Free Republic

The early sun produced powerful x-ray emissions that may have helped to ensure the survival of our planet, scientists say. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest that violent x-ray flares, which reached temperatures of 100 million kelvins, may have rocked the surrounding disk from which planets formed and prevented Earth from rapidly spiraling into the sun and being destroyed. An international team of astronomers focused Chandra on the Orion Nebula for 13 days, resulting in one of the instrument's deepest observations yet. Located 1,500 light-years from Earth, the Orion Nebula provides a way for scientists to study how our...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 30 Beijing Ancient Observatory Credit & Copyright: Judy Tobin Explanation: Did observatories exist before telescopes? One example that still stands today is the Beijing Ancient Observatory in China. Starting in the 1400s astronomers erected large instruments here to enable them to measure star and planet positions with increasing accuracy. Pre-telescopic observatories throughout the world date back to before recorded history, providing measurements that helped to determine...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 14 The Heart in NGC 346 Credit: Y.Nazé (Université de Liège) et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: Yes, it's Valentine's Day (!) and looking toward star cluster NGC 346 in our neighboring galaxy the Small Magellanic Cloud, astronomers have noted this heart-shaped cloud of hot, x-ray emitting gas in the cluster's central region. The false-color Chandra Observatory x-ray image also shows a strong x-ray source just above...

Eclipse brings claim of medieval African observatory 12:53 04 December 02 NewScientist.com news service Great Zimbabwe is a controversial site thought to have been a royal residence (Image: Corbis) Viewers of the total solar eclipse in Southern Africa early on Wednesday have also had their eyes opened by second startling event - newly released evidence that a medieval African site was an astronomical observatory. Starting just before 0600 GMT, the shadow of the Moon took 30 minutes to cross Africa from west to east, before heading over the Indian Ocean to make landfall in western Australia around 0900 GMT. In...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 2 Nearby Spiral M33 Credit & Copyright: T. A. Rector & M. Hanna, NOAO, AURA, NSF Explanation: Spiral galaxy M33 is a mid-sized member of our Local Group of Galaxies. M33 is also called the Triangulum Galaxy for the constellation in which it resides. About four times smaller (in radius) than our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), it is much larger than the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 November 14 The Sharpest View of the Sun Credit: SST, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Explanation: This stunning image shows remarkable and mysterious details near the dark central region of a planet-sized sunspot in one of the sharpest views ever of the surface of the Sun. Just released, the picture was made using the Swedish Solar Telescope now in its first year of operation on the Canary...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 November 9 A Cerro Tololo Sky Credit & Copyright: Roger Smith, AURA, NOAO, NSF Explanation: High atop a Chilean mountain lies one of the premier observatories of the southern sky: the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). Pictured above is the dome surrounding one of the site's best known instruments, the 4-meter Blanco Telescope. Far behind the dome are thousands of individual stars and diffuse light from three...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 November 7 2001 Leonids: Meteors in Perspective Credit & Copyright: Christophe Marlot Explanation: The 2001 Leonid storm was so intense that the meteor shower's radiant, the point on the sky from which the fleeting trails seemed to diverge, was easy to spot. But the bits of debris that created the meteors really moved along parallel paths, following the orbit of their parent comet Tempel-Tuttle. Their apparent divergence...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 9 Quaoar: Large Asteroid in the Outer Solar System Credit: Chad Trujillo & Michael Brown (Caltech) Explanation: Asteroids almost as large as planets are still being discovered in our own Solar System. Recently an asteroid more than half the size of Pluto was found orbiting at a distance only a little further than the Solar System's most distant planet. The large asteroid moves relative to background...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 September 28 X-Ray Rainbows Credit: J. McClintock et al. (CfA), CXC, NASA Explanation: A drop of water or prism of glass can spread out visible sunlight into a rainbow of colors. In order of increasing energy, the well known spectrum of colors in a rainbow runs red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. X-ray light too can be spread out into a spectrum ordered by energy ......

