Astronomy Archives

March 6, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

‘Space Racers’ TV Show Brings The Adorable (And The Science) To Preschoolers

A still from Space Racers, a half-hour preschool series premiering in 2014. Credit: SpaceRacers.org

Blastoff! A new space show aimed at preschoolers aims to showcase the joy of space, while making sure that the youngsters learn as much as they can about the science. Space Racers (which is being distributed by Maryland Public Television) is coming to television screens across several countries this year, including the United States.

Universe Today was lucky enough to see one of the episodes of the series, which is made up of two short animated segments (and a live-action section in between) featuring the spaceship characters Eagle, Hawk, Robyn, Starling and Raven. There were some fun action segments showing them zooming towards the Sun and also doing a race on Mars. And in between this, preschoolers get to learn about things such as how a solar eclipse works (and how to look at it safely).

“It’s entertaining, but there’s also a very strong sense of making sure there is a curriculum part of the show that is based on science,” said Richard Schweiger, the creator of Space Racers and its executive producer. “NASA helped us develop that curriculum.”

Schweiger is the parent of two young boys, 10 and 8, and told Universe Today the idea for Space Racers germinated when they were around 3, 4 and 5. At the time, vehicle shows were very popular for them, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, the Cars movie and Jay Jay The Jet Plane. He also brought them on visits to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which he called the “coolest place in the world to bring a four-year-old.”

As an entrepreneur, Schweiger saw an opportunity. “That’s when I said, ‘Oh my gosh, what if we did a vehicle show where the characters were spaceships?’ ”

Working with a friend from college who has a masters in creative writing, Schweiger developed a screenplay and received an award in 2009. “That gave us some confidence and credibility,” he said.

He formed a company in January 2010 and raised some money from friends, family and a few other interested people. Schweiger’s group determined that instead of a film, the much better platform would be television. And they knew exactly who they wanted for subject matter experts.

“It was a simple phone call from Richard Schweiger. He explained the effort, the Space Racers team, what they were doing, and that they were looking for subject matter experts to review and clarify the information,” Ruth Netting, NASA’s communications and public engagement director, told Universe Today.

A preschool audience was a first for NASA, but the agency relished the challenge. Officials determined it would be best to “show and tell” certain concepts rather than use technical terms. There also were subtle adjustments for scientific accuracy, such as when the characters talk to each other in space. Because sound doesn’t carry there, NASA suggested the characters’ voices sound like they’re talking over a radio.

Science not only means teaching the concepts, but showing that you don’t always get things right the first time, added Tom Wagner, a NASA cryospheric scientist. “It includes learning from their elders and making mistakes. I don’t know if kids always get this today. They see stories about an app created and somebody making $19 million off of one little thing.” A “discovery aspect” is also included, meaning that kids see characters forming hypotheses and then changing their minds as more evidence comes in.

The U.S. national premiere will occur on May 2, but the show is already showing in New Zealand (where it premiered Feb. 15). Space Racers‘ international distributor (CAKE) also has commitments signed with the following locations: France, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, Israel, Taiwan and parts of Africa, with dubbing taking place for those countries who have another language besides English as a first language.

Season 1 has 26 episodes in it. There are no immediate plans to produce a Season 2, but depending on how Season 1 is received, that is something Schweiger says he is willing to consider, along with merchandising for the $5 million production. Check out the Space Racers website for more information, and preschool activities.

March 5, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Supermassive Black Hole’s Dizzying Spin Is Half The Speed Of Light

This photo combination shows the quasar RX J1131-1231 imaged by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Michigan/R.C.Reis et al; Optical: NASA/STScI

The spin rate of the most distant supermassive black hole has been measured directly, and wow, is it fast. X-ray observations of RX J1131-1231 (RX J1131 for short) show it is whizzing around at almost half the speed of light. Through X-rays, the astronomers were able to peer at the rate of debris fall into the singularity, yielding the speed measurement.

“We estimate that the X-rays are coming from a region in the disk located only about three times the radius of the event horizon — the point of no return for infalling matter,” stated Jon Miller, an an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan and a co-author on the paper. “The black hole must be spinning extremely rapidly to allow a disk to survive at such a small radius.”

Supermassive black holes are embedded in the heart of most galaxies, and are millions or even billions of times for massive than the Sun. This makes the spin speed astonishingly fast, but also gives astronomers clues about how the host galaxy evolved.

“The growth history of a supermassive black hole is encoded in its spin, so studies of spin versus time can allow us study the co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies,” stated Mark Reynolds, an assistant research scientist in astronomy at University of Michigan, another co-author on the study.

An artist's conception of jets protruding from a quasar. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser — An artist’s conception of jets protruding from a quasar. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

RX J1131 is six billion light-years away from Earth and classified as a quasar, a type of object that occurs when a lot of matter plunges into a supermassive black hole.

