Universe Today

February 15, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Galactic Gas Cloud Could Help Spot Hidden Black Holes

Illustration of gas cloud G2 approaching Sgr A* . Our central supermassive black hole periodically snacks on clouds and other material like this. That gives off X-rays and other emissions. (ESO/MPE/M.Schartmann/J.Major)

The heart of our Milky Way galaxy is an exotic place. It’s swarming with gigantic stars, showered by lethal blasts of high-energy radiation and a veritable cul-de-sac for the most enigmatic stellar corpses known to science: black holes. And at the center of the whole mélange is the granddaddy of all the black holes in the galaxy — Sagittarius A*, a supermassive monster with 4 million times more mass than the Sun packed into an area smaller than the orbit of Mercury.

Sgr A* dominates the core of the Milky Way with its powerful gravity, trapping giant stars into breakneck orbits and actively feeding on anything that comes close enough. Recently astronomers have been watching the movement of a large cloud of gas that’s caught in the pull of Sgr A* — they’re eager to see what exactly will happen once the cloud (designated G2) enters the black hole’s dining room… it will, in essence, be the first time anyone watches a black hole eat.

But before the dinner bell rings — estimated to be sometime this September — the cloud still has to cover a lot of space. Some scientists are now suggesting that G2’s trip through the crowded galactic nucleus could highlight the locations of other smaller black holes in the area, revealing their hiding places as it passes.

In a new paper titled “G2 can Illuminate the Black Hole Population near the Galactic Center” researchers from Columbia University in New York City and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts propose that G2, a cloud of cool ionized gas over three times more massive than Earth, will likely encounter both neutron stars and other black holes on its way around (and/or into) SMBH Sgr A*.

*Estimated number of stellar-mass black holes to be encountered by G2 along its trajectory (Bartos et al.)*

The team notes that there are estimated to be around 20,000 stellar-mass black holes and about as many neutron stars in the central parsec of the galaxy. (A parsec is equal to 3.26 light-years, or 30.9 trillion km. In astronomical scale it’s just over 3/4 the way to the nearest star from the Sun.) In addition there may also be an unknown number of intermediate-mass black holes lurking within the same area.

These ultra-dense stellar remains are drawn to the center region of the galaxy due to the effects of dynamical friction — drag, if you will — as they move through the interstellar material.

Of course, unless black holes are feeding and actively throwing out excess gobs of hot energy and matter due to their sloppy eating habits, they are very nearly impossible to find. But as G2 is observed moving along its elliptical path toward Sgr A*, it could very well encounter a small number of stellar- and intermediate-mass black holes and neutron stars. According to the research team, such interactions may be visible with X-ray spotting spacecraft like NASA’s Chandra and NuSTAR.

*NuSTAR X-ray image of a flare emitted by Sgr A* in July 2012 (NASA/JPL-Caltech)*

The chances of G2 encountering black holes and interacting with them in such a way as to produce bright enough x-ray flares that can be detected depends upon a lot of variables, like the angles of interaction, the relative velocities of the gas cloud and black holes, the resulting accretion rates of in-falling cloud matter, and the temperature of the accretion material. In addition, any observations must be made at the right time and for long enough a duration to capture an interaction (or possibly multiple interactions simultaneously) yet also be able to discern them from any background X-ray sources.

Still, according to the researchers such observations would be important as they could provide valuable information on galactic evolution, and shed further insight into the behavior of black holes.

Read the full report here, and watch an ESO news video about the anticipated behavior of the G2 gas cloud around the SMBH Sgr A* below:

This research was conducted by Imre Bartos, Zoltán Haiman, and Bence Kocsis of Columbia University and Szabolcs Márka of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

February 14, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astronomers Provide a Peek at Asteroid 2012 DA14

Asteroid 2012 DA14 as seen on February 14, 2013 at 11:00 UTC when the asteroid was at 0.018 Astronomical Unit from Earth. Images taken with Faulkes Telescope South operated by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network by E.Gomez. Animation by Remanzacco Observatory

Our friends Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes from the Remanzacco Observatory — along with Edward Gomez from the Faulkes Telescope — have nabbed a look at asteroid 2012 DA14 as it was approaching Earth on Feb. 14, 2013 at around 11:06UT. Guido and Howes said the asteroid was about 748,000 kilometers (465,000 miles) from Earth, and was only about magnitude 17 in brightness. The animation was created from 3 images taken by Faulkes Telescope South through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien telescope with a CCD. (You may have to click on the image for the animation, depending on your browser.)

