out of mind

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E. H. Chapin  (via cultureofresistance)

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cwnl:

‘Jaw-Dropping!’ Crab Nebula’s Powerful Beams Shock Astronomers

An artist’s conception of the pulsar at the center of the Crab Nebula, with a Hubble Space Telescope photo of the nebula in the background. Researchers using the VERITAS telescope array have discovered pulses of high-energy gamma rays coming from this object.

Image Credit: David A. Aguilar / NASA / ESA

When astronomers detected intense radiation pumping out of the Crab Nebula, one of the most studied objects in space, at higher energies than anyone thought possible, they were nothing short of stunned.

The inexplicably powerful gamma-rays came from the very heart of the Crab Nebula, where an extreme object called a pulsar resides.

“It was totally not expected — it was absolutely jaw-dropping,” Andrew McCann, a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a co-author of the new study, told SPACE.com. “This is one of the hottest targets in the sky, so people have been looking at the Crab Nebula for a long time. Now there’s a twist in the tale. High-energy rays coming from the nebula are well-known, but coming from the pulsar is something nobody expected.”

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scipsy:

The brilliant star cluster NGC 2100 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. (via ESO)

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cwnl:

Eye-Popping Look Into Space

More than 9,000 light-years away from Earth, stars form within the star cluster NGC 281, colloquially known as the “Pacman Nebula.” The nebula gets its name because optical images show dust obscuring some of the nebula’s glowing gas in a shape reminiscent of the arcade character. This infared image shows that dust glowing brightly instead.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/S.Wolk; IR: NASA/JPL/CfA/S.Wolk

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mothernaturenetwork:

New research may help aid scientists in ascertaining the rate at which the universe expands.

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scipsy:

This image shows the dramatic surroundings of the star cluster NGC 2100 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The picture is dominated by the Tarantula Nebula, the most active star formation region in the Local Group of galaxies that includes the Milky Way.  (via ESO)

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Carl Sagan (via goodreads.com)

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cwnl:

Young Stars of NGC346

Distance: 210,000 light-years

The massive stars of NGC 346 are short lived, but very energetic. The star cluster is embedded in the largest star forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Their winds and radiation sweep out an interstellar cavern in the gas and dust cloud about 200 light-years across, triggering star formation and sculpting the region’s dense inner edge. Cataloged as N66, the star forming region also appears to contain a large population of infant stars.

Credit: Antonella Nota (ESA/STScI) et al., ESA, NASA

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cwnl:

An Arc Sculpted by Gravity

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows remarkable structures in a galaxy cluster around an object called LRG-4-606. LRG stands for Luminous Red Galaxy, and is the acronym given to a large collection of bright red galaxies found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). These objects are mostly massive elliptical galaxies composed of huge numbers of old stars.

Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

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Brown Dwarf Star Could Model Extra-Solar Planet Atmosphere

Image: Astronomers have observed extreme brightness changes on a nearby brown dwarf that may indicate a storm grander than any seen yet on a planet. This finding could shed light on the atmospheres and weather on extra-solar planets. Credit: Art by Jon Lomberg.

Thanks to the help of the infrared camera on the 2.5m telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, astronomers are taking a very close look at a brown dwarf star named 2MASS J2139. During a recent survey they noticed something a little bit peculiar about this transitional solar system entity. Not only does it lay somewhere in-between being a dwarf star or a large planet – but it would appear to have a form of weather. Apparently there’s no place to escape clouds!

A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers had been doing a survey of nearby brown dwarfs, when they noticed that one in particular changed brightness in a matter of hours – the largest variation observed so far.

“We found that our target’s brightness changed by a whopping 30 per cent in just under eight hours,” said PhD candidate Jacqueline Radigan, lead author of a paper to be presented this week at the Extreme Solar Systems II conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and submitted to the Astrophysical Journal. “The best explanation is that brighter and darker patches of its atmosphere are coming into our view as the brown dwarf spins on its axis,” said Radigan.

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