NASA : Recently Reactivated NASA Spacecraft Spots Its First New Asteroid

The six red dots in this composite picture indicate the location of the first new near-Earth asteroid seen by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE).

Image Credit: NASA

Image Token:

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft has spotted a never-before-seen asteroid -- its first such discovery since coming out of hibernation last year.

NEOWISE originally was called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which had made the most comprehensive survey to date of asteroids and comets. The spacecraft was shut down in 2011 after its primary mission was completed. But in September 2013, it was reactivated, renamed and given a new mission, which is to assist NASA's efforts to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). NEOWISE also can assist in characterizing previously detected asteroids that could be considered potential targets for future exploration missions.

NEOWISE's first discovery of its renewed mission came on Dec. 29 -- a near-Earth asteroid designated 2013 YP139. The mission's sophisticated software picked out the moving object against a background of stationary stars. As NEOWISE circled Earth scanning the sky, it observed the asteroid several times over half a day before the object moved beyond its view. Researchers at the University of Arizona used the Spacewatch telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory southwest of Tucson to confirm the discovery. Peter Birtwhistle, an amateur astronomer at the Great Shefford Observatory in West Berkshire, England, also contributed follow-up observations. NASA expects 2013 YP139 will be the first of hundreds of asteroid discoveries for NEOWISE.

"We are delighted to get back to finding and characterizing asteroids and comets, especially those that come into Earth’s neighborhood," said Amy Mainzer, the mission's principal investigator from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "With our infrared sensors that detect heat, we can learn about their sizes and reflectiveness."

2013 YP139 is about 27 million miles (43 million kilometers) from Earth. Based on its infrared brightness, scientists estimate it to be roughly 0.4 miles (650 meters) in diameter and extremely dark, like a piece of coal. The asteroid circles the sun in an elliptical orbit tilted to the plane of our solar system and is classified as potentially hazardous. It is possible for its orbit to bring it as close as 300,000 miles from Earth, a little more than the distance to the moon. However, it will not come that close within the next century.

WISE discovered more than 34,000 asteroids and characterized 158,000 throughout the solar system during its prime mission in 2010 and early 2011. Its reactivation in September followed 31 months in hibernation.

NEOWISE will continue to detect asteroids and comets. The observations will be automatically sent to the clearinghouse for solar system bodies, the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., for comparison against the known catalog of solar system objects and to determine orbit if the object is not known. A community of professional and amateur astronomers will provide follow-up observations, establishing firm orbits for the previously unseen objects. Infrared sensors, similar to the cameras on NEOWISE, are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population. Some of the objects about which NEOWISE will be collecting data could become candidates for NASA's announced asteroid initiative, which will be the first mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid for astronauts to explore. The initiative represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities that will help protect our home planet and achieve the goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025.

JPL manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., built the spacecraft. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
An image of asteroid 2013 YP139, taken by NEOWISE, is available at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1cNF9T7

More information about NEOWISE is available online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/wise

 

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

Astronomy: The Hustle and Bustle of Our Solar System

Download Image

› Full Size

 › 1600 x 1200 

› 1024 x 768 

› 800 x 600

The Hustle and Bustle of Our Solar System

 This diagram illustrates the differences between orbits of a typical near-Earth asteroid (blue) and a potentially hazardous asteroid, or PHA (orange). PHAs are a subset of the near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and have the closest orbits to Earth's orbit, coming within 5 million miles (about 8 million kilometers). They also are large enough to survive passage through Earth's atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.

Our yellow sun sits at the center of the crowd, while the orbits of the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars are shown in grey. Earth's orbit stands out in green between Venus and Mars. As the diagram indicates, the PHAs tend to have more Earth-like orbits than the rest of the NEAs. The asteroid orbits are simulations of what a typical object's path around the sun might look like.

The dots in the background are based on data from NASA's NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, which scanned the whole sky twice in infrared light before entering hibernation mode in 2011. The blue and orange dots represent a simulation of the population of near-Earth asteroids and PHAs, respectively, which are larger than 330 feet (100 meters).

NEOWISE has provided the best overall look at the PHA population yet, refining estimates of their numbers, sizes, types of orbits and potential hazards. The NEOWISE team estimates that about 20 to 30 percent of the PHAs thought to exist have actually been discovered as may 2012, the date of this image.Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

 Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

Astronomy: NASA's WISE Catches Aging Star Erupting With Dust

Hi My Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) reveal an old star in the throes of a fiery outburst, spraying the cosmos with dust. The findings offer a rare, real-time look at the process by which stars like our sun seed the universe with building blocks for other stars, planets and even life.

It's a dust bunny of cosmic proportions. Astronomers used images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, to locate an aging star shedding loads of dust (orange dot at upper left). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 ›Full image and caption

Download Image:

› Full Size
› 1600 x 1200
› 1024 x 768
› 800 x 600 
Dusty Star Stands Out From the Rest

It's a dust bunny of cosmic proportions. Astronomers used images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, to locate an aging star shedding loads of dust (orange dot at upper left). Only one other star, called Sakurai's object, has been caught erupting with such large amounts of dust. The process is a natural part of aging for stars like our sun. As they puff up into red giants, they shed dust that is later recycled back into other stars, planets, and in the case of our solar system, living creatures.