See their website for some unique animations and detailed info about tomorrow’s (Feb. 15, 2013) close flyby of this 50 meter- (164 feet-) wide space rock.

February 14, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Watch Live as Asteroid 2012 DA14 Whizzes Past Earth

The orbital path of asteroid 2012 DA14 as seen face on (top) & near edge on (bottom). (Credit: JPL Small Body Database Browser).

Want to keep tabs on asteroid 2012 DA14 as it whizzes past Earth tomorrow (Feb. 15)? NASA TV and several online astronomy outlets will be tracking this asteroid as it makes its record-setting close shave. This marks the first time there has been an asteroid of this size passing this close that we’ve known a year beforehand. No, there’s no chance it will hit us, but it will come within 27,630 kilometers (17,168 miles) from the surface of the Earth, inside the ring of geosynchronous satellites girdling our planet Earth. It will closest to Earth at 2:25 p.m. EST (19:25 UTC).

Find out how you can watch on TV or online as this 50 meter- (164 feet-) wide space rock goes by:

NASA Television will provide commentary starting at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST, 19:00 UTC) on Friday, Feb. 15. This flyby will provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study a near-Earth object up close. You can either watch the feed below, or on your own television if you get NASA TV, or online here.

Video streaming by Ustream

The half-hour broadcast from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., will incorporate real-time animation to show the location of the asteroid in relation to Earth, along with live or near real-time views of the asteroid from observatories in Australia, weather permitting.

If you are planning to try and observe this asteroid yourself, here’s our detailed article about how to do it.

Here are other webcasts that are planned:

Virtual Telescope Project, Italy

Astronomer Gianluca Masi from the Virtual Telescope Project will provide live views of asteroid 2012 DA14 from Ceccano, Italy, beginning at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT). You can watch at this link.

Bareket Observatory, Israel

The Bareket Observatory in Israel will have a free live webcast of the 2012 DA14 asteroid flyby on Friday from at 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST (19:00 to 20:39 UTC).

Here’s the link to this webcast.

“The observatory will offer a special live view of the close approach, using a remote telescope coupled with a cooled CCD camera, accessible via the Internet,” said the observatory team.

Slooh Space Camera, Africa and Arizona

The Slooh Space Camera webcast will provide views of the asteroid from observatories in the Canary Islands (off the west coast of Africa) and in Arizona. They will also be viewable on iOS and Android mobile devices. Just go to the Slooh website on your device.

Slooh’s webcast will begin on the 15th at 6 p.m. PST / 9 p.m. EST / 02:00 UTC (2/16). The webcasts will feature real-time commentary by Slooh Space Camera’s Paul Cox, astronomer Bob Berman of Astronomy Magazine, and Matt Francis, the manager of Prescott Observatory at Embry-Riddle University in Arizona.

Here’s the link to the Slooh Space Camera website.

February 14, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Eye-Popping Interactive Panorama from the Curiosity Rover

Curiosity Rover's Self Portrait at 'John Klein' Drilling Site, which combines dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 3, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

There’s an incredible new interactive panorama from the latest Curiosity rover’s self-portrait and surroundings at the “John Klein” drilling site. It was put together by photographer Andrew Bodrov and combines the recent self-portrait and other images to create a full 360-degree panorama created from hundreds of images. The mosaic stretches about 30,000 pixels width.

Click here to see (and go play with) the panorama.

The pan includes the self-portrait, which consists of 66 different images (seen above) taken by the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian sol, of Curiosity’s work on Mars (Feb. 3, 2013 here on Earth), along with 113 images taken on Sol 170 and an additional 17 images taken on Sol 176.

