Universe Today

May 27, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Crystal Rain Cradles Infant Star

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope detected tiny green crystals, called olivine, thought to be raining down on a developing star. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Toledo

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Thanks to the infrared eye of the Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have captured evidence of “crystal rain” collapsing around a forming star. These tiny bits of green mineral – olivine – are also found in meteorites, but it’s the first time it has been observed in the dusty embryo of the stellar creation process. While it’s still unclear how these crystals formed, the suspect may be jets of superheated gas.

“If you could somehow transport yourself inside this protostar’s collapsing gas cloud, it would be very dark,” said Charles Poteet, lead author of the new study, also from the University of Toledo. “But the tiny crystals might catch whatever light is present, resulting in a green sparkle against a black, dusty backdrop.”

Located in the constellation of Orion, protostar HOPS-68 shares its forsterite crystals with a host of terrestrial souces, too. The forsterite crystal rain chemical compositions belongs to the olivine family of silicate minerals. Not only is it found in meteorites, but it’s part of common Earthly deposits, such as a periodot gemstone and the green sand beaches of Hawaii. In space you’ll find it in remote galaxies and NASA’s Stardust and Deep Impact missions both located the crystals in their close-up studies of comets. But it takes a mighty furnace to forge forsterite.

“You need temperatures as hot as lava to make these crystals,” said Tom Megeath of the University of Toledo in Ohio. He is the principal investigator of the research and the second author of a new study appearing in Astrophysical Journal Letters. “We propose that the crystals were cooked up near the surface of the forming star, then carried up into the surrounding cloud where temperatures are much colder, and ultimately fell down again like glitter.”

While the presence of olivine might be new, capturing the forsterite signature has occurred before – spotted in the swirling, planet-forming disks that surround young stars. What’s unusual is finding it in such at cool temperature… about minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 170 degrees Celsius). This leads researchers to believe the crystals are cooked below then “served up” in the outer structure. This line of reasoning might also explain why comets also contain the same minerals. As the rocky travellers move through infant solar systems, they collect the crystals where they have moved away to cooler climes.

Could this be true of what we know of our own solar system’s formation? Poteet and his colleagues say it’s plausible, but speculate that jets might have lifted crystals into the collapsing cloud of gas surrounding our early sun before raining onto the outer regions of our forming solar system. Eventually, the crystals would have been frozen into comets. The Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions, also participated in the study by characterizing the forming star.

“Infrared telescopes such as Spitzer and now Herschel are providing an exciting picture of how all the ingredients of the cosmic stew that makes planetary systems are blended together,” said Bill Danchi, senior astrophysicist and program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Original story source can be found at JPL News.

May 27, 2011December 24, 2015 by VirtualAstro

Beginner’s Guide to Astronomy – Refractor Telescopes

If you ask someone to describe or draw a telescope, nine times out of ten it will be a refractor.

The refractor telescope is quite possibly the most common or easily recognized telescope. It is a very simple design, which has been around for hundreds of years.

The history of the refractor is that it was first invented in the Netherlands in 1608, and is credited to 3 individuals; Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Janssen – spectacle-makers and Jacob Metius.

In 1609 Galileo Galilei heard about the refracting telescope and made his own design, publically announcing his invention and further developing it through extensive experimentation. Galileo’s friend Johannes Kepler further experimented with the design, introducing convex lenses at both ends, improving the operation of the telescope.

Many advances were made and the refracting telescope became the primary instrument for astronomical observations, but there was one problem; they were huge and some were many tens of feet long!

But now, after more than 400 years and — luckily — through advances in know-how and technology, the refractor has become much more powerful and compact than some of the behemoths in the early days.

Refractors or refracting telescopes employ a simple optical system comprising of a hollow tube with a large primary or “objective lens” at one end, which refracts light collected by the objective lens and bends light rays to make them converge at a focal point.

Light waves which enter at an angle converge on the focal plane. It is the combination of both which form an image that is further refracted and magnified by a secondary lens which is actually the eyepiece. Different eyepieces give different magnifications.