In this image, infrared data from WISE and a past all-sky survey mission, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), have been combined. Color is used to show similar observations taken almost thirty years apart; the recent WISE data are color-coded green and red, while the older IRAS data are blue.

The picture reveals that the newfound dusty star, called WISE J180956.27–330500.2, was not seen at all by IRAS, which surveyed the sky in 1983 (it is the only bright star in this field that does not have a corresponding blue halo). Astronomers say the star has brightened by a factor of 100. This appears to have been caused by a sudden eruption in the star around 15 years ago. Dust freshly created in this event is heated by starlight and glows at infrared wavelengths.

The image also demonstrates that WISE and its state-of-the-art technology produced, as expected, much crisper images than its predecessors. The blue IRAS data show both stars, and, higher up in the picture, interstellar dust.

Data from IRAS show 12-micron infrared light (blue); data from WISE show 12- and 22-micron infrared light (green and red, respectively).

NASA's WISE Catches Aging Star Erupting With Dust:

 PASADENA, Calif. -- Images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) reveal an old star in the throes of a fiery outburst, spraying the cosmos with dust. The findings offer a rare, real-time look at the process by which stars like our sun seed the universe with building blocks for other stars, planets and even life.

The star, catalogued as WISE J180956.27-330500.2, was discovered in images taken during the WISE survey in 2010, the most detailed infrared survey to date of the entire celestial sky. It stood out from other objects because it glowed brightly with infrared light. When compared to images taken more than 20 years ago, astronomers found the star was 100 times brighter.

"We were not searching specifically for this phenomenon, but because WISE scanned the whole sky, we can find such unique objects," said Poshak Gandhi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), lead author of a new paper to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Results indicate the star recently exploded with copious amounts of fresh dust, equivalent in mass to our planet Earth. The star is heating the dust and causing it to glow with infrared light.

"Observing this period of explosive change while it is actually ongoing is very rare," said co-author Issei Yamamura of JAXA. "These dust eruptions probably occur only once every 10,000 years in the lives of old stars, and they are thought to last less than a few hundred years each time. It's the blink of an eye in cosmological terms."

The aging star is in the "red giant" phase of its life. Our own sun will expand into a red giant in about 5 billion years. When a star begins to run out of fuel, it cools and expands. As the star puffs up, it sheds layers of gas that cool and congeal into tiny dust particles. This is one of the main ways dust is recycled in our universe, making its way from older stars to newborn solar systems. The other way, in which the heaviest of elements are made, is through the deathly explosions, or supernovae, of the most massive stars.

"It's an intriguing glimpse into the cosmic recycling program," said Bill Danchi, WISE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Evolved stars, which this one appears to be, contribute about 50 percent of the particles that make up humans."

Astronomers know of one other star currently pumping out massive amounts of dust. Called Sakurai's Object, this star is farther along in the aging process than the one discovered recently by WISE.

After Poshak and his team discovered the unusual, dusty star with WISE, they went back to look for it in previous infrared all-sky surveys. The object was not seen at all by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), which flew in 1983, but shows up brightly in images taken as part of the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) in 1998.

Poshak and his colleagues calculated the star appears to have brightened dramatically since 1983. The WISE data show the dust has continued to evolve over time, with the star now hidden behind a very thick veil. The team plans to follow up with space- and ground-based telescopes to confirm its nature and to better understand how older stars recycle dust back into the cosmos.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages and operates WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was put into hibernation mode after it scanned the entire sky twice, completing its main objectives. The principal investigator for WISE, Edward Wright, is at the University of California, Los Angeles. The mission was selected competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

The IRAS mission was a collaborative effort between NASA (JPL), the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The 2MASS mission was a joint effort between Caltech, the University of Massachusetts and NASA (JPL). Data are archived at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech.

More information about WISE is online

at http://www.nasa.gov/wise , http://wise.astro.ucla.edu/

and

 http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/pia15428.html

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

ASTRONOMY: Comet Hartley 2 Leaves a Bumpy Trail

Hi my Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG.,The comet, known officially as 103P/Hartley was discovered fairly recently, in 1986, by Malcolm Hartley in Siding Spring, Australia. It probably originated from an icy orbit close to that of Jupiter's, before something knocked it on a path toward the sun. The comet circles the sun every 6.46 years -- its upcoming closest approach to the sun, called perihelion, will take place on Oct. 28, 2011. EPOXI, which utilizes the already "in flight" Deep Impact flyby spacecraft, will reach the comet on Nov. 4.

Icy Visitor from Beyond
This visitor from deep space, seen here by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, is comet Hartley 2 -- the destination for NASA's EPOXI mission.

The comet, known officially as 103P/Hartley was discovered fairly recently, in 1986, by Malcolm Hartley in Siding Spring, Australia. It probably originated from an icy orbit close to that of Jupiter's, before something knocked it on a path toward the sun. The comet circles the sun every 6.46 years -- its upcoming closest approach to the sun, called perihelion, will take place on Oct. 28, 2011. EPOXI, which utilizes the already "in flight" Deep Impact flyby spacecraft, will reach the comet on Nov. 4.