Here’s the full pan in a non-interactive view:

Curiosity panorama. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS, image editing by Andrew Bodrov.

In the pan, you can see the holes in the rock named John Klein — in memory of a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011. The historic first drilling took place on Feb. 8, 2013, and by zooming around and in, you can also see the weird little shiny protuberance we’ve been talking about (look for the pile of rocks to the right of the rover.)

Bodrov is a photographer from Estonia who specializes in interactive panoramic photography. He did a previous Curiosity pan in August 2012 and he’s also taken lots of images at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

February 14, 2013April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

I’ve Always Dreamed of Being an Astronaut…

Astronaut bedding from Snurk (www.snurkbeddengoed.nl/

After seeing this on Google+, I knew I had to do a Bad Astronomer-like “want” post. This is a definite want. You can now be the first in your galaxy to have this awesome new bedding set. The duvet and pillow comes from a Dutch bedding shop named Snurk (that’s Dutch for ‘snoring’): “Underneath these sheets you will dream far beyond the stars…lie down, close your eyes and feel gravity decrease instantly.” They are now taking pre-orders, available in March.

Hat tip to Michael Interbartolo/Edward Burke

February 14, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

A Valentine From Voyager

Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as seen by Voyager 1 on Valentine's Day in 1990

On February 14, 1990, after nearly 13 years of travel through the outer Solar System, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft crossed the orbit of Pluto and turned its camera around, capturing photos of the planets as seen from that vast distance. It was a family portrait taken from over 4.4 billion kilometers away — the ultimate space Valentine.

Who says astronomy isn’t romantic?

Full mosaic of Voyager 1 images taken on Feb. 14, 1990 (NASA/JPL)

“That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives… There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.”

– Carl Sagan

It was the unique perspective above provided by Voyager 1 that inspired Carl Sagan to first coin the phrase “Pale Blue Dot” in reference to our planet. And it’s true… from the edges of the solar system Earth is just a pale blue dot in a black sky, a bright speck just like all the other planets. It’s a sobering and somewhat chilling image of our world… but also inspiring, as the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are now the farthest human-made objects in existence — and getting farther every second. They still faithfully transmit data back to us even now, over 35 years since their launches, from 18.5 and 15.2 billion kilometers away.

The Voyagers sure know the value of a long-term relationship.

See more news from the Voyager mission here.

February 14, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

An Enormous Arctic Spiral

Satellite image of a cloud vortex off the coast of Greenland (NASA/MODIS/Chelys)

Looking south across the southern tip of Greenland, this satellite image shows an enormous cloud vortex spiraling over the northern Atlantic ocean on January 26, 2013. An example of the powerful convection currents in the upper latitudes, these polar low cyclones are created when the motion of cold air is energized by the warmer ocean water beneath.

Sometimes referred to as Arctic cyclones, these spiraling storms can bring gale-force winds and heavy snowfall over a wide area of ocean during their 12- to 36-hour lifespans. Hurricane-type storms don’t only form in the tropics!

This image was captured by the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite from its polar orbit 705 km (438 miles) above the Earth. The view has been rotated so south is up; the southernmost tip of Greenland can be seen at lower right. Click for an impressive high-resolution view.

Image via EOSNAP/Chelys

February 13, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Lunar Exploration Company Offers the Public a Chance to Participate

Golden Spike: more human bootprints on the Moon, and you can help. Credit: Golden Spike.

Last December, when a private space exploration company named Golden Spike announced they are working to offer human expeditions to the Moon by 2020, they also said wanted to bring public along as an integral part of the company’s mission. Since their initial announcement, the Golden Spike team says they’ve been inundated with emails, letters and social media posts from people wanting to know how to take part, and how they could help speed the development of human lunar expeditions.

Today, The Golden Spike Company — which hopes to generate sustainable human lunar exploration with a series of commercial expeditions for nations, corporations, and individuals — began a 10-week Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to enable a “participatory exploration program.” This isn’t funding the building of rockets and spaceships directly, but does allow the public to help the company accelerate their efforts.

