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NASA preps black hole-hunting space telescope for launch next month
Scientists will soon have a new tool at their disposal in their search for black holes and a greater understanding of what NASA describes as "the most energetic and exotic objects in space." The space agency announced today that it has begun preparing its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array -- otherwise known as NuSTAR -- for launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, with a liftoff planned for no earlier than June 13th. The telescope is by far the most advanced of its type to date, boasting ten times the resolution and more than 100 times the sensitivity of its predecessors, as well as a new design that relies on a complex set of 133 ultra-thin nested mirrors -- a setup NASA compares to a Russian Doll. Those interested can get a brief overview of the mission in the video after the break
World's largest telescope underway, scientists definitely observe big bang
Once again astronomers are observing formative explosions, but this time a little bit closer to home. Three million cubic feet of planet earth is being blasted from the Chilean Andes as work on what will be the world's largest telescope begins. The location is the Carnegie Institution's Las Campanas Observatory, and the project is a collaboration between South Korean, Australian and American institutions to create the Giant Magellan Telescope. The first mirror segment is just being completed, and is so precise, it matches its optical prescription to within a millionth of an inch. The project will cost $700 million once complete, small change we say for a chance to glimpse light from the edge of the Universe.
NASA to launch Hubble space telescope successor in 2018, will clean its room later
You know you're going to miss the Hubble Space Telescope once ceases operation and they let it simply burn up in orbit. But don't cry, dry your eye, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced plans to put its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, in orbit in 2018. The telescope, which will be 100 times more sensitive than the Hubble, faced being cut completely by a Congressional subcommittee earlier this year as a result of budget constraints given its $8.8 billion price tag. After much Capital Hill grilling over the project being billions over budget, NASA has moved is scheduled launch -- initially set for 2013 -- to October of 2018. Although not the best news, it'll still get up there and you can hug your Hubble plushie tightly tonight knowing distant worlds will be that much closer.
Scientists capture birth of new planet on camera, mother and child doing just fine
After all the pushing, squeezing and screaming, the universe has finally given birth to a new planet, in an eruption that two scientists managed to capture on film. The newborn pile of planetary pudge, named LkCa 15 b, was discovered by Drs. Michael Ireland and Adam Kraus, who, over the course of 12 months, successfully documented the event using Keck telescopes and a technique called aperture mask interferometry. Their findings, published in Astrophysical Journal describe a Jupiter-like gaseous planet that likely began forming some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. Located about 450 light years from Earth, it's also the youngest planet ever observed, having dethroned the previous record-holder, which was about five times older. According to Ireland and Kraus, the LkCa 15 b is still being formed out of a circle of dust and gas (pictured above) surrounding a 2-million-year-old star. By observing a "young gas giant in the process of formation," the researchers hope to find answers to fundamental questions that have long eluded them. "These very basic questions of when and where are best answered when you can actually see the planet forming, as the process is happening right now," Kraus explained to the AP. Head past the break to see an artist's rendering of the newborn, and if you get the chance, be sure to send flowers.
Alma observatory captures stars being born, reports back on universe's awkward teenage years
A baby book for our cosmos? That'd be a happy by-product of the massive insight star-gazing scientists are set to glean from Alma -- the telescope responsible for ushering in a "new golden age of astronomy." The Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array (as it's known in long form), located 3,000 meters above sea level on a Chilean plateau, goes beyond the voyeuristic powers of current optical telescopes, delivering detailed imagery of the dense gas clouds that birth baby stars. Why is this significant? Well, using the complex 20-antenna strong array (a total of 66 are planned), astronomers from North America, Europe and Japan will get a first-hand glimpse of the gaseous mix that was our universe a few hundred million years post-Big Bang. Consider the research a time-traveling peek back into the formative years of existence. Heady stuff, yes, but the array won't have its multiple, celestial-focused eyes trained solely on star nurseries; scientists from around the globe already plan on getting an up close look at the Sagittarius A black hole. When these "Pyramids of the 21st Century" finish construction in 2013, we'll be just one step closer to viewing the limits of our cosmic fishbowl.
Volunteer scientists discover two possible planets, tell NASA it missed a spot
Proving it's not all about edu-mah-cation, a group of casual star-gazers has stumbled upon what might well be a pair of new planets. Following on from gamers' success with complicated medical puzzles, an army of 40,000 online volunteer astronomy nerds signed up to the Planet Hunters project to help mine through NASA data. One of the possible planets they discovered is roughly two and a half times the size of Earth, while the other a whopping eight times bigger than this revolving ball of blue and green we call home. The project uses data from NASA's Kepler telescope, which registers fluctuations in brightness as objects pass in front of distant stars -- a setup that's helped scientists discover 1,235 potential alien planets in its first four months. Obviously, though, the technology isn't perfect, which is where the project's muggle volunteers (assisted by Oxford and University of Chicago researchers) come in. They've been combing through NASA's readings and are now sifting through the next 90 days of Kepler observations. [Image credit: NASA]
Trojan asteroid caught circling Earth, the Greeks deny involvement
Hide your kids, hide your wife, there's an asteroid circling Earth's orbit and we're all gonna... be just fine? Yeah, no need to stock up those '60s fallout shelters folks, this approximately 1,000 feet wide space rock is sitting pretty and safe in one of our Lagrange points. The so-called Trojan asteroid, known as 2010 TK7, was uncovered 50 million miles away by the infrared eyes of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope, and is the first of its kind to be discovered near our humble planet. Typically, these near-Earth objects (NEOs) hide in the sun's glare, but this satellite's unusual circuit around our world helped WISE and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope confirm its existence. The finding has our best and brightest giddy with the hope similar NEOs "could make excellent candidates for future robotic or human exploration." Unfortunately, our new planetoid friend's too-high, too-low path doesn't quite cut the space mission mustard. No matter, 2010 TK7 still gets to call "First!"
