February 8, 2012 at 6:41 pm
Credit: NASA, ESA, C.R. O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), and M. Meixner, P. McCullough
The Helix Nebula is an iconic astronomical object – it’s been imaged again and again, by a variety of satellites. It’s one of those objects that gets turned into desktop wallpapers, posters, and postcards. It was even featured on a postage stamp issued in Great Britain in 2007. It’s one of those inspiring, mysterious images of space that people like to look at. And guess what – scientists like to look at it too!
The image above combines observations of the Helix from the the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and the ground-based Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile (you can download it from HubbleSite). There are many similar images of the Helix in visible light, and others across a variety of wavelengths. Many satellites and ground-based observatories have turned their eyes towards the Helix Nebula.
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February 3, 2012 at 5:31 pm
We just recently blogged about some of the strange and wonderful planetary systems recently discovered. From Saturn-like rings, to miniature scale, to systems practically right out Star Wars, it seems that there are an indefinite number of possibilities out there.
Our questions to you are this:
Blueshift ponders: What kind of star system do you think it would be cool to discover, or alternatively, what would you like to find on an exoplanet? (Let’s discount “life” as an answer because we know it goes without saying!)
What are our opinions?
Maggie says: I’d love us to be able to really image some of the exoplanets we’ve discovered. We have such gorgeous images of the planets in our solar system – and there is such an interesting range of planets, from rocky to oceanic to gaseous giant – that I can’t wait until we have the capability to see what the planets in other star systems really look like.
I know we discounted “life”, but I think it would be interesting to see the range of planets that could exist in the habitable zones of other stars. (A habitable zone is the region around a star where a planet the temperatures are right for a planet to have liquid water on its surface.) Just this past December, Kepler-22b was discovered – the first confirmed extrasolar planet found by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope to orbit within the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. That’s exciting stuff! Scientists don’t know yet if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition. The artist’s interpretation below, which also compares Kepler-22b’s system to ours, shows it with clouds in its atmosphere. But I want to know what it really looks like!
Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
Sara says: I remember when I posed this question to a 5-year-old at an event… he was really hoping that we’d find a planet made of yellow Jell-O! It’s easy to think about how exciting it would be to find another Earth-like planet outside of our solar system – one with plenty of water, a protective atmosphere, and good prospects for life. But there are a lot of other things that would be interesting and useful to find in other solar systems! For one thing, how about more planets like each of our different planets, in terms of size and distance and general conditions? One of the great things about space is that you can look at lots of different objects in different phases of their lives. So imagine that you could see a Mars-like planet bring formed… and then other Mars-like planets that are more mature… and then another Mars-like planet as its system is being destroyed? Then you could learn a lot more about how Mars (and planets like it) are formed, live, and die. The formation of planetary systems is also really exciting – seeing more planet-forming disks and early systems would really enhance our understanding of how planets come to be. I’m enjoying all of the things that we’re learning as we find more and more planets. I remember when finding a planet was a really big deal, and now we’re constantly finding more candidates and progressively confirming that they’re really planets. We find a lot of normal ones, and then some really weird ones!
So now we want to know what you think! You can also respond with your opinion on our Facebook, or leave a comment here!
February 1, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Meet the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array or NuSTAR – a new X-ray telescope that’s being launched in March of 2012. Below is the actual telescope in its pre-launch configuration:
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Orbital
And here is what it will look like post-launch!
Credit: NASA
NuSTAR has an interesting design that includes a deployable mast, which is used to extend the observatory to its full 10 meter focal length. Because this mast will flex slightly as the spacecraft orbits, NuSTAR employs a laser measurement system to monitor the degree of motion of the mirrors relative to the detectors.
NuSTAR will survey high-energy X-ray emission from black holes, help determine how chemical elements are cooked up in supernova explosions, and find new, previously unknown high energy sources. Gorgeous Chandra X-ray Observatory imagery has been done at relatively low X-ray energies – NuSTAR will extend the energy range of X-ray images by nearly a factor of 10, via breakthroughs in detector technology and X-ray optics.
