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domingo, 3 de abril de 2016

NASA : Hubble Peers Into the Heart of the Milky Way Galaxy.- Compañeros del Telescopio Espacial Hubble en el corazón de la Vía Láctea

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Asomándose profundamente en el corazón de polvo de la Vía Láctea usando la visión infrarroja, el telescopio espacial Hubble de la NASA revela un rico tapiz de más de medio millón de estrellas. A excepción de algunas estrellas de primer plano de color azul, las estrellas son parte del cúmulo de estrellas nuclear de la Vía Láctea, el cúmulo más masivo y más densa estrellas en nuestra galaxia. Así lleno de estrellas, es equivalente a tener un millón de soles embutida entre nosotros y nuestro vecino estelar más cercano, Alpha Centauri. En el mismo centro de nuestra galaxia, este cúmulo de estrellas rodea el agujero negro supermasivo central de la Vía Láctea, que es de aproximadamente 4 millones de veces la masa de nuestro sol.

More information.........

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/hubble-peers-into-the-heart-of-the-milky-way-galaxy

Infrared Hubble image of a star cluster at the core of the Milky Way

Peering deep into the dusty heart of our Milky Way galaxy using infrared vision, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reveals a rich tapestry of more than half a million stars. Except for a few blue foreground stars, the stars are part of the Milky Way’s nuclear star cluster, the most massive and densest star cluster in our galaxy. So packed with stars, it is equivalent to having a million suns crammed between us and our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. At the very hub of our galaxy, this star cluster surrounds the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, which is about 4 million times the mass of our sun.

More information and annotated images: Hubble’s Journey to the Center of our Galaxy

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA, Acknowledgment: T. Do, A.Ghez (UCLA), V. Bajaj (STScI)

Last Updated: March 31, 2016

Editor: Sarah Loff

Tags: Hubble Space Telescope, Image of the Day, Universe,

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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domingo, 27 de septiembre de 2015

NASA : Milky Way’s Black Hole Shows Signs of Increased Chatter.- Agujero Negro de la Vía Láctea muestra signos de aumento de Chatter

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Tres telescopios espaciales en órbita alrededor de rayos X han detectado un aumento de la frecuencia de las erupciones de rayos X del agujero negro gigante por lo general tranquila en el centro de nuestra galaxia, la Vía Láctea después de nuevo el seguimiento a largo plazo. Los científicos están tratando de averiguar si se trata de un comportamiento normal que era desapercibido debido a la supervisión limitada, o estas llamaradas se desencadena por el reciente paso cercano de un objeto polvoriento misterioso.

1.- http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/milky-way-s-black-hole-shows-signs-of-increased-chatter.HTML
2.- http://www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/sgra/index.HTML

The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*

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Three orbiting X-ray space telescopes have detected an increased rate of X-ray flares from the usually quiet giant black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy after new long-term monitoring. Scientists are trying to learn whether this is normal behavior that was unnoticed due to limited monitoring, or these flares are triggered by the recent close passage of a mysterious, dusty object.

By combining information from long monitoring campaigns by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton, with observations by the Swift satellite, astronomers were able to carefully trace the activity of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole over the last 15 years. The supermassive black hole, a.k.a. Sagittarius A*, weighs in at slightly more than 4 million times the mass of the Sun. X-rays are produced by hot gas flowing toward the black hole.

The new study reveals that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short) has been producing one bright X-ray flare about every ten days. However, within the past year, there has been a ten-fold increase in the rate of bright flares from Sgr A*, at about one every day. This increase happened soon after the close approach to Sgr A* by a mysterious object called G2.

“For several years, we’ve been tracking the X-ray emission from Sgr A*. This includes also the close passage of this dusty object” said Gabriele Ponti of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany. “A year or so ago, we thought it had absolutely no effect on Sgr A*, but our new data raise the possibility that that might not be the case."

