Supernova

Image Credit: NASA/CXC/UCSC/L. Lopez et al.

"... On the other hand, remnants tied to the "core collapse" family of supernova explosions were distinctly more asymmetric, which is seen in the morphology of the G292.0+1.8 remnant (left). The research team measured asymmetry in two ways: how spherical or elliptical the supernova remnant was and how much one side of the remnant mirrors its opposite side. In G292, the asymmetry is subtle but can be seen in elongated features defined by the brightest emission (colored white)... " in NASA Newsletter

Tinha pensado, para os primeiros dias deste ano de 2010, apresentar uma versão "clássica" de música para o Ano Novo, tipo "Radetzky March" ou "An der schönen blauen Danube" dos Strauss, mas já estamos no dia 6 e na verdade, qualquer dia é um bom dia para escutar Strauss (qualquer deles)...por isso, a imagem que apresento acima, retirada de uma comunicação da NASA, acerca dos remanescentes de uma supernova. Uma supernova é, em termos básicos, uma estrela que explode, distribuindo a sua matéria e a sua energia, em todas as direcções, num espasmo final, anunciador do seu fim.No entanto, como podemos observar, olhando para a foto, o fim de uma estrela é, igualmente, o princípio de novas maravilhas, em que a estrela "morta" revive, num ciclo perpétuo. Assim seja o novo ano, que se inicia, um retomar de esperanças, um renovado olhar para as maravilhas que, muitas vezes, não vemos.
Naturalmente que, a música do universal compositor Vangelis, será mais um convite para olharmos para o céu ( o céu físico e o céu que está no nosso íntimo) com olhos mais abertos à grandiosidade que nos rodeia...

Andromeda M-31

Das várias informações recebidas da NASA Newsletter,nestes últimos dias,destaco esta

espantosa montagen de imagens,recolhidas no espectro ultra-violeta: a galáxia M-31,

na constelação de Andrómeda:

Image Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)

" Andromeda in Ultraviolet

In a break from its usual task of searching for distant cosmic explosions, NASA's Swift satellite acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet. The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own. This mosaic of M31 merges 330 individual images taken by Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope. The image shows a region 200,000 light-years wide and 100,000 light-years high (100 arcminutes by 50 arcminutes). "

Sinfonia Azul

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


" Symphony in Blue

Like early explorers mapping the continents of our globe, astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Using infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars. Previously, our galaxy was thought to possess four major arms.
This artist's concept illustrates the new view of the Milky Way, along with other findings presented at the 212th American Astronomical Society meeting. The galaxy's two major arms (Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus) can be seen attached to the ends of a thick central bar, while the two now-demoted minor arms (Norma and Sagittarius) are less distinct and located between the major arms. The major arms consist of the highest densities of both young and old stars; the minor arms are primarily filled with gas and pockets of star-forming activity."

Cygnus

Foto - Credits: NASA/CXC


CHANDRA

Exploring the Invisible Universe

"Cygnus X-1: Still a "Star

Since its discovery 45 years ago, Cygnus X-1 has been one of the most intensively studied cosmic X-ray sources. About a decade after its discovery, Cygnus X-1 secured a place in the history of astronomy when a combination of X-ray and optical observations led to the conclusion that it was a black hole, the first such identification.
The Cygnus X-1 system consists of a black hole with a mass about 10 times that of the Sun in a close orbit with a blue supergiant star with a mass of about 20 Suns. Gas flowing away from the supergiant in a fast stellar wind is focused by the black hole, and some of this gas forms a disk that spirals into the black hole. The gravitational energy release by this infalling gas powers the X-ray emission from Cygnus X-1.
Although more than a thousand scientific articles have been published on Cygnus X-1, its status as a bright and nearby black hole continues to attract the interest of scientists seeking to understand the nature of black holes and how they affect their environment. Observations with Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton are especially valuable for studying the property of the stellar wind that fuels Cygnus X-1, and determining its rate of spin.
This latter research has revealed that Cygnus X-1 is spinning very slowly. This puzzling result could indicate that Cygnus X-1 may have formed in an unusual type of supernova that somehow prevented the newly formed black hole from acquiring as much spin as other stellar black holes."