Bronze Age observatory to be rebuilt in Germany September 10, 2002, 20:15 Archaeologists hope to rebuild as a tourist attraction a Bronze Age observatory where ancient priests in Germany divined the right days to sow and harvest crops 3 600 years ago. They said the site on a hill in the middle of a forest is the world's oldest surviving astronomical observatory. The location has been kept secret so artefacts robbers will not disturb it, but the media are to be granted a first glimpse September 25. Treasure hunters stumbled on the site four years ago and dug up the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 September 12 X-Rays From Tycho's Supernova Remnant Credit: SAO, CXC, NASA Explanation: In 1572, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe recorded the sudden appearance of a bright new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. The new star faded from view over a period of months and is believed to have been a supernova, one of the last stellar explosions seen in our Milky Way galaxy. Now known as Tycho's Supernova...

Reprinted from ScienceDaily Magazine ...Source:             NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center Date Posted:    Thursday, August 01, 2002Web Address:   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020801080835.htm Chandra Discovers "Rivers Of Gravity" That Define Cosmic Landscape NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered part of an intergalactic web of hot gas and dark matter that contains most of the material in the universe. The hot gas, which appears to lie like a fog in channels carved by rivers of gravity, has been hidden from view since the time galaxies formed. "The Chandra observations, together with ultraviolet observations, are a major advance in our understanding of how the universe evolved over the last 10 billion...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 18 Sunspot Region 30 Credit: MDI, SOHO, ESA, NASA Explanation: The solar active region designated number 10030 (or simply region 30) is now appearing on the visible hemisphere of the closest star. Dwarfed by the Sun's disk, the group of sunspots which make up region 30 actually cover an enormous area -- nearly 10 times the size of Earth. The panels above were recorded July 15,...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 26 In the Center of the Trifid Nebula Credit: GMOS, Gemini Observatory Explanation: Clouds of glowing gas mingle with lanes of dark dust in the Trifid Nebula, a star forming region toward the constellation of Sagittarius. In the center, the three huge dark dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear on the lower left, while filaments of...

Asteroid detected in a close call with Earth Thu Jun 20, 4:22 PM ETBy THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer LONDON - An asteroid the size of a soccer field narrowly missed the Earth by 75,000 miles (120,000 kms) last week, in the closest known approach by objects of this size in decades, scientists said Thursday. "In the unlikely event the asteroid had struck Earth in a populated area, it would have caused considerable loss of life," said Grant Stokes, the principal investigator for the Lincoln Laboratory Near Earth Asteroid Research Project, whose New Mexico observatory spotted the object. "The energy...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 17 NGC 4697: X-Rays from an Elliptical Galaxy Credit : C. Sarazin (UVa), et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: The many bright, point-like sources in this Chandra Observatory x-ray image lie within NGC 4697, an elliptical galaxy some 40 million light-years away towards Virgo. Like other normal elliptical galaxies, NGC 4697 is a spherical ensemble of mainly older, fainter, low mass stars, with little star forming gas...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 May 23 N132D and the Color of X-Rays Credit: SAO, CXC, NASA Explanation: Supernova remnant N132D shows off complex structures in this sharp, color x-ray image. Still, overall this cosmic debris from a massive star's explosive death has a strikingly simple horseshoe shape. While N132D lies 180,000 light-years distant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the expanding remnant appears here about 80 light-years across. Light from the supernova...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 March 28 Centaurus Galaxy Cluster in X-RaysCredit: J. Sanders, A. Fabian, (IoA Cambridge), NASA Explanation: The Centaurus Cluster is a swarm of hundreds of galaxies a mere 170 million light-years away. Like other immense galaxy clusters, the Centaurus Cluster is filled with gas at temperatures of 10 million degrees or more, making the cluster a luminous source of cosmic x-rays. While individual galaxies are not seen here,...