Originally, astronomers thought G2 was an extended cloud of gas and dust. However, after passing close to Sgr A* in late 2013, its appearance did not change much, apart from being slightly stretched by the gravity of the black hole. This led to new theories that G2 was not simply a gas cloud, but instead a star swathed in an extended dusty cocoon.

“There isn’t universal agreement on what G2 is,” said Mark Morris of the University of California at Los Angeles. “However, the fact that Sgr A* became more active not long after G2 passed by suggests that the matter coming off of G2 might have caused an increase in the black hole’s feeding rate.”

While the timing of G2’s passage with the surge in X-rays from Sgr A* is intriguing astronomers see other black holes that seem to behave like Sgr A*. Therefore, it’s possible this increased chatter from Sgr A* may be a common trait among black holes and unrelated to G2. For example, the increased X-ray activity could be due to a change in the strength of winds from nearby massive stars that are feeding material to the black hole.

“It’s too soon to say for sure, but we will be keeping X-ray eyes on Sgr A* in the coming months,” said co-author Barbara De Marco, also of Max Planck. “Hopefully, new observations will tell us whether G2 is responsible for the changed behavior or if the new flaring is just part of how the black hole behaves.”

The analysis included 150 Chandra and XMM-Newton observations pointed at the center of the Milky Way over the last 15 years, extending from September 1999 to November 2014. An increase in the rate and brightness of bright flares from Sgr A* occurred after mid-2014, several months after the closest approach of G2 to the huge black hole.

If the G2 explanation is correct, the spike in bright X-ray flares would be the first sign of excess material falling onto the black hole because of the cloud’s close passage. Some gas would likely have been stripped off the cloud, and captured by the gravity of Sgr A*. It then could have started interacting with hot material flowing towards the black hole, funneling more gas toward the black hole that could later be consumed by Sgr A*.

A paper on these findings has been accepted by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. A preprint is available online. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Image credit: NASA/CXC/MPE/G. Ponti et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

Read More from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

Last Updated: Sept. 23, 2015

Editor: Lee Mohon

Tags: Black Holes, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Goddard Space Flight Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, Universe,

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Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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domingo, 5 de julio de 2015

NASA : NASA’s Chandra Captures X-Ray Echoes Pinpointing Distant Neutron Star .-Telescopio Espacial Chandra de NASA, capta : Ecos Exacta distante estrella de neutrones

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., el Telescopio Espacial Chandra Rayos X, de la NASA, ha captado : Un eco de luz en rayos X detectados por el Observatorio de Rayos X Chandra de la NASA ha proporcionado una oportunidad única para medir con precisión la distancia a un objeto en el otro lado de la galaxia, la Vía Láctea. Los anillos exceden el campo de visión de los detectores de Chandra, resultando en una imagen parcial de los datos de rayos-X.

Los astrónomos que utilizan el Observatorio de Rayos X Chandra de la NASA han descubierto el más grande y más brillante conjunto de anillos de ecos de luz de rayos X jamás observado. Estos anillos extraordinarias, producidos por una intensa llamarada de una estrella de neutrones, proporcionan a los astrónomos una oportunidad única para determinar qué tan lejos a través de la Vía Láctea es la estrella de la Tierra.

Los anillos aparecen como círculos alrededor Circinus X-1, un sistema de doble estrella en el plano de nuestra galaxia que contiene una estrella de neutrones, la densa remanente de una estrella masiva pulverizado en una explosión de supernova. La estrella de neutrones está en órbita con otra estrella masiva, y está envuelta por espesas nubes de gas y polvo interestelar. Circinus X-1 es también la fuente de una sorprendentemente potente chorro de partículas de alta energía.

More information........
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-chandra-captures-x-ray-echoes-pinpointing-distant-neutron-star

A light echo in X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has provided a rare opportunity to precisely measure the distance to an object on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. The rings exceed the field-of-view of Chandra’s detectors, resulting in a partial image of X-ray data.