The larger the size of the objective or primary lens = more light gathered. So a 6 inch refractor gathers more light than a 2 inch one. This means more detail can be seen.

There are two main types of refractor telescopes: “Chromatic” – entry level and upwards with 2 lens elements and “Apochromatic” – premium, advanced and expert level telescopes with 3 or more very high quality lens elements with exotic mixes of materials.

Chromatic refractor telescopes are particularly good for observing bright objects such as the moon, planets and resolving things like double stars, but many astronomers who image deep sky and other objects use very high quality apochromatic refractors, due to their superior optics.

Refractor telescopes are very low maintenance due to being a sealed system and it is a simple case of setup and enjoy, without the fiddling lengthy setup times you may get with other telescopes.

Refractors give clean and crisp views due to the sealed nature, unlike other telescopes like Newtonians which are subject to cooling and air turbulence issues.

Due to their small size they are very portable and can also be used for terrestrial observations the same as binoculars, which are basically two refractors bolted together.

May 27, 2011December 24, 2015 by Ken Kremer

NASA Selects OSIRIS-REx as first US Asteroid Sampling Mission

Artist's concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collecting a sample from asteroid 1999 RQ36. OSIRIS-Rex would launch in 2016 and was just selected as NASA’s next science mission. Credit: NASA

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NASA officials announced the selection of OSIRIS-Rex as the next US robotic planetary science mission and which will pave the way for an eventual manned mission to an asteroid. OSIRIS-Rex will be the first US mission to collect and return samples of an asteroid to Earth.

OSIRIS-Rex is planned for launch to the near Earth asteroid designated as 1999 RQ36 in September 2016 and will return up to four pounds of prisitine asteroidal material to Earth in 2023. The precious sample would land arrive at Utah’s Test and Training Range in a sample return canister similar to the one for the Stardust spacecraft.

“We are absolutely delighted to announce the selection of OSIRIS-Rex,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, at a briefing for reporters.

“This asteroid is a time capsule from the birth of our solar system and ushers in a new era of planetary exploration. The knowledge from the mission also will help us to develop methods to better track the orbits of asteroids.”

OSIRIS-Rex is the acronym for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer.

The asteroid is an unchanged remnant from the collapse of the solar nebula and birth of our solar system some 4.5 billion years ago, little altered over time.

Asteroid 1999 RQ36 is likely rich in carbon, the key constituent of organic molecules and one of the building blocks of life. Organic molecules have been found in meteorite and comet samples, which indicates that some of life’s ingredients can be created in space.
The science team will determine if organics also are present on RQ36.

Osiris-REx collects pristine asteroid regolith

Asteroids like 1999 RQ36 may have seeded Earth billions of years ago with organic molecules that are the building blocks of life and perhaps eventually led to living organisms. Samples from the asteroids may help scientists unlock the mysteries of the origin of life on Earth.

Three years after launch, OSIRIS-Rex would arrive at Asteroid 1999 RQ36 in 2020 and study the 1900 foot wide space rock in detail for at least six months of comprehensive surface examinations with four science instruments.

The science team will also use the time – perhaps up to one year – to look for the optimal place to touch the surface and collect a sample of at least two ounces of surface material with a robotic arm.

“We are bringing back what we believe is the type of material that led to the building blocks of life, that led to us,” said Michael Drake, principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx mission from the University of Arizona.

OSIRIS-REx releases a sample canister - similar to Stardust - for re-entry back into Earth's atmosphere and landing by parachute in Utah.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

“We’re going for something rich in organics, which might have had something to do with life getting started.”

“OSIRIS-REx will explore our past and help determine our destiny,” said Drake. “It will return samples of pristine organic material that scientists think might have seeded the sterile early Earth with the building blocks that led to life. Such samples do not currently exist on Earth. OSIRIS-REx will also provide the knowledge that will guide humanity in deflecting any future asteroid that could collide with Earth, allowing humanity to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs.”

The small asteroid RQ36 has also attracted interest because there is a 1-in-1,800 chance of impacting the Earth in the year 2182.