The WISE observations are helping the EPOXI team gain a more comprehensive picture of the comet's behavior over time. This image, taken on May 10, 2010, provides the most extensive look yet at the comet's dusty trail -- a path of particles, sort of like a trail of crumbs, that the comet leaves during each of its trips through the inner solar-system. The extent of the trail seen in this view, behind the comet, is 1.8 million kilometers, or 1.1 million miles.

WISE's infrared vision also makes it good at studying the range of dust particle sizes in the trail, as well as the comet's tail, seen here as a fuzzy streak to the right of the comet, in line with the trail. Infrared observations are also useful for measuring the comet's nucleus and rotation rate.

Comet Hartley 2 is about 1.2 kilometers in diameter, or .8 miles. It was approximately 2.3 astronomical units away from the sun when this picture was taken (an astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun). When EPOXI reaches the comet on Nov. 4, it will be nearly 1.1 astronomical units away from the sun and only 0.15 astronomical units from Earth.

The fuzzy background in this picture is noise, primarily from dust in our own solar system. Stars cannot be seen because they are subtracted out during the process of averaging multiple WISE pictures together into this one view.
Infrared light of 4.6, 12 and 22 microns is colored blue, green and red, respectively.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

New findings from NEOWISE, the asteroid- and comet-hunting portion of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, show that comet Hartley 2 leaves a pebbly trail as it laps the sun, dotted with grains as big as golf balls.

Previously, NASA's EPOXI mission, which flew by the comet on Nov. 4, 2010, found golf ball- to basketball-sized fluffy ice particles streaming off comet Hartley 2. NEOWISE data show that the golf ball-sized chunks survive farther away from the comet than previously known, winding up in Hartley 2's trail of debris. The NEOWISE team determined the size of these particles by looking at how far they deviated from the trail. Larger particles are less likely to be pushed away from the trail by radiation pressure from the sun.

The observations also show that the comet is still actively ejecting carbon dioxide gas at a distance of 2.3 astronomical units from the sun, which is farther away from the sun than where EPOXI detected carbon dioxide jets streaming from the comet. An astronomical unit is the average distance between Earth and the sun.

"We were surprised that carbon dioxide plays a significant role in comet Hartley 2's activity when it's farther away from the sun," said James Bauer, the lead author of a new paper on the result in the Astrophysical Journal. An abstract of the scientific paper is online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.2637, with the option of downloading a full PDF.

JPL manages and operates the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
More information is online at

http://www.nasa.gov/wise

http://wise.astro.ucla.edu

and

http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

Guillermo Gonzalo Sanchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

ASTRONOMY: NASA'S Wise Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars

Hi my Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG.,Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered the coldest class of star-like bodies, with temperatures as cool as the human body.
A Trio of Brown Dwarfs
This artist's conception illustrates what brown dwarfs of different types might look like to a hypothetical interstellar traveler who has flown a spaceship to each one. Brown dwarfs are like stars, but they aren't massive enough to fuse atoms steadily and shine with starlight -- as our sun does so well.

On the left is an L dwarf, in the middle is a T dwarf, and on the right is a Y dwarf. The objects are progressively cooler in atmospheric temperatures as you move from left to right. Y dwarfs are the newest and coldest class of brown dwarfs and were discovered by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. WISE was able to detect these Y dwarfs for the first time because it surveyed the entire sky deeply at the infrared wavelengths at which these bodies emit most of their light.

The L dwarf is seen as a dim red orb to the eye. The T dwarf is even fainter and appears with a darker reddish, or magenta, hue. The Y dwarf is dimmer still. Because astronomers have not yet detected Y dwarfs at the visible wavelengths we see with our eyes, the choice of a purple hue is done mainly for artistic reasons. The Y dwarf is also illustrated as reflecting a faint amount of visible starlight from interstellar space.

In this rendering, the traveler's spaceship is the same distance from each object. This illustrates an unusual property of brown dwarfs -- that they all have the same dimensions, roughly the size of the planet Jupiter, regardless of their mass. This mass disparity can be as large as fifteen times or more when comparing an L to a Y dwarf, despite the fact that both objects have the same radius.

The three brown dwarfs also have very different atmospheric temperatures. A typical L dwarf has a temperature of 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit (1,400 degrees Celsius). A typical T dwarf has a temperature of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (900 degrees Celsius). The coldest Y dwarf so far identified by WISE has a temperature of less than about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Reigning Title-Holder for Coldest Brown Dwarf
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has uncovered the coldest brown dwarf known so far (green dot in very center of this infrared image). Called WISE 1828+2650, this chilly star-like body isn't even as warm as a human body, at less than about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius). Like other brown dwarfs, it began life like a star, collapsing under its own weight into a dense ball of gas. But, unlike a star, it didn't have enough mass to fuse atoms at its core, and shine steadily with starlight. Instead, it has continued to cool and fade since its birth, and now gives off only a feeble amount of infrared light. WISE's highly sensitive infrared detectors were able to catch the glow of this object during its all-sky scan, which lasted from Jan. 2010 to Feb. 2011.
WISE 1828+2650 is located in the constellation Lyra. The blue dots are a mix of stars and galaxies.
This view shows three of WISE's four infrared channels, color-coded blue, green and red, with blue showing the shortest infrared wavelengths and red, the longest.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

'Y Dwarf' Chillin' in Space
This artist's conception illustrates what a "Y dwarf" might look like. Y dwarfs are the coldest star-like bodies known, with temperatures that can be even cooler than the human body. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer uncovered these elusive objects for the first time, using its heat-sensing, infrared vision. The telescope found six Y dwarfs, ranging in atmospheric temperatures from 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius) to less than about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

Y dwarfs belong to a larger family of objects called brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs begin their lives like stars but they never accumulate enough mass to fuse atoms steadily at their cores and shine with starlight -- as our sun does so well. Instead, they fade and cool with time, giving off most of their light in infrared wavelengths.

