Hubble Catches Stellar Explosions in NGC 6984

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

Nov. 13, 2013

Spiral galaxy NGC 6984

Supernovae are intensely bright objects. They are formed when a star reaches the end of its life with a dramatic explosion, expelling most of its material out into space. The subject of this new Hubble image, spiral galaxy NGC 6984, played host to one of these explosions back in 2012, known as SN 2012im. Now, another star has exploded, forming supernova SN 2013ek — visible in this image as the prominent, star-like bright object just slightly above and to the right of the galaxy's center.

SN 2012im is known as a Type Ic supernova, while the more recent SN 2013ek is a Type Ib. Both of these types are caused by the core collapse of massive stars that have shed — or lost — their outer layers of hydrogen. Type Ic supernovae are thought to have lost more of their outer envelope than Type Ib, including a layer of helium.

The observations that make up this new image were taken on August 19,  2013, and aimed to pinpoint the location of this new explosion more precisely. It is so close to where SN 2012im was spotted that the two events are thought to be linked; the chance of two completely independent supernovae so close together and of the same class exploding within one year of one another is a very unlikely event. It was initially suggested that SN 2013ek may in fact be SN 2012im flaring up again, but further observations support the idea that they are separate supernovae — although they may be closely related in some as-yet-unknown way.

Notes:

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

For more information about Hubble Space Telescope, visit: http://www.spacetelescope.org/ and http://hubblesite.org/

Image, Text, Credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Young Stars Paint Spectacular Stellar Landscape

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

13 November 2013

The star cluster NGC 3572 and its dramatic surroundings

Astronomers at ESO have captured the best image so far of the curious clouds around the star cluster NGC 3572. This new image shows how these clouds of gas and dust have been sculpted into whimsical bubbles, arcs and the odd features known as elephant trunks by the stellar winds flowing from this gathering of hot young stars. The brightest of these cluster stars are much heavier than the Sun and will end their short lives as supernova explosions.

Most stars do not form alone, but with many siblings that are created at about the same time from a single cloud of gas and dust. NGC 3572, in the southern constellation of Carina (The Keel), is one of these clusters. It contains many hot young blue-white stars that shine brightly and generate powerful stellar winds that tend to gradually disperse the remaining gas and dust from their surroundings. The glowing gas clouds and accompanying cluster of stars are the subjects of a new picture from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile [1].

The star cluster NGC 3572 in the constellation of Carina

In the lower part of the image a big chunk of the molecular cloud that gave birth to these stellar youngsters still can be seen. It has been dramatically affected by the powerful radiation coming from its smoldering offspring. The radiation not only makes it glow with a characteristic hue, but also sculpts the clouds into amazingly convoluted shapes, including bubbles, arcs and the dark columns that astronomers call elephant trunks [2].

A strange feature captured in this image is the tiny ring-like nebula located slightly above the centre of the image. Astronomers still are a little uncertain about the origin of this curious feature. It is probably a dense leftover from the molecular cloud that formed the cluster, perhaps a bubble created around a very bright hot star. But some authors have considered that it may be some kind of oddly shaped planetary nebula — the remnants of a dying star [3].

Wide-field view of the sky around the star cluster NGC 3572

Stars born inside a cluster may be siblings, but they are not twins. They have almost the same age, but differ in size, mass, temperature, and colour. The course of a star's life is determined largely by its mass, so a given cluster will contain stars in various stages of their lives, giving astronomers a perfect laboratory in which they can study how stars evolve [4].

Zooming in on the star cluster NGC 3572

These gangs of young stars stick together for a relatively short time, typically tens or hundreds of millions of years. They are gradually disbanded by gravitational interactions, but also because the most massive stars are short-lived, burning through their fuel quickly and ultimately ending their lives in violent supernova explosions, thus contributing to the dispersion of the remaining gas and stars in the cluster.

A close look at the star cluster NGC 3572 and its dramatic surroundings

Notes:

[1] The data used to create this picture were obtained by a team led by ESO astronomer Giacomo Beccari. They used the power of the Wide Field Imager to study the physics of protoplanetary discs in the young stars in NGC 3572. They were surprised to find that this cluster contains stars older than ten million years that are still unambiguously undergoing mass accretion and, therefore, must still be surrounded by discs. This proves that the star formation in NGC 3572 has been ongoing for at least 10–20 million years and would imply that the planet formation process could proceed on much longer timescales than previously thought.

[2] The most famous examples of such elephant trunk features are the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, which were captured in exquisite detail by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9544a/).