Drake added that the team will carefully practice the sample collection before conducting the actual retrieval of a surface material of a mixture of soil and rocks with a pogo stick like device. He said it would be more like “kissing” the surface than a actual landing of the spacecraft.

The sampling device at the end of the robot arm looks like a car air filter. It will haul in the pristine regolith into the sample acquisition mechanism within 5 seconds in a “touch and go” maneuver as the spacecraft slowly descends at 0.1 m/sec. Up to 3 attempts are possible.

Check the sampling sequence video below.

Because the samples are expected to possess organic molecules, they will be subject to stringent planetary protection protocols. The OSIRIS-REx sample capsule will be stored for analysis at a special curation facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. By returning the asteroid samples to Earth, they can be studied by the most advanced science equipment available.

“I think we’ll get some much needed info on the composition and physical properties of asteroid surface material. I’m particularly interested in water content for future resource use. The photos should be spectacular,” said former Astronaut Tom Jones in exclusive comments for Universe Today.

“This is a critical step in meeting the objectives outlined by President Obama to extend our reach beyond low-Earth orbit and explore into deep space,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in a statement. “It’s robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations.”

When the mission is complete, the spacecraft is expected to have sufficient fuel reserves to be retargeted to a new destination according to Michael Drake.

OSIRIS-Rex is expected to cost $800 million according to Jim Green, minus the cost of the launch vehicle which he said has not yet been determined. This is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program following the Pluto-Charon mission and the Juno Jupiter Orbiter.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is building the spacecraft. Overall mission management will be provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

May 27, 2011April 13, 2022 by Ken Kremer

Awesome Hi Def Launch Videos from Endeavour

Space Shuttle Endeavour blasted off from Launch Pad 39 A on May 16, 2011. NASA has released awesome new launch videos taken from cameras mounted on the twin Solid Rocket boosters. Endeavour delivered the $2 Billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station. The AMS will search for dark matter, dark energy and antimatter to determine how the Universe was born. Credit: Ken Kremer

As the shuttle era frenetically draws to a close, the launch views of the thunderous climb to orbit captured by NASA just get ever more stunning and vividly illustrate what it’s like to liftoff to space.

Check out this awesome collection of high definition videos of Endeavour’s final blast off as recorded by cameras mounted on each of the twin solid rocket boosters (SRB’s) from multiple viewpoints.

The STS-134 mission lifted off on May 16 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cameras show the launch from numerous spectacular angles and vantage points, pointed down to Earth and up to space, from alongside the belly of the orbiter and along the sides of the SRB’s.

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The videos show all the phases of the SRB in flight – including separation, parachute deployment and all the way to the dramatic splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean with rapidly changing backgrounds of the launch pad, Earth and Space.

The STS-134 mission is the 25th and final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, NASA youngest orbiter.

Endeavour’s six man crew is led by Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. She was shot at point blank range and critically wounded during a routine congressional meet and greet with her constituents in January 2011.

Endeavour is set to land back at KSC on June 1 at 2:32 a.m. EDT after a 16 day mission to the International Space Station. The crew carried up the $2 Billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and attached this wor;ld class science instrument to the truss of the ISS. The AMS is a particle physics detector searching for antimatter, dark energy and dark matter. The goal is to elucidate the birth and evolution of the Universe.

Side view of shuttle Endeavour stack and access walkways.
NASA released stunning launch videos taken from cameras mounted on multiple spots around the twin Solid Rocket boosters shown here, including dramatic views with the orbiter belly rocketing to space. Credit: Ken Kremer

May 26, 2011December 24, 2015 by Jason Major

Water, Water Everywhere… Lunar Samples Show More Water Than Previously Thought

Orange lunar soil collected by Apollo 17 contains more water than once thought. Credit: NASA.

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A team of NASA-funded researchers led by Carnegie Institution’s Erik Hauri has recently announced the discovery of more water on the Moon, in the form of ancient magma that has been locked up in tiny crystals contained within soil samples collected by Apollo 17 astronauts. The amounts found indicate there may be 100 times more water within lunar magma than previously thought… truly a “watershed” discovery!