WISE was able to pick up this faint glow for six Y dwarfs, which are the coldest class of brown dwarfs and the latest letter in the stellar classification scheme. This scheme describes stars of all temperatures, beginning with the hottest "O" stars and now ending with the coldest Y dwarfs. The entire scheme includes the classes: O, B, A, F, G, K, M, L, T, Y. Our yellow sun belongs to the G class of stars. M stars are colder than our sun, and reddish in color.

While the O through K classes are all considered stars, M and L objects are a mixture of stars and brown dwarfs, and T and Y objects are all brown dwarfs. The term "brown dwarfs" was chosen because at that time, astronomers didn't know what colors these objects would actually have at the visible wavelengths our eyes see, and brown is not a true color of light (there are no "brown photons"). Astronomers now know that T dwarfs would appear reddish, or magenta, to the eye. But they are not certain what color Y dwarfs are, since these objects have not been detected at visible wavelengths. The purple color shown here was chosen mainly for artistic reasons. In addition, the Y dwarf is illustrated as reflecting a faint amount of visible starlight from interstellar space.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA'S Wise Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars:
Astronomers hunted these dark orbs, termed Y dwarfs, for more than a decade without success. When viewed with a visible-light telescope, they are nearly impossible to see. WISE's infrared vision allowed the telescope to finally spot the faint glow of six Y dwarfs relatively close to our sun, within a distance of about 40 light-years.

"WISE scanned the entire sky for these and other objects, and was able to spot their feeble light with its highly sensitive infrared vision," said Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "They are 5,000 times brighter at the longer infrared wavelengths WISE observed from space than those observable from the ground."

The Y's are the coldest members of the brown dwarf family. Brown dwarfs are sometimes referred to as "failed" stars. They are too low in mass to fuse atoms at their cores and thus don't burn with the fires that keep stars like our sun shining steadily for billions of years. Instead, these objects cool and fade with time, until what little light they do emit is at infrared wavelengths.

Astronomers study brown dwarfs to better understand how stars form, and to understand the atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system. The atmospheres of brown dwarfs are similar to those of gas-giant planets like Jupiter, but they are easier to observe because they are alone in space, away from the blinding light of a parent star.

So far, WISE data have revealed 100 new brown dwarfs. More discoveries are expected as scientists continue to examine the enormous quantity of data from WISE. The telescope performed the most advanced survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths to date, from Jan. 2010 to Feb. 2011, scanning the entire sky about 1.5 times.

Of the 100 brown dwarfs, six are classified as cool Y's. One of the Y dwarfs, called WISE 1828+2650, is the record holder for the coldest brown dwarf, with an estimated atmospheric temperature cooler than room temperature, or less than about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

"The brown dwarfs we were turning up before this discovery were more like the temperature of your oven," said Davy Kirkpatrick, a WISE science team member at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "With the discovery of Y dwarfs, we've moved out of the kitchen and into the cooler parts of the house."

Kirkpatrick is lead author of a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, describing the 100 confirmed brown dwarfs. Michael Cushing, a WISE team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is lead author of a paper describing the Y dwarfs in the Astrophysical Journal.

The Y dwarfs are in our sun's neighborhood, from approximately nine to 40 light-years away. The Y dwarf approximately nine light-years away, WISE 1541-2250, may become the seventh closest star system, bumping Ross 154 back to eighth. By comparison, the star closest to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is about four light-years away.

"Finding brown dwarfs near our sun is like discovering there's a hidden house on your block that you didn't know about," Cushing said. "It's thrilling to me to know we've got neighbors out there yet to be discovered. With WISE, we may even find a brown dwarf closer to us than our closest known star."

Once the WISE team identified brown dwarf candidates, they turned to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to narrow their list. To definitively confirm them, the WISE team used some of the most powerful telescopes on Earth to split apart the objects' light and look for telltale molecular signatures of water, methane and possibly ammonia. For the very coldest of the new Y dwarfs, the team used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The Y dwarfs were identified based on a change in these spectral features compared to other brown dwarfs, indicating they have a lower atmospheric temperature.

The ground-based telescopes used in these studies include the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii; Caltech's Palomar Observatory near San Diego; the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii; and the Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, among others.

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The principal investigator is Edward Wright at UCLA. The WISE satellite was decommissioned in 2011 after completing its sky survey observations. The mission was selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing are at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/wise ,
http://wise.astro.ucla.edu
and
http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .

Guillermo Gonzalo Sanchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmial.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

Earth:Origin of Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Remains a Mystery

Hi my Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG.,Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the family of asteroids some believed was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs is not likely the culprit, keeping open the case on one of Earth's greatest mysteries. Searching for the Origins of the Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid
Scientists think that a giant asteroid, which broke up long ago in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, eventually made its way to Earth and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Data from NASA's WISE mission likely rules out the leading suspect, a member of a family of asteroids called Baptistina, so the search for the origins of the dinosaur-killing asteroid goes on.
This artist's concept shows a broken-up asteroid.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

While scientists are confident a large asteroid crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of dinosaurs and some other life forms on our planet, they do not know exactly where the asteroid came from or how it made its way to Earth. A 2007 study using visible-light data from ground-based telescopes first suggested the remnant of a huge asteroid, known as Baptistina, as a possible suspect.

According to that theory, Baptistina crashed into another asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter about 160 million years ago. The collision sent shattered pieces as big as mountains flying. One of those pieces was believed to have impacted Earth, causing the dinosaurs' extinction.

Since this scenario was first proposed, evidence developed that the so-called Baptistina family of asteroids was not the responsible party. With the new infrared observations from WISE, astronomers say Baptistina may finally be ruled out.

"As a result of the WISE science team's investigation, the demise of the dinosaurs remains in the cold case files," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near Earth Object (NEO) Observation Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The original calculations with visible light estimated the size and reflectivity of the Baptistina family members, leading to estimates of their age, but we now know those estimates were off. With infrared light, WISE was able to get a more accurate estimate, which throws the timing of the Baptistina theory into question."

WISE surveyed the entire celestial sky twice in infrared light from January 2010 to February 2011. The asteroid-hunting portion of the mission, called NEOWISE, used the data to catalogue more than 157,000 asteroids in the main belt and discovered more than 33,000 new ones.

Visible light reflects off an asteroid. Without knowing how reflective the surface of the asteroid is, it's hard to accurately establish size. Infrared observations allow a more accurate size estimate. They detect infrared light coming from the asteroid itself, which is related to the body's temperature and size. Once the size is known, the object's reflectivity can be re-calculated by combining infrared with visible-light data.

The NEOWISE team measured the reflectivity and the size of about 120,000 asteroids in the main belt, including 1,056 members of the Baptistina family. The scientists calculated the original parent Baptistina asteroid actually broke up closer to 80 million years ago, half as long as originally proposed.

This calculation was possible because the size and reflectivity of the asteroid family members indicate how much time would have been required to reach their current locations -- larger asteroids would not disperse in their orbits as fast as smaller ones. The results revealed a chunk of the original Baptistina asteroid needed to hit Earth in less time than previously believed, in just about 15 million years, to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs.

"This doesn't give the remnants from the collision very much time to move into a resonance spot, and get flung down to Earth 65 million years ago," said Amy Mainzer, a co-author of a new study appearing in the Astrophysical Journal and the principal investigator of NEOWISE at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. Calif. "This process is thought to normally take many tens of millions of years." Resonances are areas in the main belt where gravity nudges from Jupiter and Saturn can act like a pinball machine to fling asteroids out of the main belt and into the region near Earth.

The asteroid family that produced the dinosaur-killing asteroid remains at large. Evidence that a 10-kilometer (about 6.2-mile) asteroid impacted Earth 65 million years ago includes a huge, crater-shaped structure in the Gulf of Mexico and rare minerals in the fossil record, which are common in meteorites but seldom found in Earth's crust. In addition to the Baptistina results, the NEOWISE study shows various main belt asteroid families have similar reflective properties. The team hopes to use NEOWISE data to disentangle families that overlap and trace their histories.

"We are working on creating an asteroid family tree of sorts," said Joseph Masiero, the lead author of the study. "We are starting to refine our picture of how the asteroids in the main belt smashed together and mixed up."

JPL manages and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The spacecraft was put into hibernation mode after it scanned the entire sky twice, completing its main objectives. The principal investigator, astronomer Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was selected competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information is online at\

http://www.nasa.gov/wise ,

http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and

http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .
Guillermo Gonzalo Sanchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

ASTRONOMY: NASA'S WISE Mission Captures Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet

Hi My Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets. The black hole, called GX 339-4.
Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves, through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.Flaring Black Hole
This artist's concept illustrates what the flaring black hole called GX 339-4 might look like. Infrared observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) reveal the best information yet on the chaotic and extreme environments of this black hole's jets. GX 339-4 likely formed from a star that exploded. It is surrounded by an accretion disk (red) of material being pulled onto the black hole from a neighboring star (yellow orb). Some of this material is shot away in the form of jets (yellow flows above and below the disk). The region close in to the black hole glows brightly in infrared light.

Image credit: NASA.

NASA'S WISE Mission Captures Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet :

WASHINGTON -- Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.

Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.

"Imagine what it would be like if our sun were to undergo sudden, random bursts, becoming three times brighter in a matter of hours, and then fading back again. That's the kind of fury we observed in this jet," said Poshak Gandhi, a scientist with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). He is lead author of a new study on the results appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "With WISE's infrared vision, we were able to zoom in on the inner regions near the base of the stellar-mass black hole's jet for the first time and the physics of jets in action.

