A proposed LEGO version of the Hubble Space Telescope won't be produced, Credit: LEGO.
This week the official LEGO review board announced their newest official LEGO model kits that were chosen from fan-suggested ideas, submitted through its LEGO Ideas website. While a Hubble Space Telescope kit seemed an obvious choice (this year is Hubble’s 25th anniversary), instead the review board chose a Pixar WALL-E robot set and a Doctor Who set.
“We reviewed eight amazing projects that reached 10,000 supporters between June and September,” said Signe Lonholdt from the LEGO Ideas team said in a video (below) announcing the winners. The eight sets had each reached 10,000 fan votes, which Lonholdt said is a “tremendous accomplishment,” but the final decision is up to the review board. The board considers factors such as “playability, safety and fit within the LEGO brand.”
The LEGO Hubble Space Telescope set was designed and submitted by fan Gabriel Russo, who said the kit would be “the perfect homage to its 25th anniversary in 2015.” According to Robert Pearlman at collectSpace.com, it reached 10,000 votes last August. You can see the Hubble submission page here.
Other fan-submitted ideas that didn’t make the cut were three different Star Wars sets (an AT-AT, a Lightsaber set and an Invisible Hand set) along with a Ghostbusters HQ building.
Previous space-related fan-created/submitted kits that were chosen and produced by LEGO are models of Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft and NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover.
You can see other submitted ideas and vote for them on the LEGO Ideas site.
In the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden delivers a “state of the agency” address at NASA's televised fiscal year 2016 budget rollout event with Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana looking on, at right. NASA's Orion, SpaceX Dragon and Boeing CST-100 spacecraft were on display. Photo credit: NASA/Gianni Woods
The Obama Administration today (Feb. 2) proposed a NASA budget allocation of $18.5 Billion for the new Fiscal Year 2016, which amounts to a half-billion dollar increase over the enacted budget for FY 2015, and keeps the key manned capsule and heavy lift rocket programs on track to launch humans to deep space in the next decade and significantly supplements the commercial crew initiative to send our astronauts to low Earth orbit and the space station later this decade.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden formally announced the rollout of NASA’s FY 2016 budget request today during a “state of the agency” address at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), back dropped by the three vehicles at the core of the agency’s human spaceflight exploration strategy; Orion, the Boeing CST-100 and the SpaceX Dragon.
“To further advance these plans and keep on moving forward on our journey to Mars, President Obama today is proposing an FY 2016 budget of $18.5 billion for NASA, building on the significant investments the administration has made in America’s space program over the past six years,” Administrator Bolden said to NASA workers and the media gathered at the KSC facility where Orion is being manufactured.
“These vehicles are not things just on paper anymore! This is tangible evidence of what you [NASA] have been doing these past few years.”
In the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden delivers a “state of the agency” address on Feb 2, 2015 at NASA’s televised fiscal year 2016 budget rollout event. Photo credit: NASA/Gianni Woods
Bolden said the $18.5 Billion budget request will enable the continuation of core elements of NASA’s main programs including first launch of the new commercial crew vehicles to orbit in 2017, maintaining the Orion capsule and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to further NASA’s initiative to send ‘Humans to Mars’ in the 2030s, extending the International Space Station (ISS) into the next decade, and launching the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018. JWST is the long awaited successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
“NASA is firmly on a journey to Mars. Make no mistake, this journey will help guide and define our generation.”
Funding is also provided to enable the manned Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) by around 2025, to continue development of the next Mars rover, and to continue formulation studies of a robotic mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
“That’s a half billion-dollar increase over last year’s enacted budget, and it is a clear vote of confidence in you – the employees of NASA – and the ambitious exploration program you are executing,” said Bolden.
Overall the additional $500 million for FY 2016 translates to a 2.7% increase over FY 2015. That compares to about a 6.4% proposed boost for the overall US Federal Budget amounting to $4 Trillion.
