Steps into Space - Commercialisation, Occupation, Colonization: 06/24/14

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

It's like flying there

It's like flying there
..or should that be 'spacecrafting there'? I love these deep zooms - imagine it on the Oculus Rift!

#outerspace

Friends of NASA originally shared:

Zooming in on globular star cluster NGC 6362 | ESO
This video starts with a broad view of the Milky Way. We close in gradually on a fuzzy blob in the southern constellation of Ara (The Altar). This is one of more than 150 globular star clusters that orbit the center of our galaxy. The main image of the cluster used here comes from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile and the final detailed view of the center from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Credit: ESO/NASA/ESA/Hubble, Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org), Digitized Sky Survey 2
Music: delmo "acoustic"

+European Southern Observatory (ESO)
+European Space Agency, ESA
+Hubble Space Telescope

#ESO #Space #Astronomy #Hubble #Stars #Globular #Cluster
#NGC6362 #Ara #TheAltar #LaSilla #Observatory #Chile #Atacama #Desert #ESA #Cosmos #Universe

» see original post https://plus.google.com/116000959328274308893/posts/CxkdaPm1AZc
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When it rains, it pours ... on the sun

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Just like on Earth, the sun has spells of bad weather, with high winds and showers of rain. But unlike storms on Earth, rain on the sun is made of electrically charged gas (plasma) and falls at around 200,000 kilometers an hour from the outer solar atmosphere, the corona, to the sun's surface. Now a team of solar physicists has pieced together an explanation for this intriguing phenomenon with imagery that shows a 'waterfall' in the atmosphere of the sun.

via Science Daily

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Titan's building blocks might pre-date Saturn

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A combined NASA and European Space Agency (ESA)-funded study has found firm evidence that nitrogen in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan originated in conditions similar to the cold birthplace of the most ancient comets from the Oort cloud. The finding rules out the possibility that Titan's building blocks formed within the warm disk of material thought to have surrounded the infant planet Saturn during its formation.

via Science Daily

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Measuring the mass of 'massless' electrons: Individual electrons in graphene are massless, but apparently not when they move together

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Graphene, a one-atom-thick carbon sheet, has taken the world of physics by storm -- in part, because its electrons behave as massless particles. Yet these electrons seem to have dual personalities. Phenomena observed in the field of graphene plasmonics suggest that when the electrons move collectively, they must exhibit mass.

via Science Daily

Beautiful Heart of The Milky Way Galaxy Poster

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

Beautiful Heart of The Milky Way Galaxy Poster

tagged with: nasa, galaxies, galaxy, space, prints, posters, poster, print, milky way, stars, nebula, fantasy, science fiction

A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA on Nov. 10. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609. In celebration of this International Year of Astronomy, NASA is releasing images of the galactic center region as seen by its Great Observatories to more than 150 planetariums, museums, nature centers, libraries, and schools across the country. The sites will unveil a giant, 6-foot-by-3-foot print of the bustling hub of our galaxy that combines a near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and an X-ray view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory into one multiwavelength picture. Experts from all three observatories carefully assembled the final image from large mosaic photo surveys taken by each telescope. This composite image provides one of the most detailed views ever of our galaxy's mysterious core. Participating institutions also will display a matched trio of Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra images of the Milky Way's center on a second large panel measuring 3 feet by 4 feet. Each image shows the telescope's different wavelength view of the galactic center region, illustrating not only the unique science each observatory conducts, but also how far astronomy has come since Galileo. The composite image features the spectacle of stellar evolution: from vibrant regions of star birth, to young hot stars, to old cool stars, to seething remnants of stellar death called black holes. This activity occurs against a fiery backdrop in the crowded, hostile environment of the galaxy's core, the center of which is dominated by a supermassive black hole nearly four million times more massive than our Sun. Permeating the region is a diffuse blue haze of X-ray light from gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by outflows from the supermassive black hole as well as by winds from massive stars and by stellar explosions. Infrared light reveals more than a hundred thousand stars along with glowing dust clouds that create complex structures including compact globules, long filaments, and finger-like "pillars of creation," where newborn stars are just beginning to break out of their dark, dusty cocoons.Courtesy: NASA.