" The black hole, called GX 339-4, had been observed previously. It lies more than 20,000 light-years away from Earth near the center of our galaxy. It has a mass at least six times greater than the sun. Like other black holes, it is an ultra-dense collection of matter, with gravity that is so great even light cannot escape. In this case, the black hole is orbited by a companion star that feeds it. Most of the material from the companion star is pulled into the black hole, but some of it is blasted away as a jet flowing at nearly the speed of light.

"To see bright flaring activity from a black hole you need to be looking at the right place at the right time," said Peter Eisenhardt, the project scientist for WISE at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "WISE snapped sensitive infrared pictures every 11 seconds for a year, covering the whole sky, allowing it to catch this rare event".

Observing the jet's variability was possible because of images taken of the same patch of sky over time, a feature of NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission. WISE data enabled the team to zoom in on the very compact region around the base of the jet streaming from the black hole. The size of the region is equivalent to the width of a dime seen at the distance of our sun.

The results surprised the team, showing huge and erratic fluctuations in the jet activity on timescales ranging from 11 seconds to a few hours. The observations are like a dance of infrared colors and show the size of the jet's base varies. Its radius is approximately 15,000 miles (24,140 kilometers) with dramatic changes by as large as a factor of 10 or more.

"If you think of the black hole's jet as a firehose, then it's as if we've discovered the flow is intermittent and the hose itself is varying wildly in size," Poshak said.

The new data also allowed astronomers to make the best measurements yet of the black hole's magnetic field, which is 30,000 times more powerful than the one generated by Earth at its surface. Such a strong field is required for accelerating and channeling the flow of matter into a narrow jet. The WISE data are bringing astronomers closer than ever to understanding how this exotic phenomenon works.

JPL manages and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was put into hibernation mode after it scanned the sky twice, completing its main objectives. The mission was selected under NASA's Explorers Program, which is managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah; and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more WISE information,

visit: http://www.nasa.gov/wise

A video showing variations of the black hole jet, as seen via WISE observations, is online at http://www.astro.isas.jaxa.jp/~pgandhi/wise_gx339/wise_blackhole_anim.html .

More information is online at

http://www.nasa.gov/wise ,

http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and

http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

ASTRONOMÍA: TELESCOPIO WISE DESCUBRE UN ASTEROIDE TROYANO EN LA ÓRBITA DE LA TIERRA

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG.,Los astrónomos que estudian las observaciones tomadas por el satélite de la misión Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, WISE, de la NASA han descubierto el primer asteroide “Troyano” conocido orbitando el Sol junto a la Tierra. Los troyanos son asteroides que comparten una órbita con un planeta cerca de puntos estables frente o detrás del planeta. Debido a que constantemente están por delante o por detrás del planeta en la misma órbita, nunca pueden colisionar con él. En nuestro Sistema Solar, los Troyanos comparten órbitas con Marte, Neptuno y Júpiter. Dos de las lunas de Saturno comparten órbita con Troyanos.

Los científicos habían predicho que la Tierra debería tener Troyanos, pero han sido difíciles de localizar debido a que son relativamente pequeños y aparecen cerca del Sol desde el punto de vista de la Tierra. “Estos asteroides aparecen en su mayor parte durante el día, lo que los hace muy difíciles de ver”, dijo Martin Connors de la Universidad Athabasca en Canadá, autor principal del nuevo artículo sobre el descubrimiento que se publica en el ejemplar del 28 de julio de la revista Nature. “Pero finalmente encontramos uno, debido a que el objeto tiene una inusual órbita que lo lleva más lejos del Sol de lo que es típico en los Troyanos. WISE fue crucial, dándonos un punto de vista difícil de tener desde la superficie de la Tierra”.

El telescopio WISE barrió todo el cielo en luz infrarroja desde enero de 2010 a febrero de 2011. Connors y su equipo empezaron su búsqueda de un Troyano terrestre usando datos de NEOWISE, una adición a la misión WISE que se centra en parte en objetos cercanos a la Tierra (NEOs), tales como asteroides o cometas. Los NEOs son cuerpos que pasan a menos de 45 millones de kilómetros de la ruta de la Tierra alrededor del Sol. El proyecto NEOWISE observó más de 155.000 asteroides en el cinturón principal entre Marte y Júpiter y más de 500 NEOs, descubriendo 132 anteriormente desconocidos. La búsqueda del equipo dio como resultado dos candidatos a Troyanos. Uno conocido como 2010 TK7 que se confirmó como Troyano terrestre tras observaciones de seguimiento con el Telescopio de Canadá-Francia-Hawaii en Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

El asteroide tiene aproximadamente 300 metros de diámetro. Tiene una órbita inusual que traza un complejo movimiento cerca de un punto estable en el plano orbital de la Tierra, aunque el asteroide también se mueve por encima y debajo del plano. El objeto está a unos 80 millones de kilómetros de la Tierra. La órbita del asteroide está bien definida y, durante al menos los próximos 100 años, no se acercará a la Tierra a más de 24 millones de kilómetros.
NASA EN ESPAÑOL 2011
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

ASTRONOMÍA: EL COMETA HARTLEY 2, DEJA UNA BACHEADA COLA

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Nuevos datos de NEOWISE, la porción cazadora de cometas y asteroides de la misión Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer de la NASA, muestran que el cometa Hartley 2 deja una estela pedregosa mientras gira alrededor del Sol, salpicada de granos tan grandes como pelotas de golf. Anteriormente, la misión EPOXI de la NASA, que pasó por el cometa el pasado 4 de Noviembre de 2010, encontró partículas de hielo fofas del tamaño de pelotas de golf al de pelotas de baloncesto, escapando del cometa Hartley 2.