Orange-colored lunar soil sampled during Apollo 17 EVA missions was tested using a new ion microprobe instrument which measured the water contained within magma trapped inside lunar crystals, called “melt inclusions”. The inclusions are the result of volcanic eruptions on the Moon that occurred over 3.7 billion years ago.

Because these bits of magma are encased in crystals they were not subject to loss of water or “other volatiles” during the explosive eruption process.

“In contrast to most volcanic deposits, the melt inclusions are encased in crystals that prevent the escape of water and other volatiles during eruption. These samples provide the best window we have to the amount of water in the interior of the Moon.”

– James Van Orman of Case Western Reserve University, team member

While it was previously found that water is contained within lunar magma during a 2008 study led by Alberto Saal of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, this new announcement is based upon the work of Brown undergraduate student Thomas Weinreich, who located the melt inclusions. By measuring the water content of the inclusions, the team could then infer the amount of water present in the Moon’s interior.

The results also make correlations to the proposed origins of the Moon. Currently-accepted models say the Moon was created following a collision between the newly-formed Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet 4.5 billion years ago. Material from the Earth’s outer layers was blasted out into space, forming a ring of molten material that encircled the Earth and eventually coalesced, cooled and became the Moon. This would also mean that the Moon should have similarities in composition to material that would have been found in the outer layers of the Earth at that time.

“The bottom line is that in 2008, we said the primitive water content in the lunar magmas should be similar to lavas coming from the Earth’s depleted upper mantle. Now, we have proven that is indeed the case.”

– Alberto Saal, Brown University, RI

The findings also suggest that the Moon’s water may not just be the result of comet or meteor impacts – as was suggested after the discovery of water ice in polar craters by the LCROSS mission in 2009 – but may also have come from within the Moon itself via ancient lunar eruptions.

The success of this study makes a strong case for finding and returning similar samples of ejected volcanic material from other worlds in our solar system.

“We can conceive of no sample type that would be more important to return to Earth than these volcanic glass samples ejected by explosive volcanism, which have been mapped not only on the Moon but throughout the inner solar system.”

– Erik Hauri, lead author, Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism

The results were published in the May 26 issue of Science Express.

Read the full NASA news release here.

May 26, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Black Holes Spin Outta’ Control

An artist’s impression of the jets emerging from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy PKS 0521-36. Credit: Dana Berry / STScI

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“Down in a hole and they’ve put all the stones in their place. I’ve eaten the sun so my tongue has been burned of the taste…” For the first time the evolution of the spin of the supermassive black holes has finally been examined. New research hints that supermassive black holes enlarged by swallowing matter will barely show spin, while those that merge with other black holes take on a rapid spin rate. Outta’ control? Let’s check the evidence.

Dr Alejo Martinez-Sansigre of the University of Portsmouth and Prof. Steve Rawlings of the University of Oxford made the new discovery by using radio, optical and X-ray data. Their findings were that giant black holes are – on the average – spinning faster than ever. With masses anywhere between a million and billion times that of the Sun, the net they weave isn’t visible to the eye – but the accretion disk is. The material becomes superheated, emitting X-rays detectable by space-telescopes. And, like great rock music, they emit some powerful radio waves able to be picked up by terrestrially based equipment.

But that’s not all these powerful babies kick up. We also know that twin jets are often associated with black holes and their accretion disks. The evolution of the jets can be caused by many factors, but now we’re beginning to associate spin rate with their formation as well. Through sampling radio observations Dr Martinez-Sansigre and Professor Rawlings were able to deduce the power of the jets and how they acquire material. From there, they could hypothesize how quickly these objects are spinning. These same observations provided data on black hole evolution. According to their research, the early Universe black holes had a much slower spin rate compared to the fraction of those found rapidly spinning in the present.

