The Sky Tonight

February 11, 2013

A massive stellar burst, before the supernova
Berkeley CA (SPX) Feb 11, 2013
An automated supernova hunt is shedding new light on the death sequence of massive stars-specifically, the kind that self-destruct in Type IIn supernova explosions. Digging through the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) data archive housed at the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), astronomers have found the first causal evidence that these massive stars shed huge amounts of material in a "penulti ... read more

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Hubble Catches a Side-on Spiral Streak This thin, glittering streak of stars is the spiral galaxy ESO 121-6, which lies in the southern constellation of Pictor (The Painter's Easel). Viewed almost exactly side-on, the intricate str ... more		Direct Infrared Image Of An Arm In Disk Demonstrates Transition To Planet Formation An international team of astronomers led by Satoshi Mayama (Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan) and Ruobing Dong (Princeton University, U.S.A.) has made observations with the Subaru Tel ... more		Forecasting a supernova explosion Type II supernovae are formed when massive stars collapse, initiating giant explosions. It is thought that stars emit a burst of mass as a precursor to the supernova explosion. If this process were ... more
				The wings of the Seagull Nebula Running along the border between the constellations of Canis Major (The Great Dog) and Monoceros (The Unicorn) in the southern sky, the Seagull Nebula is a huge cloud mostly made of hydrogen gas. It ... more		Earth-like planets are right next door Using publicly available data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that six percent of red dwarf stars have habitable, ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

New NASA Mission To Help Us Better Estimate Asteroid Impact Hazard Every year, sensors designed to detect nuclear explosions see harmless bursts in Earth's upper atmosphere from the breakup of an asteroid a few yards across. Tiny asteroids are much more numerous th ... more		Near impact: asteroid to narrowly miss Earth Hold on to your hats: an asteroid will zoom within spitting distance of Earth next week, in what NASA said Thursday is the closest flyby ever predicted for an object this large. ... more		EU 'must respond' to Russia's 'hybrid warfare': von der Leyen Russia says missile strike kills three in Belgorod region: governor Trump unlikely to win Nobel Peace Prize, but who will?		A Possible Naked-eye Comet in March Feb. 6, 2013: Far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, where the sun is a pinprick of light not much brighter than other stars, a vast swarm of icy bodies circles the solar system. Astronomers ca ... more
				Kepler Data Suggest Earth-size Planets May Be Next Door Using publicly available data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics estimate that six percent of red dwarf stars in the galaxy have Earth ... more		NASA's Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet ISON NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has acquired its first images of comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). The images were taken by the spacecraft's Medium-Resolution Imager over a 36-hour period on Jan. 17 and 18, 201 ... more

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New "retention model" explains enigmatic ribbon at edge of solar system Since its October 2008 launch, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has provided images of the invisible interactions between our home in the galaxy and interstellar space. Particles emanati ... more		A spiral galaxy with a secret The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope - with a little help from an amateur astronomer - has produced one of the best views yet of nearby spiral galaxy Messier 106. Located a little over 20 million lig ... more		No peace: Trump's smoldering Nobel obsession Virtual Jesus? People of faith divided as AI enters religion New species of poisonous frog discovered in Amazon; Snakebite surge as Bangladesh hit by floods		Does probability come from quantum physics? Ever since Austrian scientist Erwin Schrodinger put his unfortunate cat in a box, his fellow physicists have been using something called quantum theory to explain and understand the nature of waves ... more
				Enigmatic "Ribbon" Of Energy Discovered by NASA Satellite Explained After three years of puzzling over a striking "ribbon" of energy and particles discovered by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) at the edge of our solar system, scientists may be on the ve ... more		Earth-like planets may be closer than thought: study Scientists looking for habitable planets may not have to stray far from our galactic neighborhood, said a new study Wednesday, which calculated an Earth-size planet could be orbiting a red dwarf as near as 13 light years away. ... more

The PI's Perspective: The Seven-Year Itch

New Horizons Gets a New Year's Workout

Halfway Between Uranus and Neptune, New Horizons Cruises On

Wood on the seafloor - an oasis for deep-sea life

Exploring the Seafloors of Earth and Europa in search of exo lifeforms

Synchrotron infrared unveils a mysterious microbial community

Earth-like planets are right next door

Direct Infrared Image Of An Arm In Disk Demonstrates Transition To Planet Formation

Earth-like planets may be closer than thought: study

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Gold tops $4,000 for first time as traders pile into safe haven

Tesla shares fall on doubts that latest autos will boost sales

In Simandou mountains, Guinea prepares to cash in on iron ore

Cassini Sees Titan Cooking up Smog		BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter Proto-Flight Mechanical and Propulsion Bus undergoes bake-out		New classes of magnetoelectric materials promise advances in computing technology		Scientists team with business innovators to solve 'big data' bottleneck		Massive stellar winds are made of tiny pieces
Seeing the Aurora in a New Light		Small Asteroid to Whiz Past Earth Safely		Building a lunar base with 3D printing		Dawn Look Backs		Where are all the dwarfs?

International Team Observe 'Hungry Twin' Stars Gobbling Their First Meals

Researchers develop model for identifying habitable zones around star

Stars can be late parents

Prehistoric humans not wiped out by comet

Gas promises bumper black hole weigh-in

Herschel Finds Past-Prime Star May Be Making Planets

Mercury's crust likely made of magnesium-rich basalt

New method of measuring the mass of supermassive black holes

NASA's SDO Provides First Sightings of How a CME Forms

TW Hydrae: There's more to astronomers' favorite planetary nursery than previously thought

NASA's Cassini Watches Storm Choke on Its Own Tail

Cool, New Views of Andromeda Galaxy

Solar Variability and Terrestrial Climate

Superbubble DEM L50

Computer Models Explain How Galaxies Formed and Evolved

Record Setting Asteroid Flyby

NYU physicists shine a light on particle assembly

Sounding Rocket Mission Offers Roadmap To Future Solar Missions

Stanford Researchers Break Million-core Supercomputer Barrier

Celestial Sleuths Track Historic Meteor Procession To South Atlantic

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