“Under normal circumstances, this faraway quasar would be too faint to study. But the researchers were able to take advantage of a sort of natural telescope effect known as gravitational lensing and a lucky alignment of the quasar and a giant elliptical galaxy to get a closer view,” the University of Michigan stated.

“Gravitational lensing, first predicted by Einstein, occurs when the gravity of massive objects acts as a lens to bend, distort and magnify the light from more distant objects as it passes.”

In this case, the researchers used the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton Telescope to capture the X-ray images.

The research was led Rubens Reis, a postdoctoral research fellow in astronomy the University of Michigan. The paper is published today (March 5) in Nature.

For further reading, see the Chandra website and the associated NASA press release.

Source: University of Michigan

March 5, 2014April 26, 2016 by David Dickinson

Daylight Saving Time: A Spring Forward or a Step Back?

The tricky business of keeping time... the Astronomical Clock in Prague, Czech Republic.

The time to change clocks is once again nigh.

We’ll put our unabashed bias as a lover of the night sky right up front: we loathe Daylight Saving Time. And it’s not just because of the biannual hunt through our home for the dozen-odd non-networked clocks that it instigates twice a year. For astronomers, the shift to DST means that true darkness falls much later in the evening, marking the abrupt end of the school star party season not long after March. You don’t have to go far north to about latitude 45 degrees to find areas where it doesn’t get dark until about 11PM local towards mid-summer. And sure, we gain back an extra hour of morning darkness, albeit that too soon dwindles towards summer as well.

In 2014 we (as in a majority of North America) spring forward one hour on March 9^th at 2:00 AM local. That’s just one day shy of the earliest that we can now spring forward, as the current convention established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 during the Bush administration that was enacted in 2007 now sets the beginning of DST as the 2^nd Sunday in March.

We’re now on DST for about roughly eight months or 67% of the calendar year. The European Union still shifts forward on the last Sunday of March, meaning that for a span of three weeks every March, the time lag between, say, Eastern Daylight Time and British Standard Time closes briefly to four hours before opening up again to five hours.

Current DST usage worldwide. Regions in blue currently use DST, orange have scrapped DST, and regions in red have never used DST. Credit: Paul Eggert under a wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. — Current DST usage worldwide. Regions in blue currently use DST, orange have scrapped DST, and regions in red have never used DST. Credit: Paul Eggert under a Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

And that’s just for starters.

Of course, there are holdouts even among DST observing countries worldwide. The states of Arizona and Hawaii do not observe DST, nor did a portion of Indiana until 2006. When DST is in effect, you can touch on three time zones in just a few hours’ drive from southeastern Arizona crossing southern New Mexico and into Texas east of El Paso. And you can really mix things up driving across the Navajo nation in northeastern Arizona – which observes DST, unlike the rest of the state – into the Hopi Reservation embedded within it, which rejects DST.

In Canada, most of Saskatchewan ignores DST, as do small portions of British Columbia, Quebec and Nunavut. In 2011, Russia opted to remain on Daylight Saving Time year round, and Australia is sharply divided on the issue of keeping DST. Of course, in the southern hemisphere, astronomical spring and fall are reversed, making UK/US/Australia teleconference scheduling even more confusing this time of year, not to mention the often bewildering state of affairs faced by computer programmers seeking to include every new rule and nuisance concerning local timekeeping worldwide.

1918 Poster espousing the benifits of the first DST shift for the U.S. Credit: U.S. Library of Congress image in the Public Domain. — 1918 Poster espousing the benefits of the first DST shift for the U.S. Credit: U.S. Library of Congress image in the Public Domain.

Most folks trace the notion of daylight saving time back to Benjamin Franklin, though DST saw its first implementation by Axis powers in 1916 as a cost saving measure. In the United States, the Standard Time Act of 1918 put DST into effect for the first time, and it was an on again, off again affair through most of the 20^th century.

And it’s not just your imagination: we do spring forward earlier and fall back later in the year than we used to. The Uniform Time Act was amended in 1986 to begin DST on the first Sunday in April and run until the last Sunday in October. And as mentioned previously, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 modified this even further under President George W. Bush to our present state of affairs, starting DST on the second Sunday of March through the first Sunday in November.

The primary rational behind DST use is to cut energy consumption. Studies done by the U.S. Department of Transportation during the adoption of DST during the 1970’s OPEC Oil Embargo and the energy crisis showed a small but measurable net savings during the implementation of DST, as well as a small decrease in the crime rate. On the down side, many find it difficult to adjust their body clocks to the shift, with many morning commuters now confronted with darkness.

