This Week's "Where in the Universe?" Challenge
Here's your image for this week's "Where in the Universe?"
challenge. Take a look at the image and before proceeding to the end of this
post, make your guess as to what location in the universe is represented here.
It could be anywhere — nothing is off limits for this challenge! Near or
distant, far and wide, Universe Today spares no expense when it comes to
searching for unique and unusual images to test your visual knowledge of our
universe! Give yourself an extra point for guessing (or knowing) the feature
shown here, and another point for naming the spacecraft that took this image.
Just a couple more ticks on the timer here before revealing the awesome power of
this week's image….
Read the rest of This Week's "Where in the Universe?" Challenge
The Big Announcement: Chandra, VLA Find Youngest Supernova in Our Galaxy
Astronomers have found the remains of the youngest supernova,
or exploded star, in the Milky Way Galaxy. The supernova occurred in 1868, but
was hidden behind a thick veil of gas and dust. Using the Very Large Array (VLA)
and NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which could peer through the veil,
astronomers have now found "G1.9 0.3," the first example of what scientists
believe are a "missing population" of young supernova remnants. This is NASA's
long awaited announcement, and astronomers have been searching for over 50
years for this type of young supernova.
Read the rest of The
Big Announcement: Chandra, VLA Find Youngest Supernova in Our Galaxy
Comet C/2005 L3 McNaught Brighter Than Expected
According
to the estimations made by the IAU (International Astronomical Union) and ICQ
(International Comet Quarterly) information, Comet C/2005 L3 McNaught wasn't
supposed to be any brighter than magnitude 15 this month and in a slow decline
in brightness. However, thanks to observations done by Joseph Brimacombe at
Macedon Ranges Observatory, the "tale of the tape" shows a different story…
Read the rest of Comet C/2005 L3 McNaught Brighter Than Expected
Looking for Black Holes in … Water?
Looking for Hawking Radiation in space is likely impossible with our current
technology. But scientists here on Earth recently used flowing water to simulate
a black hole and create event horizons, testing Stephen Hawking's famous
prediction that the event horizon creates particles and anti-particles.
Read the rest of Looking for Black Holes in … Water?
New NASA Study Links Humans to Changes On Earth
A new NASA-led study shows human-caused climate change has made an impact on
a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants
blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa.
Researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science and 10 other
institutions have linked varying impacts since 1970 with rises in temperatures
during that period. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing
greenhouse gas emissions," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, lead author of the study.
"The warming is causing impacts on physical and biological systems that are now
attributable at the global scale and in North America, Europe, and Asia."
Read the rest of New NASA Study Links Humans to Changes On Earth
Pole Shift on Europa?
Curved features on Jupiter’s moon Europa may indicate that
its poles have wandered by almost 90°, a new study reports. Researchers believe
the drastic shift in Europa’s rotational axis was likely a result of the
build-up of thick ice at the poles. “A spinning body is most stable with its
mass farthest from its spin axis,” says Isamu Matsuyama of the Carnegie
Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. “On Europa, variations in the
thickness of its outer shell caused a mass imbalance, so the rotation axis
reoriented to a new stable state.” An extreme shift like this also suggests the
existence of an internal liquid ocean beneath the icy crust.
Read the rest of Pole Shift on Europa?
from universetoday.com
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May 15, 1930
Pilot Ellen Church becomes the world's first airline stewardess
Ellen Church becomes the world's first airline stewardess, working a Boeing Air Transport flight from Oakland, California, to Chicago. The flight took 20 hours and involves 13 stops along the way. Church, a registered nurse from Iowa, was so enamored of flying that she became a certified pilot. She approached BAT (the forerunner of United Airlines) looking for a pilot's job, a futile hope for women in those days. But the BAT exec did like Church's other suggestion: that commercial airliners carry nurses on board. Smelling a publicity coup, and figuring that on-board nurses would help quell the public's fear - very real at the time - of flying, he sold her proposal to the boys at the top. BAT hired eight nurses, including Church, for what it thought would be a three-month experiment. These weren't just any nurses, though.
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ASTRONOMY Current Moon Phase
Current Solar Data From NOAAA Super Solar Flare NASA - May 6, 2008
Astronomy Picture of the Day NASA
Astronomy Picture of the Day Archives
Spaceweather.com 
Thunderbolts Picture of the Day
Mars 
Mars probe set for nail-biting touchdown New Scientist - May 13, 2008
Phoenix set to land on Mars Sunday, May 25th NASA - May 13, 2008
Radar map peels back secrets of Martian north pole AFP - May 15, 2008
Brrr! Mars Colder Than Expected Space.com - May 15, 2008
Are the rovers cut out to detect alien life? MSBC - May 8, 2008 Black Holes
Physicists Demonstrate How Information Can Escape From Black Holes Science Daily - May 15, 2008
Black holes not black after all PhysOrg - May 12, 2008 Universe
Astronomers measure temperature of the early universe New Scientist - May 15, 2008
Astronomers use new model of dust in galaxies to remeasure the total energy output of stars in the universe PhysOrg - May 15, 2008
Physicists Create Universe Smaller Than a Marble TWPost - May 10, 2008
Space Rocks Could Reseed Life on Earth Space.com - May 15, 2008
Asteroid and comet impacts on Earth can cause catastrophic extinction events. They can also bring life back ... Key molecule discovered in Venus's atmosphere PhysOrg - May 15, 2008
Youngest Supernova in Milky Way Found National Geographic - May 15, 2008
Jupiter moon's poles 'wandered' far and wide New Scientist - May 14, 2008
Doubt cast on source of universe's mightiest particles New Scientist - May 13, 2008
Virtual World Wide Telescope opens night sky from your desktop BBC - May 13, 2008
Astronauts say there must be life in space PhysOrg - May 12, 2008
Space Station Tricorder PhysOrg - May 12, 2008
Merging Antennae Galaxies Move Closer Science Daily - May 10, 2008
Nasa plans landing on 40m-wide asteroid traveling at 28,000 mph Guardian - May 8, 2008
3 comments on Where in the Universe? and more...5/15/08 NEWS about Space
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This is so uncanny because I had no idea whatsoever "where in the universe" we were or what the heck I was looking at! I thought a lava flow...no, not lava, ash...yeah, ash is what I thought. I also toyed with the idea that clouds just might look like that from above, if the clouds were "stuck" to mountains that interrupted their even cover or if peaks poked through...but, I favored the ash option. I still had nothing but a guess, though, and I thought it was a pretty weak guess. Ok, so I wasn't convinced it was clouds and I wasn't anywhere close to thinking it was Alaska or any other place at the point I looked it up, but was quite surprised to learn that I really was looking at clouds and was amused by what was causing the "holes".
I loved reading about Ellen Church, possibly because of my years of being a travel agent and even more years of having my love for travel. Thank you for including her in the post.
You are welcome.
And I noticed this article posted changes, there are NEW photo's, how cool. Check it out!
"Picture of the Day" & "space weather"
Oh, I did check them out and that picture of Mars' surface was really something!