The Boeing CST-100 and the SpaceX Dragon V2 will restore the US capability to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
In September 2014, Bolden announced the selections of Boeing and SpaceX to continue development and certification of their proposed spaceships under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and Launch America initiative started back in 2010.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden (left) announces the winners of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program development effort to build America’s next human spaceships launching from Florida to the International Space Station. Speaking from Kennedy’s Press Site, Bolden announced the contract award to Boeing and SpaceX to complete the design of the CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft. Former astronaut Bob Cabana, center, director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Kathy Lueders, manager of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, and former International Space Station Commander Mike Fincke also took part in the announcement. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, all NASA astronauts have been totally dependent on Russia and their Soyuz capsule as the sole source provider for seats to the ISS.
“The commercial crew vehicles are absolutely critical to our journey to Mars, absolutely critical. SpaceX and Boeing have set up operations here on the Space Coast, bringing jobs, energy and excitement about the future with them. They will increase crew safety and drive down costs.”
Meet Dragon V2 – SpaceX CEO Elon pulls the curtain off manned Dragon V2 on May 29, 2014 for worldwide unveiling of SpaceX’s new astronaut transporter for NASA. Credit: SpaceX
CCP gets a hefty and needed increase from $805 Million in FY 2015 to $1.244 Billion in FY 2016.
To date the Congress has not fully funded the Administration’s CCP funding requests, since its inception in 2010.
The significant budget slashes amounting to 50% or more by Congress, have forced NASA to delay the first commercial crew flights of the private ‘space taxis’ from 2015 to 2017.
As a result, NASA has also been forced to continue paying the Russians for crew flights aboard the Soyuz that now cost over $70 million each under the latest contract signed with Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Boeing CST-100 capsule interior up close. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Bolden has repeatedly stated that NASA’s overriding goal is to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.
To accomplish the ‘Journey to Mars’ NASA is developing the Orion deep space crew capsule and mammoth SLS rocket.
However, both programs had their budgets cut in the FY 2016 proposal compared to FY 2015. The 2015 combined total of $3.245 Billion is reduced in 2016 to $2.863 Billion, or over 10%.
The first test flight of an unmanned Orion atop the SLS is now slated for liftoff on Nov. 2018, following NASA’s announcement of a launch delay from the prior target of December 2017.
Since the Journey to Mars goal is already underfunded, significant cuts will hinder progress.
NASA’s first Orion spacecraft blasts off at 7:05 a.m. atop United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy Booster at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 5, 2014. Launch pad remote camera view. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
There are some losers in the new budget as well.
Rather incomprehensibly funding for the long lived Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover is zeroed out in 2016.
This comes despite the fact that the renowned robot just reached the summit of a Martian mountain at Cape Tribulation and is now less than 200 meters from a science goldmine of water altered minerals.
NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover captures sweeping panoramic vista near the ridgeline of 22 km (14 mi) wide Endeavour Crater’s western rim. The center is southeastward and the distant rim is visible in the center. An outcrop area targeted for the rover to study is at right of ridge. This navcam panorama was stitched from images taken on May 10, 2014 (Sol 3659) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com
Funding for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is also zeroed out in FY 2016.
Both missions continue to function quite well with very valuable science returns. They were also zeroed out in FY 2015 but received continued funding after a senior level science review.
So their ultimate fate is unknown at this time.
Overall, Bolden was very upbeat about NASA’s future.
“I can unequivocally say that the state of NASA is strong,” Bolden said.
He concluded his remarks saying:
“Because of the dedication and determination of each and every one of you in our NASA Family, America’s space program is not just alive, it is thriving! Together with our commercial and international partners, academia and entrepreneurs, we’re launching the future. With the continued support of the Administration, the Congress and the American people, we’ll all get there together.”