Is DST a conspiracy of the golf crowd and/or the candy lobby? Anecdotal tales abound that some senators simply wanted few more hours on the course each evening, and “Big Sugar” (a great pro-wrestling name, BTW) was all too willing to oblige. Certainly, we do our trick-or-treating in the daylight now on the last day of October, and will soon be waiting later and later each Sunday evening for astronomical darkness and the start of the Virtual Star Party.

But there are some rumblings of change. This year, Idaho is pushing to scrap DST altogether. And, as is the norm in the often curious state of Florida, lawmakers have proposed to swing even further in the other direction, with a bill dubbed the “Sunshine Protection Act” looking to put the entire state on permanent DST year round in hopes of increasing tourism.

And just last year, a failed White House petition brought up the issue of ending DST. Perhaps their misspelling of DST as “Daylight Savings” (a frequent mistake) detracted from its credibility. What is it that makes us just want to throw that spurious “s” in there?

And that’s the wacky state of time we’re stuck with. Yes, we’ll be ferreting out those non-networked clocks around Astroguyz HQ Sunday morning, bleary from the loss of an hours’ sleep.

Our modest proposal is to do away with DST and time zones entirely, and adopt the use of Universal Time (also referred to as Zulu or Greenwich Mean Time) across the board. I know, it’s a tall order. In the meantime, we’ll be saying #DownWithDST on Twitter, as we await true astronomical darkness at an ever later hour.

And with that, we’ll open the debate up to you, the astute and intelligent readership of Universe Today. Is Daylight Saving Time worth it?

March 5, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

SOFIA Snapshots: Jupiter And Starbirth Among Achievements For Observatory Facing Sidelines

SOFIA, accompanied by an F/A-18 during the open-door testing in December of 2009. Image Credit: NASA/Jim Ross

Just weeks after becoming fully operational, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is facing storage in 2015. The airborne observatory costs NASA about $85 million annually, making it one of the more expensive missions the agency has. Yesterday, administrator Charlie Bolden told reporters that it was a matter of making choices, and that the money from SOFIA could go to missions such as Cassini.

This isn’t the first time that SOFIA faced budget challenges. Back in 2006, for example, NASA placed the program on hold due to several program and budget challenges that are outlined in this Universe Today article, but after a review the observatory program moved forward.

Much of the expense comes from flying the modified 747 airplane to carry the telescope, which was built by the Germans and has a mirror of about 2.5 meters (100 inches). NASA said it is possible that DLR could take on more of the cost, and said it is in discussions with the German space agency to figure out the telescope’s future.

The telescope saw its first light in 2010. Here are some of the special things it’s spotted in three years and about 400 hours of flying.

Mighty Jupiter’s heat

Infrared image of Jupiter from SOFIA’s First Light flight composed of individual images at wavelengths of 5.4 (blue), 24 (green) and 37 microns (red) made by Cornell University’s FORCAST camera. A recent visual-wavelength picture of approximately the same side of Jupiter is shown for comparison. The white stripe in the infrared image is a region of relatively transparent clouds through which the warm interior of Jupiter can be seen. (Visual image credit: Anthony Wesley)

This is one of the first observations that SOFIA performed. “The crowning accomplishment of the night came when scientists on board SOFIA recorded images of Jupiter,” said USRA SOFIA senior science advisor Eric Becklin in 2010. “The composite image from SOFIA shows heat, trapped since the formation of the planet, pouring out of Jupiter’s interior through holes in its clouds.”

M82 supernova

Image of M82 including the supernova at near-infrared wavelengths J, H, and K (1.2, 1.65, and 2.2 microns), made Feb. 20 by the FLITECAM instrument on SOFIA. (NASA/SOFIA/FLITECAM team/S. Shenoy)

Although a lot of observatories are checking out the recent star explosion, SOFIA’s observations found heavy metals being thrown out in the supernova. “When a Type Ia supernova explodes, the densest, hottest region within the core produces nickel 56,” said Howie Marion from the University of Texas at Austin, a co-investigator aboard the flight, a few days ago. “The radioactive decay of nickel-56 through cobalt-56 to iron-56 produces the light we are observing tonight. At this life phase of the supernova, about one month after we first saw the explosion, the H- and K-band spectra are dominated by lines of ionized cobalt. We plan to study the spectral features produced by these lines over a period of time and see how they change relative to each other. That will help us define the mass of the radioactive core of the supernova.”

A star nursery

This mid-infrared image of the W40 star-forming region of the Milky Way galaxy was captured recently by the FORCAST instrument on the 100-inch telescope aboard the SOFIA flying observatory. (NASA / FORCAST image)

In 2011, SOFIA turned its eyes to star-forming region W40 and was able to peer through the dust to see some interesting things. The telescope was able to look at the bright nebula in the center, which includes six huge stars that are six to 20 times more massive than the sun.

