Quietest place on Earth mutes all sounds, messes with your head | Unplugged Mysteriously dark Mars regions are made of glass - space - 15 April 2012 THEY look dark, but mysterious expanses on Mars are mainly made of glass forged in past volcanoes. The dark regions make up more than 10 million square kilometres of the Martian northern lowlands, but their composition wasn’t clear. Past spectral measurements indicated that they are unlike dark regions found elsewhere on the Red Planet, which consist mainly of basalt. Briony Horgan and Jim Bell of Arizona State University in Tempe analysed near-infrared spectra of the regions, gathered by the Mars Express orbiter. The glass likely takes the form of sand-sized grains, as it does in glass-rich fields in Iceland. On Earth, such rinds coat volcanic glass weathered by water. More on these topics:
Neutrinos best studied in space Neutrinos are flowing through the Earth all the time, and many of them come from the Sun. In this computer simulation, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada has detected a solar neutrino, which then produces a small burst of light, depicted by the colourful lines. The new research suggests the mass of neutrinos is better measured in the galaxy than in experiments such as this one. Image: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory The lightest known subatomic particles in the Universe are now able to be more accurately scrutinised, in light of new astronomic research two years in the making. After more than 200 nights of galaxy-gazing and thousands of calculations, an international team of astronomers, including researchers from The University of Queensland, has published a new study that has made a remarkable headway in the way the mass of neutrinos are measured. “One of the major challenges is that galaxy formation is not well-described theoretically,” said Dr Riemer-Sørensen.
Pulsar The precise periods of pulsars makes them useful tools. Observations of a pulsar in a binary neutron star system were used to indirectly confirm the existence of gravitational radiation. The first extrasolar planets were discovered around a pulsar, PSR B1257+12. Certain types of pulsars rival atomic clocks in their accuracy in keeping time. History of observation[edit] Discovery[edit] The first pulsar was observed on November 28, 1967, by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish.[1][2][3] They observed pulses separated by 1.33 seconds that originated from the same location on the sky, and kept to sidereal time. The word "pulsar" is a contraction of "pulsating star",[7] and first appeared in print in 1968: An entirely novel kind of star came to light on Aug. 6 last year and was referred to, by astronomers, as LGM (Little Green Men). Milestones[edit] In 1974, Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. and Russell Hulse discovered for the first time a pulsar in a binary system, PSR B1913+16. Nomenclature[edit]
What Is The Singularity And Will You Live To See It? 1. I'm generally skeptical of the singularity and of post-scarcity economics in general. 2. I think it's interesting to ponder why the singularity might not occur. 3. 4. 5. 6. Massive SuperOrganism with 'Social Intelligence' is Devouring the Titanic --The 100-Year Anniversary ('A Galaxy Classic') In 2000, at the turn of the century, Roy Cullimore, a microbial ecologist and Charles Pellegrino, scientist and author of Ghosts of the Titanic discovered that the Titanic --which sank in the Atlantic Ocean 97 years ago -- was being devoured by a monster microbial industrial complex of extremophiles as alien we might expect to find on Jupiter's ocean-bound Europa. What they discovered is the largest, strangest cooperative microorganism on Earth. Scientists believe that this strange super-organism is using a common microbial language that could be either chemical or electrical -a phenomenon called "quorum sensing" by which whole communities "sense" each other's presence and activities aiding and abetting the organization, cooperation, and growth. The microbes are consuming the wreck's metal, creating mats of rust bigger than a dozen four-story brownstones that are creeping slowly along the hull harvesting iron from the rivets and burrowing into layers of steel plating.
VY Canis Majoris VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red hypergiant in the constellation Canis Major. It is one of the largest known stars by radius and also one of the most luminous of its type. It is approximately 1,420 ± 120 solar radii[8] (equal to 6.6 astronomical units, thus a diameter about 1,975,000,000 kilometres (1.227×109 mi)), and about 1.2 kiloparsecs (3,900 light-years) distant from Earth. Nature of VY Canis Majoris[edit] The first known recorded observation of VY Canis Majoris is in the star catalogue of Jérôme Lalande, on 7 March 1801, which lists VY CMa as a 7th magnitude star. Since 1847, VY CMa has been known to be a crimson star.[11] During the 19th century, observers measured at least six discrete components to VY CMa, suggesting the possibility that it was a multiple star. VY CMa is a high-luminosity M star with an effective temperature of about 3,500 K, placing it at the upper-right hand corner of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram and meaning it is a highly evolved star. Size[edit]
Magnetar Artist's conception of a magnetar, with magnetic field lines. Description[edit] Like other neutron stars, magnetars are around 20 kilometres (10 mi) in diameter and have a greater mass than the Sun. The density of the interior of a magnetar is such that a thimble full of its substance would have a mass of over 100 million tons.[1] Magnetars are differentiated from other neutron stars by having even stronger magnetic fields, and rotating comparatively slowly, with most magnetars completing a rotation once every one to ten seconds,[7] compared to less than one second for a typical neutron star. This magnetic field gives rise to very strong and characteristic bursts of X-rays and gamma rays. Magnetic field[edit] As described in the February 2003 Scientific American cover story, remarkable things happen within a magnetic field of magnetar strength. Origins of magnetic fields[edit] Formation[edit] 1979 discovery[edit] Recent discoveries[edit] The anti-glitch issue[edit] Known magnetars[edit]
Neutron star Neutron stars contain 500,000 times the mass of the Earth in a sphere with a diameter no larger than that of Brooklyn, United States A neutron star is a type of stellar remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Neutron stars are the densest and tiniest stars known to exist in the universe; although having only the diameter of about 10 km (6 mi), they may have a mass of several times that of the Sun. Neutron stars probably appear white to the naked eye. Neutron stars are the end points of stars whose inert core's mass after nuclear burning is greater than the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarfs, but whose mass is not great enough to overcome the neutron degeneracy pressure to become black holes. The discovery of pulsars in 1967 suggested that neutron stars exist. Neutron star collision Formation[edit] Properties[edit] Gravitational light deflection at a neutron star. Given current values Structure[edit]
White dwarf Artist's concept of white dwarf aging. A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a stellar remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. They are very dense; a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun, and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth. White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not high enough to become a neutron star—over 97% of the stars in the Milky Way.[5], §1. The material in a white dwarf no longer undergoes fusion reactions, so the star has no source of energy, nor is it supported by the heat generated by fusion against gravitational collapse. A white dwarf is very hot when it is formed, but since it has no source of energy, it will gradually radiate away its energy and cool. Discovery[edit] I was visiting my friend and generous benefactor, Prof. The spectral type of 40 Eridani B was officially described in 1914 by Walter Adams.[14] The companion of Sirius, Sirius B, was next to be discovered.
Hypernova Eta Carinae, in the constellation of Carina, one of the nearer candidates for a future hypernova A hypernova (pl. hypernovae) is a type of supernova explosion with an energy substantially higher than that of standard supernovae. An alternative term for most hypernovae is "superluminous supernovae" (SLSNe). Such explosions are believed to be the origin of long-duration gamma-ray bursts.[1] Just like supernovae in general, hypernovae are produced by several different types of stellar explosion: some well modelled and observed in recent years, some still tentatively suggested for observed hypernovae, and some entirely theoretical. The word collapsar, short for collapsed star, was formerly used to refer to the end product of stellar gravitational collapse, a stellar-mass black hole. History of the term[edit] Before the 1990s, the term "hypernova" was used sporadically to describe the theoretical extremely energetic explosions of extremely massive population III stars. Gamma-ray bursts[edit]