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
This dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the constellation Fornax is a satellite of our Milky Way and is one of 10 used in Fermi's dark matter search. The motions of the galaxy's stars indicate that it is embedded in a massive halo of matter that cannot be seen. Credit: ESO/Digital Sky Survey 2
As part of the Local Group, a collection of 54 galaxies and dwarf galaxies that measures 10 million light years in diameter, the Milky Way has no shortage of neighbors. However, refinements made in the field of astronomy in recent years are leading to the observation of neighbors that were previously unseen. This, in turn, is changing our view of the local universe to one where things are a lot more crowded.
For instance, scientists working out of the Special Astrophysical Observatory in Karachai-Cherkessia, Russia, recently found a previously undetected dwarf galaxy that exists 7 million light years away. The discovery of this galaxy, named KKs3, and those like it is an exciting prospect for scientists, since they can tell us much about how stars are born in our universe.
The Russian team, led by Prof Igor Karachentsev of the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), used the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to locate KKs3 in the southern sky near the constellation of Hydrus. The discovery occurred back in August 2014, when they finalized their observations a series of stars that have only one ten-thousandth the mass of the Milky Way.
Such dwarf galaxies are far more difficult to detect than others due to a number of distinct characteristics. KKs3 is what is known as a dwarf spheroid (or dSph) galaxy, a type that has no spiral arms like the Milky Way and also suffers from an absence of raw materials (like dust and gas). Since they lack the materials to form new stars, they are generally composed of older, fainter stars.
Image of the KKR 25 dwarf spheroid galaxy obtained by the Special Astrophysical Observatory using the HST. Credit: SAO RAS
In addition, these galaxies are typically found in close proximity to much larger galaxies, like Andromeda, which appear to have gobbled up their gas and dust long ago. Being faint in nature, and so close to far more luminous objects, is what makes them so tough to spot by direct observation.
Team member Prof Dimitry Makarov, also of the Special Astrophysical Observatory, described the process: “Finding objects like Kks3 is painstaking work, even with observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. But with persistence, we’re slowly building up a map of our local neighborhood, which turns out to be less empty than we thought. It may be that are a huge number of dwarf spheroidal galaxies out there, something that would have profound consequences for our ideas about the evolution of the cosmos.”
Painstaking is no exaggeration. Since they are devoid of materials like clouds of gas and dust fields, scientists are forced to spot these galaxies by identifying individual stars. Because of this, only one other isolated dwarf spheroidal has been found in the Local Group: a dSph known as KKR 25, which was also discovered by the Russian research team back in 1999.
But despite the challenges of spotting them, astronomers are eager to find more examples of dSph galaxies. As it stands, it is believed that these isolated spheroids must have been born out of a period of rapid star formation, before the galaxies were stripped of their dust and gas or used them all up.
Studying more of these galaxies can therefore tell us much about the process star formation in our universe. The Russian team expects that the task will become easier in the coming years as the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope begin service.
Much like the Spitzer Space Telescope, these next-generation telescopes are optimized for infrared detection and will therefore prove very useful in picking out faint stars. This, in turn, will also give us a more complete understanding of our universe and all that it holds.
That's the case with NGC 2207 and IC 2163, which are located about 130 million light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Canis Major. Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/STScI/JPL-Caltech
At this time of year, festive displays of light are to be expected. This tradition has clearly not been lost on the galaxies NHC 2207 and IC 2163. Just in time for the holidays, these colliding galaxies, which are located within the Canis Major constellation (some 130 million light-years from Earth,) were seen putting on a spectacular lights display for us folks here on Earth!
And while this galaxy has been known to produce a lot of intense light over the years, the image above is especially luminous. A composite using data from the Chandra Observatory and the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, it shows the combination of visible, x-ray, and infrared light coming from the galactic pair.
In the past fifteen years, NGC 2207 and IC 2163 have hosted three supernova explosions and produced one of the largest collections of super bright X-ray lights in the known universe. These special objects – known as “ultraluminous X-ray sources” (ULXs) – have been found using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
While the true nature of ULXs is still being debated, it is believed that they are a peculiar type of star X-ray binary. These consist of a star in a tight orbit around either a neutron star or a black hole. The strong gravity of the neutron star or black hole pulls matter from the companion star, and as this matter falls toward the neutron star or black hole, it is heated to millions of degrees and generates X-rays.
