quote:Space Tornado! Cosmic Front Packs a Punch
WASHINGTON, D.C.—High-energy particles spewing out of a young star in a nearby stellar nursery are plowing through interstellar clouds and creating a giant spiral structure in space that looks like a glowing, rainbow-colored tornado, scientists said today.
The star spewing the particle jet lies 480 light-years away in a star-forming region known as Chamaeleon I.
In a photograph taken with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, that star is actually not visible because it is located off the upper edge of the image.
The luminous tornado-shaped structure is known as a Herbig-Haro object and estimated to be about 0.3 light years, or nearly 2 trillion miles, long and shows up in the infrared.
Herbig-Haro objects are formed when highly energized particles—usually electrons and protons—are ejected from a young star and collide with nearby clouds of interstellar dust and gas. The jet particles stream out of the stars at speeds of more than 100 miles per second and heat the surrounding clouds to an infrared glow that can be detected.
Astronomers have known about Herbig-Haro objects for decades but have never observed one with this unique spiral structure; this particular particle jet is known as Herbig-Haro 49/50, or HH 49/50.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like this one,” said Giovanni Fazio, a physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) who was not involved in making the discovery.
“We were really quite stunned by it,” he told SPACE.com.
As particle jets move through the clouds, they create triangular shockwaves, similar to the wake left behind a speeding boat.
The reason the tornado appears multi-colored is because particles at the tip of the jet are more excited than those nearer to the star where they are emanating from. The excited particles radiate short-wavelength emissions, which in this color-coded image appear blue; emissions from particles near the wide base of the jet are longer and appear red.
Scientists aren’t sure what is behind HH 49/50’s unique spiral shape. One hypothesis is that magnetic fields in the region are somehow twisting the particle jets; another idea is that the shockwaves are creating eddies in the dust clouds which then glow and become visible.
Scientists also don’t know whether the star at the center of the image is associated with HH 49/50 or not.
If it is, then it could mean that the image actually shows HH objects from two stars colliding with each another. The more likely option, scientists say, is that the center star is actually located much further away and only looks like it’s associated with HH 49/50 because it happened to be in Spitzer’s line of sight when the image was taken.
The team that made the discovery was headed by John Bally of Colorado State University. It announced today at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
FF de (artikel)link erbij vermelden.... in dit gevalquote:
Animaties (quicktime)quote:Stardust’s sample capsule has landed at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) at the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, southwest of Salt Lake City.
DROPTEST FOTO'S
Search is on for Capsule
The Stardust sample return capsule successfully skyrocketed through the Earth’s atmosphere and has landed under parachute within the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR). An unofficial touch down was 5:10 a.m. EST.
There was palpable heavy-breathing here at the Lockheed Martin Mission Support Area, waiting for a drogue parachute to being stabilizing the falling capsule for its main parachute.
"Everything worked so well. What an exciting moment," said, Allan Cheuvront, Stardust spacecraft engineer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft. In September 2004, the company’s Genesis spacecraft smashed into Utah due to improper placement of recovery system components.
Helicopters dispatched to the capsule’s landing site have detected it’s beacon.
Dit reisje duurt ongeveer 10 jaar tot ie bij de manen van pluto is.quote:NASA’s Pluto Probe Set for Flight
A NASA probe bound for the planet Pluto and the distant icy realm of the Kuiper Belt is spending its final days on Earth as it nears its Jan. 17 launch date.
quote:NASA'S HUBBLE REVEALS THOUSANDS OF ORION NEBULA STARS
In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star formation region is one of astronomy's most dramatic and photogenic celestial objects.
"Orion is a bustling cauldron of activity. This new large-scale Hubble image of the region reveals a treasure-house of beauty and astonishing detail for comprehensive scientific study," said Jennifer Wiseman, NASA's Hubble program scientist.
The crisp image is a tapestry of star formation. It varies from jets fired by stars still embedded in their dust and gas cocoons to disks of material encircling young stars that could be the building blocks of future solar systems.
In a mosaic containing a billion pixels, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys uncovered thousands of stars never seen before in visible light. Some are merely one-hundredth the brightness of previously viewed Orion stars.