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Hang out with Rosetta

How we get to a comet: join Rosetta mission experts in a Google+ Hangout, Thursday, 26 June, 11:30 GMT (13:30 CEST)

via ESA Space Science

https://plus.google.com/events/c9al7u9d08ggp1acn492tcjpldc

Puzzling X-rays point to dark matter

Astronomers using ESA and NASA high-energy observatories have discovered a tantalising clue that hints at an elusive ingredient of our Universe: dark matter.

via ESA Space Science

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Puzzling_X-rays_point_to_dark_matter

Moving beyond total annihilation in dealing with invasive species

Science Focus

original post »

The California clapper rail.

Fish and Wildlife Service

Invasive species take a toll on their surroundings. But that doesn’t mean that invaders are universally destructive. Ecosystems are dynamic, and once an invasive species arrives, it can develop intricate relationships with other organisms. Sometimes, an invader becomes an integral link in a delicate ecological web, complicating efforts to eradicate it.

One example lives in the salt marshes of Northern California. An aggressive species of cordgrass called Spartina alterniflora arrived in California in the 1970s and has taken hold in San Francisco Bay, hybridizing with a native species, Spartina foliosa. The invasive hybrid grows quickly, displacing native species and choking precious waterways. But it has also become a vital nesting and foraging habitat for the endangered California clapper rail. As soon as land managers began efforts to eradicate it, the local clapper rail population plummeted by nearly half.

It’s quite an ecological conundrum: eradicating the invasive Spartina hybrid puts the vulnerable clapper rail at risk, while leaving the invader alone would result in further damage to the marshes.

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

#science
» see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/zzbGUDvSbNE/
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Manipulating and detecting ultrahigh frequency sound waves

Science Focus

original post »

Gold plasmonic nanostructures shaped like Swiss-crosses can convert laser light into ultrahigh frequency (10GHz) sound waves. An advance has been achieved towards next generation ultrasonic imaging with potentially 1,000 times higher resolution than today’s medical ultrasounds. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated a technique for producing, detecting and controlling ultrahigh frequency sound waves at the nanometer scale. Through a combination of subpicosecond laser pulses and unique nanostructures, a team led by Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, produced acoustic phonons – quasi-particles of vibrational energy that move through an atomic lattice as sound waves – at a frequency of 10 gigahertz (10 billion cycles per second). By comparison, medical ultrasounds today typically reach a frequency of only about 20 megahertz (20 million cycles per second.) The 10GHz phonons not only promise unprecedented resolution for acoustic imaging, they also can be used to “see” subsurface structures in nanoscale systems that optical and electron microscopes cannot. “We have demonstrated optical coherent manipulation and detection of the acoustic phonons in nanostructures that offer new possibilities in the development of coherent phonon sources and nano-phononic devices for chemical sensing,

The post Manipulating and detecting ultrahigh frequency sound waves has been published on Technology Org.

#physics
» see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/34Hg_WxEcTk/
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Gaia grapples with stray light

Science Focus

original post »
The orbiting Gaia telescope will lose a very small level of performance because stray light is getting inside the observatory, the European Space Agency says.
#science
» see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27824565#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Fires of the Flame Nebula - in Orion Rectangular Sticker

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

Fires of the Flame Nebula - in Orion Rectangular Sticker

tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, hfflmnb, star forming, orion constellation, young stars clusters, orion the hunter, flame nebula, awesome space picture, heavens, orions belt, 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.

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image code: hfflmnb

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

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The Iris Nebula in a Field of Dust

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Tarantula Nebula Hubble Space Room Decals

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

Tarantula Nebula Hubble Space Room Decals

tagged with: tarantula nebula, hodge star cluster, astronomy, large magellanic cloud, nebula photo, milky way, universe, hubble telescope, cosmos, nature, hodge 301, star cluster, 30 doradus nebula, r136, stars photo, stars, nasa, esa, outer space, hubble space telescope, hubble photo, astronomical, astrophotography, cosmology, space photo, space picture, space image, deep space, nebula picture, nebula image, natural, science, burgundy, maroon, abstract, pink, purple, magenta, cool space, cool astronomy

Hubble photograph of the Tarantula Nebula & Hodge 301 Cluster

This is a photograph of the Tarantula Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hodge 301 star cluster can be seen in the lower right hand corner (may not be visible on some products). This image has beautiful shades of pink and magenta, against a dark background studded with stars.

Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)

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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If you like this product, you can find more like it in my store:

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Click here to see a wide range of other astronomy & space designs.

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Tarantula Nebula Hubble Space Room Decal

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

Tarantula Nebula Hubble Space Room Decal

Helix Nebula iPad Mini 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!

Helix Nebula iPad Mini Covers

tagged with: helix, nebula, eye, god, nasa, images, hubble, planetary, glowing, night, skies, space, starfield, astronomy, awesome, telescope

The image is of the Helix Nebula thanks to NASA's Hubble program.

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Helix 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!

Helix Nebula Case For The iPad Mini

tagged with: helix, nebula, eye, god, nasa, images, hubble, planetary, glowing, night, skies, space, starfield, astronomy, awesome, telescope

Steel’s inner strength

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A long-term collaboration between the University and industry has resulted in a super-strong form of steel, which is now being manufactured in the UK for use as stronger and cheaper armour for front-line military vehicles. By introducing perforations into the steel, we create a large number of edges, which interrupt the path of incoming projectiles Peter Brown, MoD For thousands of years, steel has been used to make or do just about whatever we ask of it, from ancient suits of armour to modern skyscrapers. It has been mass produced since the mid-19th century, and global production of this most ubiquitous of materials currently stands at more than 1.4 billion metric tonnes per year. Although all steel consists primarily of iron and carbon, it has an almost infinite variety of properties, depending on the type or amount of other elements added to the mix, or the temperature at which the steel is produced. This complexity makes steel extremely versatile, but also very difficult to understand and to design from the atomic level. Professor Harry Bhadeshia of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy has spent the past three decades researching the nature of steel to develop new alloys for

The post Steel’s inner strength has been published on Technology Org.

#materials
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Yes Posters

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

Yes Posters

tagged with: yes, constellation, positive, motivational, night, sky, stars, astronomy, funny, poster, confirmation bias, astrology, starstuff, gaze, ingenuity, maverick, different, dissenter, dissentient, dissident, eccentric, individualist, offbeat, original, radical, rebel, astrophysics, selenology, sky watching, stargazing, space, humor

YES is a constellation formed from many NOs.

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Spiral Galaxy - NGC 253 Oval Stickers

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

Spiral Galaxy - NGC 253 Oval Stickers

tagged with: spgxy253, breathtaking astronomy images, galaxies, stars, spiral galaxy, european southern observatory, eso, vista, spiral galactic arms

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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image code: spgxy253

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

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The Carina Nebula Eta Carina Nebula NGC 3372 Room Decals

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

The Carina Nebula Eta Carina Nebula NGC 3372 Room Decals

tagged with: the carina nebula, eta carina nebula, ngc 3372, carina nebula, eta carina, carina, nebula, stars, outer space, astronomy

The Carina Nebula (also known as the Great Nebula in Carina, the Eta Carina Nebula, or NGC 3372) is a large bright nebula that surrounds several open clusters of stars. Eta Carinae and HD 93129A, two of the most massive and luminous stars in our Milky Way galaxy, are among them. The nebula lies at an estimated distance between 6,500 and 10,000 light years from Earth. It appears in the constellation of Carina, and is located in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm. The nebula contains multiple O-type stars.

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Hyper Space Explosion in Color Cover 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!

Hyper Space Explosion in Color Cover For The iPad Mini

tagged with: snr 0509, supernova, hubble, bubble, large, magellanic, cloud, lmc, kaleidoscope, digital, space, art, digital art

Digital artwork based on a NASA Hubble image of SNR 0509 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) of a supernova bubble. A hubble bubble.

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Raw Data: Defying Gravity, a Businessman Helped to Understand It

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A businessman who was interested in a solution to gravity ended up contributing significantly to better understanding it. But it remains a force that confounds scientists.

via New York Times