Los datos de NEOWISE muestran que los fragmentos del tamaño de pelotas de golf sobreviven más lejos del cometa de lo que se sabía con anterioridad, desplazándose por la cola de residuos de Hartley 2. El equipo de NEOWISE determinó el tamaño de estas partículas observando cuánto se desviaban de la estela. Las partículas mayores es menos probable que sean alejadas de la cola por la presión de radiación del Sol. Aquí en la imagen observamos la trayectoria del "Cometa Hartley 2 " captada por la NASA.

Estas observaciones también muestran que el cometa aún permanece activo expulsando gas dióxido de carbono a una distancia de 2.3 unidades astronómicas del Sol, la distancia más lejana a la que EPOXI ha detectado chorros de dióxido de carbono escapando del cometa. "Nos ha sorprendido el papel tan significativo que juega el dióxido de carbono en la actividad del cometa Hartley 2 cuando está más lejos del Sol", dijo James Bauer, autor principal de un nuevo documento sobre el resultado en la revista Astrophysical Journal. NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

ASTRONOMÍA: SATÉLITE WISE, PRPORCIONA MILLONES DE GALAXIAS, ESTRELLAS Y ASTEROIDES

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., los astrónomos, los científicos y las personas comunes y corrientes estarán recibiendo miles de imágenes captadas por el: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) de la NASA, de galaxias, estrellas, planetas , exo-planetas y asteroides que nos permitirá ir conociendo más y más nuestro Universo aún con muchas incógnitas sobre su real nacimiento. Nuestro blog, siempre estará informando sobre los nuevos descubrimientos espaciales. Aquí en la imagen observamos el nacimiento de un estrella denominada LBN 149-O2-OO.13 ó Sh2-205 en la Nebulosa de Sharpless, captada por el Satélite WISE. Fuente: NASA.

Aquí en la imagen observamos a la Galaxia Circinus (El Compás), está ubicada a 14 millones de años luz, siempre está oscurecida por nuestra Galaxia Vía Láctea

Aquí en la imagen observamos a la Constelación Vela A, es un cúmulo gigantesco de polvo y nubes que fue observado por el WISE. Fuente: Nasa.

Los astrónomos de todo el mundo pueden ya observar cientos de millones de galaxias, estrellas y asteroides recogidos en el primer bloque de datos de la misión Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) de la NASA. "A partir de hoy, miles de ojos nuevos mirarán los datos de WISE, y espero muchas sorpresas", dijo Edward (Ned) Wright de UCLA, principal investigador de la misión. WISE fue lanzado al espacio el 14 de diciembre de 2009 con la misión de realizar un mapa completo del cielo en luz infrarroja con una sensibilidad y resolución muy mejoradas en relación a las de sus predecesores. Desde su órbita polar escaneó los cielos cerca de una vez y media mientras tomaba imágenes en cuatro longitudes de onda de luz infrarroja. Durante su misión obtuvo más de 2.7 millones de imágenes, capturando objetos que van desde galaxias lejanas hasta asteroides relativamente cercanos a la Tierra.

Aquí en la imagen observamos una recreación del Satélite WISE de la NASA El catálogo celestial difundido públicamente esta semana incluye millones de galaxias, estrellas, asteroides y otros objetos. Muchos habían sido observados anteriormente, pero hay algunos descubrimientos, incluidos más de 33 mil asteroides y 20 cometas. La colección en línea representa sólo una porción de todo el trazado. Los datos completos serán difundidos posteriormente. "Estamos muy emocionados de estos datos preliminares que contienen millones de objetos recién identificados", dijo Fengchuan Liu, director a cargo del proyecto WISE del Laboratorio Jet Propulsion de la NASA. "Pero la misión aún no termina, el tesoro real será cuando se termine el catálogo disponible dentro de un año, el cual tendrá el doble de las fuentes que ahora tenemos, ya que cubrirá el espacio entero y los hallazgos del universo profundo", dijo Li. Los hallazgos de WISE ayudarán a redefinir las demás misiones de exploración de otras agencias espaciales e incluso de la misma NASA. "WISE está aportando una nueva generación de ‘direcciones' del universo infrarrojo con la localización precisa de cientos de millones de objetos celestes", dijo Roc Cutri, científico de la misión WISE.