Credits: NASA/CXC/U. Wisconsin/S. Heinz

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered the largest and brightest set of rings from X-ray light echoes ever observed. These extraordinary rings, produced by an intense flare from a neutron star, provide astronomers a rare chance to determine how far across the Milky Way galaxy the star is from Earth.

The rings appear as circles around Circinus X-1, a double star system in the plane of our galaxy containing a neutron star, the dense remnant of a massive star pulverized in a supernova explosion. The neutron star is in orbit with another massive star, and is shrouded by thick clouds of interstellar gas and dust. Circinus X-1 is also the source of a surprisingly powerful jet of high-energy particles.

“It’s really hard to get accurate distance measurements in astronomy and we only have a handful of methods,” said Sebastian Heinz of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who led the study. “But just as bats use sonar to triangulate their location, we can use the X-rays from Circinus X-1 to figure out exactly where it is.”

The light echo shows that Circinus X-1 is located about 30,700 light years from Earth, and settles the difference in results published in prior studies. The detection and characterization of the rings required the unique capabilities of Chandra -- the ability to detect fine details combined with sensitivity to faint signals.

Researchers determined that the rings are echoes from a burst of X-rays emitted by Circinus X-1 in late 2013. The burst reflected off intervening clouds of dust, with some reflected X-rays arriving to Earth from different angles at a time delay of about one to three months, creating the observed rings.

By comparing the Chandra data to prior images of dust clouds detected by the Mopra radio telescope in Australia, the researchers determined that each ring was created by the X-ray reflections off a different dust cloud. The radio data provides the distance to the different clouds and the X-ray echo determines the location of Circinus X-1 relative to the clouds. An analysis of the rings with the combined radio data allows researchers to use simple geometry to accurately determine the distance of Circinus X-1 from Earth.

“We like to call this system the ‘Lord of the Rings,’ but this one has nothing to do with Sauron,” said co-author Michael Burton of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. “The beautiful match between the Chandra X-ray rings and the Mopra radio images of the different clouds is really a first in astronomy.”

This new distance estimate means that Circinus X-1 is inherently much brighter in X-rays and other types of light than some scientists previously thought, and indicates that the star system has repeatedly passed a key threshold for brightness where the outward pressure from radiation by the system is balanced by the inward pull of gravity. This behavior is something astronomers generally see more often in systems containing black holes than in systems like Circinus X-1 that contain a neutron star.

The researchers also determined that the speed of the jet of high-energy particles produced by the system is at least 99.9% of the speed of light. This extreme velocity is usually associated with jets produced by a black hole.

“Circinus X-1 acts in some ways like a neutron star and in some like a black hole,” said co-author Catherine Braiding, also of the University of New South Wales. “It’s extremely unusual to find an object that has such a blend of these properties.”

Circinus X-1 is thought to have originally become an X-ray source about 2,500 years ago, as seen from Earth. This makes Circinus X-1 the youngest so-called X-ray binary known. The new Chandra data allows astronomers to make a detailed three-dimensional map of the dust clouds between Circinus X-1 and us, providing a valuable probe of the structure of the galaxy.

These results have been published in The Astrophysical Journal and are available online. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

For an interactive image, podcast, and video about these findings, visit:

http://chandra.si.edu

-end-

Felicia Chou
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0257
felicia.chou@nasa.gov
Janet Anderson
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-6162
janet.l.anderson@nasa.gov
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu

Last Updated: July 5, 2015

Editor: Sarah Ramsey

Tags: Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Universe

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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domingo, 3 de mayo de 2015

NASA : NASA's NuSTAR Captures Possible 'Screams' from Zombie Stars .- NuSTAR de la NASA Captura Posible 'Gritos' del zombi Estrellas

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido una noticia muy asombrosa de la Agencia Espacial NASA, quien nos informa que su satélite NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), ha detectado al interior de nuestra Galaxia Vía Láctea de rayos X que viene a ser una especie de "gritos" de estrellas muertas que se alimentan de compañeros.