Stars forming in Orion

SOFIA’s mid-infrared image of Messier 42 (right) with comparison images of the same region made at other wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope (left) and European Southern Observatory (middle). (Credits: Visible-light image: NASA/ESA/HST/AURA/STScI/O’Dell & Wong; Near-IR image: ESO/McCaughrean et al.; Mid-IR image: NASA/DLR/SOFIA/USRA/DSI/FORCAST Team)

These three pictures demonstrate how one famous star-forming region — in the Orion nebula — appears different in three different telescopes. As NASA wrote in 2011, “SOFIA’s observations reveal distinctly different aspects of the M42 star formation complex than the other images. For example, the dense dust cloud at upper left is completely opaque in the visible-light image, partly transparent in the near-infrared image, and is seen shining with its own heat radiation in the SOFIA mid-infrared image. The hot stars of the Trapezium cluster are seen just above the centers of the visible-light and near-infrared images, but they are almost undetectable in the SOFIA image. At upper right, the dust-embedded cluster of high-luminosity stars that is the most prominent feature in the SOFIA mid-infrared image is less apparent in the near-infrared image and is completely hidden in the visible-light image.”

March 4, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

BUDGET 2015: Flying SOFIA Telescope To Be Shelved For ‘Higher-Priority’ Programs Like Cassini

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy 747SP aircraft flies over Southern California's high desert during a test flight in 2010. Credit: NASA/Jim Ross

NASA is prepared to axe an airborne telescope to keep “higher-priority” programs such as the Saturn Cassini mission going, according to budget documents the agency released today (March 4). We have more information about the budget below the jump, including the rationale for why NASA is looking to shelve its Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).

NASA’s has been flying the telescope for just over three years and recently took some nice snapsnots of the M82 supernova that astronomers have been eager to image. The agency’s administrator, however, said SOFIA has had its shot and it’s time to reallocate the money for other programs.

“SOFIA has earned its way, and it has done very well, but we had to make a choice,” said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden in a conference call with reporters regarding the fiscal 2015 $17.46 billion budget request. He added that NASA is in discussions with partner DLR (the German space agency) to look at alternatives, but pending an agreement, the agency will shelve the telescope in 2015.

In a short news conference focusing on the telescope only, NASA said the observatory had been slated to run for another 20 years, at a cost of about $85 million on NASA’s end per year. (That adds up to $1.7 billion in that timeframe by straight math, but bear in mind the detailed budget estimates are not up yet, making that figure a guess on Universe Today’s part.) DLR funds about 25% of the telescope’s operating budget, and NASA the rest.

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) during a flight in 2010. Credit: NASA — NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) during a flight in 2010. Credit: NASA

“SOFIA does have a rather large operating cost compared to other missions, second only to Hubble [Space Telescope],” said NASA chief financial officer Beth Robinson in the second conference call. “There is a distinct trade in the operating mission universe about how many keep going and how much you free up (for new missions).”

The telescope isn’t the only such “trade” NASA made, Robinson added. Although not an exhaustive list, she said funding for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) is not in the base budget request, nor funding to accelerate development of the Pre-Aerosol, Clouds and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission.

SOFIA examines a “unique” part of the infrared spectrum, added NASA’s Paul Hertz, who heads the astrophysics division, but he noted infrared science is also performed by the Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Atacama Large Millimeter Array. Coming up soon is the James Webb Space Telescope. Also, the budget allocates development money for a new infrared observatory called Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

Below are other notable parts of the 2015 budget. These are high-level statements missing some detail, as the rest of NASA’s documentation won’t be released publicly until late this week or early next.

The full mosaic from the Cassini imaging team of Saturn on July 19, 2013… the “Day the Earth Smiled”

– NASA’s budget falls overall to $17.46 billion, down one percent from $17.64 billion. Planetary science and human exploration each had nearly equal reductions of around three percent, with education taking the deepest cut (24%) in high-level categories as NASA moves to consolidate that directorate with other agencies.

– Funding continues for 14 operating planetary missions, which are presumably the same 14 missions that are contained here. (That list includes Cassini, Dawn, Epoxi, GRAIL, Juno, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Exploration Rover/Opportunity, Mars Express, Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity, MESSENGER, New Horizons and Rosetta.) Separately, James Webb Space Telescope funding stays about the same as fiscal 2014, keeping it on track for a 2018 launch.

– NASA plans a mission to Europa. This was identified as the “second highest priority Flagship mission for the decade” in the National Research Council planetary science decadal survey, which called for a mission for “characterization of Europa’s ocean and interior, ice shell, chemistry and composition, and the geology of prospective landing sites.” NASA has allocated $15 million in fiscal 2015 for this mission, but it’s unclear if it’s going to be a big mission or a small one as the agency is still talking with the science community (and presumably checking its budget, although officials didn’t say that). If this goes through, it would fly in the 2020s.

