Sweeping through this stunning field of view, Comet 71P/Clark really is in the foreground of these cosmic clouds. The 2 panel telescopic mosaic is color enhanced and is about 5 degrees (10 full moons) across. It captures the faint comet's position on the night of May 23/24 over 5 light-minutes from Earth, very near the line-of-sight to bright star Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. In the frame Antares, also known as Alpha Scorpii, is at bottom center surrounded by a dusty cosmic cloud reflecting the cool giant star's yellowish light. Globular star cluster M4 shines just right of Antares, but M4 lies some 7,000 light-years away compared to Antares' 500 light-year distance. Slightly closer than Antares, Rho Ophiuchi's bluish starlight is reflected by the dust in molecular clouds toward the top. You can spot the small coma and short tail of the comet as a faint smudge near the center of the left edge of the frame. Just look for the comet's striking greenish color, produced as diatomic carbon molecules fluoresce in sunlight.
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo appearing as a faint, extended object in small telescopes. We see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight. This remarkably distinct and detailed galaxy portrait covers an area about the angular size of the full moon. In it, the giant galaxy's yellowish core is dominated by the light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core, spiral arms filled with young blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions sweep past a smaller satellite galaxy at the lower left, reminiscent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Massive Dying Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang
Every second a star somewhere out in the universe explodes as a supernova. But some super-massive stars go out with a whimper instead of a bang. When they do, they can collapse under the crushing tug of gravity and vanish out of sight, only to leave behind a black hole. The doomed star, named N6946-BH1, was 25 times as massive as our sun. It began to brighten weakly in 2009. But, by 2015, it appeared to have winked out of existence. By a careful process of elimination, based on observations by the Large Binocular Telescope and the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, the researchers eventually concluded that the star must have become a black hole. This may be the fate for extremely massive stars in the universe.
A cosmic snapshot from May 19, this colorful telescopic field of view spans about 1 degree or 2 full moons on the sky. Spiky in appearance, foreground Milky Way stars are scattered toward the royal constellation Cepheus while stars of open cluster NGC 6939 gather about 5 thousand light-years in the distance near the top of the frame. Face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6946 is toward the lower left nearly 22 million light-years away. The helpful red lines identify recently discovered supernova SN 2017eaw, the death explosion of a massive star nestled in the galaxy's bluish spiral arms. In fact in the last 100 years, 10 supernovae have been discovered in NGC 6946. By comparison, the average rate of supernovae in our Milky Way is about 1 every 100 years or so. Of course, NGC 6946 is also known as The Fireworks Galaxy.
The inquiry into the crash-landing of the ExoMars Schiaparelli module has concluded that conflicting information in the onboard computer caused the descent sequence to end prematurely.
Graphenea showed presence at this year’s NanoTech conference and trade show in Washington, DC. The world’s largest nanotech event was co-located with the National Innovation Summit, the National SBIR/STTR Conference, and TechConnect 2017, which made for the largest global meeting on physical and life sciences. Graphenea had a booth at the exhibit and CEO Jesus de la Fuente gave a talk on the role of graphene in next-generation lithium-sulfur batteries. Graphene plays a significant role in improving the cathodes of these batteries of the future.
Photo: The Spain pavillion at NanoTech 2017.
Delivering application-focused research from top international academic, government and private industry labs, NanoTech is an annual event uniquely designed to identify new technology trends, development tools, product opportunities, R&D collaborations, and commercialization partners. The co-located TechConnect strives to accelerate the commercialization of innovations out of the lab and into industry. The Technical Program spotlights applications focused innovations, materials and devices emerging from industrial, government and academic labs worldwide. The Innovation Partnering Program gathers market-ready, commercially-viable innovations into the largest global technology accelerator program.
Graphenea is always glad to participate in events that bring together innovators, funding agencies, national and federal labs, international research organizations, universities, tech transfer offices and investment and corporate partners. Such cross-sectoral meetings are necessary in today’s connected world and offer a good opportunity to find common interests between technology stakeholders.
Photo: Nanotech 2017 - a busy meeting place.