The core of galaxy Messier 82 (M82), where two ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs, reside (X-1 and X-2). Credit: NASA
Data obtained from Chandra has determined that – much like the Milky Way Galaxy – NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are sprinkled with many star X-ray binaries. In the new Chandra image, this x-ray data is shown in pink, which shows the sheer prevalence of x-ray sources within both galaxies.
Meanwhile, optical light data from the Hubble Space Telescope is rendered in red, green, and blue (also appearing as blue, white, orange, and brown due to color combinations,) and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope is shown in red.
The Chandra observatory spent far more time observing these galaxies than any previous ULX study, roughly five times as much. As a result, the study team – which consisted of researchers from Harvard University, MIT, and Sam Houston State University – were able to confirm the existence of 28 ULXs between NGC 2207 and IC 2163, seven of which had never before been seen.
In addition, the Chandra data allowed the team of scientists to observe the correlation between X-ray sources in different regions of the galaxy and the rate at which stars are forming in those same regions.
The Mice galaxies, seen here well into the process of merging. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope
As the new Chandra image shows, the spiral arms of the galaxies – where large amounts of star formation is known to be occurring – show the heaviest concentrations of ULXs, optical light, and infrared. This correlation also suggests that the companion star in the star X-ray binaries is young and massive.
This in turn presents another possibility which has to do with star formation during galactic mergers. When galaxies come together, they produce shock waves that cause clouds of gas within them to collapse, leading to periods of intense star formation and the creation of star clusters.
The fact that the ULXs and the companion stars are young (the researchers estimate that they are only 10 million years old) would seem to confirm that they are the result of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 coming together. This seem a likely explanation since the merger between these two galaxies is still in its infancy, which is attested to by the fact that the galaxies are still separate.
They are expected to collide soon, a process which will make them look more like the Mice Galaxies (pictured above). In about one billion years time, they are expected to finish the process, forming a spiral galaxy that would no doubt resemble our own.
A team of astronomers have used the Subaru Telescope to look back more than 13 billion years to find 7 early galaxies that appeared quite suddenly within 700 million years of the Big Bang . Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team
It’s an amazing thing, staring into deep space with the help of a high-powered telescope. In addition to being able to through the vast reaches of space, one is also able to effectively see through time.
Using the Subaru Telescope’s Suprime-Cam, a team of astronomers has done just that. In short, they looked back 13 billion years and discovered 7 early galaxies that appeared quite suddenly within 700 million years of the Big Bang. In so doing, they discovered clues to one of astronomy’s most burning questions: when and how early galaxies formed in our universe.
The team, led by graduate student Akira Konno and Dr. Masami Ouchi (Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo’s ICRR) was looking for a specific kind of galaxy called a Lyman-alpha emitter (LAE), to understand the role such galaxies may have played in an event called “cosmic reionization”.
The current cosmological model states that the universe was born in the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago. In its earliest epochs, it was filled with a hot “soup” of charged protons and electrons. As the newborn universe expanded, its temperature decreased uniformly.
It is estimated that the first stars and galaxies formed 12.8 billion years ago, during a period of “cosmic reionization”. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Felid (STScI)
When the universe was 400,000 years old, conditions were cool enough to allow the protons and electrons to bond and form neutral hydrogen atoms. That event is called “recombination” and resulted in a universe filled with a “fog” of these neutral atoms.
Eventually the first stars and galaxies began to form, and their ultraviolet light ionized the hydrogen atoms, and “divided” the neutral hydrogen into protons and electrons again. As this occurred, the “fog” of neutral hydrogen cleared.