“The spin of black holes can tell you a lot about how they formed. Our results suggest that in recent times a large fraction of the most massive black holes have somehow spun up.” said Dr Martinez-Sansigre. “A likely explanation is that they have merged with other black holes of similar mass, which is a truly spectacular event, and the end product of this merger is a faster spinning black hole.”

Professor Rawlings adds: “Later this decade we hope to test our idea that these supermassive black holes have been set spinning relatively recently. Black hole mergers cause predictable distortions in space and time – so-called gravitational waves. With so many collisions, we expect there to be a cosmic background of gravitational waves, something that will change the timing of the pulses of radio waves that we detect from the remnants of massive stars known as pulsars.

Radio waves? You bet. “Down in a hole. Outta’ control…”

May 26, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Rapid Formation May Have Stunted Mars’ Growth

Credit: Christopher Leather, University of Chicago

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Somewhere between two and four million years after our solar system formed, a rocky little runt went through a rapid growth spurt. In its embryonic stage, it was much like Earth. But it didn’t end up being terrestrial. Earth ended up being twice its size through collecting other rocky bodies as they passed by. But not Mars… Oh, no. Not Mars.

“Earth was made of embryos like Mars, but Mars is a stranded planetary embryo that never collided with other embryos to form an Earthlike planet.” said Nicolas Dauphas at the University of Chicago. “Mars probably is not a terrestrial planet like Earth, which grew to its full size over 50 to 100 million years via collisions with other small bodies in the solar system.”

The latest study of Mars just released in Nature puts forth the theory that the red planet’s rapid formation helps explain why it is so small. The idea isn’t new, but based on a proposal done 20 years ago and heightened by planetary growth simulations. The only thing missing was evidence… evidence that’s hard to come by since we can’t examine firsthand the formation history of Mars because of the unknown composition of its mantle – the rock layer beneath the planetary crust.

So what has changed that gives us a new view of how Mars came to be the runt of the solar system litter? Try meteorites. By analyzing Martian meteorites, the team was able to pick out clues about the mantle composition of Mars, but their compositions also have changed during their journey through space. This debris left over from the genesis time is nothing more than a common chondrite – a Rosetta stone for deducing planetary chemical composition. Dauphas and Pourmand analyzed the abundances of these elements in more than 30 chondrites, and compared those to the compositions of another 20 martian meteorites.

“Once you solve the composition of chondrites you can address many other questions,” Dauphas said.

And there are many, many questions left to be answered. Cosmochemists have intensively studied chondrites, but still poorly understand the abundances of two categories of elements they contain, including uranium, thorium, lutetium and hafnium. Hafnium and thorium both are refractory or non-volatile elements, meaning that their compositions remain relatively constant in meteorites. They also are lithophile elements, those that would have stayed in the mantle when the core of Mars formed. If scientists could measure the hafnium-thorium ratio in the martian mantle, they would have the ratio for the whole planet, which they need to reconstruct its formation history. When the team of Dauphas and Pourmand had determined this ratio, they were able to calculate how long it took Mars to develop into a planet. Then, by applying a simulation program, they were able to deduce that Mars… Oh, yes. Mars. Reached its full growth only two million years after the solar system.

“New application of radiogenic isotopes to both chondrite and martial meteorites provides data on the age and mode of formation of Mars,” said Enriqueta Barrera, program director in NSF’s Division of Earth Sciences. “That is consistent with models that explain Mars’ small mass in comparison to that of Earth.”

And still there are questions… But fast formation seems to be the answer. It might explain the puzzling similarities in the xenon content of its atmosphere and that of Earth’s. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but maybe the solution is that part of the atmosphere of Earth was inherited from an earlier generation of embryos that had their own atmospheres, maybe a Marslike atmosphere,” Dauphas said.

Mars? Oh, no. Not Mars.