NASA, nos dice: "Podemos ver un nuevo componente del centro de nuestra galaxia con imágenes de NuSTAR", dijo Kerstin Pérez, de la Universidad de Columbia en Nueva York, autor principal de un nuevo informe sobre los hallazgos en la revista Nature. "No podemos explicar definitivamente la señal de rayos X sin embargo - es un misterio más trabajo que hay que hacer.".

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured a new high-energy X-ray view (magenta) of the bustling center of our Milky Way galaxy. The smaller circle shows the center of our galaxy where the NuSTAR image was taken.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Full image and caption

Peering into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has spotted a mysterious glow of high-energy X-rays that, according to scientists, could be the "howls" of dead stars as they feed on stellar companions.

"We can see a completely new component of the center of our galaxy with NuSTAR's images," said Kerstin Perez of Columbia University in New York, lead author of a new report on the findings in the journal Nature. "We can't definitively explain the X-ray signal yet -- it's a mystery. More work needs to be done."

The center of our Milky Way galaxy is bustling with young and old stars, smaller black holes and other varieties of stellar corpses – all swarming around a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*.

NuSTAR, launched into space in 2012, is the first telescope capable of capturing crisp images of this frenzied region in high-energy X-rays. The new images show a region around the supermassive black hole about 40 light-years across. Astronomers were surprised by the pictures, which reveal an unexpected haze of high-energy X-rays dominating the usual stellar activity.

"Almost anything that can emit X-rays is in the galactic center," said Perez. "The area is crowded with low-energy X-ray sources, but their emission is very faint when you examine it at the energies that NuSTAR observes, so the new signal stands out."

Astronomers have four potential theories to explain the baffling X-ray glow, three of which involve different classes of stellar corpses. When stars die, they don't always go quietly into the night. Unlike stars like our sun, collapsed dead stars that belong to stellar pairs, or binaries, can siphon matter from their companions. This zombie-like "feeding" process differs depending on the nature of the normal star, but the result may be an eruption of X-rays.

According to one theory, a type of stellar zombie called a pulsar could be at work. Pulsars are the collapsed remains of stars that exploded in supernova blasts. They can spin extremely fast and send out intense beams of radiation. As the pulsars spin, the beams sweep across the sky, sometimes intercepting the Earth, like lighthouse beacons.

"We may be witnessing the beacons of a hitherto hidden population of pulsars in the galactic center," said co-author Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, and principal investigator of NuSTAR. "This would mean there is something special about the environment in the very center of our galaxy."

Other possible culprits include heavy-set stellar corpses called white dwarfs, which are the collapsed, burned-out remains of stars not massive enough to explode in supernovae. Our sun is such a star, and is destined to become a white dwarf in about five billion years. Because these white dwarfs are much denser than they were in their youth, they have stronger gravity and can produce higher-energy X-rays than normal. Another theory points to small black holes that slowly feed off their companion stars, radiating X-rays as material plummets down into their bottomless pits.

Alternatively, the source of the high-energy X-rays might not be stellar corpses at all, astronomers say, but rather a diffuse haze of charged particles, called cosmic rays. The cosmic rays might originate from the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy as it devours material. When the cosmic rays interact with surrounding, dense gas, they emit X-rays.

However, none of these theories match what is known from previous research, leaving the astronomers largely stumped.

"This new result just reminds us that the galactic center is a bizarre place," said co-author Chuck Hailey of Columbia University. "In the same way people behave differently walking on the street instead of jammed on a crowded rush hour subway, stellar objects exhibit weird behavior when crammed in close quarters near the supermassive black hole."

The team says more observations are planned. Until then, theorists will be busy exploring the above scenarios or coming up with new models to explain what could be giving off the puzzling high-energy X-ray glow.

"Every time that we build small telescopes like NuSTAR, which improve our view of the cosmos in a particular wavelength band, we can expect surprises like this," said Paul Hertz, the astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

More information is online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/nustar

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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miércoles, 7 de enero de 2015

NASA : NASA’s Chandra Detects Record-Breaking Outburst from Milky Way’s Black Hole .- Telescopio Espacial Chandra, detecta un supermasivo agujero negro en la Vía Láctea.....