[3] When a Sun-like star uses up all its fuel, it puffs its outer layers off into the surrounding space. The hot remains of the star continue to shine strongly into this material, creating beautiful but short-lived glowing shells of ionised gas and forming a so-called planetary nebula. This historical name is only related to the appearance of the object in a small telescope, not to a physical relation to a planet.

[4] The lifetime of a star depends dramatically on how heavy it is. A star fifty times more massive than the Sun will have a life of only a few million years, the Sun will live for about ten billion years whereas low-mass red dwarf stars can live for trillions of years — much longer than the current age of the Universe.

More information:

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links:

Handback of 2.2-metre telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann13078/

Images taken with the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&facility=15

Images of the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&subject_name=mpg

ESO press releases with results from the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/news/archive/search/?adv=&facility=15

Images, Text, Credits: ESO / G. Beccari / IAU and Sky & Telescope / Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin / Videos: ESO/G. Beccari / Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org). Music: movetwo.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Cassini Spacecraft Provides New View of Saturn and Earth

Cassini International Mission logo.


Nov. 12, 2013

The Day the Earth Smiled

Image above: On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA / ESA Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI.

Story Highlights:

- Natural-color portrait that is first to show Saturn, its moons and rings, plus Earth, Venus and Mars

- Sweeps nearly 405,000 miles across Saturn and its inner rings

NASA has released a natural-color image of Saturn from space, the first in which Saturn, its moons and rings, and Earth, Venus and Mars, all are visible.

The new panoramic mosaic of the majestic Saturn system taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which shows the view as it would be seen by human eyes, was unveiled at the Newseum in Washington on Tuesday.

Cassini's imaging team processed 141 wide-angle images to create the panorama. The image sweeps 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across Saturn and its inner ring system, including all of Saturn's rings out to the E ring, which is Saturn's second outermost ring. For perspective, the distance between Earth and our moon would fit comfortably inside the span of the E ring.

"In this one magnificent view, Cassini has delivered to us a universe of marvels," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini's imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. "And it did so on a day people all over the world, in unison, smiled in celebration at the sheer joy of being alive on a pale blue dot."

The mosaic is part of Cassini's "Wave at Saturn" campaign, where on July 19, people for the first time had advance notice a spacecraft was taking their picture from planetary distances. NASA invited the public to celebrate by finding Saturn in their part of the sky, waving at the ringed planet and sharing pictures over the Internet.

 The Faces of 'Wave at Saturn'

Image above: This collage includes about 1,600 images submitted by members (myself included) of the public as part of the NASA Cassini mission's "Wave at Saturn" campaign. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI.

An annotated version of the Saturn system mosaic labels points of interest. Earth is a bright blue dot to the lower right of Saturn. Venus is a bright dot to Saturn’s upper left. Mars also appears, as a faint red dot, above and to the left of Venus. Seven Saturnian moons are visible, including Enceladus on the left side of the image. Zooming into the image reveals the moon and the icy plume emanating from its south pole, supplying fine, powder-sized icy particles that make up the E ring.

The E ring shines like a halo around Saturn and the inner rings. Because it is so tenuous, it is best seen with light shining from behind it, when the tiny particles are outlined with light because of the phenomenon of diffraction. Scientists who focus on Saturn's rings look for patterns in optical bonanzas like these. They use computers to increase dramatically the contrast of the images and change the color balance, for example, to see evidence for material tracing out the full orbits of the tiny moons Anthe and Methone for the first time.

“This mosaic provides a remarkable amount of high-quality data on Saturn’s diffuse rings, revealing all sorts of intriguing structures we are currently trying to understand," said Matt Hedman, a Cassini participating scientist at the University of Idaho in Moscow. "The E ring in particular shows patterns that likely reflect disturbances from such diverse sources as sunlight and Enceladus’ gravity.”

Cassini does not attempt many images of Earth because the sun is so close to our planet that an unobstructed view would damage the spacecraft's sensitive detectors. Cassini team members looked for an opportunity when the sun would slip behind Saturn from Cassini's point of view. A good opportunity came on July 19, when Cassini was able to capture a picture of Earth and its moon, and this multi-image, backlit panorama of the Saturn system.

Cassini spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/ESA

"With a long, intricate dance around the Saturn system, Cassini aims to study the Saturn system from as many angles as possible," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Beyond showing us the beauty of the Ringed Planet, data like these also improve our understanding of the history of the faint rings around Saturn and the way disks around planets form -- clues to how our own solar system formed around the sun."

