PIA14104

This glowing emerald nebula seen by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is reminiscent of the glowing ring wielded by the superhero Green Lantern. In the comic books, the diminutive Guardians of the Planet "Oa" forged his power ring, but astronomers believe rings like this are actually sculpted by the powerful light of giant "O" stars. O stars are the most massive type of star known to exist. Named RCW 120, this region of hot gas and glowing dust can be found in the murky clouds encircled by the tail of the constellation Scorpius. The ring of dust is actually glowing in infrared colors that our eyes cannot see, but show up brightly when viewed by Spitzer's infrared detectors. At the center of this ring are a couple of giant stars whose intense ultraviolet light has carved out the bubble, though they blend in with other stars when viewed in infrared. The green ring is where dust is being hit by winds and intense light from the massive stars. The green color represents infrared light coming from tiny dust grains called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These small grains have been destroyed inside the bubble. The red color inside the ring shows slightly larger, hotter dust grains, heated by the massive stars. This bubble is far from unique. 

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I Just Want a Hoverboard...

http://www.celtechwd.com

Seth Sentry
Album: This Was Tomorrow

Download the album at: http://itunes.apple.com/au/album/this-was-tomorrow/id554443931

Seth Sentry - Dear Science - YouTube

Astrophotography: Auriga IC 405, 410, 417, M38

by: SBERRADA

Description}: I was fortunate enough to go to Bowron lake prov. park in BC Canada, and stayed at Bowron Lake Lodge. The sky is black (zero light pollution). Also heaven for nature lovers with snow-capped mountains, lakes with crystalline water, and aboundant forests. I took my HEQ5, 80mmAPO and Canon F4L usm lens with 2 canon T3i's (one modified) This is a wide angle at 200 mm of Auriga using Non-modified camera showing IC405, 410, 417 and M38. 10 x 6 min at ISO1600. Regards to everyone

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Original Page: http://www.astrophotogallery.org/member-galleries/p10247-auriga-ic-405-410-417-m38.html

Catch and Release - Texas Brown Tarantula

Here is a beautiful Texas Brown Tarantula we found in our garden this afternoon. He needed to be transplanted further from the house and children. He has nice coloring, with a body a bit over an inch long. I didn't try to measure his leg length, as I think putting him briefly in a jar for transport gave him a sour disposition. Imagine that...

He was easy to catch, so of to the forest he went.

Dark Energy Camera Peers Into Cosmic Mystery

A composite image of the star cluster 47 Tucanae,
taken by the Dark Energy Camera

We know that the universe is expanding, and that it's doing so faster and faster. But we don't know why the rate of expansion is increasing. Astronomers have dubbed the unknown cause "dark energy," which is a pretty cool name for something we know absolutely nothing about. To shine some light on the mystery, scientists devised a the most powerful digital camera in the world: the Dark Energy Camera, capable of seeing 8 billion light years into space. And after eight years of development, last week the camera captured its first images.

The Dark Energy Camera uses an array of 62 charge-coupled devices—electronic instruments used to capture digital pictures—to form images of the objects in its line of sight, which include 300 million galaxies. Scientists plan to survey these galaxies over the next five years, gathering lots of data that will help us better understand just what dark energy is. But first, they must test this powerful instrument—by taking lots of pretty pictures, such as the above image of star cluster 47 Tucanae, 16,700 light years from Earth.

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Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DiscoverBlogs/~3/4PwTSgQjW7k/

300,000,000 galaxies to survey. That sounds like a bit more than a full-time job to me. How do I apply?

Doing the Math - Volume and Conversions

I'm looking at a rainwater collection system we have and wanted to see how much water we could store from tanks of a specific size, but I had to look up the formula for the volume of a cylinder:

V = ∏ × r² × h

So, for a tank with a radius of 7.5' and a height of 15', the equation would be:

V = 3.1416 × 7.5² ×15 = 2,650.725 cubic feet

And to convert cubic feet to gallons, we use the following formula, where one cubic feet is equal to 7.48 gallons:

2,650.725 cu ft × 7.48 cu ft/gallon = 19,827423 gallons

That's more than I had estimated, but it's still a pretty big tank. Now, if we could only get the consistent rainfall in central Texas to keep one full...

Breast-Feeding in Infancy May Shield Adults from Depression

Adults with depression were less likely to have been breast-fed as infants, compared with their non-depressed counterparts, a new study finds.

Maybe getting to play with boobs at an early age reduces likelihood of adult depression? I could have told them that without the trouble of a study...

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Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Livesciencecom/~3/3YeuHAd8iTE/23033-breast-feeding-depression.html

NASA’s Kepler Telescope Finds Planet Orbiting Two Stars

Look toward Cygnus and Lyra, and you're looking toward the giant gaseous planet Kepler 16b, which has been nicknamed Tatooine after the Star Wars films. While outside of the Goldilocks zone and uninhabitable, sci-fi becomes pure science in this first direct discovery of such a solar system structure.

From double sunrise to double sunset the show goes on, always changing.

Sometimes the orange sun rises first. Sometimes it is the red one, although they are never far apart in the sky and you can see them moving around each other, casting double shadows across the firmament and periodically crossing right in front of each other.

Such is life, if it were possible, on the latest addition to the pantheon of weird planets now known to exist outside the bounds of our own solar system. It is the first planet, astronomers say, that has been definitely shown to be orbiting two stars at once, circling the pair — which themselves orbit each other tightly — at a distance of some 65 million miles.

A team of astronomers using NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft announced the discovery on Thursday in a paper published online in the journal Science, in a talk at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and in a news conference at NASA’s Ames Research Laboratory in Mountain View, Calif., Kepler’s headquarters.

The official name of the new planet is Kepler 16b, but astronomers are already referring to it informally as Tatooine, after the home planet of Luke and Anakin Skywalker in the George Lucas “Star Wars” movies, which also had two suns.

More: NASA’s Kepler Telescope Finds Planet Orbiting Two Stars - NYTimes.com

Looking at Lyra

Hello, Lyra. You're always right there when I look up, waiting for me.

Rare 'Blue Moon' appears in the sky around the world | adelaidenow

A RARE 'Blue Moon' has appeared in the night sky around the world, which is being seen as a fitting tribute to Neil Armstrong by the cosmic calendar.

The Moon was seen by onlookers on the same day as a private service for Armstrong took place after he died at age 82.

He was the first man to walk on the Moon.

Blue Moon

A full moon is seen from Gaza City on August 31, 2012. Photo: AFP Source:AFP

A Blue Moon occurs when there is a second full moon in one calendar month. 

It will not happen again until July 2015.

Blue Moon

The full Moon - or 'Blue Moon' - rises over Rio de Janeiro on August 31, 2012. Photo: AFP Source: AFP

The full Moon cycle is 29.5 days so a blue moon is uncommon and has come to mean something rare. 

http://m.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/rare-blue-moon-appears-in-the-sky-around-the-world/story-fnd11ay0-1226463247125