy art of the universe can be printed on many different products.

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Turbulent Star-Birth Region Selection Case For The iPad Mini

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tagged with: hubble, nasa, stars, star, galaxy, galaxies, space, astronomy, telescope, beautiful, photos, 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.

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Scientists refine formula for nanotube types

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Many a great idea springs from talks over a cup of coffee. But it’s rare and wonderful when

The post Scientists refine formula for nanotube types has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Monogram Crab Nebula in Taurus Stickers

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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.

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ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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Name, Tadpole Nebula, Auriga Constellation Gift Wrap

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tagged with: interstellar gas clouds, awesome astronomy images, new born stars, tnitac, tadpole nebula, auriga constellation, star nursery, galaxy stars, outer space, dust cloud astronomy, star forming activity, hot young stars

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series An awesome outer space picture featuring the Tadpole Nebula, a star forming hub located about 12000 light years away in the Auriga constellation.
This nebula is brimming with new-born stars, many as young as only a million years of age. It's called the Tadpole nebula because the masses of hot, young stars are blasting out ultraviolet radiation that has etched the gas into two tadpole-shaped pillars, called Sim 129 and130, the yellow forms that seem to be swimming away from the three red stars close to the centre of the picture.
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image code: tnitac

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

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Carina Nebula - Our Breathtaking Universe Room Stickers

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.

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image code: crnneb

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Veil Nebula Case For The iPad Mini

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: international, astronomy, space, nasa, hubble, telescope, gift, outer space, deep space, star

Supernova discoveries are reported to the International Astronomical Union's Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, which sends out a circular with the name it assigns to it. The name is the year of discovery, immediately followed by a one or two-letter designation. The first 26 supernovae of the year are designated with a capital letter from A to Z. Afterward pairs of lower-case letters are used: aa, ab, and so on.[36] Since 2000, professional and amateur astronomers find several hundreds of supernovae each year (572 in 2007, 261 in 2008, 390 in 2009). For example, the last supernova of 2005 was SN 2005nc, indicating that it was the 367th[nb 1] supernova found in 2005.[37][38] Historical supernovae are known simply by the year they occurred: SN 185, SN 1006, SN 1054, SN 1572 (Tycho's Nova) and SN 1604 (Kepler's Star). Since 1885 the letter notation has been used, even if there was only one supernova discovered that year (e.g. SN 1885A, 1907A, etc.)—this last happened with SN 1947A. "SN", for SuperNova, is a standard prefix. Until 1987, two-letter designations were rarely needed; since 1988, however, they have been needed every year.

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