Source: University of Chicago, AAS

May 26, 2011December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Best Images from STS-134, Endeavour’s Final Mission, Part 1

Astronaut Drew Feustel reenters the space station after completing an 8-hour, 7-minute spacewalk at on Sunday, May 22, 2011. He and fellow spacewalker Mike Fincke conducted the second of the four EVAs during the STS-134 mission. Credit: NASA

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It’s bittersweet: a very successful STS-134 shuttle mission going on right now, but it’s the last one ever for space shuttle Endeavour, and the second to the last shuttle mission ever. The best way to savor the mission is to enjoy some of the wonderful images being beamed down from space.

This striking image of Endeavour shooting up through the cloud deck was taken from a shuttle training aircraft on May 16, just seconds after Endeavour launched. Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Michael Fincke, STS-134 mission specialist, appears delighted that, because of the weightlessness of space, he can renew doing chores which he can't do on Earth, like lifting heavy bags and floating freely at the same time. Credit: NASA

Endeavour approaches the International Space Station. Visible is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer in the payload bay. Credit: NASA

This is the last time this will be seen in space: Endeavour's wing is photographed from the ISS during the shuttle's approach. Credit: NASA

This view of the nose, the forward underside and crew cabin of Endeavour was taken by a crew member on board the ISS during a a photo survey of the approaching STS-134 crew, looking for potential problems in the thermal protection system. Credit: NASA

A careful look at this scene in Earth orbit reveals the International Space Station (ISS) at frame center, as the ISS and Endeavour (partially seen in foreground) prepare to dock. Photo credit: NASA

The ISS hovers in the aft flight deck window of space shuttle Endeavour during rendezvous and docking operations. Photo credit: NASA

Commander Mark Kelly and Greg Johnson looks at the various mission insignias placed in the Unity node of the International Space Station before placing the STS-134 insignia among them. Credit: NASA

Can you find the astronauts in this image? Drew Feustel (top left) and Greg Chamitoff (center left), work during the first EVA of the STS-134 mission. Credit: NASA

NASA astronauts Michael Fincke (left), STS-134 mission specialist; and Ron Garan, Expedition 28 flight engineer pose with their headlights, worn so they can see while working behind a rack on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

One of the solar array wings on the ISS is backlit by a thin line of Earth's atmosphere. Credit: NASA

Astronauts Andrew Feustel (right) and Michael Fincke work during the STS-134 mission's third spacewalk. Credit: NASA

Shuttle Endeavour docked to the ISS, backdropped by a thinly lit part of Earth's atmosphere and the blackness of orbital nighttime in space. Credit: NASA

ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori floats through the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station during the STS-134 mission. Credit: NASA

How the mission started: Endeavour's final launch on May 16, 2011. Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today.

Click on each image to get access to higher resolution images, or see more images at NASA’s Human Spaceflight webpage gallery, and NASA’s Image of the Day gallery.

May 26, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Through The Eyes of WISE… Galaxies Seen In A New Light

Galaxy Shapes — Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

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NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) just released a new series of galactic images – allowing us just a hint at the amazing, and colorful, things to come. Release data products include an Atlas of 10,464 calibrated, co-added Image Sets and a Source Catalog containing positional and photometric information for over 257 million objects detected on the WISE images. Out of all this data, the mission plans to release a thousand images and possibly more…

“Galaxies come in all sorts of delicious flavors,” said Tom Jarrett, a WISE team member at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, who studies our Milky Way’s neighboring galaxies. “Our first sample shows what WISE is capable of. We can produce spectacular high-resolution images of the largest galaxies.”

Images taken in infrared light have been transformed into colors we can understand and relate to. Short wavelengths appear as blue and the longest are red. By token, aging stars appear blue, while clusters of newly formed stars take on yellow or reddish hues. This newly released image gives us a great sampler of all galaxy types – from elegant to disturbed. Because they are “close to home”, these particular galactic images taken through the eyes of WISE will allow us further insight as to their formation and evolution.

“We can learn about a galaxy’s stars — where are they forming and how fast?” said Jarrett. “There’s so much diversity in galaxies to explore.”

WISE, which launched into space in Dec. 2009, has been a busy project. Scanning the whole sky one-and-a-half times in infrared light, the mission has captured images as close as asteroids in our own solar system and distant galaxies billions of light-years away. The first data set, which ironically doesn’t include all of the galaxies in the new collage, was released to the public in April of this year. The complete WISE catalog will follow a year later, in the spring of 2012.

Says NASA; “The most distant objects that will stand out like ripe cherries in WISE’s view are tremendously energetic galaxies. Called ultraluminous infrared galaxies, or ULIRGs, these objects shine with the light of up to a trillion suns. They crowd the distant universe, but appear virtually absent in visible-light surveys. WISE should find millions of ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, and the most luminous of these could be the most luminous galaxy in the Universe.”

Source: Berkeley U.

May 26, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

From 2MASS To You… The Most Complete 3-D Map of Local Universe

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Isn’t this era of astronomy incredible? There are times when I thumb through my old astronomy books with their outdated information and simply marvel over today’s capabilities. Who would have believed just 50 years ago that we’d be peering into the far reaches of our Universe – let alone mapping them? Thanks to an endeavor that took more than 10 years to complete, the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) has provided us with 3-D map which cuts through the dust and pushes the envelope of the Galactic Plane out to 380 million light-years – encompassing more than 500 million stars and resolving more than 1.5 million galaxies.

With our current understanding of expansion, we accept a distant galaxy’s light is stretched into longer wavelengths – or redshifted. By default, this means the further a galaxy is away, the greater the redshift will be. This then becomes a critical factor in producing a three-dimensional point in mapping. To cut through the layers of obscuring dust, the original Two-Micron All-SkySurvey (2MASS) visualized the entire visible sky in three near-infrared wavelength bands. While it gave us an incredible look at what’s out there, it lacked a critical factor… distance. Fortunately, some of the galaxies logged by 2MASS had known redshifts, and thus began the intense “homework” of measurements in the late 1990s using mainly two telescopes: one at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, AZ, and one at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

“Our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Universe has been fundamentally transformed with seminal redshift, distant supernovae and cosmic microwave background surveys. The focus has shifted to the distribution and nature of dark matter and dark energy that drive the dynamics of the expanding cosmos.” says team member, Thomas Jarrett. “The study of the local Universe, including its peculiar motions and its clustering on scales exceeding 100 Mpc, is an essential ingredient in the connection between the origin of structure in the early Universe and the subsequent formation of galaxies and their evolution to the state we observe today. Key issues include the location and velocity distribution of galaxies, leading to the mass-to-light relationship between what is observed and what is influencing the mass density field.”

What makes this work so impressive? The 2MRS has logged what’s been previously hidden behind our Milky Way – allowing us to comprehend the impact they have on our motion. From the time astronomers first measured our movement relative to the rest of the Universe and realized it couldn’t be explained by the gravitational attraction from any visible matter, it became a huge jigsaw puzzle just waiting to have the pieces match up. Now massive local structures, like the Hydra-Centaurus region (the “Great Attractor”) which were previously hidden almost behind the Milky Way are shown in great detail by 2MRS. The Galactic “zone of avoidance” (ZoA) is still, however, a formidable barrier due to the sheer number of stars that produce a foreground (confusion) “noise”. Near the center of the Milky Way the confusion noise is extreme, blocking nearly 100% of the background light; whereas far from the Galactic center the confusion noise is minimal and the veil of the Milky Way is lifted at near-infrared wavelengths

“The 2MASS catalog has proven to be quite versatile to the astronomical community: supporting observation and future mission planning, seeding studies of star formation and morphology in nearby galaxies, penetrating the zone of avoidance, providing the base catalog of redshift and Tully-Fisher HI surveys, and so on. But perhaps its most important function is to provide the “big picture” context for analysis and interpretation of data concerning galaxy clusters, large scale structure and the density of matter in the Universe.” says Jarrett. “And so the primary motivation of this work, with the construction of qualitative “road” maps to the local Universe, is to provide a broad framework for studying the physical connection between the local Universe (Milky Way, Local Group, Local Supercluster, “Great Wall”, etc) and the distant Universe where galaxies and the cosmic web first formed. The best is yet to come.”