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia Espacial NASA, nos informa que su Telescopio Espacial CHANDRA, ha detectado un supermasivo agujero negro en el centro de la Vía Láctea; NASA nos dice : "Los astrónomos han detectado la mayor llamarada de rayos X nunca del agujero negro supermasivo en el centro de la Vía Láctea utilizando el Observatorio de Rayos X Chandra de la NASA. Este evento fue 400 veces más brillante que la emisión de rayos X que de costumbre desde el agujero negro.............."

Astronomers have detected the largest X-ray flare ever from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This event was 400 times brighter than the usual X-ray output from the black hole. Credit: NASA/CXC/Northwestern Univ/D.Haggard et al.

Image Credit:

NASA/CXC/Stanford/I. Zhuravleva et al.

Astronomers have observed the largest X-ray flare ever detected from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This event, detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, raises questions about the behavior of this giant black hole and its surrounding environment.

The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, is estimated to contain about 4.5 million times the mass of our sun.

Astronomers made the unexpected discovery while using Chandra to observe how Sgr A* would react to a nearby cloud of gas known as G2.

“Unfortunately, the G2 gas cloud didn’t produce the fireworks we were hoping for when it got close to Sgr A*,” said lead researcher Daryl Haggard of Amherst College in Massachusetts. “However, nature often surprises us and we saw something else that was really exciting.”

On Sept. 14, 2013, Haggard and her team detected an X-ray flare from Sgr A* 400 times brighter than its usual, quiet state. This “megaflare” was nearly three times brighter than the previous brightest X-ray flare from Sgr A* in early 2012. After Sgr A* settled down, Chandra observed another enormous X-ray flare 200 times brighter than usual on Oct. 20, 2014.

Astronomers estimate that G2 was closest to the black hole in the spring of 2014, 15 billion miles away. The Chandra flare observed in September 2013 was about a hundred times closer to the black hole, making the event unlikely related to G2.

The researchers have two main theories about what caused Sgr A* to erupt in this extreme way. The first is that an asteroid came too close to the supermassive black hole and was torn apart by gravity. The debris from such a tidal disruption became very hot and produced X-rays before disappearing forever across the black hole's point of no return, or event horizon.

“If an asteroid was torn apart, it would go around the black hole for a couple of hours – like water circling an open drain – before falling in,” said co-author Fred Baganoff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “That’s just how long we saw the brightest X-ray flare last, so that is an intriguing clue for us to consider.”

If this theory holds up, it means astronomers may have found evidence for the largest asteroid to produce an observed X-ray flare after being torn apart by Sgr A*.

A second theory is that the magnetic field lines within the gas flowing towards Sgr A* could be tightly packed and become tangled. These field lines may occasionally reconfigure themselves and produce a bright outburst of X-rays. These types of magnetic flares are seen on the sun, and the Sgr A* flares have similar patterns of intensity.

“The bottom line is the jury is still out on what’s causing these giant flares from Sgr A*,” said co-author Gabriele Ponti of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany. “Such rare and extreme events give us a unique chance to use a mere trickle of infalling matter to understand the physics of one of the most bizarre objects in our galaxy.”

In addition to the giant flares, the G2 observing campaign with Chandra also collected more data on a magnetar: a neutron star with a strong magnetic field, located close to Sgr A*. This magnetar is undergoing a long X-ray outburst, and the Chandra data are allowing astronomers to better understand this unusual object.

These results were presented at the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society being held in Seattle. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

NASA is exploring our solar system and beyond to understand the universe and our place in it. The agency seeks to unravel the secrets of our universe, its origins and evolution, and search for life among the stars.

An interactive image, a podcast, and a video about the findings are available at:

http://chandra.si.edu

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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domingo, 5 de octubre de 2014

NASA : Milky Way Viewed From the International Space Station

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia del Espacio norteamericana NASA, nos alcanza la hermosa vista de la Galaxia Vía Láctea, captada el 28 de septiembre del 2014, desde la Estación Espacial Internacional, por el astronauta Reid Wiseman, integrante de la Expedición 41.