Astronomers call this event “cosmic reionization” and think that it ended about 12.8 billion years ago – a billion years after the Big Bang. The timing of this event – when it started and how long it lasted – is one of the big questions in astronomy.
To investigate this cosmic reionization, the Subaru team searched for early LAE galaxies at a distance of 13.1 billion light years. Although Hubble Space Telescope has found more distant LAE galaxies, the discovery of seven such galaxies at 13.1 billion light-years represents a distance milestone for Subaru Telescope.
Color composite images of seven LAEs found in the study. The red objects between two white lines are the LAEs. Credit: ICRR, University of Tokyo
Mr. Konno, the graduate student heading the analysis of the data from the Subaru Telescope pointed out the obstacles that Subaru had to overcome to make the observations.”It is quite difficult to find the most distant galaxies due to the faintness of the galaxies.” he said. “So, we developed a special filter to be able to find a lot of faint LAEs. We loaded the filter onto Suprime-Cam and conducted the most distant LAE survey with the integration time of 106 hours.”
That extremely long integration time was one of the longest ever performed at Subaru Telescope. It allowed for unprecedented sensitivity and enabled the team to search for as many of the most distant LAEs as possible.
According to Konno, the team expected to find several tens of LAEs. Instead they only found seven.
“At first we were very disappointed at this small number,” Konno said. “But we realized that this indicates LAEs appeared suddenly about 13 billion years ago. This is an exciting discovery. We can see that the luminosities suddenly brightened during the 700-800 million years after the Big Bang. What would cause this?”
This shows evolution of the Lyman-alpha luminosities of the galaxies. Credit: ICRR, University of Tokyo; Hubble Space Telescope/NASA/ESA
As the table above illustrates, the luminosities of LAEs changed based on this study. The yellow circle at 1 billion years after the Big Bang is used for normalization. The yellow circles come from previous studies, and the yellow dashed line shows the expected evolutionary trend of the luminosity.
The current finding is shown by a red circle, and we can see that the galaxies appear suddenly when the universe was 700 million years old. This indicates that the neutral hydrogen fog was suddenly cleared, allowing the galaxies to shine out, as indicated by the backdrop shown for scale and illustration.
According to the team’s analysis, one reason that LAEs appeared very quickly is cosmic reionization. LAEs in the epoch of cosmic reionization became darker than the actual luminosity due to the presence of the neutral hydrogen fog.
In the team’s analysis of their observations, they suggest the possibility that the neutral fog filling the universe was cleared about 13.0 billion years ago and LAEs suddenly appeared in sight for the first time.
“However, there are other possibilities to explain why LAEs appeared suddenly,” said Dr. Ouchi, who is the principal investigator of this program. “One is that clumps of neutral hydrogen around LAEs disappeared. Another is that LAEs became intrinsically bright. The reason of the intrinsic brightening is that the Lyman-alpha emission is not efficiently produced by the ionized clouds in a LAE due to the significant escape of ionizing photons from the galaxy. In either case, our discovery is an important key to understanding cosmic reionization and the properties of the LAEs in early universe.”
Dr. Masanori Iye, who is a representative of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project of Japan, commented on the observations and analysis. “To investigate which possibility is correct, we will observe with HSC (Hyper Suprime-Cam) on Subaru Telescope, which has a field of view 7 times wider than Suprime-Cam, and TMT currently being built on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii in the future. By these observations, we will clarify the mystery of how galaxies were born and cosmic reionization occurred.”
Images captured by the Hubble Telescope of the vast debris systems surrounding nearby stars.
Credit: NASA/ESA/ G. Schneider (University of Arizona), and the HST/GO 12228 Team
Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have completed the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of the debris disks surrounding nearby stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old.
The research was conducted by astronomers from NASA’s Goddard Space Center with the help of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. The survey was led by Glenn Schneider, the results of which appeared in the Oct. 1, 2014, issue of The Astronomical Journal.
