Posted on by VirtualAstro

Night Sky Guide: March 2012

Special thanks to Ninian Boyle astronomyknowhow.com for information in parts of this guide.

March brings us some wonderful sights to see in the night skies for those who are armed with binoculars, telescopes or just their eyes.

The brightest object in the night sky this month (apart from the Moon) is the Planet Venus. Venus and mighty Jupiter have already been providing a treat n the western skies for naked eye observers, but by the middle of the month the two planets will inch even closer. There are other planetary conjunctions this month as well.

The stars of spring are starting to become more prominent and the mighty constellation of Orion sets earlier in the west as the nights roll on. The constellations of Leo, Coma Berenices and Virgo herald the region of the sky known as the “Realm of the Galaxies” more so as the month moves on.

We have Comet Garradd visible all night long through binoculars, as it starts to fade from 7th to 8th magnitude. You can find it near the north celestial North pole near the star Kochab or Beta Ursa Minoris (The little Bear) on the 6th, and the star Dubhe in the Plough on the 21st. Scan this region with binoculars and you should pick it up as a faint misty patch of light.

The Sun continues to become more active as it approaches “Solar Maximum” in 2013 and this is a time when we need to be on our guard for sudden bursts of activity which can result in aurora for observers in high latitudes. Some large geomagnetic storms in the past have resulted in Aurora being spotted as far south as regions near the Caribbean and Mediterranean. Will we get a show like this soon?

Planets

There are going to be some excellent conjunctions this month, as planets and even sometimes the Moon are close together and appear in the same region of the sky.

Mercury. Keep an eye out for the tiny planet Mercury. This planet (closest one to the Sun) is notoriously difficult to see. The best time to try and catch it is on the 4th, low down near the western horizon shortly after sunset. Make sure the Sun has fully set if you plan to sweep the area with binoculars. Never ever look at the sun directly with binoculars, telescopes or your naked eyes – This will damage your eyes or permanently blind you!

Mercury just after sunset - Beginning of March

Mars reaches what we call ‘opposition’ on the 3rd, when it is directly opposite the Sun in the sky from our point of view here on Earth. This is the best time to view the “Red Planet” with a telescope. Try and see if you can spot its ice caps and dark markings. It will need a clear steady sky and a good magnification to see these well, try different coloured filters and even have a go at webcam imaging this amazing Planet. On the 7th the nearly full Moon lies 10-degrees to the south of the planet Mars. You’ll know its Mars by its distinct orange/pink colour.

Mars

Venus & Jupiter bring us the highlight of the month when they appear to be very close to each other and are just separated by 3 degrees on the 15th of March. The brightest out of the pair will be Venus with Jupiter below it and the pair will be an amazing sight – like a pair of heavenly eyes staring down at us. The two planets will be close to each other either side of the 15th, so there should be plenty of picture-taking opportunities. The Moon joins the Venus and Jupiter on the 25th and 26th and the thin crescent Moon will make the show even more stunning.

Venus Jupiter 15 March

Saturn rises later in the evenings in the constellation of Virgo, the rings are now nicely tilted towards us and the planet looks stunning right throughout the month. If you have never seen Saturn through a telescope before, you must see it! It is the most beautiful of all the planets and one of the reasons so many people get interested in astronomy.

Saturn

Moon phases

  • First Quarter – 1st March
  • Full Moon – 8th March
  • Last Quarter – 15th March
  • New Moon – 22nd March

Constellations

In March Orion is getting lower in the West and setting earlier as the spring constellations of Leo, Coma Berenices and Virgo come into view; this is the “Realm of the Galaxies.”

In the month of March the Earth’s orbit around the Sun means that during the night we see out from our own galaxy the ‘Milky Way’ into the depths of deep space. Because of this, we can see many other galaxies and some similar to our own, each contains hundreds of billions of stars. You will need a good telescope to see these amazing wonders; however a good pair of binoculars will show one or two faint fuzzy patches. Some of these faint fuzzy objects are many millions of light years distant.

A few brighter examples lay in the constellation of Leo the Lion. Have a look for M 95, M96 and M105; these are not far from Mars during March. You will need a dark Moonless night to see them well.

Another trio of galaxies still in the constellation of Leo are M65, M66 and NGC 3628 otherwise known as the ‘Leo Triplet’ A small telescope and a low to medium power should show these objects in the same field of view.

The region of sky within Leo, Coma and Virgo is packed with galaxies and whatever telescope you use, you will be sure to spot something.

For those of you without a telescope, see if you can discern the asterism of the ‘Bowl of Virgo’. This is a chain of five stars in a loose semi-circle pointing towards the ‘tail’ of Leo. The brightest star in the chain is Porrima. South of Porrima lays the brightest star in the constellation, called Spica. Saturn can be found to the east of this.

Credit: Adrian West
Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Thierry Legault: Astrophotography is an ‘Adrenaline Rush’

Thierry Legault with the equipment he uses for satellite images. Images courtesy of Thierry Legault.

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During one of the final space shuttle missions, photographer Thierry Legault traveled nearly 4,000 km across various locations in Europe to try and capture the shuttle docked to the International Space Station as the two spacecraft transited across the surface of the Sun.

“Essentially, I was trying to catch the clear sky so I could take images of an event that would last less than a second,” Legault said from his home in France.

This type of dedication to his craft, along with his attention to detail and quality has earned Legault the reputation as one of the top amateur astrophotographers in the world.

Amazingly, he started his astrophotography hobby — and his specialty of imaging objects in front of the Sun — just by chance. And now Legault has been shooting breathtaking images of spacecraft in orbit and astronomical objects and events for nearly 20 years.

“I began in 1993 with one of the first CCD cameras, the first year that CCD cameras were available for amateurs,” Legault said. “It was a wonderful time, because it was a time of pioneers, and it was a revolution after film.”

An Airplane in Front of the Sun Credit & Copyright: Thierry Legault

Intrigued by what could be done with digital equipment, he experimented by taking planetary and deep sky pictures and has now amassed a prolific portfolio of stunning images. In 2001 he took the first of the type of images he has become renown for.

“I took a picture of a plane in front of the Sun,” Legault recalled, “and it was published on APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day), and so now I have taken many images of things in front of the Sun.”

Image of the solar transit of the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle Atlantis, 50 minutes after undocking from the ISS, before return to Earth, taken from the area of Mamers, Normandie, France on September 17, 2006. Credit and copyright, Thierry Legault

In 2006 he took pictures of the space station and space shuttle side by side just as the shuttle undocked. It was published by newspapers around the world, including a double page in the Guardian, was shown on CNN and other news shows, and was everywhere on the internet.