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Milky Way Viewed From the International Space Station

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman captured this image from the International Space Station and posted it to social media on Sept. 28, 2014, writing, "The Milky Way steals the show from Sahara sands that make the Earth glow orange."

Aboard the space station, the six-person Expedition 41 crew is currently preparing for two spacewalks set for Oct. 7 and 15. During the first six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, slated to begin on Oct. 7 around 8:10 a.m. EDT, Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst will transfer a previously uninstalled pump module from its temporary stowage location to the External Stowage Platform-2. The two spacewalkers also will install the Mobile Transporter Relay Assembly that adds the capability to provide “keep-alive” power to the system that moves the station’s robotic arm between worksites. NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore will join Wiseman for the second Expedition 41 spacewalk on Oct. 15.

Image Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

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Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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sábado, 6 de septiembre de 2014

NASA : NASA Engineers Conduct Low Light Test on New Technology for Webb Telescope

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NASA Engineers Conduct Low Light Test on New Technology for Webb Telescope

NASA engineers inspect a new piece of technology developed for the James Webb Space Telescope, the micro shutter array, with a low light test at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Developed at Goddard to allow Webb's Near Infrared Spectrograph to obtain spectra of more than 100 objects in the universe simultaneously, the micro shutter array uses thousands of tiny shutters to capture spectra from selected objects of interest in space and block out light from all other sources.

The James Webb Space Telescope is a large space telescope, optimized for infrared wavelengths. It is scheduled for launch later in this decade. Webb will find the first galaxies that formed in the early universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way galaxy. Webb will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own solar system.

Caption Credit: Laura Betz, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Image Credit: NASA Goddard/Chris Gunn

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lunes, 28 de abril de 2014

ESA : Joyas brillantes en el Plano Galáctico

Glowing jewels in the Galactic Plane

(2.13 MB)
(6.11 MB)

Joyas brillantes en el Plano Galáctico

28 abril 2014

La mayor parte de las estrellas de nuestra galaxia, la Vía Láctea, se encuentran en un disco gigante conocido como el Plano Galáctico, con un diámetro de 100.000 años luz. El Sol también reside en esta abarrotada región, aproximadamente a mitad de camino entre su centro y el borde exterior.

El Plano Galáctico está lleno de una mezcla difusa de polvo y gas – el medio interestelar – que impregna el espacio entre las estrellas. De vez en cuando, estas nubes de gas y polvo empiezan a enfriarse, volviéndose más y más densas hasta que se desata el proceso de formación de una nueva estrella.

Esta imagen forma parte de Hi-GAL, un estudio del Plano Galáctico realizado por el Observatorio Espacial Herschel de la ESA. Este satélite, especializado en el estudio de la luz infrarroja, era capaz de detectar el brillo de las partículas de polvo esparcidas entre las estrellas. El análisis de este componente minoritario pero fundamental del medio estelar ayuda a los astrónomos a comprender mejor cómo se forman las estrellas en la Vía Láctea y cómo alteran su entorno a medida que envejecen.

Las bolsas de polvo y gas que se encuentran anidadas en el disco de la Vía Láctea son calentadas por la radiación de las estrellas recién nacidas, lo que provoca que brillen intensamente como si se tratase de gemas cósmicas. Las regiones a mayor temperatura brillan en las longitudes de onda más cortas de la banda del infrarrojo, y están representadas en tonos violetas y verdes, mientras que las más frías – a apenas unas decenas de grados por encima del cero absoluto – se muestran en tonos más rojos.

Anudada entre las estrellas se puede distinguir una compleja red de filamentos salpicada por diminutos puntos blancos: grumos de polvo y gas de mayor densidad que probablemente terminen evolucionando para dar lugar a nuevas estrellas.