Reprocessed Galileo image of Europa's frozen surface by Ted Stryk (NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk) — Reprocessed Galileo image of Europa’s frozen surface by Ted Stryk (NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk)

– NASA’s humans-to-asteroid mission gets some more money. The agency requests $133 million for goals including “advancing solar electric propulsion and capture systems, and conduct of the Mission Concept Review in which the mission architecture will be established.” During the conference call with reporters, Bolden said the asteroid capture mission is a key step for NASA’s aim to have a manned Mars mission in the 2030s.

– Funding continues for NASA’s commercial crew program and Orion/Space Launch System program. It remains to be seen if the amounts allocated will be enough for what industry insiders hope for, but on a numbers basis, the Orion/SLS infrastructure funding falls to $2.78 billion (down 12% from $3.115 billion in FY 2014) and commercial crew funding increases to $848.3 million (up 20% from $696 million in FY 2014). Note the 2014 numbers are not finalized yet. NASA says the commercial funding will allow the program to maintain “competition”, although details are under wraps as the agency is evaluating proposals.

– The International Space Station is extended to 2024. That news was made public in early January, but technically speaking that is a part of the fiscal 2015 budget.

There’s far more to the budget that could be covered in a single news article, and it should be noted there was an entire aviation component as well. We encourage you to check out the budget documents below for the full story so far.

– 2015 budget presentation

– 2015 budget overview

– 2015 budget overall fact sheet

– 2015 budget category fact sheets (science, aeronautics research, space technology, etc.)

March 4, 2014December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Watch the Close Pass of NEO Asteroid 2014 DX110 Wednesday Night

The orbital path and position of Apollo NEO asteroid 2014 DX110 just a week prior to disocvery. Credit- Created using NASA/JPL's Solar System Dynamics Small-Body Database Browser.

BREAKING- No sooner than the cyber-ink was dry on this post than we got notice of another 10-metre NEO asteroid 2014 EC passing Earth at just under 0.2 times the Earth-Moon distance – less than 64,000 kilometres – on Thursday, March 6th at 21:18 UT/4:18 PM EST. And the Virtual Telescope will be carrying this passage live as well on March 6th starting at 19:00 UT/2:00 PM EST. Bring in on, universe!

The Earth-Moon system gets a close shave on the night of Wednesday, March 5^th 2014 when Near Earth Object (NEO) asteroid 2014 DX110 passes our fair planet at 216,000 miles or about 345,600 distant at around 21:06 Universal Time (UT)/ 4:06 PM EST.

About 30 metres in diameter, 2014 DX110 was discovered by the Pan-STARRS 1 survey on February 28^th, and its orbit was initially refined using follow up observations made by the Great Shefford Observatory in West Berkshire, England.

And although the asteroid is no threat to Earth or the Moon – it makes a pass 232,800 miles from our natural satellite one hour and 22 minutes after its closest passage from the Earth – the asteroid is currently listed on NASA’s risk page for a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of impact with Earth on March 4^th, 2046.

Of course, additional observations usually lower this remote possibility even further in the case of most newly discovered near Earth asteroids. Visually, 2014 DX110 isn’t expected to brighten above +15^th magnitude as it glides northward through the constellation of Camelopardalis at closest approach Wednesday night.

But the good news is, you can catch the passage of 2014 through the Earth-Moon system Wednesday night courtesy of our friends at the Virtual Telescope Project:

The webcast of the event is expected to go live at 20:30 UT, and will include live commentary.

Its been a busy last few weeks in terms of asteroid flybys, including a passage of Amor NEO asteroid 2014 DU110 earlier today at 15:54 UT/10:54 AM EST at 0.14 A.U.s or just over 20 million kilometres distant. And the folks at the Virtual Telescope Project will be covering another asteroid flyby on Sunday, March 9^th starting at 23:00 UT/6:00 PM EST to track the 180 meter asteroid 2014 CU13. This large Apollo NEO is projected to pass 8 lunar distances or over 3 million kilometres away from the Earth on March 11^th at 9:05 UT/4:05 AM EST.

It should be easy to pick out the motion of 2014 DX110 moving against the starry background at closest approach in real time. 2014 DX110 is an Apollo-class asteroid, and has an orbital period of 1192 days or about 3.26 years. It also has a fairly shallow inclined orbit relative to the ecliptic traced out by Earth’s path around the Sun, with a tilt of just over 5.7 degrees. This means that 2014 DX110 is approaching the Earth from just southward and behind it in its orbit around the Sun before crossing just inside of our orbit and northward of the ecliptic plane.

