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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Image: An Unusual View of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)

A Large Magellanic Cloud Deep Field

Astronomy Picture of the Day Apr 9 2008

Is this a spiral galaxy?

No. Actually, it is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the largest satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The LMC is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy because of its normally chaotic appearance. In this deep and wide exposure, however, the full extent of the LMC becomes visible.

Surprisingly, during longer exposures, the LMC begins to resemble a barred spiral galaxy.

The Large Magellanic Cloud lies only about 180,000 light-years distant towards the constellation of Dorado. Spanning about 15,000 light-years, the LMC was the site of SN1987A, the brightest and closest supernova in modern times.

Together with the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), the LMC can be seen in Earth's southern hemisphere with the unaided eye.

See Astronomy Picture of the Day for links to further info.

NASA Image of the Day

Image: The Circinus Galaxy

Aglow

NASA Image of the Day Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:22 AM ET

Resembling a swirling witch's cauldron of glowing vapors, the black hole-powered core of the Circinus Galaxy lies 13 million light-years away from our own.

This galaxy, designated a type 2 Seyfert, is a class of mostly spiral galaxies that have compact centers and are believed to contain massive black holes. Seyfert galaxies are themselves part of a larger class of objects called Active Galactic Nuclei or AGN. AGN have the ability to remove gas from the centers of their galaxies by blowing it out into space at phenomenal speeds.

In the center of the galaxy and within the inner starburst ring is a V-shaped structure of gas. The structure appears whitish-pink in this composite image, made up of four filters. Two filters capture the narrow lines from atomic transitions in oxygen and hydrogen; two wider filters detect green and near-infrared light. In the narrow-band filters, the V-shaped structure is very pronounced. This region, which is the projection of a three-dimensional cone extending from the nucleus to the galaxy's halo, contains gas that has been heated by radiation emitted by the accreting black hole. A "counter-cone," believed to be present, is obscured from view by dust in the galaxy's disk. Ultraviolet radiation emerging from the central source excites nearby gas causing it to glow. The excited gas is beamed into the oppositely directed cones like two giant searchlights.

Located near the plane of our own Milky Way Galaxy, the Circinus galaxy is partially hidden by intervening dust along our line of sight. As a result, the galaxy went unnoticed until about 25 years ago.

The International Space Station

Nasa's ISS site

The Wikipedia article on the Space Station

For the latest information see NASA human spaceflight page

What's Happening on the Space Station

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 8 April 2008

Space Wire Top Stories Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:25 AM ET

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below.

Our good partners did it again: Soyuz TMA-12 (16S) launched flawlessly this morning on time at 7:16:39am EDT (see Flight Plan at bottom). Separations from second & third stage were nominal. Orbit was attained at L+ 8:45 min at an altitude of ~202 km (perigee ~189.6 km/apogee ~230.1 km, downrange ~520 km, velocity ~7.50 km/s). Antennas and solar arrays deployed nominally at orbit insertion. 16S has a planned two-day rendezvous profile, to aim for docking on Thursday, 4/10. [At orbit insertion, Soyuz unfolded two solar arrays, four Kurs antennas, one TORU/Rassvet-M antenna and one telemetry antenna. Later, the crew activated antenna heaters, set the maneuver mode, turned on the RKO orbit radio tracking system, started leak checks, etc. Two orbit adjustment burns of ~5 min duration each were executed this morning, DV1 (~25.55 m/s) at ~10:57am, DV2 (~14.27 m/s) at ~11:50am, both with the SKD main engine. After the two-day "chase", supported by several more midcourse burns, 16S will dock at the DC1 Docking Compartment on 4/10 at ~9:02am EDT.]…

New Space Station Crew Launches

Expedition 17 Crew Launches from Baikonur

Space Wire Top Stories Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:25 AM ET

Commander Sergei Alexandrovich Volkov and cosmonaut Oleg Dmitrievich Kononenko of the 17th International Space Station crew launched in their Soyuz TMA-12 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:16 a.m. EDT Tuesday to begin a six-month stay in space.

Less than 10 minutes after launch their spacecraft reached orbit, and its antennas and solar arrays were deployed shortly afterwards.

With Volkov, a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Air Force, and Kononenko is spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi. She is a South Korean flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.…

New Station Crew, Korean Astronaut Rocket Into Space

SPACE.com Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:24 AM ET

The new Expedition 17 space station crew rocketed skyward Tuesday morning.

See SPACE.com for links to further info.

The Global Environment

Global climate change, the ozone layer, and other world environmental issues

Global warming in the Wikipedia

A NASA reference article on global warming

Global Warming FAQs:

US National Climate Data Center
Natural Resources Defense Council
Union of Concerned Scientists
Skepticism About Global Warming from Brian Carnell's Skepticism.net
See Wikipedia for both sides of the debate

Information on abrupt climate change (Could something like the "Day After Tomorrow" scenario happen?)

Science @ NASA
The Weather Underground
Abrupt Climate Change FAQ from the Union of Concerned Scientists
The Wikipedia on abrupt climate change
Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises — free online book from the National Academies Press

Ozone Layer FAQs:

Ozone Hole FAQ from The Weather Underground
Ozone Depletion FAQs from faqs.org

Mapping Carbon Emissions

'Revolutionary' CO2 maps zoom in on greenhouse gas sources

EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:25 AM ET

A new, high-resolution, interactive map of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has found that the emissions aren't all where we thought.

"For example, we've been attributing too many emissions to the northeastern United States, and it's looking like the southeastern U.S. is a much larger source than we had estimated previously," says Kevin Gurney, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric science at Purdue University and leader of the project.

The maps and system, called Vulcan, show CO2 emissions at more than 100 times more detail than was available before. Until now, data on carbon dioxide emissions were reported, in the best cases, monthly at the level of an entire state. The Vulcan model examines CO2 emissions at local levels on an hourly basis.

Researchers say the maps also are more accurate than previous data because they are based on greenhouse gas emissions instead of estimates based on population in areas of the United States.…

Mars

Mars and Its Moons

Background information about Mars

NASA's Mars Rover site at JPL

A gallery of Spirit's images and slideshow

A gallery of Opportunity's images and slideshow

Google Mars

Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Odyssey

Mars Express orbiter

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

Mars Phoenix Lander

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

Opportunity update: Approaching Cape Verde

Planetary Society Weblog Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:25 AM ET

As A. J. S. Rayl reported in her latest rover update, Opportunity is now driving toward Cape Verde, the steep cliff on Victoria crater's rim that borders the shallow ramp that the rover used to enter the crater. Cape Verde looks absolutely gorgeous from a distance, with beautiful layering. It's not clear how close Opportunity will be able to get -- the ground's tilt and shadows cast from the Cape will both decrease the power available to the rover -- but the closer it gets, the more detailed the view of those layers the rover will be able to obtain with its cameras. You can see how Opportunity is switchbacking down the slope in Eduardo Tesheiner's latest route map:…

Exoplanets

Planets outside the solar system

Formation of planetary systems - including our own Solar System

A list of the currently known exoplanets

See exoplanets.org for further information.

Also see the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia. and Planet Quest at JPL

Space Missons seeking earthlike planets:

• The Kepler Mission
• The Darwin Mission
• The Space Interferometer Mission
• The Terrestrial Planet Finder observatories

Extrasolar planets in the Wikipedia

A Planetary System Like Ours

BBC and ISPs clash over iPlayer

BBC News | Science/Nature Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:23 AM ET

Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own.

They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun.

Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought.

And he told a major meeting that astronomers were on the brink of finding many more of them.…

Biology: Earth & Astro-

The origin and development of life on earth

The search for extraterrestrial life

Interesting stories on biological science

How Much of the Genome is Important?

Scientists find a fingerprint of evolution across the human genome

PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:25 AM ET

The Human Genome Project revealed that only a small fraction of the 3 billion "letter" DNA code actually instructs cells to manufacture proteins, the workhorses of most life processes. This has raised the question of what the remaining part of the human genome does. How much of the rest performs other biological functions, and how much is merely residue of prior genetic events?

Scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and the University of Chicago now report that one of the steps in turning genetic information into proteins leaves genetic fingerprints, even on regions of the DNA that are not involved in coding for the final protein. They estimate that such fingerprints affect at least a third of the genome, suggesting that while most DNA does not code for proteins, much of it is nonetheless biologically important – important enough, that is, to persist during evolution.…

Quantum Technology

Quantum computing, quantum cryptography, and other technologies specifically based on the peculiar characteristics of the quantum world.

Google on quantum computing

Google on quantum cryptography

Computer Languages for a Quantum Computer

A survey of quantum programming languages

the physics arXiv blog Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:25 AM ET

It cannot be long before somebody breathes life into a useful quantum computer. And when that happens, an entirely new breed of keyboard monkey will be born: the quantum computer programmer.

This strange animal will have to work with the weird and wonderful tools of the quantum world, such as superposition of quantum bits, entanglement, destructive measurement and the no-cloning theorem.

Clearly no conventional programming language has operators and data structures that can handle these concepts but a growing number of physcists have been developing languages that can. Today, Donald Sofge at the Naval Research Laboratory in DC has kindly surveyed them and their history.

He divides them into three categories:…

Technology

Everything is Bigger in Texas

Most powerful laser in the world fires up

EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:25 AM ET

The Texas Petawatt laser reached greater than one petawatt of laser power on Monday morning, March 31, making it the highest powered laser in the world, Todd Ditmire, a physicist at The University of Texas at Austin, said.

FYI: your editor is a native Texan who spent many years in Minnesota exile, but now resides once again in his home state of Texas.

Mobile T-Wave Imaging

Mobile T-Rays Ready To Go: Terahertz Device Offers Clear View Of Hidden Objects

ScienceDaily: Latest Science News Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:24 AM ET

Terahertz waves, which until now have barely found their way out of the laboratory, could soon be in use as a versatile tool. Researchers have mobilized the transmitting and receiving devices so that they can be used anywhere with ease.

Everybody knows microwaves – but what are terahertz waves? These higher-frequency waves are a real jack-of-all-trades. They can help to detect explosives or drugs without having to open a suitcase or search through items of clothing. They can reveal which substances are flowing through plastic tubes. Doctors even hope that these waves will enable them to identify skin cancer without having to perform a biopsy. In the electromagnetic spectrum, terahertz waves are to be found between infrared radiation and microwaves.

They can penetrate wood, ceramics, paper, plastic or fabrics and are not harmful to humans. On the other hand, they cannot pass through metal. This makes them a universal tool: They change when passing through gases, solid materials or liquids. Each substance leaves its specific fingerprint, be it explosives or water, heroin or blood.…

Saving Money with Greener Airliners

A Cleaner, Leaner Jet Age Has Arrived

NYT > Science Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:24 AM ET

JET engines are now so reliable that a pilot can go an entire career without seeing one fail. Autopilots are so good that some airlines have set up their cockpits to emit a loud beep every few minutes, to make sure the crew is still awake. And navigation is so accurate that landings can be timed to the second.

So what's left to worry about in aviation?

In a word, fuel.

Jet fuel is now the largest expense for most airlines, and for American carriers each penny increase in price per gallon costs nearly $200 million a year. The industry is also becoming increasingly nervous about what happens when that fuel is burned. Aviation is responsible for about 2 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases, and that share will rise as air travel continues to grow.

So the industry is scrambling to build greener airplanes — to save weight and improve engine efficiency, with an eye toward reducing operating costs and emissions.…

Out of Left Field

News interesting to the editor that doesn't fit into other categories

Weird stuff also goes here

What Happened to the Anasazi?

Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery

NYT > Science Download time: Apr 9 2008 8:24 AM ET

Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style.

"Salado polychrome," says a visiting archaeologist turning over a shard of broken pottery. Reddish on the outside and patterned black and white on the inside, it stands out from the plainer ware made by the Hohokam, whose territory the wanderers had come to occupy.

These Anasazi newcomers — archaeologists have traced them to the mesas and canyons around Kayenta, Ariz., not far from the Hopi reservation — were distinctive in other ways. They liked to build with stone (the Hohokam used sticks and mud), and their kivas, like those they left in their homeland, are unmistakable: rectangular instead of round, with a stone bench along the inside perimeter, a central hearth and a sipapu, or spirit hole, symbolizing the passage through which the first people emerged from mother earth.,