Mysterious "Bermuda Triangle" in Space Affecting Hubble Telescope
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Mysterious "Bermuda Triangle" in Space Affecting Hubble Telescope - Video
An internal study finds that female-led proposals to use the in-demand device are less likely to be selected
The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, is still in high demand among scientists. Less than a quarter of proposals for observation time are approved. NASA
For an astronomer, winning precious observation time on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for your study is a big dealmore than three quarters of proposals are rejected. It turns out, however, that this honor is a bit easier for men to achieve than women. An internal Hubble study found that in each of the past 11 observation proposal cycles, applications led by male principal investigators had a higher success rate than those led by women. Its fascinating and disturbing, says Yale University astronomer Meg Urry, who formerly led the Hubble proposal review committee for several years and admitted to frustration that some of the results occurred during her tenure. I made a lot of efforts to have women on the review committees, and during the review I spent time listening to the deliberations of each panel. I never heard anything that struck me as discriminationand my antennae are definitely tuned for such thingsso its clear the bias is very subtle, and that both men and women are biased. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore runs the HST program and began the study about two years ago. After manually reviewing all proposals and categorizing them by gender the researchers found that mens applications fared better than womens in every cycle they examined. The results will be published in an upcoming issue of Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The effect is smallit translates to about four or five fewer proposals from women being selected each cycle than one might expect based on how many were submitted. You can kind of explain it away as just sampling statistics in any given cycle, but it happens every year, says Neill Reid, an STScI astronomer who oversees time allocation for Hubble. It is a systematic effect. The effect is stronger for older principal investigators (PIs); among recent graduates, the success rates for men and women are closer to equal. I could speculate whether the proposals are being written in a different way or whether the younger astronomers are more visible because theyre giving more talks. Maybe it has something to do with the institutions theyre at, Reid offers. Because the Hubble scientists have no information about the cause of the gender imbalance, they plan to analyze their data for contributing factors and consult social scientists who research bias about the best strategies to combat the trend. Already STScI has implemented some changes to try to level the playing field for men and women. The scientists who oversee proposal evaluation now tell reviewers before each cycle that this systematic effect exists, and that they believe unconscious bias might contribute to it. Sometimes people talk about the proposer rather than the proposal, Reid says. We ask them to focus on the science. The proposal format has also changed. Whereas the PIs name used to be in large type on the first page, they are now included among the rest of the team on page 2, and only first initials are used. Thus far, these steps have not reversed the trend, however: Women fared no better in the latest proposal-review cycle than they had before. I know STScI has tried very hard to minimize the effects of unconscious bias, Urry remarks. The only thing left is to do blind reviews, removing the names of the proposers altogether. But this is very difficult because the panels are supposed to evaluate the ability of the team to deliver what they propose. I am not sure what the answer is. A further complication is that the astronomy field is small, and reviewers may be able to guess the identities of proposers even if names are minimized or removed. Nevertheless, taking steps to make review processes as anonymous as possible has been shown to reduce bias in other scientific settings. Susan Benecchi, an astronomer at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., won observing time on Hubble during the latest round of applications and previously served on a review panel. She said shes never been aware of any bias in the process. Except for the fact that PI names are on the proposal, it's really not about the PI or team or anything other than: Do we think they can get the result they are after and is that science interesting, timely and uniquely requiring of HST? Ultimately, allocating time on Hubble is a subjective and human process, and therefore open to biases. It may be unsurprising, then, that signs of gender discrimination show up, as they do in many sectors of society. Indeed, preliminary studies at several other U.S. observatories, such as Kitt Peak National Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, appear to show the same gender disparity in proposal success. This is a community issue not an HST issue, Reid observes. One positive development, the STScI team found, is that more and more women are applying for Hubble time. In the most recent cycles women have contributed close to 25 percent of all proposals, with the latest round featuring a greater ratio of female-led petitions than ever before. The scientists hope that this trend, at least, is one that continues.
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The agency's Hubble Space Telescope spots one of the smallest galaxies ever discovered -- with a giant black hole at its core.
An artist's rendering of the massive black hole at the center of the tiny 'dwarf' galaxy revealed by NASA on September 17. NASA
They say big things come in little packages. That may never be more true than with what astronomers have just discovered: A "monster" black hole hiding inside one of the smallest galaxies ever known.
NASA said Wednesday that astronomers using its Hubble Space Telescope have found a new dwarf galaxy -- known as M60-UCD1 -- that "crams 140 million stars within a diameter of about 300 light-years, which is only 1/500th" the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy.
At the core of this tiny galaxy is what NASA is calling a "supermassive," or "monster" black hole, one that has five times the mass of the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. A dwarf galaxy is one that has a small fraction of the hundreds of billion of stars in the Milky Way.
However, when comparing the density of the Milky Way and the newly-discovered galaxy, NASA said looking at the nighttime sky from Earth reveals about 4,000 stars. Someone looking up into the sky from inside M60-UCD1 would see a million stars.
According to NASA, this finding indicates there could be many other dense galaxies throughout the universe that also have giant black holes. At the same time, the space agency said, the discovery may mean that dwarf galaxies like M60-UCD1 could be the ripped remnants of larger galaxies that broke apart during violent events such as collisions with other galaxies.
"We don't know of any other way you could make a black hole so big in an object this small," Anil Seth, the University of Utah astronomer who led a study about the newly-found galaxy, said in a NASA statement.
Seth's team used both the Hubble telescope and Hawaii's Gemini North-8 meter optical and infrared telescope to identify the new galaxy and measure the black hole's mass.
NASA explained that black holes are "gravitationally collapsed, ultra-compact objects that have a gravitational pull so strong that even light cannot escape."
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In December 2013 the Hubble telescope spotted water vapour above Europa But follow-up observations have failed to make the same observation The vapour was thought to be a sign of plumes of liquid on the surface Their disappearance is a mystery and several theories have been proposed Dr Retherford tells Space.com that it is likely just due to suitable conditions not being present at the time of the repeated observations But it could more worryingly be that the initial observation was incorrect
By Jonathan O'Callaghan for MailOnline
Published: 11:44 EST, 5 September 2014 | Updated: 14:48 EST, 5 September 2014
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It has been suggested that geysers spurting out of Jupiters moon Europa may be an opportunity to spot alien life originating beneath the surface.
This was based on observations by the Hubble Space Telescope in December 2013 that saw water vapour being ejected from the moon, lending evidence to the existence of jets.
But now scientists are somewhat baffled as they have been unable to explain why follow-up observations have failed to spot the same geysers.
In December 2013 the Hubble telescope spotted water vapour above Europa. But follow-up observations have failed to make the same observation. The vapour was thought to be a sign of plumes of liquid on the surface (illustration shown). Their disappearance is a mystery and several theories have been proposed
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Disappearance of geysers from Jupiter's Europa moon leaves scientists baffled
This photograph of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was takenon the second servicing mission to the observatory in 1997.Credit:NASA Larger image
From the dawn of humankind to a mere 400 years ago, all that we knew about our universe came through observations with the naked eye. Then Galileo turned his telescope toward the heavens in 1610. The world was in for an awakening.
Saturn, we learned, had rings. Jupiter had moons. That nebulous patch across the center of the sky called the Milky Way was not a cloud but a collection of countless stars. Within but a few years, our notion of the natural world would be forever changed. A scientific and societal revolution quickly ensued.
In the centuries that followed, telescopes grew in size and complexity and, of course, power. They were placed far from city lights and as far above the haze of the atmosphere as possible. Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Telescope is named, used the largest telescope of his day in the 1920s at the Mt. Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, Calif., to discover galaxies beyond our own.
Hubble, the observatory, is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space, the ultimate mountaintop. Above the distortion of the atmosphere, far far above rain clouds and light pollution, Hubble has an unobstructed view of the universe. Scientists have used Hubble to observe the most distant stars and galaxies as well as the planets in our solar system.
Hubble's launch and deployment in April 1990 marked the most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo's telescope. Our view of the universe and our place within it has never been the same.
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Astronomers have obtained the best view of merging galaxies in the distant Universe, which took place when the Universe was only half its current age, with the help NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes on the ground and in space.
They enlisted the help of a galaxy-sized magnifying glass to reveal otherwise invisible detail. These new studies of the galaxy H-ATLAS J142935.3-002836 have shown that this complex and distant object looks like the well-known local galaxy collision, the Antennae Galaxies.
These cosmic lenses are created by massive structures like galaxies and galaxy clusters, which deflect the light from objects behind them due to their strong gravity an effect, called gravitational lensing. The magnifying properties of this effect allow astronomers to study objects that would not be visible otherwise.
But for these gravitational lenses to work, the lensing galaxy, and the one far behind it, needs to be very precisely aligned. H-ATLAS J142935.3-002836 wasone of these sources and was found in the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS). It was among the brightest gravitationally lensed objects in the far-infrared regime found so far.
The Hubble and Keck images revealed a detailed gravitationally-induced ring of light around the foreground galaxy. These high resolution images also showed that the lensing galaxy is an edge-on disc galaxy similar to our galaxy, the Milky Way which obscures parts of the background light due to the large dust clouds it contains.
Rob Ivison, ESO's Director for Science concluded that with the combined power of Hubble and these other telescopes they have been able to locate this very fortunate alignment, take advantage of the foreground galaxy's lensing effects and characterize the properties of this distant merger and the extreme starburst within it.
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Hubble Telescope provides best view of merging galaxies in distant Universe
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UFO Caught on Hubble Telescope
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Data collected by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope over the past 20 years show Jupiter's Great Red Spot has been shrinking at an increasing rate to its current, and smallest, recorded size. The reduction is possibly due to the existence of eddies, that have been observed feeding into the planet-sized storm.
The Great Red Spot is, in essence, a vast, turbulent storm of astonishing size and ferocity. The storm system has persevered for roughly 300 years, so observations of its diminishing size have been met with great interest from the scientific community.
Since the early 1930s, astronomers have followed the apparent subsiding of Jupiters Great Red Spot. Data returned from Voyager 1 & 2 in 1979 estimated it to be roughly 14,500 miles (23,175 km) across. However subsequent readings have shown the massive anti-cyclonic storm receding, with todays measurements from the Hubble Telescope estimating the Red Spot to be only 10,250 miles (16,496 km) across. That's a 29 percent decrease in the storm's length.
Astronomers have concluded that the storm is shrinking at an ever increasing rate, estimated at 580 miles (933 km) per year. Despite the fact that the spot has shrunk significantly whilst under observation, it is worth noting that the storm could still comfortably swallow the Earth with room to spare.
"In our new observations it is apparent very small eddies are feeding into the storm," states Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Center, continuing, "We hypothesized these may be responsible for the accelerated change by altering the internal dynamics and energy of the Great Red Spot."
Looking to the future, the team of NASA scientists intend to further study the internal mechanics of the eddies in order to determine whether it is these atmospheric features that are expediting the shrinking of the Red Spot.
The storm will undoubtedly come under greater scrutiny in 2016, when NASA's Juno satellite will achieve polar orbit of the gas giant, heralding the start of its one year mission. The satellite's massive solar panels, necessary due to Juno's great distance from the Sun, will power a suite of equipment designed to probe within and through Jupiter's impressive atmospheric structure. The mission will hopefully return insightful information as to the composition of the Gas Giant, and of course, its trademark Great Red Spot.
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Jupiter's Great Red Spot has shrunk to its smallest size yet
Hubble Telescope 10 of the Best Images: Alien Worlds as seen from the Hubble Space telescope
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This colorful collection of Hubble Space Telescope images of portion of the Monkey Head Nebula reveals a collection of carved knots of gas and dust silhouetted against glowing gas. The cloud is sculpted by ultraviolet light eating into the cool hydrogen gas. NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Bruce Woodgate, the principal investigator for the Hubble space telescope camera that has helped scientists discover black holes and supernovas has died, NASA officials confirmed Thursday.
Woodgate died earlier this week after suffering several strokes in the past month.
A nearly 40-year NASA veteran, Woodgate was most well known for overseeing the design and development of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). The STIS was added to the Hubble space telescope in 1997.
"He was a good guy, and what I always thought a scientist should be: Curious, inquisitive, willing to try to figure out if something made sense (and willing to stick his neck out if it was anywhere near the borderline of possibility), and fascinated by the amazing and varied science his camera made possible," Phil Plait wrote in Slate. Plait worked on the STIS with Woodgate in late 1990s.
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With this technology, the STIS has been a game changer in astronomy research.
Scientists have discovered supermassive black holes, merging "antennae galaxies," and planets around other stars using STIS. It has also detected an exoplanet's exosphere and the invisible high-speed collision around supernova 1987a.
In addition to STIS, Woodgate was developing a photon-counting UV detector using the latest in solid-state physics and nano-fabrication techniques.
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