The discovery of asteroid 2014 DX110 was announced by the Minor Planet Center on Sunday, March 2^nd in electronic circular 2014-E22. The orbit of 2014 DX110 takes it just interior of Earth’s at a perihelion of 0.83 A.U.s from the Sun and out to an aphelion of 3.6 A.U.s into the realm of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Generally speaking, asteroids passing interior to the Moon’s orbit grab our attention for further scrutiny. Looking back through the European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Objects Dynamics Site, asteroid 2014 DX110 also made an undocumented close passage of Earth on March 17^th, 1998 at a minimum possible miss distance of 102,300 miles/163,680 kilometres distant, and a similar passage March 22^nd, 1982. 2014 DX110 passed sufficiently close enough to Earth on these passages to alter its orbit so that it now returns to our terrestrial neighborhood every 13 odd years during the span of the 21^st century. 2014 DX110 will be moving at a velocity of 14.8 kilometres per second relative to Earth on closest approach Wednesday night and will be inside the Earth’s Hill sphere of gravitational influence from March 4^th to March 7^th, though of course, it’s moving much too fast for capture.

2014 DX110 will be interior of the Moon’s orbit from 18:06 UT/1:06 PM EST on March 5^th until 00:07 UT March 6^th (7:07 PM EST on the night of March 5^th). The large size – about the size of an office block – and the nature of its orbit, coupled with its relatively large velocity relative to the Earth rule out any potential for 2014 DX110 being space junk in solar orbit returning to Earth’s vicinity, though such objects from the Apollo missions and the Chinese Chang’e-2 Moon mission have been recovered as Earth asteroids before.

Such an impact risk, however remote, merits further study to refine the orbit of this potentially hazardous space rock. Surveys such as PanSTARRS, the Catalina Sky Survey and the B612 Foundation’s asteroid hunting Sentinel space telescope slated for launch as early as 2017 are working to identify dangerous space rocks. The next and more difficult step will be mitigation and working to nudge these asteroids out of harm’s way, hopefully years in advance.

But you can breathe a sigh of relief Wednesday night as asteroid 2014 DX110 passes us at a safe distance. Thanks to Gianluca Masi at the Virtual Telescope Project for bringing this one to our attention!

March 4, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Jellyfish-Like Galaxy Appears To Be Shedding All Over Space

A gas stream from galaxy ESO 137-001 shines brightly in X-rays captured by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The galaxy is captured in other wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC

Is that a tractor beam trying to latch on to galaxy ESO 137-001? While the bold blue stripe in the picture above looks like a Star Trek-like technology, this new picture combination captures a stream of gas shining brightly in X-rays.

The “galactic disrobing” is taking place as the galaxy moves through the center of a star cluster full of superheated gas, scientists said. You can see another shot of the chaos below the jump.

From Earth’s perspective, the galaxy (which looks a little like a jellyfish) is found in the Triangulum Australe (The Southern Triangle) , and is part of the Norma Cluster that is about 200 million light-years from the Milky Way (our own galaxy). ESO 137-001 is moving through a galaxy cluster called Abell 3627. All of the superheated gas in this region is making ESO 137-001 bleed gas from its own structure as it goes.

“These streaks are actually hot young stars, encased in wispy streams of gas that are being torn away from the galaxy by its surroundings as it moves through space,” stated the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. “This violent galactic disrobing is due to a process known as ram pressure stripping — a drag force felt by an object moving through a fluid. The fluid in question here is superheated gas, which lurks at the centres of galaxy clusters.”

“This image also shows other telltale signs of this process, such as the curved appearance of the disc of gas and dust — a result of the forces exerted by the heated gas,” the centre added. “The cluster’s drag may be strong enough to bend ESO 137-001, but in this cosmic tug-of-war the galaxy’s gravitational pull is strong enough to hold on to the majority of its dust — although some brown streaks of dust displaced by the stripping are visible.”

This stripping has been caught in other images, such as these 2007 and 2010 pictures from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Source: Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre

A Hubble Space Telescope image of spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 moving through galaxy cluster Abell 3627. The tendrils (visible in ultraviolet light) are gas flowing away from the galaxy as it moves through superheated gas in the area. Credit: NASA, ESA

March 4, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Planets Plentiful Around Abundant Red Dwarf Stars, Study Says

Artist's impression of a planet orbiting a red dwarf star. Credit: University of Hertfordshire

Good news for planet-hunters: planets around red dwarf stars are more abundant than previously believed, according to new research. A new study — which detected eight new planets around these stars — says that “virtually” all red dwarfs have planets around them. Moreover, super-Earths (planets that are slightly larger than our own) are orbiting in the habitable zone of about 25% of red dwarfs nearby Earth.

“We are clearly probing a highly abundant population of low-mass planets, and can readily expect to find many more in the near future – even around the very closest stars to the Sun,” stated Mikko Tuomi, who is from the University of Hertfordshire’s centre for astrophysics research and lead author of the study.

The find is exciting for astronomers as red dwarf stars make up about 75% of the universe’s stars, the study authors stated.

The researchers looked at data from two planet-hunting surveys: HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) and UVES (Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph), which are both at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. The two instruments measure the effect a planet has on its parent star, specifically by examining the gravitational “wobble” the planet’s orbit produces.

An artist's concept of a rocky world orbiting a red dwarf star. (Credit: NASA/D. Aguilar/Harvard-Smithsonian center for Astrophysics). — An artist’s concept of a rocky world orbiting a red dwarf star. (Credit: NASA/D. Aguilar/Harvard-Smithsonian center for Astrophysics).

Putting the information from both sets of data together, this amplified the planet “signals” and revealed eight planets around red dwarf stars, including three super-Earths in habitable zones. The researchers also applied a probability function to estimate how abundant planets are around this type of star.

The planets are between 15 and 80 light years away from Earth, and add to the 17 other planets found around low-mass dwarfs. Scientists also detected 10 weaker signals that could use more investigation, they said.

The study will be available shortly in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available in preprint version at this link.

Source: University of Hertfordshire

February 27, 2014December 23, 2015 by Shannon Hall

Nearby Stream of Stars Reveals Past Cosmic Collision

The 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog is perhaps the original spiral nebula--a large galaxy with a well defined spiral structure also cataloged as NGC 5194. Over 60,000 light-years across, M51's spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy, NGC 5195. Image data from the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys was reprocessed to produce this alternative portrait of the well-known interacting galaxy pair. The processing sharpened details and enhanced color and contrast in otherwise faint areas, bringing out dust lanes and extended streams that cross the small companion, along with features in the surroundings and core of M51 itself. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant. Not far on the sky from the handle of the Big Dipper, they officially lie within the boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Image Credit: NASA

The tangled remains of vast cosmic collisions can be seen across the universe, such as the distant Whirlpool Galaxy’s past close encounter with a nearby galaxy, which resulted in the staggering beauty we see today.

Such colossal collisions between galaxies appear to be common. It’s likely giant galaxies, such as our own, originated long ago after smaller dwarf galaxies crashed together. Unfortunately, Hubble has yet to peer into the early Universe and catch two dwarf galaxies merging by chance. And they’re extremely rare to catch in the present nearby universe.

But for the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of a similar collision much closer to home.

The Milky Way is part of a large cosmic neighborhood. A collection of more than 35 galaxies compose the Local Group. While the largest and heavier members are the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy, there are many smaller satellite galaxies orbiting the two. Anyone who has looked at the southern sky should be familiar with the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds: two satellite galaxies of the Milky Way less than 200,000 light years away.

Andromeda has over 20 satellite galaxies circling its nearly a trillion stars. A team of European astronomers has analyzed measurements of the stars in the dwarf galaxy Andromeda II — the second largest dwarf galaxy in the Local Group — and made a surprising discovery: an odd stream of stars that simply doesn’t belong.

The team led by Dr. Nicola C. Amorisco from the Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen used the Deep Imaging Multi-Object (DEIMOS) spectrograph onboard the Keck II telescope in Hawaii in order to measure the velocities of more than 700 stars in the Andromeda II dwarf galaxy.

Stars in a large spiral galaxy will move, on average, with the rotation of the galaxy. On one side of the galaxy’s spinning disk, the stars will be moving away from the Earth, and their light waves will be stretched to redder wavelengths. On the opposite side, the stars will be moving toward the Earth, and their light waves will be compressed to bluer wavelengths.

But the stars in dwarf galaxies don’t exhibit such a pattern. Instead they move around entirely at random.

Amorisco and colleagues, however, found a rather different case present in Andromeda II. They observed a stream of stars — roughly 16,000 light years in length and 980 light years in thickness — that didn’t exhibit random motions at all. They orbit the center of the galaxy in a very coherent fashion.

But it gets better: the stars in this stream are also much colder than the stars outside the stream. In astronomy this is the equivalent of saying that the stars in this stream are much older. Amorisco’s team now believes they once belonged to a different galaxy entirely and remain only as a remnant of the past collision, which likely occurred over 3 billion years ago.

Streams of stars often result from collisions. As two galaxies begin to interact, the stars nearest the approaching galaxy feel a much stronger gravitational pull than the stars further away. Eventually the gravitational pull on the closer side of the galaxy will pull the stars from their initial galaxy, creating a stream of stars, dust and gas.

This is the smallest known example of two galaxies merging. The finding adds further evidence that mergers between dwarf galaxies plays a fundamental role in creating the large and beautiful galaxies we see today.

The paper has been published in Nature and is available for download here.