“The funds will enable us to launch our participatory exploration program, which is more than just the perks people get for making a donation,” said Golden Spike President and CEO Dr. Alan Stern in an email to Universe Today. “It involves apps, membership, media productions, and more, and that effort is intended to become self-sustaining after we jump-start it with Indiegogo.”

Stern said funds from the Indiegogo campaign will also be used for other activities in Golden Spike.

“We’re building a program that is about connecting people to lunar exploration,” he said, “and when we had people keep telling us they want to help fund us to help get us to the Moon, we’re really excited about that. But while our major funding will, of course come from sales and investment, this gives people a sense of participation too.”

The company is looking to raise $240,000 – a dollar for every mile from the Earth to the Moon.

“The drive aims to raise awareness about Golden Spike, accelerate Golden Spike’s plans for innovative public participation in its activities, and give the global community of space enthusiasts and the general public a chance to help fuel Golden Spike’s human Lunar exploration mission,” says the Golden Spike team on their Indiegogo page.

“We hope that this campaign and all the projects it enables will generate a degree of participation in space exploration that has never existed before” said Gerry Griffin, former Apollo Flight Director and the Chairman of Golden Spike’s Board of Directors.

Those participating in the crowdfunding campaign will become Golden Spike ‘insiders,’ with an Olympics Movement-style membership program for children and adults. “We want to make it possible for people to follow Golden Spike’s development and space missions just like people follow Hollywood, NASCAR, and professional sports,” said Stern.

Some of the perks of donating include receiving reconnaissance images of potential landing sites, having the chance to vote on where missions should land on the Moon, and having your name and a short message left on the Moon. Big donors would receive trips to launches of missions to the Moon.

But to get the Moon yourself via Golden Spike, you’ll have to foot the $1.5 billion price tag for a two-person lunar mission.

The Golden Spike Company was started by a group of former NASA engineers and spaceflight experts, looks to provide services such as vehicles, mission planning, mission ops, and crew training to create a reliable and affordable lunar exploration system that will be U.S. based

Stern said they will not build new hardware but adapt crew capsules already in development and use existing infrastructure and launchers. However, they are looking to developing their own lunar spacesuits and lunar landers.

Their tentative plan is to use a series of launches where the first launch sends a lunar lander to orbit the Moon and a second launch brings the crew, which will then dock with the lander and head to the Moon.

Stern said their costs per flight are not much higher than some recent robotic lunar missions that have been flown and they will offset their costs with spaceship naming rights, media rights, and other enticements. They already have companies involved, such as United Launch Alliance, Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, and have brought several investors on board.

Golden Spike’s website

The Indiegogo page for Golden Spike

A proposed Golden Spike lunar lander on the Moon. Credit: Golden Spike Company

February 13, 2013December 23, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

New Research Sheds Light On Black Hole Growth

The black hole that has grown the most can be found in the Sombrero galaxy . The researchers estimate that this black hole has been swallowing the equivalent of one Sun every twenty years and is now over 500 million times as heavy as the Sun. ESO Public Image Release

In a new study led by University of Central Lancashire astronomer Dr. Victor Debattista, researchers are looking into the mystery of how black holes grow and evolve. For many years, astronomers surmised black holes took on mass when their host galaxies merged, but now new modeling techniques show that black holes in spiral galaxies are forced to take on mass.

“Recent Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations have revealed that a majority of active galactic nuclei (AGN) are resident in isolated disk galaxies, contrary to the usual expectation that AGN are triggered by mergers.” says Debattista. “Here we develop a new test of the cosmic evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in disk galaxies by considering the local population of SMBHs. We show that substantial SMBH growth in spiral galaxies is required as disks assemble.”

