Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Dominated by NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive halos and central bulges cut by a thin disk with thinner dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. Very faint dwarf galaxies, potentially a satellites of NGC 7814, have been discovered in deep exposures of Little Sombrero.
A long recognized naked-eye variable star, R Aquarii is actually an interacting binary star system, two stars that seem to have a close, symbiotic relationship. About 710 light years away, it consists of a cool red giant star and hot, dense white dwarf star in mutual orbit around their common center of mass. The binary system's visible light is dominated by the red giant, itself a Mira-type long period variable star. But material in cool giant star's extended envelope is pulled by gravity onto the surface of the smaller, denser white dwarf, eventually triggering a thermonuclear explosion and blasting material into space. Optical image data (red) shows the still expanding ring of debris originating from a blast that would have been seen in the early 1770s. The evolution of less understood energetic events producing high energy emission in the R Aquarii system has been monitored since 2000 using Chandra X-ray Observatory data (blue). The composite field of view is less that a light-year across at the estimated distance of R Aquarii.
The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, lies about 5,000 light-years away, a colorful study in cosmic contrasts. It shares this nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top left). Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old. M20 and M21 are easy to find with even a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. In fact, this well-composed scene is a composite from two different telescopes. Using narrowband data it blends a high resolution image of M20 with a wider field image extending to M21.
(Image: Official Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania by Robertas Dačkus)
Today, in Vilnius, Lithuania, CERN Director General, Fabiola Gianotti, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, Linas Linkevičius, in the presence of the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė, signed the Agreement admitting Lithuania as an Associate Member of CERN. The last step for the Agreement to enter into force requires final approval by the Government of Lithuania.
“Signing an agreement with CERN means recognition of Lithuanian science and talents as well as our common efforts in strengthening research, innovation and centres of excellence in the Baltic region,” said Dalia Grybauskaitė, President of the Republic of Lithuania. “We are proud of this Associate Membership - cooperation with CERN gives a new impetus for economic growth, provides an opportunity for us to take part in global research and opens a wide horizon for our youth.”
“The involvement of Lithuanian scientists at CERN has been growing steadily over the past decade, and Associate Membership can now serve as a catalyst to further strengthen particle physics and fundamental research in the country,” said Fabiola Gianotti. “We warmly welcome Lithuania into the CERN family, and look forward to enhancing our partnership in science, technology development and education and training.”
Lithuania’s relationship with CERN dates back to 2004, when an International Cooperation Agreement was signed between the Organization and the government of the Republic of Lithuania. This set priorities for the further development of scientific and technical cooperation between CERN and Lithuania in high-energy physics. One year later, in 2005, a Protocol to this Agreement was signed, paving the way for the participation of Lithuanian universities and scientific institutions in high-energy particle physics experiments at CERN.
Lithuania has contributed to the CMS experiment since 2007 when a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed marking the beginning of Lithuanian scientists’ involvement in the CMS collaboration. Lithuania has also played an important role in database development at CERN for CMS data mining and data quality analysis. Lithuania actively promoted the BalticGrid in 2005, allocating 100,000 CPU hours to CMS in 2007.
In addition to its involvement in the CMS experiment, Lithuania is part of two collaborations that aim to develop detector technologies to address the challenging upgrades needed for the High-Luminosity LHC.
Since 2004, CERN and Lithuania have also successfully collaborated on many educational activities aimed at strengthening the Lithuanian particle physics community. Lithuania has been participating in the CERN Summer Student programme and 53 Lithuanian teachers have taken part in CERN’s high-school teachers programme.
Associate Membership will allow Lithuania to take part in meetings of the CERN Council and its committees (Finance Committee and Scientific Policy Committee). It will also make Lithuanian nationals eligible for limited-duration staff appointments. Last but not least, Lithuanian industry will be entitled to bid for CERN contracts, opening up opportunities for industrial collaboration in areas of advanced technology.
With the help of software that mimics a human brain, ESA’s Gaia satellite spotted six stars zipping at high speed from the centre of our Galaxy to its outskirts. This could provide key information about some of the most obscure regions of the Milky Way.
Top to bottom, this colorful and broad telescopic mosaic links Markarian's Chain of galaxies across the core of the Virgo Cluster to dusty spiral galaxy Messier 64. Galaxies are scattered through the field of view that spans some 20 full moons across a gorgeous night sky. The cosmic frame is also filled with foreground stars from constellations Virgo and the well-groomed Coma Berenices, and faint, dusty nebulae drifting above the plane of the Milky Way. Look carefully for Markarian's eyes. The famous pair of interacting galaxies is near the top, not far from M87, the Virgo cluster's giant elliptical galaxy. At the bottom, you can stare down Messier 64, also known as the Black Eye Galaxy. The Virgo Cluster is the closest large galaxy cluster to our own local galaxy group. Virgo Cluster galaxies are about 50 million light-years distant, but M64 lies a mere 17 million light-years away.