“We find that the systems are not simply flat with uniform surfaces,” Schneider said. “These are actually pretty complicated three-dimensional debris systems, often with embedded smaller structures. Some of the substructures could be signposts of unseen planets.”
In addition to learning much about the debris fields that surround neighboring stars, the study presented an opportunity to learn more about the formation of our own Solar System.
“It’s like looking back in time to see the kinds of destructive events that once routinely happened in our solar system after the planets formed,” said Schneider.
Once thought to be flat disks, the study revealed an unexpected diversity and complexity of dusty debris structures surrounding the observed stars. This strongly suggest they are being gravitationally affected by unseen planets orbiting the star.
Alternatively, these effects could result from the stars’ passing through interstellar space. In addition, the researchers discovered that no two “disks” of material surrounding stars were alike.
A circumstellar disk of debris around a matured stellar system may indicate that Earth-like planets lie within. Credit: NASA/JPL
The astronomers used Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to study 10 previously discovered circumstellar debris systems, plus MP Mus, a mature protoplanetary disk that is comparable in age to the youngest of the debris disks.
Irregularities observed in one ring-like system in particular (around HD 181327) resemble the ejection of a huge spray of debris into the outer part of the system from the recent collision of two bodies.
“This spray of material is fairly distant from its host star — roughly twice the distance that Pluto is from the Sun,” said co-investigator Christopher Stark of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. “Catastrophically destroying an object that massive at such a large distance is difficult to explain, and it should be very rare. If we are in fact seeing the recent aftermath of a massive collision, the unseen planetary system may be quite chaotic.”
Another interpretation for the irregularities is that the disk has been mysteriously warped by the star’s passage through interstellar space, directly interacting with unseen interstellar material. “Either way, the answer is exciting,” Schneider said. “Our team is currently analyzing follow-up observations that will help reveal the true cause of the irregularity.”
Over the past few years astronomers have found an incredible diversity in the architecture of exoplanetary systems. For instance, they have found that planets are arranged in orbits that are markedly different than found in our solar system.
A collision between two bodies is one explanation for the ring-like debris system around HD 181327. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We are now seeing a similar diversity in the architecture of accompanying debris systems,” Schneider said. “How are the planets affecting the disks, and how are the disks affecting the planets? There is some sort of interdependence between a planet and the accompanying debris that might affect the evolution of these exoplanetary debris systems.”
From this small sample, the most important message to take away is one of diversity, Schneider said. He added that astronomers really need to understand the internal and external influences on these systems – such as stellar winds and interactions with clouds of interstellar material – and how they are influenced by the mass and age of the parent star, and the abundance of heavier elements needed to build planets.
Though astronomers have found nearly 4,000 exoplanet candidates since 1995, mostly by indirect detection methods, only about two dozen light-scattering, circumstellar debris systems have been imaged over that same time period.
That’s because the disks are typically 100,000 times fainter than (and often very close to) their bright parent stars. The majority have been seen because of Hubble’s ability to perform high-contrast imaging, in which the overwhelming light from the star is blocked to reveal the faint disk that surrounds the star.
The new imaging survey also yields insight into how our solar system formed and evolved 4.6 billion years ago. In particular, the suspected planet collision seen in the disk around HD 181327 may be similar to how the Earth-Moon system formed, as well as the Pluto-Charon system over 4 billion years ago. In those cases, collisions between planet-sized bodies cast debris that then coalesced into a companion moon.
Hubble Frontier Fields observing programme, which is using the magnifying power of enormous galaxy clusters to peer deep into the distant Universe. Credit: NASA.
In a patch of sky 3.5 billion light-years away there are hazy elliptical galaxies, colorful spirals, blue arcs and distorted shapes seen clumping together. It’s the result of a vast cosmic collision that took place over the course of 350 million years.
The mess is a treasure trove of information for astronomers, allowing them to piece together the history of a cosmic pile-up of multiple galaxy clusters.