February 26, 2014December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Spectacular Views of Venus and the “Decrescent” Moon Worldwide

Did you see it? Earlier this week, we wrote about the spectacular conjunction of the planet Venus and the waning crescent Moon this week, which culminated in a fine occultation of the planet by our large natural satellite on Wednesday morning. The footprint of the occultation crossed northern Africa in the predawn hours to greet daytime observers across southern Asia. And although the pass was a near miss for many, viewers worldwide were treated to a fine photogenic pairing of Venus and the Moon.

Credit: SculptorLil — An “aircraft/Moon/Venus tri-conjunction” captured February 26th from London, UK. Credit: Sculptor Lil

This was a highlight event of the 2014 dawn apparition of Venus, and some great pics have been pouring in to us here at Universe Today via Twitter, Google+ and our Flickr pool. We also learned a new word this week while immersed in astronomical research: a decrescent Moon. We first thought this was a typo when we came across it, but discovered that it stands for a waning crescent Moon going from Last Quarter phase to New. Hey, it’s got a great ring to it, and its less characters than “waning crescent” and thus comes ready Tweet-able.

Venus and the Moon in the predawn sky captured from Israel. Credit: Gadi Eidelheit @gadieid

Some great video sequences have emerged as well, including this fine grazing sequence of a daytime crescent Venus brushing past the crescent Moon taken by Shahrin Ahmad:

Shahrin journeyed to the northern tip of Peninsular Malaysia to the town of Perlis near near the Thai border to capture the graze. “It was a really close event,” he noted. “Today, the clouds began to appear and posed some real tense moments during the occultation.”

And although many weren’t fortunate enough to be in the path of the occultation, many observers worldwide captured some very photogenic scenes of the conjunction between the Moon and Venus as the pair rose this morning, including this great video sequence from Ryan Durnall:

And clear skies greeted a series of early morning astronomers worldwide, who shared these amazing images with us:

This morning’s conjunction as imaged from Newark, New York. Credit- Brad Timerson @btimerson

Venus and the Moon the day prior to the occultation, shot by Ken Lord from Maple Ridge, British Columbia. Credit- Ken Lord.

The Moon approaching Venus on February 25th as seen from Carbon County, Pennsylvania. Credit: Tom Wildoner.

Venus and the Moon rising through the fog: Credit: Joanie Boloney @jstabila

John Chumack was also up early this morning and was able to capture this fine image of the pair rising above the University of Dayton’s PAC Center:

Venus and the Moon as seen from Dayton, Ohio. Credit: John Chumack, www.galacticimages.com

“All I had available was a point and shoot camera (not even mine!)” Chumack told Universe Today. “I’m surprised it came out okay, considering all the ambient light on Campus!!!” Chumack used a Fujifilm Finepix S1000 point and shoot camera, and went sans tripod, doing a 2″ exposure with the camera perched atop a trash can. The results of this ad hoc setup look great!

Astrophotographer Giuseppe Petricca based in Pisa, Italy north of the occultation path also grabbed this outstanding closeup image of the crescent pair:

Taken using a Nikon Coolpix P90 Bridge camera on a tripod mount. Credit: Giuseppe Petricca

“This morning was awesome!” Petricca told Universe Today. “The weather forecast showed a compact high layer of clouds, but there were enough gaps between them that allowed me to see the conjunction in a lot of different moments.”

You can compare and contrast the twin crescents of Venus and the Moon evident in the above image. “You can easily see the phase of the Planet Venus and a lot of details on the lunar surface, despite the high clouds that partially blocked the view sometimes!” Petricca noted.

And finally, I give you our own humble entry, a conjunction over suburbia snapped pre-caffeination:

We think its great that you can sometimes catch a memorable glimpse of the celestial even from your own doorstep.

And when is the next occultation of a planet by the Moon? That would be next month, when Saturn is occulted by the waxing gibbous Moon for South Africa and Brazil after sunset on March 21^st, 2014. We’re in the midst of a cycle of occultations of the ringed planet by the Moon, occurring every lunation through the final one this year on October 25th.

The next occultation of Venus occurs on October 23^rd 2014, but is only one degree from the Sun and is unobservable. The next observable event occurs on July 19^th 2015 for northern Australia in the daytime, and for a remote stretch of the South Pacific at dusk.

And its still not too late to spy Venus in the daytime today, using the nearby Moon as a guide. Here’s a handy simulation to aid you in your quest generated for mid-noon, February 26th:

stellarium — The orientation of the Moon and Venus at ~17:00UT, including a five degree Telrad bullseye. Created by the author using Stellarium.

And finally here’s handy chart of maps of occultations of Venus by the Moon for the current decade, just click to enlarge:

Occultations of Venus by the Moon from 2011-2020. Created using Occult 4.0.

Enjoy!