A Young Pulsar Shows Its Hand

A small, dense object only 12 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 it 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.

Image Credits: NASA/CXC/CfA/P. Slane et al.
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Jupiter Occulation

Lieut Evans observing an occulation of Jupiter during the British Antarctic Expedition 1910-13.
June 8th 1911
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brilliant noise

Brilliant Noise by Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt

Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files, made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor have brought together some of the sun's finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise. This grainy black and white quality is routinely cleaned up by NASA, hiding the processes and mechanics in action behind the capturing procedure. Most of the imagery has been collected as single snapshots containing additional information, by satellites orbiting the Earth. They are then reorganised into their spectral groups to create time-lapse sequences. The soundtrack highlights the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating areas of intensity within the image brightness into layers of audio manipulation and radio frequencies.

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grooves on blue

Cassini peers through Saturn's delicate, translucent inner C ring to see the diffuse blue limb of Saturn's atmosphere. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 20 degrees above the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 25, 2008 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (913,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.

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clouds over africa

Cumulonimbus Cloud over Africa is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 16 crewmember on the International Space Station. Deemed by many meteorologists as one of the most impressive of cloud formations, cumulonimbus (from the Latin for "puffy" and "dark") clouds form due to vigorous convection of warm and moist unstable air. Surface air warmed by the Sun-heated ground surface rises, and if sufficient atmospheric moisture is present, water droplets will condense as the air mass encounters cooler air at higher altitudes. The air mass itself also expands and cools as it rises due to decreasing atmospheric pressure, a process known as adiabatic cooling. This type of convection is common in tropical latitudes year-round and during the summer season at higher latitudes. As water in the rising air mass condenses and changes from a gaseous to a liquid state, it releases energy to its surroundings, further heating the surrounding air and leading to more convection and rising of the cloud mass to higher altitudes. This leads to the characteristic vertical "towers" associated with cumulonimbus clouds, an excellent example of which is visible in this image (right). If enough moisture is present to condense and continue heating the cloud mass through several convective cycles, a tower can rise to altitudes of approximately 10 kilometers at high latitudes to 20 kilometers in the tropics -- before encountering a region of the atmosphere known as the tropopause. The tropopause is characterized by a strong temperature inversion where the atmosphere is dryer and no longer cools with altitude. This halts further vertical motion of the cloud mass, and causes flattening and spreading of the cloud tops into an anvil-shaped cloud as illustrated by this oblique photograph. The view direction is at an angle from the vertical, rather than straight "down" towards the Earth's surface. The image, photographed while the International Space Station was passing over western Africa near the Senegal-Mali border, shows a fully-formed anvil cloud with numerous smaller cumulonimbus towers rising near it. The high energetics of these storm systems typically make them hazardous due to associated heavy precipitation, lightning, high wind speeds and possible tornadoes.

Constelation

In the rosy light of dawn, construction continues on the new lightning protection system for the Constellation Program on Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Each of the three new lightning towers will be 500 feet tall with an additional 100-foot fiberglass mast atop. This improved lightning protection system allows for the taller height of the Ares I rocket compared to the space shuttle. Pad 39B will be the site of the first Ares vehicle launch, including the Ares I-X test flight that is targeted for July 2009.

(sorce:nasa)

Lulin approaches

Comet C/2007 N3, also known as Comet Lulin, is a non-periodic comet. It was discovered by Ye Quanzhi and Lin Chi-Sheng from Lulin Observatory. It will peak in brightness for observers on Earth on February 24, 2009, between magnitude +4 and magnitude +6. The comet will also appear to pass near Saturn on February 23, and near Regulus in Leo on February 26 and 27, 2009. On May 12, 2009, it will then appear to pass near Comet Cardinal.

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(+) Paolo Candy

The Cossack

The An-225 Mriya is a strategic airlift transport aircraft which was built by the Antonov Design Bureau, and is by some measures the largest airplane ever built. The design was an enlargement of the successful An-124 Ruslan. Mriya (Мрія) means "Dream" (Inspiration) in Ukrainian.
The An-225 was designed for the Soviet space program as a replacement for the Myasishchev VM-T. Able to airlift the Energia rocket's boosters and the Buran space shuttle, its mission and objectives are almost identical to that of the Airbus Beluga and the United States' Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

taikonaut

A Chinese taikonaut (Chinese astronaut) today became the first taikonaut to walk in space when he left his space craft for a total of fifteen minutes. The entire event, which marks a new stage in China's space program, was broadcast live on national TV.

The walk started at 1630 local time (0830 UTC) today when he exited the spacecraft, while attached to an umbilical cable. Zhai Zhigang, who has also worked as a fighter pilot, carried out the space walk. "I'm feeling quite well. I greet the Chinese people and the people of the world," he said as he walked out of his spacecraft to start the walk.

Money Collider

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Monday that repairing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will cost up to €16.6 million or US$21 million.

The LHC, which is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, is located near the border of France and Switzerland and crosses the border four times. It has a diameter of 27 km (17 miles). It is designed to simulate the conditions shortly after the Big Bang, but it broke down on September 19 due to an electrical failure. Most of the repair time is covered by previously scheduled maintenance time, and CERN originally hoped to have the machine up and running again by early May. However, CERN officials now believe that it may take until the end of July or longer.

CERN spokesman James Gillies said: "If we can do it sooner, all well and good. But I think we can do it realistically by early summer."

The machine operates at temperatures colder than outer space and must be gradually warmed up for experts to assess the damage, causing much of the delay. CERN expects the repair cost to fall within the annual budget for the project.

Moon Base

Designed by Architects and Vision, MoonBaseTwo is a semi-permanent moon base which allows up to 4 astronauts to live there for 6 months. MoonBaseTwo is designed to be transported by the Ares V rocket. The base automatically deploys after landing and ready to accommodate astronauts.

Moon Base Two

photo: Mare Imbrium and Copernicus crater by the Apollo 17 Mission

PS: November 15, 2008 - At 8:34 pm Indian time Friday night (1504 UTC), India became the fourth country to land its flag on the Moon. The unmanned lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 (meaning 'Moon craft' in Sanskrit) ejected its Moon Impact Probe, which hurtled across the surface of the Moon at 1.5 kilometres per second (3000 miles per hour), and successfully crash landed near the Moon's south pole. Besides carrying three important scientific instruments, the lunar probe also carried the image of the Indian national flag, painted on all sides.

Smile

Appulse is an astronomical term that refers to the very near approach of one celestial object to another, as seen from a third body. Usually it refers to the close approach of two planets together in the sky, or of the Moon to a star or planet as the Moon follows its monthly orbit around Earth, as seen by an observer located on Earth. An "appulse" can also be referred to as a conjunction.
future conjunctions

photo credits
Jamie Russell
Rhoderic Lourens
Dave Jurasevich