But now astronomers are digging through the nearby darkness. They’re eyeing the remnant stars that were cast adrift in intergalactic space. These stars should emit a faint glow known as intracluster light that — until now — has mostly remained a subject of speculation.
Mireia Montes and Ignacio Trujillo, both from the University of La Laguna, Spain, have used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the aforementioned cluster, Abel 2744, in exquisite detail. The cluster has already earned the nickname Pandora’s Cluster for its violent past.
The team looked at both visible and near-infrared color images of the cluster, and then split these color images by brightness. This allowed Montes and Trujillo to pinpoint the color of the cluster’s faintest glow and therefore glean the ghost stars’ age, chemical content, and total mass.
Compared to stars within the cluster’s galaxies, the ghost stars emit bluer light and are therefore rich in heavier elements like oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. So the scattered stars must be second- or third-generation stars enriched by previous supernovae. But they’re still between three and nine billion years younger than the stars within the cluster’s galaxies.
The team estimates that the combined light of about 100 billion outcast stars contributes approximately six percent of the cluster’s brightness.
But how did the stars get thrown from their respective galaxies in the first place? This new forensic evidence suggests that violent collisions tore apart between four and six Milky Way-size galaxies, scattering their stars into intergalactic space.
“The Hubble data revealing the ghost light are important steps forward in understanding the evolution of galaxy clusters,” said Trujillo in a news release. “It is also amazingly beautiful in that we found the telltale glow by utilizing Hubble’s unique capabilities.”
Abell 2744 is only one target in Hubble’s Frontier Fields program, which will map five more galaxy clusters in superb detail.
The results have been published in the Astrophysical Journal and are available online.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot and Ganymede's Shadow. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center)
Halloween is just around the corner. And in what appears to be an act of cosmic convergence, Hubble captured a spooky image of Jupiter staring back at us with a cyclops eye!
While this is merely a convenient illusion caused by the passage of Ganymede in front of Jupiter – something it does on a regular basis – the timing and appearance are perfect.
Credit: NASA, ESA, K.-V. Tran (Texas A&M University), and K. Wong (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics)
Sometimes there’s a chance alignment — faraway in the universe, where objects are separated by unimaginable distances measured in billions of light-years — when a galaxy cluster in the foreground intersects light from an even more distant object. The conjunction plays visual tricks, where the galaxy cluster acts like a lens, appearing to magnify and bend the distant light.
The rare cosmic alignment can bring the distant universe into view. Now, astronomers have stumbled upon a surprise: they’ve detected the most distant cosmic magnifying glass yet.
Seen above as it looked 9.6 billion years ago, this monster elliptical galaxy breaks the previous record holder by 200 million light-years. It’s bending, distorting and magnifying the distant spiral galaxy, whose light has taken 10.7 billion years to reach Earth.
“When you look more than 9 billion years ago in the early universe, you don’t expect to find this type of galaxy-galaxy lensing at all,” said lead researcher Kim-Vy Tran from Texas A&M University in a Hubble press release.
“Imagine holding a magnifying glass close to you and then moving it much farther away. When you look through a magnifying glass held at arm’s length, the chances that you will see an enlarged object are high. But if you move the magnifying glass across the room, your chances of seeing the magnifying glass nearly perfectly aligned with another object beyond it diminishes.”
The team was studying star formation in data collected by the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawai’i, when they came across a strong detection of hot hydrogen gas that appeared to arise form a massive, bright elliptical galaxy. It struck the team as odd. Hot hydrogen is a clear sign of star birth, but it was detected in a galaxy that looked far too old to be forming new stars.
“I was very surprised and worried,” Tran recalled. “I thought we had made a major mistake with our observations.”
So Tran dug through archived Hubble images, which revealed a smeared, blue object next to the larger elliptical. It was the clear signature of a gravitational lens.