A música de Júpiter

Interacções complexas de partículas electromagnéticamente carregadas do vento solar,magnetoesfera planetária,etc,captadas pela Voyager,ao passar por Júpiter, criam "vibrações"passíveis de ser escutadas ou "traduzidas" em audiofrequências.A "música" resultante é,no mínimo,estranha.Os ventos,em Júpiter,á superfície,são aproximadamente,1000 metros por segundo mais rápidos do que no interior,e o seu campo magnético 4000 vezes mais forte do que o da Terra.Junto com outras razões,o campo magnético "oscila",provocando forte efeito nas partículas electricamente carregadas.Este "plasma" é acelerado,para além da magnetoesfera,a velocidades de dezenas de milhares de km/s.Estas vibrações são a origem de alguns dos sons escutados.

Cosmic collision

Foto : X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/E. O'Sullivan Optical: Canada-France-Hawaii-
Telescope/Coelum


" Stephan's Quintet A Galaxy Collision in Action

Stephan's Quintet, a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth, provides a rare opportunity to observe a galaxy group in the process of evolving from an X-ray faint system dominated by spiral galaxies to a more developed system dominated by elliptical galaxies and bright X-ray emission. Being able to witness the dramatic effect of collisions in causing this evolution is important for increasing our understanding of the origins of the hot, X-ray bright halos of gas in groups of galaxies."

Acelerador de partículas,natural

Image Credit: Optical: ESO/E. Helder; X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al.


" A Super-Efficient Particle Accelerator


This image, created from data obtained from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, shows a part of the roughly circular supernova remnant known as RCW 86. This remnant of an exploded star may be the one observed in 185 AD by Chinese astronomers. By studying it, astronomers gained a better understanding of new details about the role of supernova remnants as the Milky Way's super-efficient particle accelerators. "



" This remnant of an exploded star may be the one observed in 185 AD by Chinese astronomers. By studying it, astronomers gained a better This remnant of an exploded star may be the one observed in 185 AD by Chinese astronomers."

Este curto texto,só por si,é um enorme incentivo à pesquisa relacionando acontecimentos
astronómicos com factos da história,natural ou humana,ramo fascinante das ciências.Até que ponto,reportando-nos,apenas,à história humana,factos astronómicos terão influenciado eventos muito para além do que sabemos ou imaginamos?

Space crystals

Foto : NASA/JPL-Caltech


Crystal Formation

This artist's concept illustrates how silicate crystals like those found in comets can be created by an outburst from a growing star. The image shows a young sun-like star encircled by its planet-forming disk of gas and dust. The silicate that makes up most of the dust would have begun as non-crystallized, amorphous particles.
As streams of material spiral from the disk onto the star, its mass increases and it brightens and heats up dramatically. The resulting outburst causes temperatures to rise in the star's surrounding disk.
When the disk warms from the star's outburst, the amorphous particles of silicate melt. As they cool off, they transform into forsterite (see inset), a type of silicate crystal often found in comets in our solar system.
In April 2008, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope detected evidence of this process taking place on the disk of a young sun-like star called EX Lupi.

Spitzer space telescope

Foto : NASA / JPL

O telescópio de infra-vermelhos Spitzer,está terminando sua missão,de quase seis anos.Muitas descobertas por ele proporcionadas,ainda estão em fase de estudo.Por intermédio das suas descobertas,e da respectiva interpretação,foi possível chegar ao resultado da mensagem anterior.

New World

Foto : NASA/JPL-Caltech



New World


This artist's conception shows a hypothetical young planet around a cool star. A soupy mix of potentially life-forming chemicals can be seen pooling around the base of the jagged rocks. Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope hint that planets around cool stars -- the so-called M-dwarfs and brown dwarfs that are widespread throughout our galaxy -- might possess a different mix of life-forming, or prebiotic, chemicals than our young Earth.
Life on our planet is thought to have arisen out of a pond-scum-like mix of chemicals. Some of these chemicals are thought to have come from a planet-forming disk of gas and dust that swirled around our young sun. Meteorites carrying the chemicals might have crash-landed on Earth.
Astronomers don't know if these same life-generating processes are taking place around stars that are cooler than our sun, but the Spitzer observations show their disk chemistry is different. Spitzer detected a prebiotic molecule, called hydrogen cyanide, in the disks around yellow stars like our sun, but found none around cooler, less massive, reddish stars. Hydrogen cyanide is a carbon-containing, or organic compound. Five hydrogen cyanide molecules can join up to make adenine -- a chemical element of the DNA molecule found in all living organisms on Earth.