Before a solstice Sun rose on June 21, brilliant Venus and an old crescent Moon posed together over Budapest, Hungary for this predawn skyscape. In the foreground the view looks across the Danube river from Buda to Pest toward the dome and peaks of the Hungarian Parliament building. Low clouds are in silhouette against a twilight sky. But far enough above the eastern horizon to catch the sunlight shines another seasonal apparition on that solstice morning, noctilucent clouds. Seen near sunrise and sunset in summer months at high latitudes, the night-shining clouds are formed as water vapor in the cold upper atmosphere condenses on meteoric dust or volcanic ash near the edge of space.
Singer Howie Day recorded a parody version of his song ‘Collide’ at CERN (Image: Noemi Caraban Gonzalez/CERN)
While yesterday's solstice brought summer to planet Earth's northern hemisphere, a northern summer solstice arrived for ringed planet Saturn nearly a month ago on May 24. Following the Saturnian seasons, its large moon Titan was captured in this Cassini spacecraft image from June 9. The near-infrared view finds bright methane clouds drifting through Titan's northern summer skies as seen from a distance of about 507,000 kilometers. Below Titan's clouds, dark hydrocarbon lakes sprawl near the large moon's now illuminated north pole.
Young, Dead, Compact, Disk Galaxy Surprises Astronomers, Offers New Clues to How Modern-Day Elliptical Galaxies Formed
Astronomers combined the power of a “natural lens” in space with the capability of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to make a surprising discovery—the first example of a compact yet massive, fast-spinning, disk-shaped galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the big bang. Researchers say that finding such a galaxy so early in the history of the universe challenges the current understanding of how massive galaxies form and evolve. Astronomers expected to see a chaotic ball of stars formed through galaxies merging together. Instead, they saw evidence that the stars were born in a pancake-shaped disk. The galaxy, called MACS 2129-1, is considered “dead” because it is no longer making stars. This new insight is forcing astronomers to rethink their theories of how galaxies burn out early on and evolve into local elliptical-shaped galaxies. “Perhaps we have been blind to the fact that early ‘dead’ galaxies could in fact be disks, simply because we haven’t been able to resolve them,” said study leader Sune Toft of the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.
The LISA trio of satellites to detect gravitational waves from space has been selected as the third large-class mission in ESA’s Science programme, while the Plato exoplanet hunter moves into development.
Graphene and other 2D materials are excellent candidates for use in biosensing, due to a multitude of favorable properties. The 2D nature of the materials in itself provides intrinsic advantages, because the entire material volume acts as a sensing surface. Furthermore, graphene provides excellent mechanical strength, biocompatibility, thermal and electrical conductivity, compactness, and potentially low cost.
Two types of biosensors that utilize graphene are emerging as the most promising technologies: surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and graphene field effect transistors (GFET). Although SPR methods have potentially faster readout, the technique is still experimental. GFETs rely on well-established technology of charge carrier density changes in the presence of an analyte. In a broad and intense research spur of recent, GFETs have been used as immunosensors, enzyme, DNA, protein, glucose and bacteria sensors, among other applications.
Image: Scheme of a biosensor (reproduced from Materials Today 14, 308 (2011), creative commons).
GFET is a modification of the classic silicon field-effect transistor, ubiquitous in modern electronics. In traditional transistors, silicon acts as a thin conducting channel, the conductivity of which can be tuned with applied voltage. GFETs perform in a similar manner, except that the silicon is replaced with graphene, which yields a much thinner and hence more sensitive channel region. In sensing mode, channel conductivity is perturbed in the presence of an analyte. Due to the broad electrochemical potential and ability to be functionalized, GFETs present an attractive device for biomolecules to attach to, and because of graphene's ultimate thinness and extreme surface-to-volume ratio, electrical properties are sensitive to even the smallest concentration of attached molecules. Using GFET, biosensors with a detection limit of 10 pg/mL were produced for opioid molecules.
GFETs for biosensing can be reproducibly mass-made with established fabrication technologies. Si/SiO2 wafers that are standard in electronics are used as the substrate. Graphene can be grown with chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and transferred with dry or wet methods. Electrical contacts are deposited by thermal evaporation of metals in a lithographically pre-defined configuration.
The potential of graphene in healthcare is exemplified by the project 2D-Health, funded by the UK agency EPSRC and worth £5.2m over the next five years. Graphene and other 2D materials are set to be used in innovative solutions for specific unmet clinical needs in wound care and management (relevant to diabetes), tissue rehabilitation by electrical stimulation (relevant to dementia), cell therapeutics (relevant to cardiovascular disease), and immunotherapeutics (relevant to cancer). Please fill the quick survey below!