Among the stars Hubble spotted for the first time in visible light in Orion were young brown dwarfs and a small population of possible binary brown dwarfs (two brown dwarfs orbiting each other). Brown dwarfs are so-called "failed stars." These cool objects are too small to be ordinary stars, because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion in their cores the way the sun does. Comparing the characteristics of newborn stars and brown dwarfs in their natal environment provides unique information about how they form.
"The wealth of information in this Hubble survey, including seeing stars of all sizes in one dense place, provides an extraordinary opportunity to study star formation," said observation leader Massimo Robberto of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore. "Our goal is to calculate the masses and ages for these young stars, so that we can map their history and get a general scenario of the star formation in that region. We can then sort the stars by mass and age and look for trends."
Orion is a perfect laboratory to study how stars are born, because it is 1,500 light-years away, a relatively short distance within our 100,000 light-year wide galaxy. Astronomers have a clear view into this crowded stellar maternity ward, because massive stars in the center of the nebula have blown out most of the dust and gas in which they formed, carving out a cavity in the dark cloud of gas and dust.
"In this bowl of stars we see the entire formation history of Orion printed into the features of the nebula: arcs, blobs, pillars, and rings of dust that resemble cigar smoke," Robberto said. "Each one tells a story of stellar winds from young stars that impact the environment and the material ejected from other stars. This appears to be a typical star-forming environment. Our sun may have been born 4.5 billion years ago in a cloud like this one."
This extensive study took 105 Hubble orbits to complete. All imaging instruments aboard the telescope were used simultaneously to study Orion. The Advanced Camera mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full moon.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington.
Robberto presented the findings today at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington. For images and information about this research on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home
Ja echt nieuwquote:Op maandag 16 januari 2006 19:20 schreef pfaf het volgende:
Er is ook een nieuwe Hubble-release:
[afbeelding]
[..]
quote:Op donderdag 12 januari 2006 19:47 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
Hubble's Sharpest View Of The Orion Nebula Ever
[afbeelding]
hier een iets grotere versie
385.09MB TIF formaat ( 1800 x 1800 )
Alweer is de tijd uitgesteld vanwege de hoge windshelheidquote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 19:15 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
T-4 minutes and holding
Changing launchtime
New time 1:45 EST
En weer uitgesteld naar 2:30 ESTquote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 19:40 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
[..]
Alweer is de tijd uitgesteld vanwege de hoge windshelheid
2:10 EST (20:10 NL)
En weer een uitstelquote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 19:59 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
[..]
En weer uitgesteld naar 2:30 EST
Wil niet echt lukken vandaag
Ze kunnen nog lanceren tot 3:25 EST
T-4 !!quote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 21:18 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
Pickup count in 30 sec
tot 14 Feb is het lanceer vensterquote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 21:05 schreef Marvin-THE-MARTiAN het volgende:
het begin langzaam aan te dringen voor vandaag... Ik weet niet wanneer alle lanceer mogelijkheden zijn echter er is natuurlijk altijd het risico dat hij zijn launch window met Jupiter mist en dn komt ie pas in 2018/2020 aan...
maar goed ik zit te wachten met een dus ik zit wel goed; laat maar komen die lancering!!!
ok.. ik zal een request plaatsen om dit topic "op te schoonen"quote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 21:30 schreef Quarks het volgende:
Ik stel voor dat we dit topic schoon houden en de New Horizons slowchat in een nieuw topic zetten of in NASA lancering op CNN
Kan beter een New Horizons topic maken...quote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 21:30 schreef Quarks het volgende:
Ik stel voor dat we dit topic schoon houden en de New Horizons slowchat in een nieuw topic zetten of in NASA lancering op CNN
Lekker spannend topic dan met al die tussentijdse jaarlijkse reports tot 2015...quote:Op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 21:32 schreef -CRASH- het volgende:
[..]
Kan beter een New Horizons topic maken...
Maar wel ff om de zoveel tijd een kick naar boven geven.
Anders vinden we het niet meer over 10 jaar
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