Distant galaxy helped relight the universe

"The discovery of a small but distant galaxy 12.8 billion light years from Earth is providing important clues about the earliest years of the universe's life. By measuring the age of the galaxy's stars, astronomers in Europe and the US say the galaxy began to shine when the universe was just 150–300 million years old. The work suggests that such galaxies were responsible for dispersing the atomic fog that once cloaked the cosmos, during a period in the history of the universe that astronomers know very little about." by Ken Croswell
Distant galaxy helped relight the universe - physicsworld.com

Tiny antennas for radio telescopes

"Tiny antennas form vast radio telescope array.

A grassroots telescope array is taking aim at a wide range of astronomy questions, with projects in geophysics and agriculture piggybacking on its infrastructure.
Dipole antennas dotting the Netherlands and several nearby countries together form a radio telescope that is sensitive in the relatively unexplored wavelength range of 1–10 m (roughly 10–250 MHz) and has an enormous field of view. About three-fourths of the telescope’s 44 stations are functioning, and the rest are set to be completed by the end of the year."

by Toni Feder, Physics Today March 2011
Tiny antennas form vast radio telescope array - Physics Today March 2011
It is the International LOFAR Telescope
http://www.lofar.org/about-lofar/image-gallery/latest-lofar-images
It is a radio interferometric array, consisting of many low-cost antennas. There are two distinct antenna types: the Low Band Antenna (LBA) between 10 and 90 MHz and the High Band Antenna (HBA) between 110 and 250 MHz. These "sensors" are organised many stations, distributed over an area about one hundred kilometres in diameter, located in the North-East of the Netherlands. This infrastructure will give rise to new resources for non-radio astronomers. In the geosciences field, it should be possible, for example, to extend the understanding of natural and induced seismicity, subsidence, and water management. The agricultural application of LOFAR is in the measurement of the micro-climate. 

Domenico Pacini and the discovery of cosmic rays

Domenico Pacini, uncredited pioneer of the discovery of cosmic rays
A. De Angelis
Vol 33 No 12 2010, 

Rivista del Nuovo Cimento 

Volume  033  Issue  12  pp  713-756 

DOI:  10.1393/ncr/i2011-10060-9

Published online:  Fri, 28 Jan 2011

Abstract "During a series of experiments performed between 1907 and 1911, the Italian physicist Domenico Pacini (Marino 1878-Roma 1934), at that time researcher at the Central Bureau of Meteorology and Geodynamics in Roma, studied the origin of the radiation today called “cosmic rays”, the nature of which was unknown at that time. In his conclusive measurements in June 1911 at the Naval Academy in Livorno, and confirmed in Bracciano a couple of months later, Pacini, proposing a novel experimental technique, observed the radiation strength to decrease when going from the surface to a few meters underwater (both in the sea and in the lake), thus demonstrating that such radiation could not come from the Earth’s crust. Pacini’s conclusive experiment was performed, and the results published (in Italian), one year before the famous balloon experiment by Victor Hess, who found the ionization rate to increase with height. While Hess is today celebrated as the discoverer of cosmic rays, Pacini’s work was largely overlooked. Hess was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936, two years after the death of Pacini, who had become a full professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Bari and the Director of the local Institute of Physics. The discovery of cosmic rays —a milestone in science— involved several scientists in Europe and in the United States of America and took place during a period characterized by nationalism and lack of communication. Historical, political and personal facts, embedded in the pre- and post-World War I historical context, might have contributed to the substantial disappearance of Pacini from the history of science. This article aims to give an unbiased historical account of the discovery of cosmic rays; in the centenary of Pacini’s pioneering experiments, his work, which employed a technique that was complementary to, and independent of that of Hess, will be duly taken into consideration. A translation into English of  three fundamental early articles by Pacini is provided in the Appendix. "

Dancing galaxies

Il Sole24ore propone una collezione di immagini con la danza delle galassie. Vedi
http://foto.ilsole24ore.com/SoleOnLine5/Tecnologie/Scienza/2011/danza-galassie/danza-galassie_fotogallery.php?id=2

A stellar superfluid

Physics - A stellar superfluid, is the  Nicolas Chamel's  viewpoint on the paper:

Rapid Cooling of the Neutron Star in Cassiopeia A Triggered by Neutron Superfluidity in Dense Matter

Dany Page, Madappa Prakash, James M. Lattimer, and Andrew W. Steiner

Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 081101 (2011) – Published February 22, 2011

Download PDF (free)

The Sun in 3D

"Beginning on February 6, 2011, the two STEREO spacecraft are 180 degrees apart providing Naval Research Laboratory scientists with a 360-degree view of the Sun. NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft were launched on October 25, 2006, and have been gathering spectacular images of solar activity, especially solar storms, since the mission began."

More http://www.nrl.navy.mil/pao/pressRelease.php?Y=2011&R=22-11r and  http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/360blog/

A 3D movie at the page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/multimedia/AnaglyphFull171Movie.html

Two splendid suns

"Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily. Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, outlined the scenario to news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time.
When that happens, for at least a few weeks, we'd see a second sun, Carter says. There may also be no night during that timeframe."

More The Huffington Post 

Aurora boreale su Saturno

Un'aurora boreale su Saturno vista da Hubble

Credit: NASA-HUBBLE

A star and six planets

"A newfound planetary system has six worlds, five of which rank among the smallest known, and the list of unconfirmed candidates has swelled to four figures.