Russia's RadioAstron telescope finally set to launch, blanket space with its radio eye
Considering all the space nostalgia we've been swimming in recently, it's somewhat appropriate that a Cold War-era telescope is gearing up to make its maiden voyage, after more than three decades of development (and delays). The Russian mission, known as RadioAstron, will finally become a reality on Monday, when a radio telescope launches from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome before soaring into orbit some 350,000 kilometers away from the Earth. At just ten meters in width, the craft's antenna is small in comparison to other radio 'scopes, but its reach can be dramatically expanded when combined with signals from those on the ground. This technique, called interferometry, will effectively create the largest telescope ever built, covering an area nearly 30 times the Earth's diameter and allowing RadioAstron to capture interstellar images in 10,000 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope. There remains, however, one major hurdle -- because the spacecraft collects data at about 144 megabits per second, it must constantly transfer information to antennas on the ground. Problem is, there's only one antenna capable of receiving RadioAstron's signals and, unless others are constructed soon, a healthy chunk of its observations could be lost. How do you say "buzz-kill" in Russian?
SKA radio telescope to pump out more data than the internet in 2020, spot ALF before he lands
Unfortunately for Desmond Dekker fans, this SKA telescope has nothing to do with the Jamaican music sensation. No, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope has much more otherworldly concerns, and according to the director of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), Peter Quinn, it should have the internet beat in terms of data when it goes online in 2020. The telescope, which will end up in either Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa, is aimed at searching for Earth-like planets, extraterrestrial life, dark matter, and black holes, and will require a central supercomputer with "the processing power of one billion PCs." What's more, it is expected to be 10,000 times more powerful than any telescope in existence and "generate the same amount of data in a day as the entire planet does in a year." We say anything that gets us closer to having our very own hairy, Hawaiian-shirt sporting alien on hand is well worth the $2.1 billion it will cost to create. Willy!
Spy satellites become reluctant space celebs, get their own paparazzi
Not only do American military satellites have to put up with the constant threat of ultrasonic space droppings, now they must also suffer the prying lenses of a couple of Frenchmen. Thierry Legault and Emmanuel Rietsch have spent the past two years turning consumer-grade components into a system that can keep up with the zippy and supposedly secret movements of craft like the X-37B space plane and the NROL-49 low-Earth orbit spy sat. Hit the source link and you'll see videos of the International Space Station, which they also managed to capture with steady-ish focus as it hurtled through space-time. Looks like nothing will thwart these guys, except maybe nano-satellites.
Brando's iPad 2 telescope is perfect for watching the next Apple keynote
If you're like us, you've spent entirely too much time wondering how the movie Rear Window might have played out differently, had someone just handed Jimmy Stewart's character an iPad to play with. With the introduction of the Super Gear Telescope, it seems that the plot would've been mostly the same, just as soon as he finished beating Angry Birds. The Brando add-on brings 6x zoom to the iPad 2 and generally looks far less awkward than its iPhone predecessor. All in all, $26 seems like a small price to pay to see what the neighbors are looking at on their own iPads.
VLT Survey Telescope snaps out-of-this-world photos with 268-megapixel camera
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has just released the first batch of shots taken by its VLT Survey Telescope (VST), and, given the results, we'd say the thing's got a bright future in photography. Not to be mistaken for its cousin, the VLT (very large telescope), the VST sports a 268-megapixel camera, known as the OmegaCAM, and a field of view "twice as broad as the full moon." The images released by the ESO feature the Omega Nebula (located in the Sagittarius constellation) and Omega Centauri in stellar detail. Annie Lebovitz, eat your heart out -- the rest of you hop on past the break for another shot by this up and coming shutterbug.
Astronomers snap black hole murder in graphic detail (video)
We tend to imagine a black hole sucking everything around it straight into oblivion. The truth, however, is even more gruesome. Astronomers have just captured an ultra hi-res image of our neighbouring galaxy, Centaurus A, and it helps to reveal what actually happens. Matter is yanked helplessly towards a black hole at the galaxy's core, but it refuses to die quietly. For some unknown reason, it erupts as it falls, spewing out vast plumes of particles -- like blood from celestial murder. These death throes emit radio waves, allowing us to witness them using radio telescopes even though we are 12 million light-years away. If only we were closer; if only we could intervene. Alas, all we can do is watch the video after the break and hit the source links for a fuller explanation -- though, admittedly, none of those sound like awful options.
DARPA's new Space Surveillance Telescope will keep our satellites safe from interstellar debris
What's that in the sky? A bird? A plane? Oh, it's just some junk floating around in space, posing major threats to our military's spy satellites. To help keep an eye on it, engineers at DARPA, MIT and the Air Force have unleashed a new $110 million telescope that's been in the works for nine years now. The new Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) is capable of delivering wide-angle views of the Earth's firmament thanks to a curved CCD. This allows for a massive 3.5m aperture and f/1.0 exposure settings, capturing more light in a day that your average scope can in a week. As part of the Air Force's Space Surveillance Network (SSN), the telescope's primary task will be to look out for any microsatellites, meteors or other alien droppings moving at the same speed at which the Earth rotates. The system developed its first images earlier this year and the Air Force may eventually place SSTs all over the world, creating a 360-degree surveillance blanket and going a long way toward keeping our spycraft warm, cozy, and safe from galactic hazards.
Visualized: 1,235 potential alien planets
The tiny black dots set against their glowing host stars above represent 1,235 potential alien planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission. With any luck, at least one of them has never heard of Justin Bieber.
Hubble telescope sees furthest galaxy, 13.2 billion light years from Earth
If you think Star Wars took place in a galaxy far, far away, you should probably prepare to have your perceptions of distance rocked. NASA astronomers believe they've laid their eyes what appears to be the most distant object ever spotted by humans... in the history of mankind, no less. The galaxy was first peeked back in 2009, but NASA has just confirmed (via that trusty Hubble contraption) that what it saw is actually the oldest known galaxy in existence. At a distance of 13.2 billion light years away, this galaxy is a staggering 150 million years older than the previous record-setting collection of stars. The cluster of blue stars is just a tiny galaxy, though -- NASA says you'd need hundreds of these little groups to make up our Milky Way. Head past the break for a closer shot of the constellation, otherwise known as a nondescript red pixel.
Visualized: world's largest neutrino observatory rivals Guatemala sinkhole
Without question, one of the images from 2010 will be the insane, almost incomprehensible sinkhole that emerged in Guatemala earlier this year, but this particular shot from the South Pole does an outstanding job of vying for equal attention. Coming directly from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this is a look into the planet's largest neutrino observatory, which was just completed after half a decade of work with $279 million. The goal? To detect "subatomic particles traveling near the speed of light," and when you have an ice-bound telescope that encompasses a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, well... you've high hopes for success. Will this pipe into the underworld finally lead us to understanding Dark Matter? Will century-old mysteries of the universe finally have answers? Even if not, we're envisioning a heck of an entry fee when it's converted into the world's longest firehouse pole and marketed to affluent tourists who make the trip down.
Astronomers theorize what it's like when worlds (and black holes) collide
Tight binary solar systems are inhabited in science fiction -- remember the Star Wars world of Tatooine -- but humanity might find such planets inhospitable over the long term, and not just because of the heat. Using NASA's Spitzer telescope, scientists discovered clouds of dust around three such binary systems far too recent to come from the stars themselves, and theorize that as the stars attract one another over time and get closer and closer together, their respective orbiting planets may get closer as well, and crash into one another catastrophically. Meanwhile, when supermassive black holes dance in pairs, they can merge as one, and astrophysicists have recently simulated how such a joining might appear on our telescopes. According to a team of US and Canadian researchers, the pair may emit strong jets of electromagnetic radiation before they merge, which twist around one another and throw off gravitational waves that can help pinpoint the source. Speaking of sources, we've got plenty of those immediately below if you'd like to read more.
iPhone 4 cuddles up against telescope, snaps impressive moon closeups
What's a boy to do when he desperately needs a portfolio full of galactic imagery of his own doing? In most cases, we'd suggest he grab up a telescope (or one of these), the biggest DSLR he can find and a planetary expert who knows a thing or two about exposure. But thanks to a mod that's becoming more and more common these days, it seems that you can replace the latter recommendations with an iPhone 4. Yep -- Apple's latest smartphone, when paired up with a miniature tripod mount and a telescope, can apparently take lovely shots of our dear moon, and if you're struggling to actually spot it, we hear that Planisphere app is pretty handy. Hit the source links if you're scouting some inspiration.
New biggest star discovered, is not Justin Bieber
You know how sometimes you're just sitting out in a field with your homies, looking up at the stars and thinking man, the universe is so BIG... and I'm just so small! Thanks to the Very Large Telescope in Chile, Professor Paul Crowther at Sheffield University, and some good old-fashioned Hubble data, you can feel just a little bit smaller. Crowther and his team have measured the giant known as R136a1 to be 265 times the size of the sun. That's a pretty cool size, but not quite as cool as the 320 solar masses it was at birth -- nothing to sneeze at, since previous discoveries had the largest stars somewhere around 150 solar masses. It's also the most luminous star ever found, at 10 million times brighter than the sun. Even so, don't get your hopes up trying to see this with your telescope (unless it's, you know, Very Large) because it's a good 165,000 light years away. Doesn't mean you can't look in its direction and smile, though. [Image: ESO / M. Kornmesser]