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

ASTRONOMÍA.---- IMÁGENES CELESTIALES: EL POLVO Y LA CREACIÓN

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia Espacial Norteamericana NASA nos informa sobre el hallazgo de una imagen captada por el Observatorio Wise(Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) en infrarrojo de una nube de gas y polvo cósmico. Aquí en la imagen observamos una impresionante fotografía captada por el Observatorio Wise de una nube de gas y polvo en donde se están formando nuevas estrellas, a la vez que ha existen estrellas recién nacidas. Esto nos confirma que el universo sigue en expansión y extendiéndose aceleradamente según algunos astrónomos, Fuente: NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

ASTRONOMÍA: LAS ESTRELLAS MAS FRÍAS VIENEN DESDE LA OSCURIDAD

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la exploración del universo nos está llevando hasta los confines nunca conocidos hasta ahora, y justo la NASA ha captado esta imagen de que las estrellas mas frías vienen desde la oscuridad. Aquí en la imagen podemos apreciar esta vista captada por el Observatorio "Wise" en infrarrojo, que se presume se haya descubierto hasta 14 estrellas más frías del Universo. Fuente: NASA

LAS ESTRELLAS MAS FRÍAS VIENEN DESDE LA OSCURIDAD:
Los astrónomos han descubierto las que parecen ser las 14 estrellas más frías del universo conocido. Estas estrellas fallidas, llamadas enanas marrones, son tan frías y débiles que sería imposible observarlas con los telescopios de luz visible actuales. La visión infrarroja de Spitzer ha sido capaz de detectar su débil brillo, de un modo muy similar al que los bomberos utilizan gafas infrarrojas para encontrar puntos calientes enterrados bajo el oscuro suelo de un bosque.

Las enanas marrones vienen a añadirse a solo un puñado de objetos similares descubiertos con anterioridad. Los objetos nuevos poseen temperaturas de entre 450 Kelvin y 600 Kelvin (entre 177 y 327 grados centígrados). En estrellas esto es una temperatura muy fría - tan fría, en algunos casos, como la de algunos planetas alrededor de otras estrellas.

Estos cuerpos han permanecido esquivos durante años, pero pronto empezarán a salir de la oscuridad en manadas. El Telescopio infrarrojo de la NASA WISE, la misión que está explorando todo el cielo en longitudes de onda infrarrojas, se espera que encuentre cientos de objetos de una temperatura similar, e incluso aún más fríos. WISE está explorando un campo 40 veces mayor que el estudiado por la muestra del reciente estudio de Spitzer, que se concentró en una región de la constelación de Bootes. La misión Spitzer está diseñada para buscar regiones determinadas del cielo en detalle, mientras que WISE va a barrer todo el cielo.
NASA.
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com

ASTRONOMÍA: NASA HA DESCUBIERTO UNA ¿MEDUSA GIGANTE O ESTRELLA MASIVA?

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la exploración del espacio nos lleva aveces a encontrar constelaciones, mebulosas, estrellas o galaxias tan diversas que muchas veces nos llama la atención como debemos nombrarla , esto justamente ha hecho NASA al descubrir una estrella llamada : V385 Carinae por el sistema infrarrojo de Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Aquí en la imagen observamos la estrella masiva o medusa V385 Carinae, descubierta por el satélite Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Fuente: NASA

¿MEDUSA GIGANTE O ESTRELLA MASIVA?:

Algunos podrían ver una medusa de color rojo sangre en un bosque de algas, mientras que a otros les puede parecer un gran ojo o dos labios. De hecho, el objeto de color rojo en una nueva imagen del satélite Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) de la NASA es una esfera de entrañas estelares, expulsadas por una estrella de tamaño descomunal.

La estrella (el punto blanco en el centro del anillo rojo) es una de las habitantes estelares más masivas de nuestra Vía Láctea. Los objetos de este tipo son llamados estrellas Wolf-Rayet, por los astrónomos que encontraron las primeras, y hacen que nuestro Sol parezca insignificante en comparación. Llamada V385 Carinae, esta estrella es 35 veces más masiva que nuestro Sol, con un diámetro casi 18 veces más grande.

También es más caliente, y brilla con más de un millón de veces la luz de nuestro Sol.Las luminarias feroces como ésta se queman rápidamente, teniendo vidas cortas de solo unos pocos millones de años. A medida que envejecen, expulsan más y más átomos pesados que han concinado en su interior - átomos, como el oxígeno, necesarios para la vida tal como la conocemos.

El material es expulsado en forma de nubes de gas como la que brilla intensamente en esta imagen de WISE. En este caso, esta esfera de gas hueca se presentó sólo de forma prominente en sólo una de las cuatro longitudes de onda infrarroja detectadas por WISE. Los astrónomos especulan que esta luz infrarroja procede de los átomos de oxígeno, que han sido despojados de algunos de sus electrones por la radiación ultravioleta de la estrella. Cuando los electrones se unen de nuevo con los átomos de oxígeno, la luz que emite se puede detectar en la longitud de onda de 22 micrones en el infrarrojo. El proceso es similar a lo que ocurre en las bombillas fluorescentes.

La luz infrarroja detectada por WISE a 12 micrones aparece en color verde, mientras que la luz de 3,4 y 4,6 micrones es de color azul. El verde, el material similar a las "algas marinas" es polvo caliente, mientras que los puntos azules son estrellas en nuestra Vía Láctea.

Este mosaico de la imagen se compone de alrededor de 300 imágenes individuales superpuestas, tomadas por WISE durante su investigación continua de todo el cielo, en esta extensa búsqueda extensa, tan sólo estamos poniendo en un acuario a las criaturas más fascinantes que nadan en nuestro océano cósmico.

V385 Carinae se encuentra en la constelación de Carina, a unos 16.000 años-luz de la Tierra.

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com