“It was an incredible success, which was very surprising. This type of imaging is very fun for me, as I like the challenge,” Legault said. “But it is interesting how taking a picture of a spaceship in front of the Sun is really something for non-astronomers, but yet I never received so much interest for all the other astronomy images I have taken.”

Legault said he has received emails and letters from people around the world expressing how much they enjoy his transit images.

One of the setups Legault uses for solar imaging. Image courtesy Thierry Legault

Living in the suburbs of Paris means there are plenty of lights to interfere with his astrophotography.

“Where I live is not a problem for taking pictures of some satellites, the Sun, the Moon and planets,” he said. “For deep space imaging and for the space station, I have to put everything in the van and drive 20-30 kilometers and go to the country; also for solar or lunar transits I have to go to the place where the transit is visible.”

This is the first image ever taken from the ground, of an astronaut in extravehicular activity (EVA1). Steve Bowen, attached to the end of the ISS robotic arm (MSS), was working on a defective ammonia pump. The pump was hooked to the ISS mobile base system (MBS). All major elements of the robotic arm are visible, including the structures of the motorized joints and some elements along the arms (smaller than the astronaut). Credit and copyright, Thierry Legault.

For the STS-131 mission in May of 2010, Legault traveled to Spain, Switzerland, various parts of France, and for the STS-133 mission in February 2011, where he took the first-ever ground-based image of astronaut in spacewalk he drove to Germany, and to both the south and north of France, and between 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers.

All this driving and weeks of preparation is for an event that he never sees live with his own eyes, and usually lasts about a half a second. He uses CalSky.com to calculate the exact moment and exact location he will need to be to capture an event.

“For transits I have to calculate the place, and considering the width of the visibility path is usually between 5-10 kilometers, but I have to be close to the center of this path,” Legault explained, “because if I am at the edge, it is just like a solar eclipse where the transit is shorter and shorter. And the edge of visibility line of the transit lasts very short. So the precision of where I have to be is within one kilometer.”

Legault studies maps, and has a radio synchronized watch to know very accurately when the transit event will happen.

“My camera has a continuous shuttering for 4 seconds, so I begin the sequence 2 seconds before the calculated time,” he said. “I don’t look through the camera – I never see the space station when it appears, I am just looking at my watch!”

Atlantis during the STS-135 mission docked to the International Space Station, July 15, 2011. Credit: Thierry Legault.

For a transit event, he gets get a total of 16 images – 4 images every second, and only after he enlarges the images will he know if he succeeded or not.

“There is a kind of feeling that is short and intense — an adrenaline rush!” Legault said. “I suppose it is much like participating in a sport, but the feeling is addictive. I did it with a friend two years ago and now he is addicted too.”

Legault added that when he succeeds, it is a very satisfying feeling.

But Legault is not keeping the adrenaline rushes all to himself; he willingly shares his knowhow and techniques.

His website provides a wealth of knowledge about his techniques and equipment

In 2005 he wrote a book (in French) called Astrophotographie, that has sold over 6,000 copies, and he is working on getting it published in English. The book provides information on how to image constellations, stars, comets, eclipses, the Moon, planets, sun, and deep-sky objects, in accessible, nontechnical language. Legault also gives practical advice on equipment and technique, with answers to problems faced by every beginner. He also co-authored another book, “New Atlas of the Moon” with Serge Brunier, and in the March 2012 issue of Sky and Telescope, Legault wrote a detailed article on how to take detailed, ground-based images of the ISS.

Tomorrow on Universe Today, Legault will share his advice for avoiding “bad” astrophotography.

Posted on by Amy Shira Teitel

Our Early Universe: Inflation, or Something Totally Wacky?

A schematic look at the universe - where it came from and where it is now. Credit: NASA.

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Astronomers generally accept the theory that our universe looks the way it does because of cosmic inflation — rapid expansion in the moments after its birth. This explains the expanse and apparent flat shape of the universe observed through instruments like NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. But inflation isn’t the only model that explains the early universe. There are others, and they get wacky. 

Three physicists from the University at Buffalo — Ghazal Geshnizjani, Will Kinney and Azadeh Moradinezhad Dizgah — set out to investigate other cosmic models. Their study titled “General Conditions for Scale-Invariant Perturbations in an Expanding Universe” appeared in November in the online Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (not to be confused with the Journal of Cosmology) and contained some interesting results.

This picture of the infant universe from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) reveals 13 billion+ year old temperature fluctuations that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

They stuck with the basics — that the theory of gravity is correct and that the early universe did rapidly expand. With these two constraints, the team found that only three models explain the early universe and the distribution of matter we observe today. But these models require very strange physics.

According to their calculations, the early universe required an accelerated cosmic expansion (inflation), a speed of sound faster than the speed of light, or extremely high cosmic energy to end up with our current universe. The third model actually demands such high energy that scientists would need to invoke a theory of quantum gravity like string theory to explain the extra dimensions of space-time that would pop up.

The takeaway message? Inflation turns out to be the only way to explain the universe within the context of standard physics, said Kinney. He allows that someone might come up with exotic physics to explain or create other models, like a speed of sound faster than that of light, but suspects people are more comfortable working with models that fit within commonly accepted laws of particle physics.

The difficulty of explaining other models, said Kinney, “puts the idea of inflation on a much stronger footing, because the available alternatives have problems, or weirdnesses, with them.”

Cosmic inflation incorporates quantum field theory to explain the distribution of matter in the universe. Under normal circumstances, particles of matter and antimatter can pop into existence suddenly before colliding and annihilating each other instantly. These pairs flew apart so rapidly after the universe’s birth that they didn’t have a chance to recombine. The same theory applies to gravitons and antigravitons, which form gravity waves.

These particles of matter are the basis of all structure in the universe today. Tiny fluctuations cause matter to collapse and form stars, planets, and galaxies.

But the hunt for other viable models continues. Kinney for one isn’t finished exploring other theories, including those that rely on superluminal sound speeds. There may yet be some major changes to our understanding of the cosmos.