Launched in 1997, Cassini has explored the Saturn system for more than nine years. NASA plans to continue the mission through 2017, with the anticipation of many more images of Saturn, its rings and moons, as well as other scientific data.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

To view the image, visit: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia17172 .

A new version of the collage of photos shared by the public, with the Saturn system as backdrop, is available at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia17679 .

More information about Cassini is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov  and http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / Dwayne Brown / JPL / Jia-Rui C. Cook / SSI / Steve Mullins.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Spitzer and ALMA Reveal a Star's Bubbly Birth

NASA - Spitzer Space Telescope patch.

Nov. 11, 2013

Bubbly Newborn Star

Image above: Combined observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the newly completed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed the throes of stellar birth, as never before, in the well-studied object known as HH 46/47. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ALMA.

It's a bouncing baby . . . star! Combined observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the newly completed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed the throes of stellar birth as never before in the well-studied object known as HH 46/47.

Herbig-Haro (HH) objects form when jets shot out by newborn stars collide with surrounding material, producing small, bright, nebulous regions. To our eyes, the dynamics within many HH objects are obscured by enveloping gas and dust. But the infrared and submillimeter wavelengths of light seen by Spitzer and ALMA, respectively, pierce the dark cosmic cloud around HH 46/47 to let us in on the action.

The Spitzer observations show twin supersonic jets emanating from the central star that blast away surrounding gas and set it alight into two bubbly lobes. HH 46/47 happens to sit on the edge of its enveloping cloud in such a way that the jets pass through two differing cosmic environments. The rightward jet, heading into the cloud, is plowing through a "wall" of material, while the leftward jet's path out of the cloud is relatively unobstructed, passing through less material. This orientation serves scientists well by offering a handy compare-and-contrast setup for how the outflows from a developing star interact with their surroundings.

Spitzer Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

"Young stars like our sun need to remove some of the gas collapsing in on them to become stable, and HH 46/47 is an excellent laboratory for studying this outflow process," said Alberto Noriega-Crespo, a scientist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "Thanks to Spitzer, the HH 46/47 outflow is considered one of the best examples of a jet being present with an expanding bubble-like structure."

Noriega-Crespo led the team that began studying HH 46/47 with Spitzer nearly 10 years ago when the telescope first began observing the heavens. Now, using a new image processing technique developed in the past few years, he and his colleagues have been able to render HH 46/47 in higher resolution.

Meanwhile, the fresh views of HH 46/47 by ALMA have revealed that the gas in the lobes is expanding faster than previously thought. This faster expansion has an influence on the overall amount of turbulence in the gaseous cloud that originally spawned the star. In turn, the extra turbulence could have an impact on whether and how other stars might form in this gaseous, dusty, and thus fertile, ground for star-making.

A team led by Hector Arce at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., carried out the ALMA observations and their analysis was published recently in The Astrophysical Journal.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / JPL / Whitney Clavin.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Proton-M rocket launch with a military satellite

ROSCOSMOS logo.

Nov. 11, 2013

Russian workhorse rocket is delivering a classified communications satellite for the nation's armed forces Tuesday.

Proton-M night launch

The official Russian sources confirmed that the launch of a Proton-M rocket with a Briz-M upper stage took place as scheduled on Nov. 12, 2013, 03:46:00 Moscow Time (6:46 p.m. EST on November 11) from Pad No. 24 at Site 81 in Baikonur.

 Liftoff Proton-M with Raduga-1 spacecraft in the interests of the Defense Ministry

Although the nature of the payload is not being disclosed at the time of the launch, industry sources previously indicated that the vehicle would carry a Raduga-1M (Globus-1M) communications satellite for the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is believed to be the third satellite in the Raduga-1M series.

An official depiction of the Raduga-1 satellite

According to the official RIA Novosti news agency, Major General Aleksandr Golovko, the commander of the Russian Air and Space Defense forces, VKO, personally witnessed the launch in Baikonur. The agency then quoted a VKO spokesman Dmitry Zenin as saying that the spacecraft was scheduled to separate from its upper stage at 12:47 Moscow Time on Nov. 12, 2013, (3:47 a.m. EST), or nine hours and one minute after liftoff. The Russian ground control network would then enter communications with the spacecraft at 13:02 Moscow Time (4:02 a.m. EST) on the same day.

The launch with Raduga-1M became the eighth mission of the Proton rocket in 2013.

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS / ROSCOSMOS TV / RussianSpaceWeb.com / Anatoly Zak / ISS Reshetnev / Gunter's Space Page.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Expedition 37 Crew, Olympic Torch Land in Kazakhstan

ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-09M Mission patch.