“We discovered that light from the lensing galaxy and from the background galaxy were blended in the ground-based data, which was confusing us,” said coauthor Ivelina Momcheva of Yale University. “The Keck spectroscopic data hinted that something interesting was going on here, but only with Hubble’s high-resolution spectroscopy were we able to separate the lensing galaxy from the more distant background galaxy and determine that the two were at different distances. The Hubble data also revealed the telltale look of the system, with the foreground lens in the middle, flanked by a bright arc on one side and a faint smudge on the other — both distorted images of the background galaxy. We needed the combination of imaging and spectroscopy to solve the puzzle.”
By gauging the intensity of the background galaxy’s light, the team was able to measure the giant galaxy’s total mass. All in all it weighs 180 billion times more than our Sun. Although this may seem big, it actually weighs four times less than the Milky Way galaxy.
“There are hundreds of lens galaxies that we know about, but almost all of them are relatively nearby, in cosmic terms,” said lead author Kenneth Wong from the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics. “To find a lens as far away as this one is a very special discovery because we can learn about the dark-matter content of galaxies in the distant past. By comparing our analysis of this lens galaxy to the more nearby lenses, we can start to understand how that dark-matter content has evolved over time.”
Interestingly, the lensing galaxy is underweight in terms of its dark-matter content. In the past, astronomers have assumed that dark matter and normal matter build up equally in a galaxy over time. But this galaxy, suggests this is not the case.
The team’s results appeared in the July 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available online.
The sunshield test unit on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is unfurled for the first time. Credit: NASA
GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, MD – The huge Sunshield test unit for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been successfully unfurled for the first time in a key milestone ahead of the launch scheduled for October 2018.
Engineers stacked and expanded the tennis-court sized Sunshield test unit last week inside the cleanroom at a Northrop Grumman facility in Redondo Beach, California.
NASA reports that the operation proceeded perfectly the first time during the test of the full-sized unit.
The Sunshield and every other JWST component must unfold perfectly and to precise tolerances in space because it has not been designed for servicing or repairs by astronaut crews voyaging beyond low-Earth orbit into deep space, William Ochs, Associate Director for JWST at NASA Goddard told me in an exclusive interview.
Artist’s concept of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with Sunshield at bottom. Credit: NASA/ESA
The five layered Sunshield is the largest component of the observatory and acts like a parasol.
Its purpose is to protect Webb from the suns heat and passively cool the telescope and its quartet of sensitive science instruments via permanent shade to approximately 45 kelvins, -380 degrees F, -233 C.
The kite-shaped Sunshield provides an effective sun protection factor or SPF of 1,000,000. By comparison suntan lotion for humans has an SPF of 8 to 40.
Two sides of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Credit: NASA
The extreme cold is required for the telescope to function in the infrared (IR) wavelengths and enable it to look back in time further than ever before to detect distant objects.
The shield separates the observatory into a warm sun-facing side and a cold anti-sun side.
Its five thin membrane layers also provides a stable thermal environment to keep the telescopes 18 primary mirror segments properly aligned for Webb’s science investigations.
JWST is the successor to the 24 year old Hubble Space Telescope and will become the most powerful telescope ever sent to space.
The Webb Telescope is a joint international collaborative project between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
NASA has overall responsibility and Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for JWST.
Webb will launch folded up inside the payload fairing of an ESA Ariane V ECA rocket from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.
In launch configuration, the Sunshield will surround the main mirrors and instruments like an umbrella.
During the post launch journey to the L2 observing orbit at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point nearly a million miles (1.5 million Km) from Earth, the telescopes mirrors and sunshield will begin a rather complex six month long unfolding and calibration process.
The science instruments have been mounted inside the ISIM science module and are currently undergoing critical vacuum chamber testing at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center which provides overall management and systems engineering.
Gold coated flight spare of a JWST primary mirror segment made of beryllium and used for test operations inside the NASA Goddard clean room. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
The mirror segments have arrived at NASA Goddard where I’ve had the opportunity to observe and report on work in progress.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing JWST, MMS, ISS, Curiosity, Opportunity, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Boeing, Orion, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.