Europa

Foto : NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Europa


"Jupiter's moon Europa has a crust made up of blocks, which are thought to have broken apart and 'rafted' into new positions, as shown in the image on the left. These features are the best geologic evidence to date that Europa may have had a subsurface ocean at some time in its past.
Combined with the geologic data, the presence of a magnetic field leads scientists to believe an ocean is most likely present at Europa today. In this false color image, reddish-brown areas represent non-ice material resulting from geologic activity. White areas are rays of material ejected during the formation of the Pwyll impact crater. Icy plains are shown in blue tones to distinguish possibly coarse-grained ice (dark blue) from fine-grained ice (light blue). Long, dark lines are ridges and fractures in the crust, some of which are more than 1,850 miles long. These images were obtained by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during Sept. 7, 1996, Dec. 1996 and Feb. 1997 at a distance of 417,489 miles."

Credit : NASA Newsletters

"Spirit" Mars Exploration Rover

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


" Spirit's View Beside 'Home Plate' on Sol 1823NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit used its navigation camera to take the images that have been combined into this 180-degree view of the rover's surroundings during the 1,823rd Martian day, or sol, of Spirit's surface mission (Feb. 17, 2009). The center of the view is toward the south-southwest.
The rover had driven 23 feet, or 7 meters, eastward earlier on Sol 1823, part of maneuvering to get Spirit into a favorable position for climbing onto the low plateau called 'Home Plate.' However, after two driving attempts with negligible progress during the following three sols, the rover team changed its strategy for getting to destinations south of Home Plate. The team decided to drive Spirit at least partway around Home Plate, instead of ascending the northern edge and taking a shorter route across the top of the plateau."

Quantas descobertas nos reserva,ainda,o "planeta vermelho"?Será que o "capitão John Carter" ainda vive as suas aventuras em "Barsoom"?

Pulsar 1509

Foto : NASA/CXC/CfA/P. Slane et al.

A beleza do Pulsar 1509,numa foto recolhida pelo telescópio de raios-x "Chandra" .

Reproduzo,em seguida,um texto informativo da NASA,sobre o pulsar 1509

"A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. At the center of this image made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic hand.
In this image, the lowest energy X-rays that Chandra detects are red, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. Astronomers think that B1509 is about 1,700 years old and is located about 17,000 light years away.
Neutron stars are created when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse. B1509 is spinning completely around almost 7 times every second and is releasing energy into its environment at a prodigious rate -- presumably because it has an intense magnetic field at its surface, estimated to be 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field.
The combination of rapid rotation and ultra-strong magnetic field makes B1509 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy. This generator drives an energetic wind of electrons and ions away from the neutron star. As the electrons move through the magnetized nebula, they radiate away their energy and create the elaborate nebula seen by Chandra.
In the innermost regions, a faint circle surrounds the pulsar, and marks the spot where the wind is rapidly decelerated by the slowly expanding nebula. In this way, B1509 shares some striking similarities to the famous Crab Nebula. However B1509's nebula is 15 times wider than the Crab's diameter of 10 light years.
Finger-like structures extend to the north, apparently energizing knots of material in a neighboring gas cloud known as RCW 89. The transfer of energy from the wind to these knots makes them glow brightly in X-rays (orange and red features to the upper right). The temperature in this region appears to vary in a circular pattern around this ring of emission, suggesting that the pulsar may be precessing like a spinning top and sweeping an energizing beam around the gas in RCW 89.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass."

Exoplaneta

Foto : NASA/ESA/G.Bacon

A foto acima,pretende demonstrar uma imagem do 3º planeta,em torno da
estrela HR-8799,a 130 anos-luz da Terra.É um planeta gigante,com um brilho
intenso.Foi encontrado nos arquivos do telescópio espacial Hubble.Terá sido
recolhoda cerca de 1998.Só agora,se descobriu esta preciosa informação.
Seguramente ainda existem muitas maravilhas para ser encontradas em
informação arquivada,sejam astronómicas,geográficas ou históricas,por
exemplo.É,no entanto,INDISPENSÁVEL,que os "ratos de biblioteca",os
investigadores pacientes,"casmurros","chatos",seja apoiados e incentivados
para que muitas outras descobertas não terminem ainda antes de existirem!!