Esta imagen combina las observaciones realizadas con los instrumentos PACS y SPIRE de Herschel, y abarca unos 12° en su lado más largo, el equivalente a 24 veces el diámetro de la Luna llena. Esto es aproximadamente 1/30 del estudio completo del Plano Galáctico.

Esta imagen fue publicada por primera vez en OSHI, la Galería Online de Imágenes de Herschel, en el año 2011.

The majority of the stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, reside in a single huge disc, known as the Galactic Plane, spanning 100 000 light-years across. The Sun also resides in this crowded stellar hub, lying roughly halfway between its centre and its outer edges.

This disc is filled with a diffuse mixture of gas and dust – the interstellar medium – that pervades space, filling the large gaps found between stars. Occasionally, these clouds of gas and dust cool, becoming denser and denser until they spark star formation, giving rise to new generations of stars.

This image is part of Hi-GAL, a survey of the Galactic Plane completed with ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory. Peering at the sky in infrared light, Herschel could detect the glow of dust particles dispersed between stars. This minor – but crucial – component of the interstellar medium allows astronomers to investigate how stars are born in the Milky Way, and how they affect their environment as they age.

Nestled in the Milky Way’s disc are pockets of gas and dust that have been heated by nearby newborn stars, causing them to glow brightly like cosmic gems. Through their higher temperatures, these regions glow at shorter infrared wavelengths and are depicted in violet and green, while the colder material in the surroundings – only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero – appears redder.

Laced amongst the stars is an intricate network of filaments sprinkled with tiny white spots: these are denser clumps of gas and dust that will likely evolve and give birth to new stars.

The image combines observations from the PACS and SPIRE instruments on Herschel. It spans about 12º on the longer side, corresponding to some 24 times the diameter of the full Moon. This is 1/30^th of the entire Galactic Plane survey.

This image was first published in OSHI, the Online Showcase of Herschel Images, in 2011.

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Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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sábado, 12 de abril de 2014

NASA : Supernova Cleans Up Its Surroundings - supernova remnant – known as G352.7-0.1 (or, G352 for short)

Composite image of supernova remnant G352

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Supernova Cleans Up Its Surroundings

Supernovas are the spectacular ends to the lives of many massive stars. These explosions, which occur on average twice a century in the Milky Way, can produce enormous amounts of energy and be as bright as an entire galaxy. These events are also important because the remains of the shattered star are hurled into space. As this debris field – called a supernova remnant – expands, it carries the material it encounters along with it.

Astronomers have identified a supernova remnant that has several unusual properties. First, they found that this supernova remnant – known as G352.7-0.1 (or, G352 for short) – has swept up a remarkable amount of material, equivalent to about 45 times the mass of the Sun.

Another atypical trait of G352 is that it has a very different shape in radio data compared to that in X-rays. Most of the radio emission is shaped like an ellipse, contrasting with the X-ray emission that fills in the center of the radio ellipse. This is seen in a new composite image of G352 that contains X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue and radio data from the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in pink. These data have also been combined with infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope in orange, and optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey in white. (The infrared emission to the upper left and lower right are not directly related to the supernova remnant.)

A recent study suggests that, surprisingly, the X-ray emission in G352 is dominated by the hotter (about 30 million degrees Celsius) debris from the explosion, rather than cooler (about 2 million degrees) emission from surrounding material that has been swept up by the expanding shock wave. This is curious because astronomers estimate that G352 exploded about 2,200 years ago, and supernova remnants of this age usually produce X-rays that are dominated by swept-up material. Scientists are still trying to come up with an explanation for this behavior.

Although it does not produce a lot of X-ray emission, the amount of material – the aforementioned 45 times the Sun’s mass – swept up by G352 is remarkably high for a supernova remnant located in our Galaxy. This may indicate that a special type of evolution has occurred, in which the massive star that exploded to create G352 interacted with an extraordinary amount of dense surrounding material.