Thirty million kilometers away, trailing the pale blue dot that is Earth as it orbits the sun, is a spacecraft designed to find some of the countless other pale blue dots that may speckle the galaxy. NASA launched this spacecraft, known as Kepler, in 2009 to take a census of Earth-like planets in the hopes of figuring out how common—or how rare—are the conditions under which life has thrived here."

more Scientific American

Una stella e sei pianeti

"Una stella molto simile al Sole ed intorno a lei 6 pianeti che ruotano, un vero e proprio Sistema solare. Ma non è certo il nostro, dato che sta a 2.000 anni luce dalla Terra, una distanza enorme su scala umana, ma molto piccola i termini astronomici. La stella si chiama Kepler 11 e la scoperta del sistema di sei pianeti, tutti piccoli e alcuni con caratteristiche di tipo terrestre, è riportata nella rivista Nature del 3 febbraio."

More http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2011-02-02/scoperto-piccolo-sistema-solare-205724.shtml?uuid=AaVAfG5C

The 'millicrab'

"One of the most studied objects in the sky, the Crab Nebula is the remnant of an exploded star 6500 light-years away from Earth. At its core is a neutron star that spins 30 times per second, driving processes that are responsible for it X-ray and gamma-ray emissions. Until recently the X-ray intensity of the Crab was considered to be so stable that it is used as a "standard candle" to judge the relative brightness of other objects in the sky. Indeed, X-ray brightness is often expressed in units of "millicrab"." X-ray astronomers have for decades calibrated their detectors using the Crab Nebula, but now an international team of astronomers has discovered that the X-ray output of the Crab has dropped by 7% in the last two years.
Astronomers say goodbye to the 'millicrab' - physicsworld.com

Il satellite Planck per capire le origini dell'Universo

"Da oggi, 11/1/2011 c'è in rete un nuovo tesoro, anzi una vera e propria miniera di tesori. Si tratta del catalogo preliminare dei dati del satellite europeo Planck, un catalogo di dati per astrofisici specialisti, ma che rappresenta un notevole balzo in avanti per la conoscenza del nostro Universo. Ed è solo l'inizio perché il satellite è a metà circa del suo lavoro che terminerà, fondi permettendo fra un paio di anni. Poi ce ne vorranno anche una diecina per pulire e analizzare a fondo la massa enorme di dati che Planck sta trasmettendo."

http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2011-01-11/ecco-planck-catalogo-aiutera-193041.shtml?uuid=AYjdy3yC&cmpid=nl_7%2Boggi_sole24ore_com

Spicules – plasma jets on the Sun

A mystery: why is  the Sun's outer atmosphere – or corona –  so much hotter than its surroundings?
"The corona, the vast gossamer atmosphere of plasma visible from Earth during a total solar eclipse, can notch up temperatures in excess of one million degrees Kelvin (MK). Several rival explanations have jostled to account for why the corona is unexpectedly over 200 times hotter than the visible surface, or photosphere, of the Sun".

It could be the action of spicules to increase the coronal temperature.

read more http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/44717

Iris Nebula

Iris Nebula LBN 487 and NGC 7023 in Cepheus

From an image by Hewholooks, which is the user page of Hunter Wilson. Images may be seen at http://hwilson.zenfolio.com/f129011888 or on

Wikimedia athttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=hewholooks

Eta Carinae's Homunculus

Homunculus Nebula is surrounding the star system Eta Carinae. The nebula is embedded within a much larger ionized hydrogen region, which is the Carina Nebula. Homunculus is believed to have been ejected in a huge outburst from Eta Carinae in 1841, so brightly to be visible from Earth. This massive explosion produced two polar lobes and an equatorial disc, moving outwards. Though Eta Carinae is quite away, approximately 7,500 light-years, it is possible to distinguish in the nebula, many structures with the size of about the diameter of our solar system. Knots, dust lanes and radial streaks appear quite clearly in many images.

At the  http://staff.polito.it/amelia.sparavigna/Astronomical-astrofractool-web.htm, I am comparing the imaging of Homunculus Nebula, obtained by Hubble Space Telescope, and that from the Gemini South Telescope. 

See also http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4323,  A comment on Eta Carinae's Homunculus Nebula imaging.

ESO - AB Pictoris and its companion

European Southern Observatory (ESO) - Coronagraphic image of AB Pictoris showing its tiny companion (bottom left). The data was obtained on 16 March 2003 with NACO on the VLT, using a 1.4 arcsec occulting mask on top of AB Pictoris.

http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0515d/

Chandra Proxima Centauri

"The Chandra X-ray Observatory is a satellite launched on STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. It was named in honor of Indian-American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who is known for determining the maximum mass for white dwarfs. "Chandra" also means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit. Chandra Observatory is the third of NASA's four Great Observatories. The first wasHubble Space Telescope; second the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991; and last is the Spitzer Space Telescope." read more at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_X-ray_Observatory

See at http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/proxima/ images of Proxima Centauri.

"Proxima Centauri: A red dwarf star 4 light years from the Sun. (Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO). X-ray observations of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, have shown that its surface is in a state of turmoil. Flares, or explosive outbursts occur almost continually. This behavior can be traced to Proxima Centauri's low mass, about a tenth that of the Sun. In the cores of low mass stars, nuclear fusion reactions that convert hydrogen to helium proceed very slowly, and create a turbulent, convective motion throughout their interiors. This motion stores up magnetic energy which is often released explosively in the star's upper atmosphere where it produces flares in X-rays and other forms of light. X-rays from Proxima Centauri are consistent with a point-like source. The extended X-ray glow is an instrumental effect. The nature of the two dots above the image is unknown - they could be background sources."

Where is Voyager 1?

"NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline. The 33-year odyssey of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind."

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/