Source: The University of Buffalo

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast – February 27-March 4, 2012

AE Aurigae - Credit: T.A.Rector and B.A.Wolpa/NOAO/AURA/NSF

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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s going to be a great week for lunar studies and an even better time to study some interesting single stars. Need more? Then keep an eye on the skies as the Delta Leonid meteor shower heats up towards its later week peak. Get out those binoculars and telescopes and I’ll see you in the backyard…

Monday, February 27 – With tonight’s Moon in a much higher position to observe, let’s begin with an investigation of Mare Fecunditatis – the Sea of Fertility. Stretching 1463 kilometers in diameter, the combined area of this mare is equal in size to the Great Sandy Desert in Australia – and almost as vacant in interior features. It is home to glasses, pyroxenes, feldspars, oxides, olivines, troilite and metals in its lunar soil, which is called regolith. Studies show the basaltic flow inside of the Fecunditatis basin perhaps occurred all at once, making its chemical composition different from other maria. The lower titanium content means it is between 3.1 and 3.6 billion years old!

The western edge of Fecunditatis is home to features we share terrestrially – grabens. These down-dropped areas of landscape between parallel fault lines occur where the crust is stretched to the breaking point. On Earth, these happen along tectonic plates, but on the Moon they are found around basins. The forces created by lava flow increase the weight inside the basin, causing a tension along the border which eventually fault and cause these areas. Look closely along the western shore of Fecunditatis where you will see many such features.

Today is the birthday of Bernard Lyot. Born in 1897, Lyot went on to become the inventor of the coronagraph in 1930. By all accounts, Lyot was a wonderful and generous man who sadly died of a heart attack when returning from a trip to view a total eclipse. Although we cannot hand you a corona, we can show you a star that wears its own gaseous envelope.

Let’s go to our maps west of M36 and M38 to identify AE Aurigae. As an unusual variable, AE is normally around 6th magnitude and resides approximately 1600 light years distant. The beauty in this region is not particularly the star itself but the faint nebula in which it resides known as IC 405, an area of mostly dust and very little gas. What makes this view so entertaining is that we are looking at a “runaway” star. It is believed that AE once originated from the M42 region in Orion. Cruising along at a very respectable speed of 80 miles per second, AE flew the “stellar nest” some 2.7 million years ago! Although IC 405 is not directly related to AE, there is evidence within the nebula that areas have been cleared of their dust by the rapid northward motion of the star. AE’s hot, blue illumination and high energy photons fuel what little gas is contained within the region. Its light also reflects off the surrounding dust. Although we cannot “see” with our eyes like a photograph, together the pair forms an outstanding view for the small backyard telescope and it is known as “The Flaming Star.”

Tuesday, February 28 – Since the stars of our study constellation of Monoceros are quite dim when the Moon begins to interfere, why not spend a few days really taking a look at the Moon’s surface and familiarizing yourself with its many features? Tonight would be a great time for us to explore “The Sea of Nectar.” At around 1000 meters deep, Mare Nectaris covers an area of the Moon equal to that of the Great Sandhills in Saskatchewan, Canada. Like all maria, it is part of a gigantic basin that is filled with lava, and evidence of grabens exists along its western basin edge. While Nectaris’ basaltic flows appear darker than those in most maria, it is one of the older formations on the Moon and as the terminator progress, you’ll be able to see where ejecta belonging to Tycho crosses its surface. For now? Let’s have a closer look at the mare itself and its surrounding craters… Enjoy these many features which are also lunar challenges – and we’ll be back to study each later in the year!

Now, let’s have a look about a fistwidth north-northwest of Sirius – for Beta Monocerotis. Discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781, Beta is perhaps one of the most outstanding triple systems in the sky, with each of its three bright, white components near equal magnitude. Residing about 100-200 light-years away, these identical spectral type stars are separated by no more than 400 AU and don’t appear to have changed positions since measured by Struve in 1831. Although you won’t be able to split this system with binoculars, even a small telescope will pick apart their brilliancy and make Beta a star to remember!

Wednesday, February 29 – Tonight let your imagination sweep you away as we go mountain climbing – on the Moon! Tonight all of Mare Serenitatis will be revealed and along its northwestern shore lie some of the most beautiful mountain ranges you’ll ever view – The Caucasus to the north and the Apennines to the south. Like its earthly counterpart, the Caucasus Mountain range stretches almost 550 kilometers and some of its peaks reach upwards to 6 kilometers – a summit as high as Mount Elbrus!

Slightly smaller than its terrestrial namesake, the lunar Apennine mountain range extends some 600 kilometers with peaks rising as high as 5 kilometers. Be sure to look for Mons Hadley, one of the tallest peaks that you will see at the northern end of this chain. It rises above the surface to a height of 4.6 kilometers, making that single mountain about the size of asteroid Toutatis.

Thursday, March 1 – In 1966 Venera 3 became the first craft to touch another world as it impacted Venus. Although its communications failed before it could transmit data, it was a milestone achievement.

George Abell was born on this day in 1927. Abell was the man responsible for cataloging 2712 clusters of galaxies from the Palomar sky survey, which was completed in 1958. Using these plates, Abell put forth the idea that the grouping of such clusters distinguished the arrangement of matter in the universe. He developed the “luminosity function,” which shows relationship between brightness and number of members in each cluster, allowing you to infer their distances. Abell also discovered a number of planetary nebulae and developed the theory (along with Peter Goldreich) of their evolution from red giants. Abell was a fascinating lecturer and a developer of many television series dedicated to explaining science and astronomy in a fun and easy to understand format. He was also a president and member of the Board of Directors for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, as well as serving in the American Astronomical Society, the Cosmology Commission of the International Astronomical Union, and he accepted editorship of the Astronomical Journal just before he died.

Tonight your lunar assignments are relatively easy. We will begin by identifying “The Sea of Vapors.” Look for Mare Vaporum on the southwest shore of Mare Serenitatis. Formed from newer lava flow inside an old crater, this lunar sea is edged to its north by the mighty Apennine Mountains. On its northeastern edge, look for the now washed-out Haemus Mountains. Can you see where lava flow has reached them? This lava has come from different time periods and the slightly different colorations are easy to spot even with binoculars.

Further south and edged by the terminator is Sinus Medii – “The Bay in the Middle.” With an area about the size of both Massachusetts and Connecticut, this lunar feature is the mid-point of the visible lunar surface. In 1930, experiments were underway to test this region for surface temperature – a project begun by Lord Rosse in 1868. Surprisingly enough, results of the two studies were very close, and during full daylight temperatures in Sinus Medii can reach the boiling point as evidenced by Surveyors 4 and 6 – which landed near its center.