Weighing in a range of one million to one billion times that of the Sun, the black holes located at the core of most galaxies would appear to be gaining at much quicker rates than expected. These are not just exceptions – more like rules. Even the Milky Way’s quiescent black hole might be gaining as much mass as the Sun every 3,000 years. Past observations have shown growth during collision events, when huge amounts of gas around the black hole become intensely hot and shine as an active galactic nucleus. This is a process which can be spotted as far back as the first formations in our Universe. However, these new simulations are giving insight into large scale growth without the need for violence.

“The X-ray-selected sample of moderate luminosity AGN consists of more than 50% disk galaxies, with ongoing mergers evident no more frequently than in nonactive galaxies.” explains the research team. “Some show that even heavily obscured quasars are hosted largely by disks, not by mergers. Studies of star-formation using Herschel find that the specific star formation rates of X-ray selected AGN hosts are no different from those of inactive galaxies, also indicating that AGN hosts are not undergoing fundamentally different behaviors”

These modeling techniques, combined with current observations done with the Hubble Space Telescope, give credence to the theory that black holes can gain significant mass even in “quiet” spiral galaxies. As a matter of fact, there is a strong possibility that AGNs present in some spiral galaxies may even outnumber galaxy mergers. To make this concept even more exciting, astronomers are anticipating an event later this year in our own galaxy – an event where a gas cloud near the Milky Way’s nucleus will encounter our own central black hole. According to predictions, our black hole may take on as much as 15 Earth masses in a period of 10 years from this cloud.

This concept of black hole growth isn’t entirely new, though. According to other research done with the Hubble Space Telescope and led by Dr. Stelios Kazantzidis of Ohio State University and Professor Frank C. van den Bosch of Yale University, they had previously pinpointed mass properties of black holes – making size predictions which utilized the speed of stars residing in the galaxies. In this instance, the team disproved previous assumptions that black holes were unable to grow while the host galaxy grew. Their comparison of spiral and elliptical galaxies “found there is no mismatch between how big their black holes are.” This means black holes would be gaining in mass – growing along at the same rate as the galaxy itself.

“These simulations show that it is no longer possible to argue that black holes in spiral galaxies do not grow efficiently. ” comments Debattista on this new research. ” Our simulations will allow us to refine our understanding of how black holes grew in different types of galaxies.”

February 13, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

See an Asteroid’s-Eye-View of Friday’s Close Approach Between 2012 DA14 and Earth

Painting of Asteroid 2012 DA14. © David A. Hardy/www.astroart.org

If you haven’t heard yet, this Friday, February 15, 2013 will be a close flyby of an asteroid named 2012 DA14. It’s turning out to be a highly anticipated event, as it will pass just 27,630 kilometers (17,168 miles) from the surface of the Earth, well within the range of many Earth-orbiting satellites. If you could watch the action from the vantage point of space, what would this flyby look like? Analytical Graphics, Inc., a company that creates modeling and analysis software for space, defense and other areas, has put together an animation which includes the asteroid’s trajectory as it approaches Earth, a closeup of the asteroid during its closest approach, a highlighted portion of Earth orbit that it is expected to pass through, and other interesting data.

The video above also provides a view of the asteroid’s pass by Earth below the geosynchronous orbit belt, how it will crossing the equatorial plane from South to North, a size comparison, and how the Earth/Moon will perturbs the asteroid’s orbit.

This asteroid is about 50 meters (164 feet) in size. Asteroid experts, including NASA’s Don Yeomans has , said there is no possibility of this asteroid hitting Earth, and they have also effectively ruled out the chance of any satellites getting hit.

The asteroid will not be bright enough to be visible with the unaided eye, but will be visible to backyard astronomers with good telescopes. The timing of the pass will allow viewers in eastern Europe, Africa, Australia and New Zealand to have the best chance of seeing this asteroid.

See our complete guide on how to see Asteroid 2012 DA14.

This asteroid must be stirring the imaginations of many; already renowned and award-winning space artist David A. Hardy has created a painting of his impression of 2012 DA14’s approach to Earth:

Thanks to Hardy for allowing us to post his lovely artwork. You can see more at his website, and he did an interview with us last year, which you can read here.

Animation courtesy of (AGI).