Space and Astronomy Megathread (MERGED)

[Obi-Ron]

Damn near killed 'em.

 

[Shemtov]

I saw Orion, Taurus, and Sirius last night.

 

[FaT_tONle]

Huge gamma-ray blast spotted 12.2 bln light-years from earth

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US space agency's Fermi telescope has detected a massive explosion in space which scientists say is the biggest gamma-ray burst ever detected, a report published Thursday in Science Express said.

The spectacular blast, which occurred in September in the Carina constellation, produced energies ranging from 3,000 to more than five billion times that of visible light, astrophysicists said.

"Visible light has an energy range of between two and three electron volts and these were in the millions to billions of electron volts," astrophysicist Frank Reddy of US space agency NASA told AFP.

"If you think about it in terms of energy, X-rays are more energetic because they penetrate matter. These things don't stop for anything -- they just bore through and that's why we can see them from enormous distances," Reddy said.

A team led by Jochen Greiner of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics determined that the huge gamma-ray burst occurred 12.2 billion light years away.

The sun is eight light minutes from Earth, and Pluto is 12 light hours away.

Taking into account the huge distance from earth of the burst, scientists worked out that the blast was stronger than 9,000 supernovae -- powerful explosions that occur at the end of a star's lifetime -- and that the gas jets emitting the initial gamma rays moved at nearly the speed of light.

"This burst's tremendous power and speed make it the most extreme recorded to date," a statement issued by the US Department of Energy said.

Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions, which astronomers believe occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel and collapse.

Long bursts, which last more than two seconds, occur in massive stars that are undergoing collapse, while short bursts lasting less than two seconds occur in smaller stars.

In short gamma-ray bursts, stars simply explode and form supernovae, but in long bursts, the enormous bulk of the star leads its core to collapse and form a blackhole, into which the rest of the star falls.

As the star's core collapses into the black hole, jets of material blast outward, boring through the collapsing star and continuing into space where they interact with gas previously shed by the star, generating bright afterglows that fade with time.

"It's thought that something involved in spinning up and collapsing into that blackhole in the center is what drives these jets. No one really has figured that out. The jets rip through the star and the supernova follows after the jets," Reddy said.

Studying gamma-ray bursts allows scientists to "sample an individual star at a distance where we can't even see galaxies clearly," Reddy said.

Observing the massive explosions could also lift the veil on more of space's enigmas, including those raised by the burst spotted by Fermi, such as a "curious time delay" between its highest and lowest energy emissions.

Such a time lag has been seen in only one earlier burst, and "may mean that the highest-energy emissions are coming from different parts of the jet or created through a different mechanism," said Stanford University physicist Peter Michelson, the chief investigator on Fermi's large area telescope.

"Burst emissions at these energies are still poorly understood, and Fermi is giving us the tools to understand them. In a few years, we'll have a fairly good sample of bursts and may have some answers," Michelson said.

The Fermi telescope and NASA's Swift satellite detect "in the order of 1,000 gamma-ray bursts a year, or a burst every 100,000 years in a given galaxy," said Reddy.

Astrophysicists estimate there are hundreds of billions of galaxies.

The Fermi gamma-ray space telescope was developed by NASA in collaboration with the US Department of Energy and partners including academic institutions in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090219/sc_afp/sciencespaceastronomy

 

[Docker2.0]

A intergalactic war where they used a massive bomb?......or maybe Krypton exploding? Eh......this is the geek in me but there seems to be a lot happening in space that we don't have a clue about or probably never will...or possibly could even comprehend.

 

[FaT_tONle]

A intergalactic war where they used a massive bomb?......or maybe Krypton exploding? Eh......this is the geek in me but there seems to be a lot happening in space that we don't have a clue about or probably never will...or possibly could even comprehend.

... I am sure an expert would have a much more plausible scenario. They sort of do explain why these things are so powerful in the article. I ain't no nuclear astrophysicist or anything but it isn't Krypton exploding or the Death Star blowing up Aldoran I'll tell you that much

 

[Docker2.0]

I was kidding about Krypton......but you never know about the star wars thing. Have you ever went to youtube and seen the clips of what a satelite catches on tape from outer space? It would make a believer of you that something really is out there.

 

[Sam Fisher]

Did they happen to see a spaceship flying away from that blast?

 

[Ion Kenshin]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525695,00.html

Bye-bye, Betelgeuse?
A nearby, well-known and very bright star may soon explode in a supernova, according to data released by U.C. Berkeley researchers Tuesday.
The red giant Betelgeuse, once so large it would reach out to Jupiter's orbit if placed in our own solar system, has shrunk by 15 percent over the past decade in a half, although it's just as bright as it's ever been.
"To see this change is very striking," said retired Berkeley physics professor Charles Townes, who won the 1964 Nobel Prize for inventing the laser. "We will be watching it carefully over the next few years to see if it will keep contracting or will go back up in size."
Betelgeuse, whose name derives from Arabic, is easily visible in the constellation Orion. It gave Michael Keaton's character his name in the movie "Beetlejuice" and was the home system of Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Red giant stars are thought to have short, complicated and violent lifespans. Lasting at most a few million years, they quickly burn out their hydrogen fuel and then switch to helium, carbon and other elements in a series of partial collapses, refuelings and restarts.


Betelgeuse, which is thought to be reaching the end of its lifespan, may be experiencing one of those collapses as it switches from one element to another as nuclear-fusion fuel.
"We do not know why the star is shrinking," said Townes' Berkeley colleague Edward Wishnow. "Considering all that we know about galaxies and the distant universe, there are still lots of things we don't know about stars, including what happens as red giants near the ends of their lives."
Eventually, the huge star may become a nesting doll of elements, with a mixed iron-nickel core surrounded by onion-like layers of silicon, oxygen, neon, carbon, helium and hydrogen.
As the iron fuel runs out, it may explode into a supernova, blasting newly created elements out into the universe and leaving behind a small, incredibly dense neutron star.
All the heavier elements in the universe — including all the oxygen, carbon and iron in your own body — were created in such a way.
It's possible we're observing the beginning of Betelgeuse's final collapse now.
If so, the star, which is 600 light-years away, will already have exploded — and we'll soon be in for a spectacular, and perfectly safe, interstellar fireworks show.

 

[Maximus One]

Just thought I would make a thread for my favorite scientific field of study considering al the other threads on here ranging from the religious to paranormal to deepsea creatures. If there is already a thread on this subject than please feel free to direct me to it and delete this.

Anyways on with the discussion. So what are some of you guys favorite theoretical concepts or devices. One Ive become very interested in as of late is a theoretical device called a Dyson Sphere. It is a theoretical construct that would be astronomical in size and would be built around a star as to absorb most of the energy from the star instead of letting it all just dissipate into deep space. Very cool concept but eons away from ever actualy being feasible.

 

[Maximus One]

Well no wonder I didnt see this thread last post on 6/10

 

[Maximus One]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525695,00.html

Wow that is awesome! I realy hope it goes supernova within our lifetime cuz thatll probably be the closest one weve ever witnessed b

 

[Ion Kenshin]

It'd be pretty damn cool to see.

 

[FaT_tONle]

Found a forum last night that is more suitable for intensive and technical debate on theoretical physics and astronomy and all the latest theories if you guys are interested. People that seem to really know what they are talking about. I am nowhere near that level and never took anything beyond the general level physics in college, but stumbled onto some very interesting topics. Trying to improve my knowledge in the subject(s).

http://www.advancedphysics.org/forum

 

[Venom'sDad]

Thanks FaTs

 

[redmarvel]

The Persies Meteor shower will be visible in Ontario tonight at 10:30pm

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/art...st-dazzling-meteor-shower-takes-place-tonight

 

[Venom'sDad]

Scientist propose a "One-Way Trip to Mars". What says you.

 

[Carcharodon]

I'd like to know who would take on that sort of mission. Succeed or fail, they're guaranteed a spot in the history books (I would hope). The idea itself seems somewhat more practical than the idea of a two-way flight, at least at this point in time.

As a side-note (since this thread has been resurrected), I've made arguments in the past asserting that the universe is finite. I need to retract that argument. Apparently, there are ways that known observations could fit with the idea of an infinite universe in some form or another.

 

[doih]

Cool topic.

I was following a weird gamma ray story last week. Turns out it's a black hole being born.

http://news.discovery.com/space/baby-black-hole-gamma-ray.html

 

[:eek:]

Earth-Size Planet Candidates Found In Habitable Zone

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Earth_Size_Planet_Candidates_Found_In_Habitable_Zone_999.html

 

[Venom'sDad]

Mercury may have..... WATER!?!

 

[Duke]

of course. We're one big happy fleet. Ah, kirk, my old friend, do you know the klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?
(pause)
it is very cold in space.

khan!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ObakeTora]

Could Saturn's Moon Enceladus Nurture Alien Life?

 

[Venom'sDad]

A fourth moon has been discovered orbiting around the now defunct planet known as the "Dwarf" planet of Pluto. Still regarded as the "Ninth" planet in my book, the moon is thought to orbit between Nix and Hydra; which was only discovered just five years ago. The moon was discoverd by the Hubble Space Telescope long exposure camera in an attempt to find evidence supporting a theory that the "Planet" Pluto may have rings. This discovery of a fourth moon, makes for exciting times as the space craft New Horizon approaches the "Planet" in the summer of 2015.

Click the links above for the full stories and pictures of the Plutonian System.

 

[:eek:]

Astronomers Find Largest, Oldest Mass of Water in Universe

http://www.livescience.com/15195-universe-biggest-oldest-cloud-water.html

 

[Asteroid-Man]

Flowing water found on Mars!!
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/08/201184225954832856.html