You can read more at the HEASARC Picture of the Week and on the NuStar website. For education and outreach about NuSTAR, try the Caltech site.
January 31, 2012 at 5:53 pm
This is a doozy of a round-up, thanks to the American Astronomical Society meeting mid-month! Maggie already blogged about some of the interesting exoplanet news that came out at the meeting. Here, we’ll cover some of the other big astrophysics releases at AAS! But first… a gorgeous image from the European Southern Observatory.
Credit: ESO
This image of the Omega Nebula (M17 or NGC 6618) was captured by the ESO’s ground-based Very Large Telescope (VLT). The nebula contains glowing hydrogen gas and filaments of dust, the very materials needed to create the the blue-white baby stars forming in this very active stellar nursery. You can read more about the nebula and this image in the ESO press release.
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January 23, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Apparently solar systems are also like a box of chocolates… As the saying goes, you never know what you’re going to get. At the recent American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Austin, TX, I got to sit in on a press session on extrasolar planets, where three new systems were announced, each more bizarre than the next.
First was the announcement of the discovery of two new double-star planet systems found using Kepler data (Kepler-34 and Kepler-35). The first solar system similar to the fictional planet Tatooine from Star Wars (Kepler-16b) was actually discovered in 2011. It’s turning out that systems like the one containing Luke’s homeworld, which orbited twin suns, may be more common than previously thought.
Credit: Mark A. Garlick / space-art.co.uk
William Welsh of San Diego State University and Kepler participating scientist who led the study said, “This work further establishes that such ‘two sun’ planets are not rare exceptions, but may in fact be common, with many millions existing in our galaxy. This discovery broadens the hunting ground for systems that could support life.”
Read more »
January 13, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Curious about why the James Webb Space Telescope doesn’t look like Hubble, or most telescopes you are familiar with? Curious about the differences between reflector and refractor telescopes?
This game will teach you the basics of how telescopes work and compare a simple telescope to Webb and to Hubble. You’ll see that Webb has all the same parts as the kind you might have at home!
Scope It Out!
January 6, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Happy 16th birthday to the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer! Though this mission is soon coming to a close, it’s had an incredible lifespan and so much great science has come out of it.
RXTE has a Learning Center, which recently received a facelift. It has a terrific intro to X-ray astronomy complete with a activity/information booklet that you download in pdf format. There is also a section for educators with both formal lesson plans and activities you can try yourself!
Please check it out!
http://heasarc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/learning_center/index.html
January 4, 2012 at 5:56 pm
There are gorgeous new images out from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Here, Saturn’s third-largest moon, Dione, can be seen through the haze of the planet’s largest moon, Titan, in this view of the two posing before the planet and its rings. There are more on the Cassini website.
Credit: NASA
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January 3, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Our last post of 2011 was another in our What’s This? series – we posted a mysterious image (or three, this time) and asked for people to guess what they were looking at. Our first two challenges were reasonably easy, and I think our hints helped a lot of readers guess correctly. So we made things harder this time, and picked an object that stumped us when we first saw it sitting on someone’s desk!
So what is this thing?
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December 29, 2011 at 5:39 pm
We’re closing out 2011 with another mysterious What’s This? contest! We’re making this one a little more challenging than the last two. Check out the three photos below and try to figure out… what’s this object? Post your guesses as comments to this post, comment on our Facebook wall, or tweet them to us with the #whatsthis hashtag.
We can tell you a few (potentially useful, maybe) things about this thing to help you make your guess – it’s a piece of history, it’s made of a rubbery material, and we found it on the desk of one of the scientists in the Astrophysics Science Division here at Goddard!
Give us your best guesses in comments and tweets! We’ll reveal the answer on Tuesday, January 3, 2012. We’ll randomly draw one name from among the correct responses, and send that person a little prize. If there are no correct responses, we’ll draw from all guesses.
Please note: Comments on NASA Blueshift are moderated, and we’ll approve them as quickly as we can during business hours on business days. Don’t worry, any weekend or holiday comments will be approved when we look in the queue when we get back to work on January 3rd.
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