Now take a hop north of Mare Vaporum for a look at “The Rotten Swamp” – Palus Putredinus. More pleasingly known as the “Marsh of Decay,” this nearly level surface of lava flow is also home to a mission – the hard-landing of Lunik 2. On September 13, 1959 astronomers in Europe reported seeing the black dot of the crashing probe. The event lasted for nearly 300 seconds and spread over an area of 40 kilometers

Friday, March 2 – Tonight it’s time to relax and enjoy the Delta Leonid meteor shower. Burning through our atmosphere at speeds of up to 24 kilometers per second, these slow travelers will seem to radiate from a point around the middle of Leo’s “back.” The fall rate is rather slow at around 5 per hour, but they are still worth keeping a watch for!

Tonight let’s return again to the lunar surface to study how the terminator has moved and take a close look at the way features change as the Sun brightens the moonscape. Can you still see Langrenus? How about Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina? Does Posidonius still look the same? Each night features further east become brighter and harder to distinguish – yet they also change in subtle and unexpected ways. We’ll look at that in the days ahead, but tonight let’s walk the terminator as one of the most beautiful features has now come into view – “The Bay of Rainbows.” Sinus Iridum’s C-shape is easily recognizable in even small binoculars – yet there are a wonderland of small details in and around the area for the small telescope that we’ll study as the year goes by.

Saturday, March 3 – Tonight’s bright skies are brought to you by the Moon! Have you noticed how difficult it is to see any stars belonging to Monoceros with these conditions? Don’t worry. We’ll be back. For now, let’s continue onwards with our lunar studies as we locate the emerging “Sea Of Islands.” Mare Insularum will be partially revealed tonight as one of the most prominent of lunar craters – Copernicus – now comes into view. While only a small section of this reasonably young mare is now visible southeast of Copernicus, the lighting will be just right to spot its many different colored lava flows. To the northeast is a lunar club challenge: Sinus Aestuum. Latin for the Bay of Billows, this mare-like region has an approximate diameter of 290 kilometers, and its total area is about the size of the state of New Hampshire. Containing almost no features, this area is low albedo – providing very little surface reflectivity.

Tonight let’s try a lovely triple star system – Beta Monocerotis. Located about a fist width northwest of Sirius, Beta is a distinctive white star with blue companions. Separated by about 7 arc seconds, almost any magnification will distinguish Beta’s 4.7 magnitude primary from its 5.2 magnitude secondary to the southeast. Now, add a little power and you’ll see the fainter secondary has its own 6.2 magnitude companion less than 3 arc seconds away to the east.

Before you call it a night, be sure to have a quick look at Mars. Right now the red planet is at opposition and can be seen from sunset until sunrise in the constellation of Leo. You may have also noticed that it is dimming slightly, too. It has now reached an estimated -1.23 magnitude. Be sure to look for wonderful features like Sytris Major and the polar caps!

Sunday, March 4 – In 1835, Giovanni Schiaparelli opened his eyes for the very first time and opened ours with his accomplishments! As the director of the Milan Observatory, Schiaparelli (and not Percival Lowell) was the fellow who popularized the term “Martian canals” somewhere around the year 1877. Far more importantly, Schiaparelli was the man who made the connection between the orbits of meteoroid streams and the orbits of comets almost eleven years earlier!

Tonight let’s turn binoculars or telescopes toward the southern lunar surface as we set out to view one of the most unusually formed craters – Schiller. Located near the lunar limb, Schiller appears as a strange gash bordered on the southwest in white and black on the northeast. This oblong depression might be the fusion of two or three craters, yet shows no evidence of crater walls on its smooth floor. Schiller’s formation still remains a mystery. Be sure to look for a slight ridge running along the spine of the crater to the north through the telescope. Larger scopes should resolve this feature into a series of tiny dots.

Let’s try our hand at Beta Orionis … the bright, blue/white star in the southwestern corner of Orion. As you may have noticed for the most part – the brighter the stars are, the closer they are. Not so Rigel! As the seventh brightest star in the sky, it breaks all the “rules” by being an amazing 900 light years away! Can you imagine what an awesome supergiant this white hot star really is? Rigel is actually one of the most luminous stars in our galaxy and if it were as close as Sirius it would be 20% as bright as tonight’s Moon! As an added bonus, most average backyard telescopes can also reveal Rigel’s 6.7 magnitude blue companion star. And if these “two” aren’t enough – note the companion is also a spectroscopic double!

Until next week? Ask for the Moon… but keep on reaching for the stars!

If you enjoy the weekly observing column, why not consider buying the fully illustrated book, The Night Sky Companion 2012. It’s available in both a softcover and Kindle format!

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Galactic Archaeology: NGC 5907 – The Dragon Clash

NGC 5907 - Credit: R. Jay Gabany

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The sprawling northern constellation of Draco is home to a monumental galactic merger which left a singular spectacle – NGC 5907. Surrounded by an ethereal garment of wispy star trails and currents of stellar material, this spiral galaxy is the survivor of a “clash of the dragons” which may have occurred some 8 to 9 billion years ago. Recent theory suggests galaxies of this type may be the product of a larger galaxy encountering a smaller satellite – but this might not be the case. Not only is NGC 5907 a bit different in some respects, it’s a lot different in others… and peculiar motion is just the beginning.

“If the disc of many spirals is indeed rebuilt after a major merger, it is expected that tidal tails can be a fossil record and that there should be many loops and streams in their halos. Recently Martínez-Delgado et al. (2010) have conducted a pilot survey of isolated spiral galaxies in the Local Volume up to a low surface brightness sensitivity of ~28.5 mag/arcsec2 in V band. They find that many of these galaxies have loops or streams of various shapes and interpret these structures as evidence of minor merger or satellite infall.” says J. Wang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “However, if these loops are caused by minor mergers, the residual of the satellite core should be detected according to numerical simulations. Why is it hardly ever detected?”

The “why” is indeed the reason NGC 5907 is being intensively studied by a team of six scientists of the Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Astronomical Observatories of China NAOC and Marseille Observatory. Even though NGC 5907 is a member of a galactic group, there are no galaxies near enough to it to be causing an interaction which could account for its streamers of stars. It is truly a warped galaxy with gaseous and stellar disks which extend beyond the nominal cut-off radius. But that’s not all… It also has a peculiar halo which includes a significant fraction of metal enriched stars. NGC 5907 just doesn’t fit the patterns.

“For some of our models, we assume a star formation history with a varying global efficiency in transforming gas to stars, in order to preserve enough gas from being consumed before fusion.” explains the research team. “Although this fine-tuned star formation history may have some physical motivations, its main role is also to ensure the formation of stars after the emergence of the gaseous disc just after fusion.”

On left, the NGC 5907 galaxy. It is compared to the simulations, on right. Both cases show an edge-on galactic disk surrounded by giant loops of old stars, which are witnessing of a former, gigantic collision. (Jay Gabany, cosmotography.com / Observatoire de Paris / CNRS / Pythéas / NAOC)

Now enter the 32- and 196-core computers at the Paris Observatory center and the 680-core Graphic Processor Unit supercomputer of Beijing NAOC with the capability to run 50000 billion operations per second. By employing several state of the art, hydrodynamical, and numerical simulations with particle numbers ranging from 200 000 to 6 millions, the team’s goal was to show the structure of NGC 5907 may have been the result of the clash of two dragon-sized galaxies… or was it?

“The exceptional features of NGC 5907 can be reproduced, together with the central galaxy properties, especially if we compare the observed loops to the high-order loops expected in a major merger model.” says Wang. “Given the extremely large number of parameters, as well as the very numerous constraints provided by the observations, we cannot claim that we have already identified the exact and unique model of NGC 5907 and its halo properties. We nevertheless succeeded in reproducing the loop geometry, and a disc-dominated, almost bulge-less galaxy.”

In the meantime, major galaxy merger events will continue to be a top priority in formation research. “Future work will include modelling other nearby spiral galaxies with large and faint, extended features in their halos.” concludes the team. “These distant galaxies are likely similar to the progenitors, six billion years ago, of present-day spirals, and linking them together could provide another crucial test for the spiral rebuilding disc scenario.”

And sleeping dragons may one day arise…

Original Story Source: Paris Observatory News. For Further Reading: Loops formed by tidal tails as fossil records of a major merger and Fossils of the Hierarchical Formation of the Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 5907.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Solid Buckyballs in Space are Stacked Like ‘Oranges in a Crate’

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected the solid form of buckyballs in space for the first time. To form a solid particle, the buckyballs must stack together like oranges in a crate, as shown in this illustration. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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From a JPL press release:

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form in the cosmos. The new work, led by Prof. Nye Evans of Keele University, appears in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Formally named buckminsterfullerene, buckyballs are named after their resemblance to the late architect Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes. They are made up of 60 carbon molecules arranged into a hollow sphere like a football. Their unusual structure makes them ideal candidates for electrical and chemical applications on Earth, including superconducting materials, medicines, water purification and armour.

In the latest discovery, scientists using Spitzer detected tiny specks of matter, or particles, consisting of stacked buckyballs. They found the particles around a pair of stars called “XX Ophiuchi,” 6,500 light-years from Earth, and detected enough to fill the equivalent in volume to 10,000 Mount Everests.

“These buckyballs are stacked together to form a solid, like oranges in a crate,” said Prof. Evans. “The particles we detected are miniscule, far smaller than the width of a hair, but each one would contain stacks of millions of buckyballs.”

Buckyballs were detected definitively in space for the first time by Spitzer in 2010. Spitzer later identified the molecules in a host of different cosmic environments. It even found them in staggering quantities, the equivalent in mass to 15 Earth moons, in a nearby galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud.

In all of those cases, the molecules were in the form of gas. The recent discovery of buckyballs particles means that large quantities of these molecules must be present in some stellar environments in order to link up and form solid particles. The research team was able to identify the solid form of buckyballs in the Spitzer data because they emit light in a unique way that differs from the gaseous form.

“This exciting result suggests that buckyballs are even more widespread in space than the earlier Spitzer results showed,” said Mike Werner, project scientist for Spitzer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “They may be an important form of carbon, an essential building block for life, throughout the cosmos.”

Buckyballs have been found on Earth in various forms. They form as a gas from burning candles and exist as solids in certain types of rock, such as the mineral shungite found in Russia, and fulgurite, a glassy rock from Colorado that forms when lightning strikes the ground. In a test tube, the solids take on the form of dark, brown “goo.”

“The window Spitzer provides into the infrared universe has revealed beautiful structure on a cosmic scale,” said Bill Danchi, Spitzer program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “In yet another surprise discovery from the mission, we’re lucky enough to see elegant structure at one of the smallest scales, teaching us about the internal architecture of existence.”

Read the team’s paper here.

More info at the Royal Astronomical Society

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast: February 19-25, 2012

Messier 41 - Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF

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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s going to be an awesome week as we watch the planets – Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury – dance along the ecliptic plane. You don’t even need a telescope for this show! But that’s not all. We’ll take a look at a wealth of bright star clusters, challenging studies and lots more. I’ll see you in the back yard…

Sunday, February 19 – Today is the birthday of Nicolas Copernicus. Born in 1473, he was the creator of the modern solar system model which illustrated the retrograde motion of the outer planets. Considering this was well over 530 years ago, and in a rather “unenlightened” time, his revolutionary thinking about what we now consider natural is astounding.

Have you been observing retrograde motion while keeping track of Mars? Good for you! You may have also noticed that Mars has dimmed slightly over the last few weeks. Right now it’s around -1.0. Keep track of its many faces!

While we still have dark skies on our side, let’s head for a handful of difficult nebulae in a region just west of Gamma Monocerotis. For binoculars, check out the region around Gamma, it is rich in stars and very colorful! You are looking at the very outer edge of the Orion spiral arm of our galaxy. For small scopes, have a look at Gamma itself – it’s a triple system that we’ll be back to study. For larger scopes? It’s Herschel hunting time…

NGC 2183 (Right Ascension: 6 : 10.8 – Declination: -06 : 13 ) and NGC 2185 (Right Ascension: 6 : 11.1 – Declination: -06 : 13 ) will be the first you encounter as you move west of Gamma. Although they are faint, just remember they are nothing more than a cloud of dust illuminated by faint stars on the edge of the galactic realm. The stars that formed inside provided the light source for these wispy objects and at their edges lay in intergalactic space.

To the southwest is the weaker NGC 2182 (Right Ascension: 6 : 09.5 – Declination: -06 : 20), which will appear as nothing more than a faint star with an even fainter halo about it, with NGC 2170 (Right Ascension: 6 : 07.5 – Declination: -06 : 24) more strongly represented in an otherwise difficult field. While the views of these objects might seem vaguely disappointing, you must remember that not everything is as bright and colorful as seen in a photograph. Just knowing that you are looking at the collapse of a giant molecular cloud that’s 2400 light-years away is pretty impressive!

Monday, February 20 – Today in history celebrates the Mir space station launch in 1986. Mir (Russian for “peace”) was home to both cosmonauts and astronauts as it housed 28 long duration crews during its 15 years of service. To date it is one of the longest running space stations and a triumph for mankind. Spasiba! Today in 1962, John Glenn was onboard Friendship 7 and became the first American to orbit the Earth. As Colonel Glenn looked out the window, he reported seeing “fireflies” glittering outside his Mercury space capsule. Let’s see if we can find some…

The open cluster M41 (Right Ascension: 6 : 46.0 – Declination: -20 : 44) in Canis Major is just a quick drift south of the brightest star in the northern sky – Sirius. Even the smallest scopes and binoculars will reveal this rich group of mixed magnitude stars and fill the imagination with strange notions of reality. Through larger scopes, many faint groupings emerge as the star count rises to well over 100 members. Several stars of color – orange in particular – are also seen along with a number of doubles.

First noted telescopically by Giovanni Batista Hodierna in the mid-1500s, ancient texts indicate that Aristotle saw this naked-eye cluster some 1800 years earlier. Like other Hodierna discoveries, M41 was included on Messier’s list – along with even brighter clusters of antiquity such as Praesepe in Cancer and the Pleiades in Taurus. Open cluster M41 is located 2300 light years away and recedes from us at 34km/sec – about the speed Venus moves around the Sun. M41 is a mature cluster, around 200 million years old and 25 light years in diameter. Remember M41… Fireflies in night skies.

Tuesday, February 21 – Tonight is New Moon! Tonight let’s take a journey just a breath above Zeta Tauri and spend some quality time with a pulsar embedded in the most famous supernova remnant of all. Factually, we know the Crab Nebula to be the remains of an exploded star recorded by the Chinese in 1054. We know it to be a rapid expanding cloud of gas moving outward at a rate of 1,000 km per second, just as we understand there is a pulsar in the center. We also know it as first recorded by John Bevis in 1758, and then later cataloged as the beginning Messier object – penned by Charles himself some 27 years later to avoid confusion while searching for comets. We see it revealed beautifully in timed exposure photographs, its glory captured forever through the eye of the camera — but have you ever really taken the time to truly study M1 (Right Ascension: 5 : 34.5 – Declination: +22 : 01)? Then you just may surprise yourself…

In a small telescope, M1 might seem to be a disappointment – but do not just glance at it and move on. There is a very strange quality to the light which reaches your eye, even though initially it may just appear as a vague, misty patch. Allow your eyes to adjust and M1 will appear to have “living” qualities – a sense of movement in something that should be motionless. The “Crab” holds true to many other spectroscopic studies. The concept of differing light waves crossing over one another and canceling each other out – with each trough and crest revealing differing details to the eye – is never more apparent than during study. To observe M1 is to at one moment see a “cloud” of nebulosity, the next a broad ribbon or filament, and at another a dark patch. When skies are stable you may see an embedded star, and it is possible to see six such stars.

Many observers have the ability to see spectral qualities, but they need to be developed. From ionization to polarization – our eye and brain are capable of seeing to the edge of infra-red and ultra-violet. Even a novice can see the effects of magnetism in the solar “Wilson Effect.” But what of the spinning neutron star at M1’s heart? We’ve known since 1969 that M1 produces a “visual” pulsar effect. About once every five minutes, changes occurring in the neutron star’s pulsation affect the amount of polarization, causing the light waves to sweep around like a giant “cosmic lighthouse” and flash across our eyes. M1 is much more than just another Messier. Capture it tonight!!

Wednesday, February 22 – Today in 1966, Soviet space mission Kosmos 110 was launched. Its crew was canine, Veterok (Little Wind) Ugolyok (Little Piece of Coal); both history making dogs. The flight lasted 22 days and held the record for living creatures in orbit until 1974 – when Skylab 2 carried its three-man crew for 28 days.

Since we’ve studied the “death” of a star, why not take the time tonight to discover the “birth” of one? Our journey will start by identifying Aldeberan (Alpha Tauri) and move northwest to bright Epsilon. Hop 1.8 degrees west and slightly to the north for an incredibly unusual variable star – T Tauri.

Discovered by J.R. Hind in October 1852, T Tauri and its accompanying nebula, NGC 1555 (Right Ascension: 4 : 22.9 – Declination: +19 : 32), set the stage for discovery with a pre-main sequence variable star. Hind reported the nebula, but also noted that no catalog listed such an object in that position. His observations also included a 10th magnitude uncharted star and he surmised that the star in question was a variable. On each count Hind was right, and both were followed by astronomers for several years until they began to fade in 1861. By 1868, neither could be seen and it wasn’t until 1890 that the pair was re-discovered by E.E. Barnard and S.W. Burnham. Five years later? They vanished again.

T Tauri is the prototype of this particular class of variable stars and is itself totally unpredictable. In a period as short as a few weeks, it might move from magnitude 9 to 13 and other times remain constant for months on end. It is about equal to our own Sun in temperature and mass – and its spectral signature is very similar to Sol’s chromosphere – but the resemblance ends there. T Tauri is a star in the initial stages of birth!

T Tauri are all pre-main sequence and are considered “proto-stars”. In other words, they continuously contract and expand, shedding some of their mantle of gas and dust. This gas and dust is caught by the star’s rotation and spun into an accretion disc – which might be more properly referred to as a proto-planetary disc. By the time the jets have finished spewing and the material is pulled back to the star by gravity, the proto-star will have cooled enough to have reached main sequence and the pressure may have allowed planetoids to form from the accreted material.

Thursday, February 23 – If you have an open western horizon, then be out at twilight! Right now the speedy inner planet – Mercury – will make a brief appearance. Depending on your time zone, you might also spot a very young Moon just above it! For curiosity seekers, you can also find asteroid Vesta to the south of the Moon, along with planet Uranus to the south-east. How cool is that?!

In 1987, Ian Shelton made an astonishing visual discovery – SN 1987a. This was the brightest supernova in 383 years. More importantly, before it occurred, a blue star of roughly 20 solar masses was already known to exist in that same location within the Large Magellanic Cloud. Catalogued as Sanduleak -69-202, that star is now gone. With available data on the star, astronomers were able to get a “before and after” look at one of the most extraordinary events in the universe! Tonight, let’s have a look at a similar event known as “Tycho’s Supernova.”

Located northwest of Kappa Cassiopeia, SN1572 appeared so bright in that year that it could be seen with the unaided eye for six months. Since its appearance was contrary to Ptolemaic theory, this change in the night sky now supported Copernicus’ views and heliocentric theory gained credence. We now recognize it as a strong radio source, but can it still be seen? There is a remnant left of this supernova, and it is challenging even with a large telescope. Look for thin, faint filaments that form an incomplete ring around 8 arc minutes across.

Friday, February 24 – Tonight the slender first crescent of the Moon makes its presence known on the western horizon. Before it sets, take a moment to look at it with binoculars. The beginnings of Mare Crisium will show to the northeast quadrant, but look just a bit further south for the dark, irregular blotch of Mare Undarum – the Sea of Waves. On its southern edge, and to lunar east, look for the small Mare Smythii – the “Sea of Sir William Henry Smyth.” Further south of this pair and at the northern edge of Fecunditatis is Mare Spumans – the “Foaming Sea.” All three of these are elevated lakes of aluminous basalt belonging to the Crisium basin.

For telescope users, wait until the Moon has set and return to Beta Monocerotis and head about a fingerwidth northeast for an open cluster challenge – NGC 2250 (Right Ascension: 6 : 32.8 – Declination: -05 : 02). This vague collection of stars presents itself to the average telescope as about 10 or so members that form no real asterism and makes one wonder if it is indeed a cluster. So odd is this one, that a lot of star charts don’t even list it!

Today in 1968, during a radar search survey, the first pulsar was discovered by Jocelyn Bell. The co-directors of the project, Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle, matched these observations to a model of a rotating neutron star, winning them the 1974 Physics Nobel Prize and proving a theory of J. Robert Oppenheimer from 30 years earlier.

Would you like to get a look at a region of the sky that contains a pulsar? Then wait until the Moon has well westered and look for guidestar Alpha Monocerotis to the south and bright Procyon to its north. By using the distance between these two stars as the base of an imaginary triangle, you’ll find pulsar PSR 0820+02 at the apex of your triangle pointed east.

Saturday, February 25 – As the Moon begins its westward journey after sunset in a position much easier to observe. The lunar feature we are looking for is at the north-northeast of the lunar limb and its view is often dependent on libration. What are we seeking? “The Sea of Alexander von Humboldt”…

Mare Humboldtianum can sometimes be hidden from view because it is an extreme feature. Spanning 273 kilometers, the basin in which it is contained extends for an additional 600 kilometers and continues around to the far side of the Moon. The mountain ranges which accompany this basin can sometimes be glimpsed under perfect lighting conditions, but ordinarily are just seen as a lighter area. The mare was formed by lava flow into the impact basin, yet more recent strikes have scarred Humboldtianum. Look for a splash of ejecta from crater Hayn further north, and the huge, 200 kilometer strike of crater Bel’kovich on Humboldtianum’s northeast shore.

When the Moon begins to wester, let’s head for Beta Monocerotis and hop about 3 fingerwidths east for an 8.9 magnitude open cluster that can be spotted with binoculars and is well resolved with a small telescope – NGC 2302 (Right Ascension: 6 : 51.9 – Declination: -07 : 04). This very young stellar cluster resides at the outer edge of the Orion spiral arm. While binoculars will see a handful of stars in a small V-shaped pattern, telescope users should be able to resolve 40 or so fainter members.

Until next week, may all of your journeys be at light speed!

If you enjoy the weekly observing column, then you’ll love the book, The Night Sky Companion 2012 written by Tammy Plotner. This fully illustrated observing guide includes star charts for your favorite objects and much more!

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Light Echoes: The Re-Run Of The Eta Carinae “Great Eruption”

The color image at left shows the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region located 7,500 light-years from Earth. The massive double-star system Eta Carinae resides near the top of the image. The star system, about 120 times more massive than the Sun, produced a spectacular outburst that was seen on Earth from 1837 to 1858. The three black-and-white images at right show light from the eruption illuminating dust clouds near the doomed star system as it moves through them. The effect is like shining a flashlight on different regions of a vast cavern. The images were taken over an eight-year span by the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Blanco 4-meter telescope at the CTIO. Credit: NASA, NOAO, and A. Rest (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.)

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In this modern age, we’re used to catching a favorite program at a later time. We use our DVR equipment and, not so long ago, a VCR to record now and watch later. Once upon a great time ago we relied upon a quaint customer called the “re-run” – the same program broadcast at a later date. However, a re-run can’t occur when it comes to astronomy event… Or can it? Oh, you’re gonna’ love this!

Way back in 1837, Eta Carinae had an event they called the “Great Eruption”. It was an outburst so powerful that it was observable in the southern night sky for 21 years. While it could be seen, sketched and recorded for astronomy posterity, one thing didn’t happen – and that was study with modern scientific instruments. But this great double star was about to do an even greater double-take as the light from the eruption continued away from Earth and on towards some dust clouds. Now, 170 years later, the “Great Eruption” has returned to us again in an effect known as a light echo. Because of its longer path, this re-run only took 17 decades to play again!

“When the eruption was seen on Earth 170 years ago, there were no cameras capable of recording the event,” explained the study’s leader, Armin Rest of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. “Everything astronomers have known to date about Eta Carinae’s outburst is from eyewitness accounts. Modern observations with science instruments were made years after the eruption actually happened. It’s as if nature has left behind a surveillance tape of the event, which we are now just beginning to watch. We can trace it year by year to see how the outburst changed.”

As one of the largest and brightest systems in the Milky Way, Eta Carinae is at home some 7,500 light years from Earth. During the outburst, it shed around one solar mass for every 20 years it was active and it became the second brightest star in the sky. During that time, its signature twin lobes formed. Being able to study an event like this would help us greatly understand the lives of powerful, massive stars on the eve of destruction. Because it is so close, Eta has also been prime candidate for spectroscopic studies, giving us insight on its behavior, including the temperature and speed of the ejected material.

But there’s more…

Eta Carinae could possibly be considered more famous for its “misbehavior”. Unlike stars of its class, Eta is more of a Luminous Blue Variable – an uber bright star known for periodic outbursts. The temperature of the outflow from Eta Carinae’s central region, for example, is about 8,500 degrees Fahrenheit (5,000 Kelvin), which is much cooler than that of other erupting stars. “This star really seems to be an oddball,” Rest said. “Now we have to go back to the models and see what has to change to actually produce what we are measuring.”

Through the eyes of the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, Rest and the team first spotted the light echo in 2010 and then again in 2011 while comparing visible light observations. From there he quickly compared it with another set of CTIO observations taken in 2003 by astronomer Nathan Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson and pieced together the 20 year old puzzle. What he saw was nothing short of amazing…

“I was jumping up and down when I saw the light echo,” said Rest, who has studied light echoes from powerful supernova blasts. “I didn’t expect to see Eta Carinae’s light echo because the eruption was so much fainter than a supernova explosion. We knew it probably wasn’t material moving through space. To see something this close move across space would take decades of observations. We, however, saw the movement over a year’s time. That’s why we thought it was probably a light echo.”

While the images would appear to move with time, this is only an “optical illusion” as each parcel of light information arrives at a different time. Follow up observations include more spectroscopy pinpointing the outflow’s speed and temperature – where ejected material was clocked at speed of roughly 445,000 miles an hour (more than 700,000 kilometers an hour) – a speed which matched computer modeling predictions. Rest’s group also cataloged changes in the light echo intensity using the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network’s Faulkes Telescope South in Siding Spring, Australia. Their results were then compared the historic measurements during the actual event and the peak brightness findings matched!

You can bet the team is continuing to monitor this re-run very closely. “We should see brightening again in six months from another increase in light that was seen in 1844,” Rest said. “We hope to capture light from the outburst coming from different directions so that we can get a complete picture of the eruption.”

Original Story Source: HubbleSite News Release. For Further Reading: Nature Science Paper by A. Rest et al.

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Young Star Cluster In Disintegrated Galaxy Reveals First-Ever Intermediate Mass Black Hole

This spectacular edge-on galaxy, called ESO 243-49, is home to an intermediate-mass black hole that may have been stripped off of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, and S. Farrell (Sydney Institute for Astronomy, University of Sydney)

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Score another first for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope! Along with observations taken with the Swift X-ray telescope, a team of astronomers have identified a young stellar cluster of stars pointing the way towards the first verified intermediate mass black hole. This grouping of stars provides significant indication that black holes of this type may have been at the center of a now shredded dwarf galaxy – a finding which increases our knowledge of galaxy evolution.

“For the first time, we have evidence on the environment, and thus the origin, of this middle-weight black hole,” said Mathieu Servillat, a member of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics research team.

Designated as ESO 243-49 HLX-1, this incredible intermediate mass black hole was discovered in 2009 by Sean Farrell, of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy in Australia, using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope. Hyper-Luminous X-ray Source 1 is a 20,000 solar mass beauty which resides at the edge of galaxy ESO 243-49 some 290 million light years away. However, the Newton’s findings weren’t the only contribution – HLX-1 was also verified with NASA’s Swift observatory in X-ray and Hubble in near-infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths. What stands out is the presence of a cluster of young stars encircling the black hole and stretching out across about 250 light years of space. While the stars themselves are too far away to be resolved, their magnitude and spectra match with other young clusters seen in similar galaxies.

Just what clued the team to the presence of a star cluster? In this case their instruments revealed the blue spectrum of hot gases being emitted from the accretion disk located at the periphery of the black hole… and there was more. They also noted the presence of red light spawned by cooler gases which may indicate the presences of stars. Time to match up the findings against computer modeling.

“What we can definitely say with our Hubble data is that we require both emission from an accretion disk and emission from a stellar population to explain the colors we see.” said Farrell.

Why is the presence of a young star cluster unusual? According to what we know so far, they just don’t occur outside a flattened disk such as HLX-1. This finding may indicate the intermediate mass black hole may have once been at the heart of a dwarf galaxy engaged in a merger event. The dwarf galaxy’s stars were stripped away, but not its capabilities to form new. During the interaction, the gas around the black hole was compressed and star formation began again… but how long ago?

“The age of the population cannot be uniquely constrained, with both very young and very old stellar populations allowed. However, the very old solution requires excessively high levels of disc reprocessing and an extremely small disc, leading us to favour the young solution with an age of ~13 Myr.” says the team. “In addition, the presence of dust lanes and the lack of any nuclear activity from X-ray observations of the host galaxy lead us to propose that a gas-rich minor merger may have taken place less than ~200 Myr ago. Such a merger event would explain the presence of the intermediate mass black hole and support a young stellar population.”

Discoveries such as HLX-1 will help astronomers further understand how supermassive black holes are formed. Current conjecture is that intermediate mass black holes may migrate together to form their larger counterparts. Studying the trajectory of this new find may provide valuable information… even if it is unknown at this point. HLX-1 may be drawn into a merger event and it may just end up orbiting ESO 243-49. Regardless of what happens, chances are it will fade away in X-ray as it exhausts its gas supply.

“This black hole is unique in that it’s the only intermediate-mass black hole we’ve found so far. Its rarity suggests that these black holes are only visible for a short time,” said Servillat.

Original Story Source: Harvard Center for Astrophysics News Release. For Further Reading: A Young Massive Stellar Population Around the Intermediate Mass Black Hole ESO 243-49 HLX-1.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

‘Dark Markings of the Sky’ are Hiding Star Formation

This image from the APEX telescope, of part of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, shows a sinuous filament of cosmic dust more than ten light-years long. Could life exist in molecular clouds like this one? Credit: ESO/APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO)/A. Hacar et al./Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin.

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This stunning new image shows a sinuous filament of cosmic dust more than ten light-years long. The makeup of filamentary cloud structures like this used to be a mystery, and in the early 20th century, Edward Emerson Barnard compiled a photographic atlas of these features, calling them “dark markings of the sky,” as these regions appeared as dark lanes, with no stars visible. Barnard correctly argued that this appearance was due to “obscuring matter in space.” Today we call segments in this particular cloud Barnard 211 and Barnard 213, or the Taurus Molecular Cloud. And we now know that these are clouds of interstellar gas and dust grains. But also, within these clouds, newborn stars are hidden, and dense clouds of gas are on the verge of collapsing to form yet more stars.

The Taurus Molecular Cloud is one of the closest regions of star formation to us. It is located in the constellation of Taurus about 450 light-years from Earth. The cosmic dust grains are so cold that observations at wavelengths of around one millimeter, such as these made with the LABOCA camera on APEX (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment) telescope in Chile, are needed to detect their faint glow.

This image shows two parts of a long filament. The dust grains — tiny particles similar to very fine soot and sand — absorb visible light, blocking our view of the rich star field behind the clouds. The Taurus Molecular Cloud is particularly dark at visible wavelengths, as it lacks the massive stars that illuminate the nebulae in other star-formation regions such as Orion.

But active star formation is taking place. This is why observations at longer wavelengths, such as the millimeter range, are essential for understanding the early stages of star formation.

Read more about this particular region at the ESO website.