To GRB? Or Not to GRB? That is the WR 104 Question

August 06, 2009

WR 104 is a fascinating star. Located approximately 8000 light years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius, it has an O-type binary partner where the interaction of both stars produce a spiral pattern of hot dust, expanding as a beautiful spiral.

WR 104 is what is known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the final phase of a massive star's life. Wolf-Rayets have short lifespans, suicidally ejecting plasma into space, producing strong stellar winds. These facts, plus some of the factors outlined in this post, make Wolf-Rayets my favorite stellar objects.

Wolf-Rayets are fiery, hot, dynamic stars, but WR 104 also has a sinister side... it could explode as a gamma-ray burst. Not only that, but recent observations of the system suggest it is facing right at us. If that thing blows, and it fires a deadly beam of gamma-rays in our direction, it could do serious damage to our planet.

However, right in time for the Discovery Space Wide Angle all about stars that explode, I had a chat to Keck Observatory scientist Dr. Grant Hill who has other ideas about the damaging potential of WR 104...

Space Station Spotting Fun with @Twisst

July 30, 2009

This last week has been great fun for spotting the International Space Station passing over California. However, those of you that know me, I'm not much of a practical astronomer (I still don't own my own telescope, shocking). However, I'm gradually building up my astronomical skills by spending some time in the back yard, looking up.

Although I live quite close to the lights of Los Angeles, I'm far enough away to get a really good view of the night sky, especially during these warm summer nights. I've spotted some superbly bright meteors and tried my hand at spotting some constellations. But most recently, I've been on space station watch.

WARNING: Betelgeuse is Shrinking. Supernova or Supernothing?

June 10, 2009

If there's one thing I've realized when writing articles about space, is that it is very easy to link a mysterious astronomical phenomena with doom. If not doom for Earth, certainly doom resulting in a huge explosion of some kind, destroying something, somewhere...

Asteroid Tsunamis, Kepler's 1st Photo, Mission to Ceres (Video)

April 20, 2009

Saddle up for this week's Discovery Space Wrap Up, ladies and gents: Asteroid tsunamis aren't as bad as we thought, Kepler planet-hunting telescope sees first light, Scientists want to land on Ceres in the Asteroid Belt, and Colbert gets "treaded" by NASA:

Map of Galaxies on the Move

April 03, 2009

Whoa. Get a load of this brand-new map of about 110,000 galaxies closest to Earth (click to enlarge this bad boy):

Based on the press release, it sounds like most of these galaxies are as seen from Earth's southern hemisphere. That's a bit puzzling to me, seeing as the telescope used -- the UK Schmidt Telescope -- is in England, aka the northern hemisphere.

Also curious why there's a big two-cone gap in the middle (perhaps the Earth is blocking the view?).

Anyway, what you can't see in this map is the speed and direction about 11,000 of these galaxies are moving! Astronomers now have that data under their belt, too. If you're curious what the nearby universe is going to look like millions and billions of years from now, that is some valuable intel.

Now I know some of you are thinking: "Galaxies move? Aren't they too big to move fast?"

Sorry to burst any bubbles here, but get this: Milky Way Galaxy is booking it at about 343 miles per second. That's a flight from New York to Los Angeles in 7 seconds. And it's on a collision course with the equally hefty Andromeda galaxy in about 3 billion years. *gulp*

Another striking detail is the number of voids with no galaxies, which is about 500 in this computer-rendered snapshot. As we've previously played up here on Discovery Space, that's likely mysterious dark energy in action, pushing the galaxies into a cosmic web of sorts as space continues to expand.

Big thanks to Nancy Atkinson at Universe Today for pointing this out (looks like she got wind of it via the Anglo-Australian Observatory's site).

Photo: AAO

Firefox Logo Captured by Hubble?

March 26, 2009

I couldn't resist posting about this, even though I'm about a year behind the curve.

For one, I love Firefox too much. Two, supernova remnants are awesome:

Courtesy of TechFresh.net. That's V838 Monocerotis, by the way. On the left. Duh.

Oh, and speaking of supernovae get a load of Discover Magazine's star formation game. Amazing and ridiculously addictive.

My best score is 1128... $10 says you can beat it!

Photo: TechFresh.net

Planet-Hunter Launches, Moon Crash, Colbert for Space Station (Video)

March 09, 2009

What's in store for this week's Discovery Space Wrap Up: NASA's earth-like planet-hunting Kepler Telescope launches, China's Chang'e 1 spacecraft bites the moon dust, Stephen Colbert wants his own space station node.

Also of note is that I am working on a grotesque beard to ward off single women -- enjoy:

Congrats, Saturn - It's a MOONLET!

March 03, 2009

The Cassini spacecraft continues to do a fine job zooming around Saturn, boldly spying where no man-made spacecraft has spied before.

Guess what it recently found? A new moonlet! (aka a tiny moon)

Here's the pic of this little bugger, circled in red, which hangs out in the G ring of Saturn:

 

The object, about 1/3 of a mile wide, is Saturn's 61st confirmed moo moon (thanks readers for the catch -- who knew planets could moo?). The short path it sweeps in the above image is roughly 10 minutes in orbit.

Astronomers now blame the moonlet -- still unnamed -- for creating the ring; by having a little gravitational powers, it brings in ice and dust to form it.

If you're in the mood to see more of Saturn's moons, don't miss our image-packed slide show!

Photo: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute; CICLOPS; Dave Mosher

Climate Change Satellite Crashes, Titan's Weather, Big Bang Evidence (Video)

March 02, 2009

A new week, and a new video (were you expecting otherwise?):

Comet Lulin, Kepler Spacecraft, Milky Way 'Ripples' (Video)

February 23, 2009

The latest video from yours truly:

Note: Thankfully, YouTube has a wonderful annotations editor -- which lets me add in nifty facts and correct my word fumbling that I don't notice until after shooting a decent 3-5 minute take.