Nov. 10, 2013

Three Expedition 37 crew members have landed after 166 days in space, completing a 70.3 million mile mission spanning more than 2,600 orbits of the Earth since their launch to the International Space Station in May.

Image above: The Soyuz TMA-9M carrying Expedition 37 Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano lands in Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft carrying Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 9:49 p.m. Sunday (8:49 a.m. Monday, Kazakh time). A Russian recovery team and NASA personnel reached the landing site by helicopter shortly afterward to assist the crew and conduct health assessments.

Soyuz Commander Yurchikhin undocked the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft from aft end the Zvezda service module at 6:26 p.m. EST Sunday as the station soared 262 miles over northeast Mongolia. The deorbit burn at 8:55 p.m. slowed the Soyuz for its decent into the Earth’s atmosphere and its parachute-assisted landing.

 Landing of Soyuz TMA-09M with Olympic Torch & Expedition 37 crew

The undocking marked the end of Expedition 37 and the start of Expedition 38 under the command of Oleg Kotov. Yurchikhin passed the helm of the station over to Kotov during a change of command ceremony Sunday before he, Nyberg and Parmitano boarded their Soyuz and the hatches between the spacecraft were closed at 3:09 p.m.

Returning to Earth along with Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano was the torch that will be used to light the Olympic flame at the Feb. 7 opening ceremonies of the 2013 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

The Olympic torch arrived at the space station Thursday aboard the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft carrying three new crew members – Expedition 38 Flight Engineers Mikhail Tyurin, Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata. To accommodate their arrival, Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano relocated their Soyuz spacecraft on Nov. 1 from the Rassvet module where it had been docked since May 28 over to Zvezda. The arrival of Mastracchio, Wakata and Tyurin marked the first time since October 2009 that nine people have served together aboard the station without the presence of a space shuttle.

 Expedition 37 Lands, Brings Olympic Torch Back to Earth

Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy relayed the torch outside the station Saturday during a spacewalk to continue setting up a combination extravehicular activity workstation and biaxial pointing platform and deactivate a completed experiment.

Kotov, Ryazanskiy and Flight Engineer Mike Hopkins, who launched and docked to the station aboard the Soyuz TMA-10M vehicle on Sept. 25, will return to Earth on March 12. Their departure will signify the beginning of Expedition 39 under the command of Wakata, the first Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut entrusted with that position.

For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / NASA TV / ROSCOSMOS.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Expedition 37 Crew, Olympic Torch Returning to Earth

ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-09M Mission patch.

Nov. 10, 2013

Three Expedition 37 crew members are on their way back to Earth after 166 days aboard the International Space Station.

Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano undocked their Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft from aft end the Zvezda service module at 6:26 p.m. EST Sunday to begin the journey home.  At the time of the undocking, the complex was orbiting 262 miles over northeast Mongolia.

Expedition 37 Crew Heads Back to Earth

A deorbit burn at 8:55 p.m. will put the Soyuz on track for a parachute-assisted landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 9:49 p.m. (8:49 a.m. Monday, Kazakh time).

Image above: The Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft backs away from the International Space Station shortly after undocking at 6:26 p.m. EST Sunday. Image Credit: NASA TV.

NASA Television will air live coverage of the Soyuz landing activities beginning at 8:30 p.m.: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

The undocking  marked the end of Expedition 37 and the start of Expedition 38 under the command of Oleg Kotov. Yurchikhin passed the helm of the station over to Kotov during a change of command ceremony  Sunday.  After making their final farewells, Yurchikhin, Parmitano and Nyberg boarded their Soyuz,  and the crews closed the hatches between the vehicles at 3:09 p.m.

Returning to Earth along with Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano is the torch that will be used to light the Olympic flame at the Feb. 7 opening ceremonies of the 2013 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

Expedition 37 Bids Farewell to Station Crewmates

The Olympic torch arrived at the space station Thursday aboard the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft carrying three new crew members – Expedition 38 Flight Engineers Mikhail Tyurin, Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata.  To accommodate their arrival, Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano relocated their Soyuz spacecraft on Nov. 1 from the Rassvet module where it had been docked since May 28 over to Zvezda. The arrival of Mastracchio, Wakata and Tyurin marked the first time since October 2009 that nine people have served together aboard the station without the presence of a space shuttle.

Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy relayed the torch outside the station Saturday during a spacewalk to continue setting up a combination extravehicular activity workstation and biaxial pointing platform and deactivate a completed experiment.

For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/

Image (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA / NASA TV.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch