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.

2017 March 7

Explanation: Why does this galaxy spin so fast? To start, even identifying which type of galaxy UGC 12591 is difficult -- it has dark dust lanes like a spiral galaxy but a large diffuse bulge of stars like a lenticular. Surprisingly observations show that UGC 12591 spins at about 480 km/sec, almost twice as fast as our Milky Way, and the fastest rotation rate yet measured. The mass needed to hold together a galaxy spinning this fast is several times the mass of our Milky Way Galaxy. Progenitor scenarios for UGC 12591 include slow growth by accreting ambient matter, or rapid growth through a recent galaxy collision or collisions -- future observations may tell. The light we see today from UGC 12591 left about 400 million light years ago, when trees were first developing on Earth.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day - Official Site

Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Brad Goldpaint/Getty Images

Astronomer Kevin Schawinski has spent much of his career studying how massive black holes shape galaxies. But he isnt into dirty workdealing with messy dataso he decided to figure out how neural networks could do it for him. Problem is, he and his cosmic colleagues suck at that sophisticated kind of coding.

That changed when another professor at Schawinskis institution, ETH Zurich, sent him an email and CCed Ce Zhang, who actually is a computer scientist. You guys should talk, the email said. And they did: Together, they plotted how they could take leading-edge machine-learning techniques and superimpose them on the universe. And recently, they released their first result: a neural network that sharpens up blurry, noisy images from space. Kind of like those scenes in CSI-type shows where a character shouts Enhance! Enhance! at gas station security footage, and all of a sudden the perps face resolves before your eyes.

Schawinski and Zhangs work is part of a larger automation trend in astronomy: Autodidactic machines can identify, classify, andapparentlyclean up their data better and faster than any humans. And soon, machine learning will be a standard digital tool astronomers can pull out, without even needing to grasp the backend.

In their initial research, Schawinski and Zhang came across a kind of neural net that, in an example, generated original pictures of cats after learning what cat-ness is from a set of feline images. It immediately became clear, says Schawinski.

This feline-friendly system was called a GAN, or generative adversarial network. It pits two machine-brainseach its own neural networkagainst each other. To train the system, they gave one of the brains a purposefully noisy, blurry image of a cat galaxy and then an unmarred version of that same galaxy. That network did its best to fix the degraded galaxy, making it match the pristine one. The second half of the network evaluated the differences between that fixed image and the originally OK one. In test mode, the GAN got a new set of scarred pictures and performed computational plastic surgery.

Once trained up, the GAN revealed details that telescopes werent sensitive enough to resolve, like star-forming spots. I dont want to use a clich phrase like holy grail, says Schawinski, but in astronomy, you really want to take an image and make it better than it actually is.

When I asked the two scientists, who Skyped me together on Friday, whats next for their silicon brains, Schawinski asked Zhang, How much can we reveal? which suggests to me they plan to take over the world.

They went on to say, though, that they dont exactly know, short-term (or at least theyre not telling). Long-term, these machine learning techniques just become part of the arsenal scientists use, says Schawinski, in a kind of ready-to-eat form. Scientists shouldnt have to be experts on deep learning and have all the arcane knowledge that only five people in the world can grapple with.

Other astronomers have already used machine learning to do some of their work. A set of scientists at ETH Zurich, for example, used artificial intelligence to combat contamination in radio data. They trained a neural network to recognize and then mask the human-made radio interference that comes from satellites, airports, WiFi routers, microwaves, and malfunctioning electric blankets. Which is good, because the number of electronic devices will only increase, while black holes arent getting any brighter.

Neural networks need not limit themselves to new astronomical observations, though. Scientists have been dragging digital data from the sky for decades, and they can improve those old observations by plugging them into new pipelines. With the same data people had before, we can learn more about the universe, says Schawinski.

Machine learning also makes data less tedious to process. Much of astronomers work once involved the slog of searching for the same kinds of signals over and overthe blips of pulsars, the arms of galaxies, the spectra of star-forming regionsand figuring out how to automate that slogging. But when a machine learns, it figures out how to automate the slogging. The code itself decides that galaxy type 16 exists and has spiral arms and then says, Found another one! As Alex Hocking, who developed one such system, put it, the important thing about our algorithm is that we have not told the machine what to look for in the images, but instead taught it how to see.

A prototype neural network that pulsar astronomers developed in 2012 found 85 percent of the pulsars in a test dataset; a 2016 system flags fast radio burst candidates as human- or space-made, and from a known source or from a mystery object. On the optical side, a computer brainweb called RobERtRobotic Exoplanet Recognitionprocesses the chemical fingerprints in planetary systems, doing in seconds what once took scientists days or weeks. Even creepier, when the astronomers asked RobERt to dream up what water would look like, he, uh, did it.

The point, here, is that computers are better and faster at some parts of astronomy than astronomers are. And they will continue to change science, freeing up scientists time and wetware for more interesting problems than whether a signal is spurious or a galaxy is elliptical. Artificial intelligence has broken into scientific research in a big way, says Schawinski. This is a beginning of an explosion. This is what excites me the most about this moment. We are witnessing anda little bitshaping the way were going to do scientific work in the future.

Continued here:

Astronomers Deploy AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe - WIRED

March 6, 2017 This vibrant image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy. Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Meixner (STScI) & the SAGE Legacy Team.

The discovery of young stars in old star clusters could send scientists back to the drawing board for one of the Universe's most common objects.

Dr Bi-Qing For, from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth, said our understanding of how stars evolve is a cornerstone of astronomical science.

"There are a billion trillion stars in the Universe and we've been observing and classifying those we can see for more than a century," she said.

"Our models of stellar evolution are based on the assumption that stars within star clusters formed from the same material at roughly the same time."

A star cluster is a group of stars that share a common origin and are held together by gravity for some length of time.

Because star clusters are assumed to contain stars of similar age and composition researchers have used them as an "astronomical laboratory" to understand how mass affects the evolution of stars.

"If this assumption turns out to be incorrect, as our findings suggest, then these important models will need to be revisited and revised," Dr For said.

The discovery, published today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, involves a study of star clusters located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbouring galaxy to the Milky Way.

By cross-matching the locations of several thousand young stars with the locations of stellar clusters, the researchers found 15 stellar candidates that were much younger than other stars within the same cluster.

"The formation of these younger stars could have been fuelled by gas entering the clusters from interstellar space," said co-author Dr Kenji Bekki, also from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.

"But we eliminated this possibility using observations made by radio telescopes to show that there was no correlation between interstellar hydrogen gas and the location of the clusters we were studying.

"We believe the younger stars have actually been created out of the matter ejected from older stars as they die, which would mean we have discovered multiple generations of stars belonging to the same cluster."

Dr Bekki said the stars were currently too faint to see using optical telescopes because of the dust that surrounds them.

"They have been observed using infrared wavelengths by orbiting space telescopes Spitzer and Herschel, operated by NASA and the European Space Agency," he said.

"An envelope of gas and dust surrounds these young stars but as they become more massive and this shroud blows away, they will become visible at optical wavelengths for powerful instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope."

"If we point Hubble at the clusters we've been studying, we should be able to see both young and old stars and confirm once and for all that star clusters can contain several generations of stars."

Explore further: Image: Hubble admires a youthful globular star cluster

More information: , OUP accepted manuscript, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slx015

Globular clusters offer some of the most spectacular sights in the night sky. These ornate spheres contain hundreds of thousands of stars, and reside in the outskirts of galaxies. The Milky Way contains over 150 such clustersand ...

Located approximately 22,000 light-years away in the constellation of Musca (The Fly), this tightly packed collection of starsknown as a globular clustergoes by the name of NGC 4833. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope ...

An astronomer from LJMU's Astrophysics Research Institute has discovered a new family of stars in the core of the Milky Way Galaxy which provides new insights into the early stages of the Galaxy's formation.

Messier 18 was discovered and catalogued in 1764 by Charles Messierfor whom the Messier Objects are namedduring his search for comet-like objects. It lies within the Milky Way, approximately 4600 light-years away in ...

(Phys.org)A team of Brazilian astronomers, led by Denilso Camargo of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, has discovered seven new embedded clusters located unusually far away from the Milky Way's ...

This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the globular cluster Terzan 1. Lying around 20,000 light-years from us in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), ...

The discovery of young stars in old star clusters could send scientists back to the drawing board for one of the Universe's most common objects.

The nature of the dark matter which apparently makes up 80% of the mass of the particles in the universe is still one of the great unsolved mysteries of present day sciences. The lack of experimental evidence, which could ...

The scaffolding that holds the large-scale structure of the universe constitutes galaxies, dark matter and gas (from which stars are forming), organized in complex networks known as the cosmic web. This network comprises ...

Among the most striking features on the surface of Ceres are the bright spots in the center of Occator crater which stood out already as NASA's space probe Dawn approached the dwarf planet. Scientists under the leadership ...

European astronomers have recently studied the chemical composition of the low-mass globular cluster designated NGC 6362. Their detailed analysis of chemical abundances for 17 elements in the cluster provides important insights ...

Mars may have been a wetter place than previously thought, according to research on simulated Martian meteorites conducted, in part, at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

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^^^^And what has that pile of irrelevant fail got to do with anything in the article?

That the cluster stars actually form from ejections from the core star. The metallicity will vary among the individual stars, largely depending on their size and location within the cluster. That the metallicity is largely dependent on the internal growth rates of the star itself, as new matter generated both therein each star and from the core is largely non-metallic. And now intermediate core black holes found in a cluster, as I had predicted.

Gosh. Maniacs, Say it Ain't so!

https://phys.org/...ter.html

https://phys.org/...ars.html

https://phys.org/...ter.html

https://phys.org/...ter.html

So if my analysis is so lame, what does that make yours?? Lamer??

"Recent studies have shown that an extended main-sequence turn-off is a common feature among intermediate-age clusters (13 Gyr) in the Magellanic Clouds. Multiple-generation star formation and stellar rotation or interacting binaries have been proposed to explain the feature.............

The paper goes on: "These findings support for the multiple-generations scenario as a plausible explanation for the extended main-sequence turn-off."

There is therefore no upset applecart, just another revision of the list of possible explanations.

Interestingly, the same phenomenon has been observed in globular clusters in the Milky Way. ( see https://arxiv.org...6526.pdf , and references therein).

@Tuxford, Nope. Just read the paper, and it says nothing about stars being formed from material ejected from other stars in the cluster.

You call this rational?: http://etheric.com/

Lol.

Apology owed to Tuxford? 🙂

Err, no. read LaViolette's model, as outlined by Tuxford's comments in the articles he highlighted in his OP. It bears no resemblance to what is being discussed in this article. This is just regular star formation from gas clouds expelled in supernovae a long time ago.

"Our finding also suggests that the gas supply for second-generation star formation cannot originate from young massive stars but must be from old AGB stars."

Admittedly, my phraseology was a bit crap, but there is nothing in this as regards LaViolette's nonsense: http://etheric.co...onomy/2/

To paraphrase a poster elsewhere, "LaViolette started off quite promisingly, but then became insane."

I would define this as fusion. Older stars within a vast amount of material, not quite an elliptical galaxy, where there exist multiple pockets of charge and charge clusters, i.e. elements, in free frall. Thus the force causing fusion is the "gravitational" force, which can be defined from the charge distribution, an attractive force since charge will always comply, like charge more distant and unlike charges move closer together, So one can see the rotations and revolving elements that will create matter, or be consumed by a star. Not the other scenario. Ejections are varied.

Science is too limited for solving this puzzle, being locked inside a hall of intellectual mirrors, when the solution actually lies outside the hall. Dumb and dumber congratulating each other inside the hall. Lost. Not even blatant contrary observations can shake them from their mania. They must defend their world-view. Their sense of sanity is challenged. And so they lash out, like davy here.

The issue was your bald assertion to Tuxford and insulting his reading comprehension. Your assertion was demonstrated false by the facts as written in Dr For's Letter itself. Why not be a big man and just apologize for THAT alone? The rest of your disagreements are irrelevant to THAT particular issue. Yes? So go on, mate, prove you are not letting personal feuds and ill will etc get in the way of your objective regard for the facts once they are objectively presented (as in my post quoting the Letter itself). Give him that apology limited to THAT at least; it's only fair; and your credibility will only be improved if you admit your error when faced with same. Yes? And who knows, maybe the ill will and personal distractions may in future be reduced due to that honest gesture. Yes? 🙂

"The temperature of stars is directly related to the speed of its rotation. Those with slower rotation are red, while with the increase of the rotation speed, also increases the glow and the temperature of a star. As a consequence, it turns white and blue . If we consult the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, it is obvious that both very small and super giant stars can have the same glow; they can be white, red or blue. " from https://www.acade...rotation

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Star clusters discovery could upset the astronomical applecart - Phys.Org

Using NASAs Kepler spacecraft on its K2 mission, astronomers have discovered five new planets around other stars, including two extraordinary companions to a subgiant star.

A Neptune-mass exoplanet. Image credit: NASA / Goddard / Francis Reddy.

In the January 2017 issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (arXiv.org preprint), Dr. Alexis Smith from the German Aerospace Center Institutes of Planetary Research and co-authors report the discovery of a giant planet and a brown dwarf orbiting K2-99, a very iron-rich star with a mass of 1.6 solar masses.

K2-99 is on its way to becoming a red giant. Our Sun will reach this phase in five billion years, once it has fused all of its hydrogen into helium, the researchers said.

Also known as EPIC 212803289, K2-99 is an 11th magnitude subgiant star in the constellation of Virgo, approximately 1,970 light-years away.

This star is being orbited by a Jupiter-like planet, K2-99b. But in contrast to Jupiter, which needs 12 years to complete one orbit around the Sun, K2-99b orbits its star in just 18 days, Dr. Smith said.

Until now, only a few transit planets have been found orbiting such subgiants.

The interesting thing about K2-99 is that we also see signals from a second object in a long-period orbit of several hundred days (K2-99c) perhaps a brown dwarf, he added.

Brown dwarfs are of great interest because they fill the evolutionary gap between planets and stars and are considered to be failed stars, which we still do not know much about.

In a paper available on arXiv.org, Dr. Philipp Eigmller, also from the German Aerospace Center Institutes of Planetary Research, and co-authors report the discovery of a hot gaseous planet around the star K2-60, also known as EPIC 206038483.

Dubbed K2-60b, the planet has a radius of 0.68 Jupiter radii and a mass of only 0.43 that of Jupiter.

This planet orbits its star in a mere three days, Dr. Eigmller said.

For comparison, it takes the innermost and fastest planet in the Solar System, Mercury, 88 days to complete one orbit around the Sun.

In the same paper, Dr. Eigmller and colleagues report the discovery of a giant planet orbiting the F9-type star K2-107, also known as EPIC 216468514.

The planet, named K2-107b, has a mass of 0.84 that of Jupiter. Its radius is 1.44 times that of Jupiter.

In a paper published in the Astronomical Journal (arXiv.org version), the same team reports the discovery of a warm Neptune-like planet in a 10-day orbit around the F-type star K2-98 (EPIC 211391664).

In contrast to the ice giant Neptune, however, this planet named K2-98b must be very warm due to the proximity to its star, Dr. Eigmller and co-authors said.

Because of this proximity, K2-98b will be engulfed by its own star in approximately three billion years, when K2-98 has become a red giant.

_____

A.M.S. Smith et al. 2017. K2-99: a subgiant hosting a transiting warm Jupiter in an eccentric orbit and a long-period companion. Mon Not R Astron Soc 464 (3): 2708-2716; doi: 10.1093/mnras/stw2487

Philipp Eigmller et al. 2016. K2-60b and EPIC 216468514b. A sub-Jovian and a Jovian planet from the K2 mission. arXiv: 1611.03704

Oscar Barragn et al. 2016. K2-98 b: A 32-M(Earth) Neptune-sized planet in a 10-day orbit transiting an F8 star. AJ 152, 193; doi: 10.3847/0004-6256/152/6/193

Original post:

Kepler's K2 Mission Helps Discover Five New Exoplanets - Sci-News.com

Epps said she has also been learning to speak Russian for about seven years, including a five-week trip to Moscow and another language class there. She said learning the language isnt just for flying on the Soyuz and understanding the controls on it, but also for communicating easily with crewmates. She said has put in a lot of hard work and training over the last seven years and it has all been for getting me into space and being a good crewmate.

Epps said her main duty will be to maintain and update the ISS, along with experiments and studying how to get humans to fly in space longer and away from Earths gravitational field. They will also be doing experiments with rodents, genetics, and whatever NASA wants to do at the time.

As a researcher, I think pushing the boundaries of our knowledge and what we know about space and what we know about the human body and living in space that is a part of human nature and the human exploration spirit to want to go beyond what we already know and try to find out new and innovative things, Epps said.

On top of the variety of research and duties she will be responsible for on the ISS, Epps said shes looking forward to a rare opportunity: the humbling experience of seeing the planet we live on from a new angle.

We see everything from telescopes and other views, but being on the space station gives you the rare opportunity to look at Earth from a different perspective, Epps said. A lot of people who come back talk about how their life perspective changes, too because you see the Earth as a whole and you realize that one of the big things is that theres only the human race, theres not a race on this continent or a race on another continent, but its just the human race.

Out of the 200 people who have been on the International Space Station in its entire 17 years, Epps will only be the 13th woman and the first African American. According to Epps, NASA is improving their diversity and on a good track to increase those numbers, but in a world with a current lack of diverse representation, Epps understands just how far her hard work and success will go toward inspiring people.

I realize the importance of it every day, especially with some of the comments Ive gotten back from young women, Epps said. I think its very important for some women to have a role model that looks like them, so having someone that they can see and touch and say hey if shes doing that, I can do this, too.

I think it will go a long way for young people to see that if Im doing these things, theres no reason, absolutely no reason, they cant get out and contribute and be a part of this as well.

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Meet the first African-American crew member of the ISS - Astronomy Magazine

In a partnership with Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore is borrowing a trick from stargazers to predict housing abandonment.

A pair of surviving rowhomes surrounded by vacant lots at dusk in Baltimore. The city has some 17,000 vacant buildings.

Almost 17,000 houses sit boarded-up and vacant throughout Baltimore. These are the ones deemed officially unlivable by the city, some with rooftops or walls missing. But those structures represent just a fraction of a larger problem. Estimates from the Census and other community surveys suggest anywhere between 30,000 and 54,000 other homes are currently unoccupied. The question is: Which ones?

Its a similar story in other cities that have experienced severe population drops, such as Detroit and Cleveland. Keeping track of the exact locations of vacancies can prove difficult as the only occupancy data available is often out of date or incomplete. This information gap represents a challenge for housing authorities trying to stabilize shaky neighborhoods.

So whats a city to do? Baltimore is taking an unorthodox approach to the problem by enlisting some heavenly assistance. Roughly two years ago, through Johns Hopkins Universitys 21st Century Cities initiative, the Baltimore Housing and then-deputy commissioner Michael Braverman reached out to Tamas Budavari, a Hopkins astrophysicist who researches the statistical challenges of mapping the universe. His task, among many others, is to use big data to help the city find unoccupied buildings before they reach a state of terminal disrepair. To accomplish that, he does what astronomers do when they study distant stars: Look into the past to predict the present.

Budavari and Phil Garboden, a doctoral student in sociology and applied math, are working on a statistical tool to predict abandonment. Theyre combining publicly available data with GIS technology to create a database of the citys housing stock. This will serve as a base to do high-level statistical analyses that can help officials make better, data-driven evaluations of current and future interventions. It could help Baltimore study, among other things, when and why homes are abandoned, and at what point a vacant home starts affecting nearby properties.

Once abandoned, a home is more likely to attract crime and lower the property value of surrounding houses, in turn driving more neighbors away. If cities can predict where clusters of vacant homes are likely to form, they can intervene before the entire neighborhood empties. They can, for example, consider lower-cost alternatives to demolition. Getting rid of all 17,000 homes in Baltimore would take $500 million and half a centurymoney and time the city doesnt have on hand.

On the surface, Budavari and Braverman seem like an unlikely pair. But astronomy and urban analysis actually have a lot in common, Budavari says. Just like how galaxies cluster in the universe, houses also cluster in the city, he says. So if you have a vacant house in a given place, there's a higher probability of finding other ones next to it.

Astronomers rely on a wealth of studies and massive databases compiled over decades to find those galaxy clusters. Cities, on the other hand, often lack detailed and real-time data. Whether a property is occupied is fairly invisible, says Garboden. The U.S. Census comes around every 10 years and tracks housing occupancy as a five-year average, but only on the tract level. What the city needs to know is, are there neighborhoods that are suddenly incredibly unoccupied?

Thats hard to detect; cities cant tell which homes are only temporarily unoccupied as renters move in and out, and which ones are on the path of long-term abandonment as residents flee their neighborhoods for good. The statistical tool he and Budavari are developing will hopefully be able to find these empty homes and figure out if theyre about to be abandoned, which will help officials monitor when neighborhood begins showing signs of distress. Such a model would be based on a variety of data, including water, gas, and electricity usage, postal deliveries, and possibly even cellphone use. Essentially, the team is going back in timeas astronomers often domining years worth of data to detect abnormal patterns that predict the future.

Consider, for example, hourly water use. In an occupied home, it may be normal to see low usage during the day when people are at work, and high usage in the mornings and evenings. Deviations from that pattern could signal leaky pipes somewhere in a home thats not being maintained, or that the water is turned on only when someone has broken in to use it. In places like Detroit and elsewhere, where a lot of properties are vacant, theyre nonetheless being used by local residents for a number of things, Garboden says. Sometimes that's using water to wash their car; sometimes that's stealing electricity from that house, or sleeping in it.

The data might also help researchers determine whether a house might soon become occupied, though Garboden says its still too early to say which patterns are predictive. Still, that is one of the many questions the team is trying to answer. As more data come in, from third parties and on-ground investigations, the team hopes to integrate them into sophisticated algorithms that will eventually refine the tools predictive capabilities.

Last March, a 69-year-old West Baltimore resident named Thomas Lemmon was sitting in his Cadillac parked next to an abandoned rowhouse when the building collapsed in high winds. The home was one of five to come down, igniting anger among residents who say they should have been torn down long ago.

The question of what to do with Baltimores most-decayed structures has flummoxed city leaders for decades. Some 500 buildings are so dilapidated that, according to The Baltimore Sun, they have to be manually inspected every 10 days.

In response to Lemmons death, acting housing commissioner Braverman asked Budavari to conduct a one-time emergency investigation using his database to narrow down the number of vacant houses the city should inspect for signs of imminent danger. The researchers came back with a list of 5,000 most likely to be unstable; they were either built as end-of-row houses or had become untethered due to previous mid-row demolitions. Comparing that information with aerial photography, the city identified 300 that were missing structural components like rooftops or floor joists. Upon further inspection, he says, some 200 met the criteria for emergency demolition (which allows the city to bypass the process of obtaining permits) and were torn down by the end of 2016, says Braverman. He adds that another 74 have been flagged for immediate removal.

The city has a limited budget for demolitions: an annual $10 million from the mayor and $75 million in state funding over four years as part of Project C.O.R.E., which aims to demolish vacant buildings and replace them with new development. Razing a two- and three-story rowhouse in Baltimore can cost upwards of $14,000 and $25,000, respectively, and that doesnt include the cost of rebuilding walls to stabilize adjacent homes or relocating residents.

Part of the partnership between the housing department and Hopkins is to develop a strategy in choosing which houses truly need to be demolished. One way is to target blocks that are entirely uninhabited. We wanted to know what the dataset look like of all of the demolitions that we could do without a single relocation, says Braverman. The researchers gave us this analysis of all of the vacant buildings in Baltimore where we have no occupied properties in between, which helps inform the process.

Thats the kind of detailed information that housing advocate Shana Roth-Gormley hopes the city will eventually make available to the public. The more that communities have access to that data, the better it's going to be, because while the city does important work collecting the data, they cant do it alone, says Roth-Gormley, pro bono coordinator at the Baltimore housing nonprofit Community Law Center. The data allows neighborhoods to craft their own plans and say, Here are the things we are facingnot just anecdotally but with data to back it up.

Budavari recently submitted a grant proposal to the National Science Foundations Smart & Connected Communities initiative to expand the partnership to New Orleans and Kansas City, Kansas. Both are part of Bloomberg Philanthropies GovEx initiative, aimed at getting mid-sized American cities to use open data for decision-making.

Well before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, New Orleans had been facing a vacant housing crisis, with over 26,000 uninhabitable properties. That number rose to 43,000 by 2010, as Katrina forced many homeowners to abandon their flood-damaged homes. That same year, Mayor Mitch Landrieu moved to streamline the process of identifying blighted properties and pushed for rigorous data collectioneven setting up a online map to publicly track vacant homes.

Kansas Citys problems are on a smaller scale: Records show that around 900 buildings are deemed vacant. Just last year, the city launched an open data platform to make housing data easier to access. It also has a team called SOAR, for Stabilization, Occupation and Revitalization, dedicated to data research and analysis.

The ability to understand occupancy and predict abandonment is a common goal among all cities facing a vacant housing crisis. People can get this information in these large aggregate levels from the American Community Survey and the Census, but it doesnt happen fast enough Garboden says. Theres a lag, and the city wants that information quickly.

It's like looking at the heavens and only seeing visible light, says Braverman. Just as the latest infrared and ultraviolet observatories can peer beyond the visible spectrum and detect the faint signatures of distant galaxies, he hopes this tool can perform similar feats of detection here on Earth. It will allow us to see the full spectrum of vacant buildings.

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Using Astronomy To Fight Urban Blight - CityLab

March 6, 2017 Credit: MSU

A university-built small satellite known as the Cosmic X-Ray Background NanoSat-2 (CXBN-2) is being prepared for an ambitious upcoming science mission. The spacecraft scheduled for launch into space on March 19 is expected to deliver crucial data that could advance our knowledge about the cosmic X-ray background (CXB).

Led by Morehead State University (MSU), the CXBN-2 project addresses fundamental science questions regarding the structure, origin and evolution of the universe. To answer these questions, the satellite will conduct high precision measurements of the CXB.

"The goal of the CXBN-2 mission is to increase the precision of measurements of the CXB in the 30 to 50 keV range to a precision of almost five percent, thereby constraining models that attempt to explain the relative contribution of proposed sources and lending insight into the underlying physics of the early universe," Benjamin Malphrus, CXBN-2 Principal Investigator at MSU told Astrowatch.net.

CXBN-2 is a small two-unit CubeSat that will rely on its two Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detectors to achieve its scientific goals. Together with the satellite's improved array configuration, these instruments will be able to carry out high precision measurements of the CXB.

"With the novel CZT detector aboard CXBN-2 and an improved array configuration, a new, high precision measurement is possible," Malphrus noted.

The CZT detectors were developed by Redlen Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-resolution semiconductor radiation detectors. The company has produced extremely uniform crystalline structure CZT material though the manufacturing process known as the Traveling Heater Method (THM). This allows uniformity in the semiconductor material so that charge is evenly distributed, allowing greater energy resolution and detection by bleeding off impurities.

The CZT detectors form the REDLEN M1770 CZT Array, an imaging module onboard the CXBN-2 CubeSat. This module is a 256-pixel radiation detector that is configured in a 16x16 matrix with a 2.46 mm pixel pitch. It consists of a 2x2 array of 64-pixel CZT detectors with thicknesses of five mm and bonded to a common cathode plate.

"Though originally intended for the detection of X-ray and gamma-ray photons while operating at room temperature and for applications in medical physics and security imaging, we found that the CZT detectors possessed the desired energy resolution and photon efficiency over the energy range of interest for the mission." Thomas Pannuti, CXBN-2 Science Principal Investigator at MSU told Astrowatch.net.

With a mass of about 5.7 lbs. (2.6 kilograms), the CXBN-2 CubeSat has dimensions of 3.93 x 3.93 x 7.87 inches (10 x 10 x 20 centimeters) and is fitted with four deployable solar arrays capable of generating up to 15 W of power. The satellite incorporates a power distribution and handling system known as PMD, a command and data handling system (C&DH) based on a Cortex Arm processor, and an innovative attitude determination and control system (ADACS) developed at MSU.

In comparison with the first CXBN mission which was sent into space in September 2012, the CXBN-2 CubeSat has two 256 pixel arrays instead of one. Moreover, it features an innovative 3-D printed Tungsten collimator, a series of improvements to the spacecraft bus, and an innovative conops characterized by a free flying minimally spinning spacecraft.

In this configuration, the CXBN-2 satellite has the potential to advance our understanding about the diffuse X-ray background in particular and the temporal evolution of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies in general. Malphrus and his colleagues are convinced that their CubeSat will provide measurements of the CXB with high precision, thus constraining models that address the relative contribution of the proposed dominant emitting source population (namely heavily absorbed active galactic nuclei).

"Such a high precision measurement of the CXB will provide insight into the underlying physics of the early universe and provide a window on the most energetic objects in the distant universe," Malphrus explained.

CXBN-2 is currently in the final phase of preparations for its March 19 liftoff from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The last pre-launch activities include finalizing the ground support software and continuing characterization of the engineering model CZT arrays. The satellite's flight and engineering models were completed in the Fall of 2016 and passed flight qualification testing. The flight unit was delivered to the launch integrator, Nanoracks, in December 2016 and was subsequently shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The CXBN-2 CubeSat will be launched atop an Atlas V rocket, piggybacking on the seventh Cygnus spacecraft mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Besides Cygnus and CXBN-2, a fleet of other satellites, mainly technology demonstrators, will be also sent into orbit on this mission.

Although MSU has already sent five smallsats into space, the CXBN-2 CubeSat seems to be the university's most significant science mission so far.

"We are entering a new era of significant science being supported by CubeSats and Morehead State is at the forefront of this enterprise. The opportunity to participate in astrophysics research facilitated by the CubeSat platform as well as to train our students in space systems engineering and observational astrophysics through live space missions like CXBN-2 is invaluable to our research program, our academic programs and to our students," Pannuti concluded.

Explore further: Sun-observing MinXSS CubeSat expected to yield new insights into solar flare energetics

Provided by: Astrowatch.net

A small shoebox-sized satellite has recently proved that studying solar phenomena is not reserved only to large space observatories. The NASA-funded, Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) is providing invaluable information ...

For more than a decade, CubeSats, or small satellites, have paved the way to low-Earth orbit for commercial companies, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations. These small satellites offer opportunities to ...

Arizona State University (ASU) is developing a small satellite that will search hydrogen in lunar craters with the ultimate goal of creating the most detailed map of the moon's water deposits. The spacecraft, named Lunar ...

The GEO-CAPE ROIC In- Flight Performance Experiment (GRIFEX) CubeSat was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Saturday, January 31, 2015, as an auxiliary payload to the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission.

The University of New Mexico's Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations and Applications Center (COSMIAC) is preparing its third CubeSat, a small, cube-shaped satellite, for a space launch.

With help from NASA, a small research satellite to test technology for in-space solar propulsion launched into space Wednesday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, as part of the agency's ...

The discovery of young stars in old star clusters could send scientists back to the drawing board for one of the Universe's most common objects.

The nature of the dark matter which apparently makes up 80% of the mass of the particles in the universe is still one of the great unsolved mysteries of present day sciences. The lack of experimental evidence, which could ...

The scaffolding that holds the large-scale structure of the universe constitutes galaxies, dark matter and gas (from which stars are forming), organized in complex networks known as the cosmic web. This network comprises ...

Among the most striking features on the surface of Ceres are the bright spots in the center of Occator crater which stood out already as NASA's space probe Dawn approached the dwarf planet. Scientists under the leadership ...

European astronomers have recently studied the chemical composition of the low-mass globular cluster designated NGC 6362. Their detailed analysis of chemical abundances for 17 elements in the cluster provides important insights ...

Mars may have been a wetter place than previously thought, according to research on simulated Martian meteorites conducted, in part, at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

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See the article here:

CXBN-2 CubeSat to embark on an important X-ray astronomy mission - Phys.Org

A big difference between an asteroid and a comet has usually been that icy comets can develop tails while rocky asteroids generally do not. That is, until this recent discovery of some very unique asteroids came to light.

Astronomers are interested in these particular asteroids not just because they split in two, but some are also sprouting tails.

The asteroid pair the astronomers have become most interested in is P/2016 J1. Fernando Moreno, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), said in a press release, The results derived from the evolution of the orbit show that the asteroid fragmented approximately six years ago, which makes it the youngest known asteroid pair in the solar system to date.

Besides being the youngest asteroid pair, P2016 J1 has another feature that makes it interesting to astronomers.

Moreno said, Both fragments are activated, i.e., they display dust structures similar to comets. This is the first time we observed an asteroid pair with simultaneous activity.

Studies showed that the asteroid pairs were activated at the point on the orbit closest to the Sun and remained that way for somewhere between six to nine months.

Moreno thinks the dust is likely caused by sublimation of ice that was left exposed after the fragmentation.

Asteroid pairs are a common occurrence in the main asteroid belt. The pairs form when an asteroid breaks in two pieces, either from an impact, excess rotational speed, or, in some cases, two asteroids destabilizing each others initial orbits.

Though the pairs are not gravitationally linked, they do have similar orbits around the Sun. The pairs move in quasi-circular orbits between Mars and Jupiter, so they do not experience the temperature change that causes tails on comets. There have been about 20 documented cases of these asteroid pairs with an increased glow and a dust tail, and the asteroids have sometimes been called main belt comets as a result.

For more information on main belt comets, check out the April 2017 issue of Astronomy magazine.

See more here:

Asteroids are splitting in half and growing tails | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine

Cold as ice

Then theres a whole other type of volcanism, called cryovolcanism. As NASA explains in this interactive graphic, cryovolcanoes erupt water and gases rather than melted rocks. They dot a number of different bodies in our solar system, include Neptunes moon Triton and Saturns moon Enceladus.

Its a form of volcanism because volcanism is a process that brings material from the interior to the surface, but it is not molten rock, Dr. Rosaly Lopes, Senior Research Scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Astronomy. Instead, cryovolcanoes occur on bodies with an ocean situated beneath an icy crust. When pressure builds up, it is released in the form of geysers of water mixed with ammonia or methane.

Generally, cryovolcanoes are found on bodies in the outer solar system, Lopes said, though scientists also believe that cryovolcanism may even have happened on the asteroid / dwarf planet Ceres. According to recent studies from the Max Plancke Center for Solar System Research, several structures in Occator Crater suggest recent geologic activity consistent with cryovolcanic activity, though to date only one mountain has been found on the world.

Information about these volcanoes provides scientists with clues about important geological processes. Volcanism is one of the major, really fundamental processes that shapes the surface of a planet or moon, Lopes said. That shape, she explained, comes from the interplay of four major processes volcanism, tectonism, erosion, and impact cratering. Understanding volcanisms role in shaping a bodys surface provides a crucial clue in understanding more about the geological processes of that planet.

For example, Lopes told Astronomy, if Earth was the only place we had seen volcanism, we might think that volcanism really depends on plate tectonicsBut when we look at the other planets, we see that they have or have had volcanism in the past, and there is no plate tectonics.

She cited Io as one instance of this: when scientists saw the incredibly active volcanism occurring there, they realized that it was tidal heating that caused this volcanism. It works like this: Io and other Galilean satellites (such as Europa and Ganymede) are in synchronous rotation around Jupiter. Io then becomes caught up in a tug of war between Jupiters gravity and the gravity of these other satellites, Lopes explained. This in turn leads to the bulging of Ios crust up and down, and the resulting friction produces a large amount of heat and a molten interior. When the pressure builds, it occasionally erupts melted rock and plumes of gas.

Recent evidence even suggests that they may appear on comets. Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann displays outbursts on carbon monoxide consistent with other forms of cryovolcanism around the solar system. The outbursts seem to happen from one spot on the comet making it one of the smallest bodies believed to have signs of volcanism.

While volcanoes can shed light on certain geological processes, theres another, even more intriguing reason to search for them: they may be indicators of climates suitable for life. Volcanism provides heat and energy, which is essential for life, Lopes said. And cryovolcanism has not only heat, but watertwo of the essential ingredients of life. That doesn't mean that every body with cryovolcanism has the necessary conditions to support life, of course. But those planets may not be a bad place to start.

Read this article:

Planetary scientists are turning up volcanoes everywhere they look - Astronomy Magazine

Tomasz Nowakowski

March 5th, 2017

CXBN-2 Integration Team in the Morehead State University Spacecraft Integration and Assembly Facility. Left to right: Yevgeniy Byleborodov, Dr. Ben Malphrus, Michael Glaser-Garbrick, and Nate Richard. Photo Credit: MSU

A university-built small satellite known as the Cosmic X-Ray Background NanoSat-2 (CXBN-2) is being prepared for its upcoming ambitious science mission. The spacecraft scheduled for launch into space on March 19 is expected to deliver crucial data that could advance our knowledge of the cosmic X-ray background (CXB).

CXBN-2 Flight and Engineering Units in the Morehead State University Space Science Center Spacecraft Integration and Assembly Facility. (Click to enlarge) Photo Credit: MSU

Led by Morehead State University (MSU), the CXBN-2 project addresses fundamental science questions regarding the structure, origin, and evolution of the universe. To answer these questions, the satellite will conduct high precision measurements of the CXB.

The goal of the CXBN-2 mission is to increase the precision of measurements of the CXB in the 30 to 50 keV range to a precision of almost five percent, thereby constraining models that attempt to explain the relative contribution of proposed sources and lending insight into the underlying physics of the early universe, Benjamin Malphrus, CXBN-2 Principal Investigator at MSU told Astrowatch.net.

CXBN-2 is a small two-unit CubeSat that will rely on its two Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detectors to achieve its scientific goals. Together with the satellites improved array configuration, these instruments will be able to carry out high-precision measurements of the CXB.

With the novel CZT detector aboard CXBN-2 and an improved array configuration, a new, high-precision measurement is possible, Malphrus noted.

The CZT detectors were developed by Redlen Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-resolution semiconductor radiation detectors. The company has produced extremely uniform crystalline structure CZT material through the manufacturing process known as the Traveling Heater Method (THM). This allows uniformity in the semiconductor material so that charge is evenly distributed, allowing greater energy resolution and detection by bleeding off impurities.

The CZT detectors form the REDLEN M1770 CZT Array, an imaging module on board the CXBN-2 CubeSat. This module is a 256-pixel radiation detector that is configured in a 1616 matrix with a 2.46 mm pixel pitch. It consists of a 22 array of 64-pixel CZT detectors with thicknesses of 5 mm and is bonded to a common cathode plate.

Though originally intended for the detection of X-ray and gamma-ray photons while operating at room temperature and for applications in medical physics and security imaging, we found that the CZT detectors possessed the desired energy resolution and photon efficiency over the energy range of interest for the mission. Thomas Pannuti, CXBN-2 Science Principal Investigator at MSU, told Astrowatch.net.

CXBN-2 Integration Team at the Morehead State University Spacecraft Integration and Assembly Facility. L to R: Dr. Ben Malphrus, Jeremy Rice, Michael Glaser-Garbrick, Nate Richard, Yevgeniy Byleborodov, Sarah Wilczewski. Photo Credit: MSU

With a mass of about 5.7 pounds (2.6 kilograms), the CXBN-2 CubeSat has dimensions of 3.93 in 3.93 in 7.87 in (10 cm 10 cm 20 cm) and is fitted with four deployable solar arrays capable of generating up to 15 W of power. The satellite incorporates a power distribution and handling system known as PMD, a command and data handling system (C&DH) based on a Cortex Arm processor, and an innovative attitude determination and control system (ADACS) developed at MSU.

In comparison with the first CXBN mission, which was sent into space in September 2012, the CXBN-2 CubeSat has two 256 pixel arrays instead of one. Moreover, it features an innovative 3-D printed Tungsten collimator, a series of improvements to the spacecraft bus, and an innovative ConOps characterized by a free flying minimally spinning spacecraft.

In this configuration, the CXBN-2 satellite has the potential to advance our understanding of the diffuse X-ray background, in particular, and the temporal evolution of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, in general.

Malphrus and his colleagues are convinced that their CubeSat will provide measurements of the CXB with high precision, thus constraining models that address the relative contribution of the proposed dominant emitting source population (namely, heavily absorbed active galactic nuclei).

Such a high precision measurement of the CXB will provide insight into the underlying physics of the early universe and provide a window on the most energetic objects in the distant universe, Malphrus explained.

CXBN-2 mission logo. Image Credit: MSU

CXBN-2 is currently in the final phase of preparations for its March 19 liftoff from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The last pre-launch activities include finalizing the ground support software and continuing characterization of the engineering model CZT arrays. The satellites flight and engineering models were completed in the Fall of 2016 and passed flight-qualification testing. The flight unit was delivered to the launch integrator, Nanoracks, in December 2016 and was subsequently shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The CXBN-2 CubeSat will be launched atop an Atlas V rocket, piggybacking on the seventh Cygnus spacecraft mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Besides Cygnus and CXBN-2, a fleet of other satellites, mainly technology demonstrators, will also be sent into orbit on this mission.

Although MSU has already sent five smallsats into space, the CXBN-2 CubeSat seems to be the universitys most important science mission so far.

We are entering a new era of significant science being supported by CubeSats and Morehead State is at the forefront of this enterprise. The opportunity to participate in astrophysics research facilitated by the CubeSat platform as well as to train our students in space systems engineering and observational astrophysics through live space missions like CXBN-2 is invaluable to our research program, our academic programs and to our students, Pannuti concluded.

Tagged: CubeSat CXBN-2 Morehead State University The Range

Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the premier astronomy and science-related blogs on the internet. Nowakowski reached out to SpaceFlight Insider in an effort to have the two space-related websites collaborate. Nowakowski's generous offer was gratefully received with the two organizations now working to better relay important developments as they pertain to space exploration.

See original here:

CXBN-2 CubeSat to embark on an important X-ray astronomy mission - SpaceFlight Insider

Rockland Public Library...

Posted:

Sunday, March 5, 2017 - 8:00am

Event Date:

Tuesday, March 7, 2017 - 6:00pm

ROCKLAND Ron Thompson, of Southern Maine Astronomers, will present Astronomy 101 at the Rockland Public Library on Tuesday, March 7 at 6 p.m. The program will be divided into two parts: indoor background information followed by outdoor exploration, so please be sure to dress appropriately.

Thompson will first present information about sky maps, star charts and using eyes to navigate the night sky, how to prepare for an evening of star gazing, and how to identify March constellations, and other pertinent tips.

Then participants will go outside and find north using the Big Dipper, Ursa Major and charts; face south and find the path the planets take (ecliptic), and outline and identify constellations, and more. If the night sky is not clear, participants will take part in interactive activities indoors.

This program is co-sponsored by Cornerstones of Science, and is free and open to the public.

Address:

RocklandMaine04841

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Astronomy 101 with Ron Thompson - PenBayPilot.com

Posted: Sunday, March 5, 2017 12:00 am

Texas A&M astronomy group to continue 'Star Party' series Monday Eagle Staff Report The Eagle |

The Texas A&M astronomy group is set to continue its spring "Star Party" series, giving the community a chance to gaze at the stars using university telescopes.

Held in front of the Sbisa Dining Hall on the A&M campus, the next event will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday.

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Posted in Local News, Astronomy, University, Sport on Sunday, March 5, 2017 12:00 am. | Tags: Astronomy, University, Sport, Star Party, Simpson Drill Field Review, Texas, Series, Events, Telescope

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Texas A&M astronomy group to continue 'Star Party' series Monday - Bryan-College Station Eagle

Come, let me destroy your brain: The strawberries in thisphoto are not red:

Seriously. In fact, there are no red pixels in that photo at all. At least not in the way youd think of as red.

This is a fantastic optical illusion, brought to us by the master optical illusionist Akiyoshi Kitaoka. And yes, I can prove its an illusion quite simply. I opened the picture in Photoshop and sampled the color of one of the strawberries, picking where it looked very red to my eye. I then made a simple rectangle and filled it with that color.

Here it is:

Surprise! It looks gray, doesnt it? It should because it is. The RGB values for it are 75, 77, 76, an almost perfect balance creating dark gray. If you have Photoshop, try it. Click anywhere, and you wont find any pixel that is predominantly red.

So,whats going on? The photo, it turns out, is using your own brain against you.

This psychological jujutsu takes advantage of process called color constancy. In a nutshell, its your brains way of compensating to allow us to see more or less correct color under different lighting conditions. Strawberries look red because they predominantly reflect red light. The amount of red light we see from that strawberry then will also depend on the color of the light hitting it. If the illumination source is white, theres more red light to reflect than if the illumination source is blue.

If our brains didnt compensate for this, life would be very confusing! Something that looks red indoors might look different if you see it outside, because fluorescent lights (say) have a different color than the Sun.

What our brains do is actually quite clever: They try to figure out what color the illumination is by comparing colors in the scene. We have cells in our retinae called cones that perceive color, and there are three kinds: one that is sensitive to red, another to green, and a third to blue. Their color sensitivity overlaps a bit, so a red cone can see a little into the green, and the green can see a little into the blue. By comparing the signals from the three cones, the brain can make an attempt at determining the color of the incoming light.

It then subtracts that color from what you see, hopefully compensating for any color imbalance. So, if the incoming light is red, it balances that by downplaying red in the perceived colors of the scene.

In the photo of the strawberries, our brains look at the overall color of the scene and determine that the incoming light is cyan (blue-green). The strawberries are actually dark gray, remember, the color equal parts red, green, and blue. When the brain subtracts the blue and green away, whats left? Red! Kitaoka has many more examples of this on his website.

I love stuff like this. Youd swear youre seeing red, but youre not, at least not really. Its what your brain thinks its seeing, but thats after some very duty heavy processing of the data.

This is why I always smile ruefully when I hear someone say, I know what I saw! Oh? Are you sure? Because everything we see is interpreted by our brain, and there are many steps involved between the actual scene and our minds perceiving it. And every step is a chance for a misstep.

Still dont believe me? Then let me show you my favorite illusion of all time, also by Kitaoka:

Tell me, how many colors do you see in the spiral?

I see green, blue, magenta, and orange. Except no: the green and blue spirals are the exact same color! We interpret colors in part by comparing them to colors around them, and the orange and magenta spirals are distorting how you see the others, throwing your brain off. The illusion is impossible to overcome unless you zoom in on the drawing and can pick out the individual colors (which I did in the link above; try it yourself if you have image manipulation software like Photoshop or Gimp).

Remember this the next time someone claims to see a UFO, or Planet X, or some other highly unlikely thing. In this case, fooling your brain is as easy as subtracting away a color, and your brain falls for it utterly. There are a million other ways to trip up your perception, too.

The lesson? What you see is never what you actually get.

Postscript: If your brain hasnt melted completely away after all this, go visit Kitaokas website. Your concept of reality will be destroyed.

Read the original:

These strawberries aren't red. Seriously. They aren't. - Blastr

We dont know what dark matter is yet, but thanks to researchers at Yale and other universities, we now know where its at in three nearby galactic clusters.

The team, led by Priyamvada Natarajan, used gravitational lensing techniques (where a massive object bends light around it to act like a magnifying lens) to study the details of galaxy clusters Abell 2744, MACSJ 0416, and MACSJ 1149 in depth.

The initial images came from the Hubble Space Telescope. Measuring the distortions caused by gravitational lensing on background galaxies showed where invisible masses were still bending space around it enough to cause lensing events.

Dark matter is named so because of a missing mass in the universe. The rate of expansion for the universe doesnt fit the amount of objects we can see. In fact, we can only see 5 percent of the total mass of the universe, with dark matter accounting for 27 percent and dark energy accounting for the rest.

Several solutions for dark matter have been proposed. This includes weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), MAssive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs), and other exotic kinds of particles. WIMPs and other particles would constitute a type of matter that doesnt interact with the matter we see all around us, but exerts a gravitational force. MACHOs are objects that are invisible to telescopes, like black holes, brown dwarfs, pulsars, and more that we havent yet detected, though there are significant doubts that they could account for the missing matter. Some dark matter researchers believe that MACHOs may account for a small chunk of the missing mass, with WIMPs making up the greater portion.

While we havent directly detected dark matter, its known to exist because of studies of the rotation rates of galaxies carried out by researchers like Fritz Zwicky and Vera Rubin. By mapping where dark matter is, astrophysicists may be able to gain a better understanding of how it clumps and what it might be made of.

The study was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Here is the original post:

Researchers release the most meticulous map of dark matter ever ... - Astronomy Magazine

PLATTSBURGH William Herschel, the discoverer of the planet Uranus, has composed symphonies.

In the third movement of one, the song is low and slow and creeps into silence for two seconds, said noted Canadian astronomerDr. David Levy.

Then out of that silence, the organist pounds on a note.

In one note, the audience and the organist rise up into the heavens. All in one note. That is astronomical, Levy told an audience at SUNY Plattsburgh recently, with his hands up in the air.

"Hes talking about the heavens there."

Levy focused on the intersection of astronomy and art in his talk, "Talks, Tune and Text: The Night Sky in History, Literature and Music," pointingout the connections between science, music, literature and visual art.

Taking the night sky that I love and the literature that I love to see how we can see this in an interdisciplinary way," Levy explained his intent.

"People like me become interested in astronomy not so much for the science but for the literature for it."

Levy holds a Ph.D in English literature and specializes in the appearance of astronomical phenomena in the works of Shakespeare and other authors.

He has written 34 books and has discovered 22 comets.

His greatest discovery is Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, which collided with Jupiter in 1994, a joint find with Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker.

'CHILDISH WONDER'

Since the age of 8, Levys obsession with the night sky has fueled his life mission.

With the influence of his father, who was an avid reader, Levy developed a love of literature, leading to his doctorate in English literature.

Levy joked that his father would have disowned him if he had not liked Shakespeare. However, even in the books he read, Levy still looked for astronomy.

I never lost that childish wonder in the night sky, he said.

INFLUENCES

Levy told stories about how real astronomical phenomena is woven into the work of famous artists.

When Shakespeare was a boy, his father showed him a bright yellow spot in the sky that had appeared "out of nowhere," Levy said.

The astronomer traced the time of that story to the creation of the supernova Tycho's Star. The sight later influenced Shakespeare when he wrote "Hamlet."

Vincent Van Gogh was also influenced by the night sky, as evidenced by his famous painting "Starry Night."

Levy told how Van Gogh went to a bookstore and found Camille Flammarions book "Popular Astronomy." The cover displayed a beautiful sketch of the Whirlpool Galaxy.

Van Gogh loved the sketch so much, its the centerpiece of his painting.

"The International Astronomical Union feels that astronomy is not just meant for the astronomers; its meant for the rest of us," Levy said. "Like literature is not meant for English majors; its for anyone who likes to read.

He believes artists really project their appreciation for the night sky through their art.

Thats a way of looking at science and the night sky through music and art, Levy said.

CONNECTIONS

Megan Spears, an amateur astronomy and Levy fan, agrees. She has followed Levy's and the Shoemakers careers and, when told by a friend that he was going to be speaking at SUNY Plattsburgh, had to attend.

I am an artist myself, and astronomy is my passion for science, Spears said.

She said she learned everything she knows about visual astronomy from stargazing.

I think it plays a big role in how I create my art. I can see how it can easily correlate as being the vast heavens in itself into an artistic medium, whether it be music, poetry, art as in paintings there is a whole variety of different ways it can be portrayed.

BLENDED

Ed Guenther, a friend of Levy and husband of SUNY professor Dr. Wendy Gordon, says the astronomer shares an important message.

I think the takeaway is you don't have to be an astronomer, a nerd or have a pocket protector or anything to enjoy other art and life, Guenther said.

She saw two young women nodding their heads in agreement throughout the program.

That connection that everything is tied together and you are not just an accountant, mathematician or astronomer; you can be all those things an astronomer, composer and a poet.

"And I think thats nice.

Read this article:

Famed astronomer ties stars to art - Plattsburgh Press Republican

BACK IN 2005, British singer-songwriter Katie Melua released the single Nine Million Bicycles. In the second stanza of the song, Melua uses a reference to a cosmological fact to drive her point home: We are 12 billion light years from the edge/ Thats a guess, no one can ever say its true/ But I know that I will always be with you.

It was a lovely song, and to no ones surprise it reached the top of the charts in the UK.

But its popularity was the reason why many scientists took issue with the fact that the science was wrong. One British cosmologist, Simon Singh, even wrote an op-ed in no less than The Guardian to criticized what he called Meluas bad science. In the op-ed, Singh pointed out that scientists in fact know how old the universe isits 13.7 billion years old. Furthermore, that number is not just a guess but an estimate that was derived from the careful methods of science.

Singh reminded the reader that while there are many things about the universe that still remain a mystery to us and are yet to be solved by scientists, the age of the universe is not one of them. The science writer said its regrettable that such a lovely and popular song contains a misconception that can spread to the public.

To her credit, Meluas response to Singhs criticism was one of convivial apology for the error. With the help of Singh, Melua re-recorded the song so that the lines in question ended up being: We are 13.7 billion light years from the edge of the observable universe/ Thats an estimate with well-defined error bars/ And with the available information/ I predict that I will always be with you.

By re-recording the song, Melua and Singh not only got great publicity, they also educated the UK public about the true age of the universe and the methods of science.

Astronomy is a favorite source of references for writers, poets, and songwriters. There is no surprise there. Anyone who has looked up into a starry sky or has stared at the loveliness of a full moon can relate to the urge to wax poetic in the face of such grandeur. Furthermore, anyone who has studied even a bit of astronomy knows that the goings on in outer space can be such a treasure trove of metaphors for poetry and songwriting.

Nowadays, there is no shortage of pop songs talking about celestial objects. However, most of them simply use the words star or moon for a quick rhyme or trivial metaphor. Those songs themselves might be lovely, like Frank Sinatras Fly Me To The Moon or Ed Sheerans All Of The Stars, but as songs about astronomy they are not interesting.

More interesting are songs that find a way to use facts about the heavens in order to express a facet of human experience. For example, in Liannne La Havas soothing song Unstoppable, the singer compares the long range of the gravitational force on satellites to the long reach of the love between her and her loved one. In Bless The Broken Road by Rascal Flatts, the singer compares the people who broke his heart to northern stars that lead him to the person hes meant to be with. Filipino artist Reese Lansangan has a cute song entitled A Song About Space that is, well, all about space.

One of my absolute favorite is by the folk singer-songwriter Peter Mayer, whose discography is a constellation of excellent scientific references sung to folksy hymns. In Blue Boat Home, he compares the Earth to a boat in space, and we humans voyagers in space. The entire song is simply beautiful, but one line in particular reveals Mayers grasp of the science: Sun my sail and moon my rudder/ As I ply the starry sea / Leaning over the edge in wonder / Casting questions into the deep.

In the first line, Mayer does two things. First, he reinforces the sailing metaphor by comparing the Sun and Moon to parts of a boat. Second, he expresses scientific facts in a poetic way. As a ships sail allows it to be pushed forward, the Suns gravitational force is what makes the Earth ply the starry sea. As a boats rudder allows it to be steered and gives it stability, the Moon is thought to make the Earths orbit and rotation more stable.

So my challenge to all of the artists and creative people reading this: The next time you want to come up with a metaphor to express some aspect of human drama, try to learn a bit of astronomy. Not only can it make your composition more beautiful, it might even give you a metaphor you might not find elsewhere.

Decierdo is resident astronomer and physicist for The Mind Museum.

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Astronomy in pop songs - The Standard

Universe Today

Astronomy Cast Ep. 432: Geoglogic Ages of Mars - From Wet and ... Universe Today Today, Mars is a desolate wasteland, with dusty red rocks and sand stretching out to the horizon. But billions of years ago, it was a vastly different worl. and more »

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Astronomy Cast Ep. 432: Geoglogic Ages of Mars - From Wet and ... - Universe Today

A big difference between an asteroid and a comet has usually been that icy comets can develop tails while rocky asteroids generally do not. That is, until this recent discovery of some very unique asteroids came to light.

Astronomers are interested in these particular asteroids not just because they split in two, but some are also sprouting tails.

The asteroid pair the astronomers have become most interested in is P/2016 J1. Fernando Moreno, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), said in a press release, The results derived from the evolution of the orbit show that the asteroid fragmented approximately six years ago, which makes it the youngest known asteroid pair in the solar system to date.

Besides being the youngest asteroid pair, P2016 J1 has another feature that makes it interesting to astronomers.

Moreno said, Both fragments are activated, i.e., they display dust structures similar to comets. This is the first time we observed an asteroid pair with simultaneous activity.

Studies showed that the asteroid pairs were activated at the point on the orbit closest to the Sun and remained that way for somewhere between six to nine months.

Moreno thinks the dust is likely caused by sublimation of ice that was left exposed after the fragmentation.

Asteroid pairs are a common occurrence in the main asteroid belt. The pairs form when an asteroid breaks in two pieces, either from an impact, excess rotational speed, or, in some cases, two asteroids destabilizing each others initial orbits.

Though the pairs are not gravitationally linked, they do have similar orbits around the Sun. The pairs move in quasi-circular orbits between Mars and Jupiter, so they do not experience the temperature change that causes tails on comets. There have been about 20 documented cases of these asteroid pairs with an increased glow and a dust tail, and the asteroids have sometimes been called main belt comets as a result.

For more information on main belt comets, check out the April 2017 issue of Astronomy magazine.

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Asteroids are splitting in half and growing tails - Astronomy Magazine

3 March 2017 Ade Ashford

On the UK night of 4-5March 2017, observers in the British Isles with clear skies can see an occultation bonanza as the 6-day-old waxing crescent Moon passes in front of four prominent members of the Hyades open cluster in the constellation of Taurus. The show starts with the occultation of gamma () Tauri close to 8:44pmGMT for observers in Edinburgh, as depicted above. Some hours later, after the Moon has set in the British Isles, first-magnitude star Aldebaran is occulted across a large swathe of North America. AN graphic by Ade Ashford.If the UK sky is clear on the evening of Saturday 4March, dont miss an opportunity to see a waxing crescent Moon glide slowly through the southern extremity of the Hyades star cluster in the constellation Taurus. This is not a spectacle that requires a large or expensive telescope to view all you need is a typical binocular and a low wall or fence to rest your elbows on to steady the view. Naturally, a telescope will give much better views.

The brightest stars covered by the Moon on the UK night of 4-5March are in order of disappearance magnitude +3.7 gamma () Tauri, magnitude +4.5 71Tauri, magnitude +3.4 theta2 (2) and magnitude +3.8 theta1 (1) Tauri. As seen from London, the times at which these stars disappear behind the Moons advancing dark limb are 8:47pm (), 11:42pm (71), 12:40am (2) and 12:46am (1). As seen from Edinburgh, the corresponding times are 8:44pm, 11:35pm, 12:38am and 12:47am, respectively (all times GMT).

Once darkness falls in North America, observers in much of the United States (but excluding Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine) can see the almost first quarter Moon occult first-magnitude star Aldebaran too.

The usual advice for observing occultations applies inasmuch as you should be ready with your binocular or telescope a few minutes before the appointed time(s) so as not to miss out. Plus, its always fun to see the Moons orbital motion carry it ever closer to the target star until it is almost instantly extinguished.

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See the Moon glide through the Hyades on 4-5 March - Astronomy Now Online

Cunitz was among the few who saw the truth in Johannes Keplers laws of planetary motion, which stated that planets moved in elliptical orbits around the sun. Here, a concept drawing of the Earth and moon in orbit around the sun.

Urania Propitia is a remarkable volume for many reasons. Published in 1650, this work of astronomy demonstrates a command of high-level mathematics and astronomical calculation. It also reveals a deep understanding of Keplerian astronomy; its author both simplified and corrected Kepler's math for locating planetary positions. Finally, the book was written in German as well as Latin, which helped to both establish German as a language of science and make the tables accessible outside of the university.

But Urania Propitia lays claim to yet another impressive quality: It was written by a woman. This fact took me by surprise in 2012, when I was touring the History of Science Collections upon arriving at the University of Oklahoma for my graduate studies in the History of Science. In a long line of books written by famous men, I was taken aback to see one penned by an obscure woman: an astronomer named Maria Cunitz.

I remember thinking: A woman did that.

My surprise stemmed not from my disbelief that women were and are capable of such work, but during the time that Cunitz was working on Urania Propitia, few women were welcomed into the upper echelons of natural philosophy, medicine, astronomy and mathematics. The general cultural atmosphere certainly wasnt conducive to educated women, says historian of science Marilyn Ogilvie, co-author and editor of The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century.

Ogilvie points to influential French philosopher Michel de Montaigne as one example of the pervasive beliefs about womens role during this time period. In his essay collection Of the Education of Children, Ogilvie says that [h]e never mentions girls...but when he speaks of women he speaks of [them] as pretty animals. They should be kept so by being taught those games and bodily exercises which are best calculated to set off their beauty. These types of beliefs kept women out of higher education and perpetuated myths about womens capabilities.

Certainly the culture did not encourage scientific women with attitudes like this, says Ogilvie.

This fact makes Cunitzs work all the more significant. In his article Urania Propitia, the Adaption of the Rudolphine Tables by Maria Cunitz, historian of science N. M. Swerdlow claims Urania Propitia to be the earliest surviving scientific work by a woman on the highest technical level of its age, for it purpose was to provide solutions to difficulties in the most advanced science of the age During my tour, the Collections curator, Kerry Magruder, described her as one of the most accomplished astronomers of her century.

Maria Cunitz was born between 1600 and 1610 (the exact date remains unknown) in Silesia. She had the good fortune of being the child of two educated parents who were interested in her upbringing: Maria Schultz and physician Henrich Cunitz. As a woman, Cunitz was denied a formal education, so she received much of her education from her father.

[i]f a woman was to be a scientist (or natural philosopher) of any type, it was helpful to have a male relative ... take interest in her education, Olgivie says. I wouldnt say that Cunitzs relationship with her father was unusual, but it certainly was not common.

With her fathers guidanceand later her husbandsCunitz mastered the supposedly masculine fields of mathematics and astronomy as well as the traditional feminine skills of music, art and literature. She was fluent in seven languagesGerman, Latin, Polish, Italian, French, Hebrew and Greekwhich would prove key to her achievements in astronomy.

Her education was expansive and ongoing, punctuated by concerns of religious discrimination. In 1629, Cunitz and her Protestant family fled to Liegnitz to escape Ferdinand IIs Catholic persecution of Protestants. In Liegnitz, she met and married physician Elias von Lwen, with whom she continued her studies in mathematics and astronomy. In the midst of the Thirty Years War, however, Cunitz was forced once again to flee. She and her husband settled in Pitschen, Poland, and it was here that Cunitz composed her magnum opus,Urania Propitia.

In 1609, German astronomer Johannes Kepler publishedAstronomia Nova, which laid the groundwork for the revolution that would come to be known as Keplerian astronomy. But at the time, few astronomers embraced his three laws: that planets move in elliptical orbits with the sun as the foci, that the center of the sun and the center of a planet sweep out equal area in equal intervals of time, and that the amount of time a planet takes to orbit is directly related to its distance from the sun.

Cunitz was one of the few that saw the truth in Keplers laws of planetary motion; even Galileo did not accept Keplers law of ellipses. However, Cunitz found flaws in Keplers 1627Rudolphine Tables, a catalogue of stars and planetary tables with complex directions for calculating planetary positions. She set out to correct and simplify Keplers calculations by removing logarithms. Cunitz finished her first and second tables in 1643 and the third in 1645.

Published in 1650 at her and her husbands own financial expense,Urania Propitiawas longer than Keplers originalRudolphine Tablesat 286 pages. She published the book in both Latin and the vernacular German, which made it an accessible work of astronomy outside of university walls and helped to establish German as a scientific language. Ogilvie says that [a]though her contributions to astronomy werent new theoretically, she, by her simplification of Keplers tables demonstrated that she was a competent mathematician and astronomer.

One of the more curious aspects toUrania Propitiais husband Eliass contribution to the book. During this time period, it was quite unusual for a woman to publish such a work on her own, and Ogilvie points out that there were many other cases (e.g. Marie Lavoisier) where a wife certainly was a major contributor to the work where she didnt get credit.

Yet in the book, Elias writes in Latin that he had no part in producing the text or preparing the tables. He adds that although he instructed his wife in calculating planetary movement with advanced mathematics, she mastered it and prepared the new tables on her own. In Swerdlows reading of Eliass Latin, the history of Cunitzs education was laid out in detail lest anyone falsely think the work perhaps not of a woman, pretending to be of a woman, and only thrust upon the world under the name of a woman.

Urania Propitiagained Cunitz recognition across Europe and brought her into correspondence with other prominent European astronomers of her day, like Pierre Gassendi and Johannes Hevelius. Sadly, the majority of her letters have been lost, consumed by a fire in Pitschen in 1656. What letters remain are kept at thesterreichische Nationalbibliothekin Vienna.

Cunitz died on August 22, 1664.Urania Propitiaremains the only work she published. But becauseUrania Propitiawas such a singular accomplishment and Cunitz was as proficient in mathematics and astronomy as any man of her age, her reputation continued after her death; She became known as Silesia Pallas, or Athena of Silesia.

She has also received more modern recognition as well. In 1960, a minor planet was named Mariacunitia in her honor by R. H. van Gent, and later, in 1973 when Richard Goldstein and his team at JPL discovered Venus to be covered in craters, Cunitz Crater received her name.

In a time when culture actively worked against women entering education and science, Maria Cunitz successfully made an inroad for herself. Her intellect was cultivated and encouraged by her father and husband, a privilege few girls and women would have been afforded. Though Cunitzs story is not without struggle, one cannot help but wonder how many more women could have done the same if granted the opportunities afforded to Cunitz.

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The 17th-Century Lady Astronomer Who Took Measure of the Stars - Smithsonian