Astronomers also conducted a search for a neutron star that may have been produced by the supernova explosion. They did not find any hints of a neutron star in G352, another astronomical puzzle involved with this system. One possibility is simply that the neutron star is too faint to be detected or that the supernova created a black hole instead.

G352 is found about 24,000 light years from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy. A paper describing these enigmatic results was published in the February 20th, 2014 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, and is available online. The first author of this paper is Thomas Pannuti from Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky, with co-authors Oleg Kargaltsev (George Washington University), Jared Napier (Morehead State), and Derek Brehm (George Washington).

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Morehead State Univ/T.Pannuti et al.; Optical: DSS; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Radio: NRAO/VLA/Argentinian Institute of Radioastronomy/G.Dubner

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Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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domingo, 23 de marzo de 2014

NASA : NASA's Spitzer Telescope Brings 360-Degree View of Galaxy to Our Fingertips

A new panorama from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows us our galaxy's plane all the way around us in infrared light.

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Touring the Milky Way now is as easy as clicking a button with NASA's new zoomable, 360-degree mosaic presented Thursday at the TEDActive 2014 Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

The star-studded panorama of our galaxy is constructed from more than 2 million infrared snapshots taken over the past 10 years by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

"If we actually printed this out, we'd need a billboard as big as the Rose Bowl Stadium to display it," said Robert Hurt, an imaging specialist at NASA's Spitzer Space Science Center in Pasadena, Calif. "Instead we’ve created a digital viewer that anyone, even astronomers, can use."

The 20-gigapixel mosaic uses Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope visualization platform. It captures about three percent of our sky, but because it focuses on a band around Earth where the plane of the Milky Way lies, it shows more than half of all the galaxy's stars.

The image, derived primarily from the Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire project, or GLIMPSE360, is online at:

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/glimpse360

Spitzer, launched into space in 2003, has spent more than 10 years studying everything from asteroids in our solar system to the most remote galaxies at the edge of the observable universe. In this time, it has spent a total of 4,142 hours (172 days) taking pictures of the disk, or plane, of our Milky Way galaxy in infrared light. This is the first time those images have been stitched together into a single expansive view.

Our galaxy is a flat spiral disk; our solar system sits in the outer one-third of the Milky Way, in one of its spiral arms. When we look toward the center of our galaxy, we see a crowded, dusty region jam-packed with stars. Visible-light telescopes cannot look as far into this region because the amount of dust increases with distance, blocking visible starlight. Infrared light, however, travels through the dust and allows Spitzer to view past the galaxy's center.

"Spitzer is helping us determine where the edge of the galaxy lies," said Ed Churchwell, co-leader of the GLIMPSE team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We are mapping the placement of the spiral arms and tracing the shape of the galaxy."

Using GLIMPSE data, astronomers have created the most accurate map of the large central bar of stars that marks the center of the galaxy, revealing the bar to be slightly larger than previously thought. GLIMPSE images have also shown a galaxy riddled with bubbles. These bubble structures are cavities around massive stars, which blast wind and radiation into their surroundings.

All together, the data allow scientists to build a more global model of stars, and star formation in the galaxy -- what some call the "pulse" of the Milky Way. Spitzer can see faint stars in the "backcountry" of our galaxy -- the outer, darker regions that went largely unexplored before.

"There are a whole lot more lower-mass stars seen now with Spitzer on a large scale, allowing for a grand study," said Barbara Whitney of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, co-leader of the GLIMPSE team. "Spitzer is sensitive enough to pick these up and light up the entire 'countryside' with star formation."

The Spitzer team previously released an image compilation showing 130 degrees of our galaxy, focused on its hub. The new 360-degree view will guide NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to the most interesting sites of star-formation, where it will make even more detailed infrared observations.

Some sections of the GLIMPSE mosaic include longer-wavelength data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, which scanned the whole sky in infrared light.

The GLIMPSE data are also part of a citizen science project, where users can help catalog bubbles and other objects in our Milky Way galaxy. To participate, visit:

http://www.milkywayproject.org

More information about Spitzer is online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui