NASA’s Swift satellite has spotted one of the most powerful stellar flares ever seen. Fortunately, this killer blast happened on a star located about 135 light-years from Earth. Had the flare occurred on the Sun, it would have triggered a mass extinction on our planet. The flaring star, II Pegasi, has a stellar companion in a very tight orbit. Their interaction has caused the tidally locked stars to spin very quickly. It’s this rapid rotation that leads to powerful stellar flares.
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The Early Earth’s Atmosphere was Similar to Titan
The thick organic haze that shrouds Titan is similar to what we had here on Earth billions of years ago; an environment that might have helped early life get a foothold. NASA researchers set up several experiments that reproduced the atmosphere in the early Earth and Titan today. The Earth experiments produced tremendous amounts of organic material, which could have been one of the ways life first appeared.
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Defense Department Satellite Launched
A Boeing Delta IV rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Saturday, carrying a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program F17 satellite into orbit. The rocket lifted off at 1353 UTC (8:53 am EST), and the satellite was placed into polar orbit shortly after. The new military satellite will be able to view clouds, measure winds, soil moisture, ice and snow coverage, and pollution. It’s equipped with visible and infrared sensors, so that it can view the Earth day and night.
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What’s Up this Week: November 6 – November 12, 2006
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The hottest event of the year is about to happen as mid-week brings up a transit of Mercury. If you haven’t had a chance to view comet SWAN yet, now is the time before it fades west. You’ll find it in the constellation of Hercules. There’s still many other things to explore as we take a look at the Andromeda galaxy family this week as well. So turn an eye to the sky, because…
Here’s what’s up
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Podcast: Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
It’s all relative. How many times have you heard that? Well, when you’re traveling close to the speed of light, everything really is relative; especially the passage of time. This week, Fraser and Pamela give you the skinny on Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. After listening to a few thought experiments, you too should be able to wrap your head around this amazing theory.
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eZipSky Astronomical Text Messages
I hope you all know by now that Universe Today publishes a daily guide of what you can see in the night sky every single night – Astronomy What’s Up. I just found out about a related service that sounds interesting. It’s called eZipSky, and they’ll send your cellphone an SMS text message whenever there’s something interesting happening in the night sky. Another cool feature is that they can send you an alert 30 minutes before the International Space Station will fly over your part of the sky.
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Super-Supermassive Black Hole
The Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the National Radio Astronomical Observatory teamed up to produce this composite image of galaxy cluster MS0735.6+7421, located about 2.5 billion light-years from Earth. The cluster contains dozens of galaxies held together by gravity. A truly supermassive black hole lurks at the heart of this cluster, containing more than a billion solar masses. The red areas are twin jets of material streaming away from the black hole.
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First Light Looks Bright for Hinode
Japan’s newly-launched Hinode spacecraft has captured its first images of the Sun. Formerly known as Solar-B, the spacecraft launched on September 22, and opened its instruments to space on October 23, 2006. This image shows granules on the Sun’s surface, each of which is thousands of kilometres across. Over the course of the next month, mission controllers will continue to put the spacecraft through its paces. They expect to release their first scientific data in December.
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Year in Space 2007 Desk Planner
Once again, the Year in Space 2007 calendar is sponsoring Universe Today as we move towards the holidays. I’ll be featuring the calendar on the website and in the newsletter until the end of the year. This 144-page spiral-bound desk calendar has 53 full-colour space photographs, so you can gaze into infinity as you plan your week. It’s filled with space trivia, sky events, daily Moon phases, and additional calendars. Universe Today readers can save at least 25% off the suggested retail price and pay only $11.95 USD by ordering online. There’s free shipping in the U.S.,and deeper discounts for multiple copies.
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Sea Launch Lofts Newest XM Broadcast Satellite
A Zenit-3SL rocket blasted off from the floating Sea Launch platform on Tuesday, placing the newest broadcast satellite for XM Satellite Radio into orbit. The rocket lifted off at 2349 UTC (6:49pm EST), and reached a geosynchronous transfer orbit a few minutes later. The Boeing-built XM-4 satellite will join a fleet of three other spacecraft for XM Satellite Radio, and provide digital radio programming to receivers in North America.
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