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Photoset reblogged from Quarks to Quasars
Baby Stars
1. Beautiful newborns
In a universe of fantastic images, a newborn star is a mystical masterpiece. Cradled within the dusty arms of a nebula, a baby star seems to blink its way to a new life. The lifespan of a star is a series of sequences. A star may spend most of its life in a “main sequence phase” where nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium is happening in its core. But before this happens, it lives as a protostar, or baby star.2. Young stars in Serpens
Here the Spitzer Space Telescope reveals the Serpens South star cluster, in which 50 or so young stars exist. They are seen as the “green, yellow, and orange-tinted specks sitting atop the black dust lane.” A supernova or galaxy collision can cause a star to form when huge clouds of hydrogen and helium collapse under mutual gravity. As the cloud collapses, it heats up and starts to spin. Since protostars are covered in dust, they can be seen only through infrared telescopes like Hubble and Spitzer. As Universe Today writes, “After about 100,000 years or so, the protostar stops growing and the disk of material surrounding it is destroyed by radiation.” Then this star, now called a T Tauri or pre-main sequence star, is visible from Earth.
3. Bubbly little star
We are used to images of babies blowing bubbles, and it looks like the infants of the cosmos do the same. This image, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, shows the HH 46/47 baby star blowing bubbles into space via powerful jets of gas. Located about 1,140 light-years from Earth, HH 46/47 is the bright white star at the middle of the image. Two bubbles reach out in opposite directions and are formed when the jets collide with the dust and gas surrounding the star
4. Young stars emerge from Orion’s head
Orion just might be the stud of our Milky Way, a fitting compliment because since the constellation takes its name from a Greek story of a legendary hunter. Pictured here is another “hatching” of baby stars located in the head of Orion. The Spitzer Space Telescope captures this area known as Barnard 30, which sits on the right side of Orion’s head. It is around 1,300 light-years away from Earth.
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Photo reblogged from Quarks to Quasars
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The Iris Nebula
Imagine a cloud of countless particles, each measuring less than a millionth of a millimeter wide. Together, however, these particles function as a special type of cosmic mirror we know as the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023). Sir William Herschel discovered the Iris Nebula in 1794. He described it as, “A star of 7th magnitude. Very much affected with nebulosity, which more than fills the field. It seems to extend to at least a degree all around; stars, such as 9th or 10th magnitude, of which there are many, are perfectly free from this appearance.” NGC 7023 received its common name, the Iris Nebula, from California astroimager Daphne Hallas. She saw a film that showed the nebula’s center and commented that it resembled an unfolding iris. (4-inch Takahashi FSQ-106 apochromatic refractor, Starlight Xpress SXV H16 CCD camera, twelve 5-minute exposures through L, R, G, and B filters [4 hours total exposure])](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m23jf0zxss1qbkzabo1_500.jpg)
The Iris Nebula
Imagine a cloud of countless particles, each measuring less than a millionth of a millimeter wide. Together, however, these particles function as a special type of cosmic mirror we know as the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023). Sir William Herschel discovered the Iris Nebula in 1794. He described it as, “A star of 7th magnitude. Very much affected with nebulosity, which more than fills the field. It seems to extend to at least a degree all around; stars, such as 9th or 10th magnitude, of which there are many, are perfectly free from this appearance.” NGC 7023 received its common name, the Iris Nebula, from California astroimager Daphne Hallas. She saw a film that showed the nebula’s center and commented that it resembled an unfolding iris. (4-inch Takahashi FSQ-106 apochromatic refractor, Starlight Xpress SXV H16 CCD camera, twelve 5-minute exposures through L, R, G, and B filters [4 hours total exposure])
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Photo reblogged from FYEAH, CHEMISTRY!
ACTA in a Nutshell –
What is ACTA? ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. A new intellectual property enforcement treaty being negotiated by the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan, with Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada recently announcing that they will join in as well.
Why should you care about ACTA? Initial reports indicate that the treaty will have a very broad scope and will involve new tools targeting “Internet distribution and information technology.”
What is the goal of ACTA? Reportedly the goal is to create new legal standards of intellectual property enforcement, as well as increased international cooperation, an example of which would be an increase in information sharing between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies.
Essential ACTA Resources -
- Read more about ACTA here: ACTA Fact Sheet
- Read the authentic version of the ACTA text as of 15 April 2011, as finalized by participating countries here: ACTA Finalized Text
- Follow the history of the treaty’s formation here: ACTA history
- Read letters from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden wherein he challenges the constitutionality of ACTA: Letter 1 | Letter 2 | Read the Administration’s Response to Wyden’s First Letter here: Response
- Watch a short informative video on ACTA: ACTA Video
- Watch a lulzy video on ACTA: Lulzy Video
Say NO to ACTA. It is essential to spread awareness and get the word out on ACTA.
COME ON HOW DOES THIS HAVE SO LITTLE NOTES?WAKE UUUUUPPPP -
Photo reblogged from It's Okay To Be Smart
DEEP BREATH. In. Out. Be calm.
You might have heard some news about something called a “neutrino” that might have moved faster than the speed of light. This news is out of CERN, in Europe, and like Ron Burgundy, it’s kind of a big deal.
Remember Einstein’s E=mc² equation? Well, that wouldn’t exactly be ruined, but relativity would need to be seriously adjusted. As Phil Plait put it, it would turn so much of physics upside-down that it’s like saying “… that gravity pushes, not pulls.” So what did they observe?
A neutrino is a particular subatomic particle, like an uncharged electron. They travel, well, very fast, and can go through matter. Photons are light, and they travel at (wait for it) the speed of light. According to what we know up to now, neutrinos should travel fast, but according to the laws of physics not as fast as light. That’s where the CERN experiment comes in.
The scientists at CERN set up a detector at a very exact distance away from a source of photons and neutrinos. When I say exact I mean exact. Like so precise that they could be within a meter or so of error at a distance of 730 km apart. They know how fast light travels, and it should have taken about 2.43 milliseconds for the light to reach the detector in Italy from CERN. According to the scientists, the neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds before the light.
The Swiss are impeccable time-keepers.
They report that their error is within 10 nanoseconds, so it’s a significant result. But there are a couple of problems. Not problems that for sure disprove it, but certainly give reason for caution.
- It’s very hard to know exactly when neutrinos are created in whatever source you are shooting them from. So the “start” point is a little fuzzy.
- As noted at Bad Astronomy, a supernova called 1987a throws some more cold water on this. See, that supernova was 160,000 light years away. So if neutrinos traveled faster than light by the same ratio as above, we would have seen the 1987a neutrinos about four years before the light. And that didn’t happen.
- Neutrinos are pesky little things, and very hard to control and measure, being as they flow right through planets and the like.
The scientists had a webcast from CERN today, and they are being very careful to say that this needs to be checked and über-checked, and then repeated again after that. They also claim no theoretical re-writes of history. The problem is that the press is not being nearly so cautious.
So take a deep breath, relax, let their fellow scientists and the skeptics have at it for a while, and don’t be sad if this turns out to not be as big a deal as thought. Of course, it might be true, but when it comes to extraordinary claims, you have to provide extraordinary proof.
(Source: jtotheizzoe)
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Photo reblogged from It's Full of Stars
Speed of light may have been broken
Okay guys, this one is hot off the press. I’ve only found two sources for this (here and here) that have been posted in the last hour. I have to say that I immediately doubt the validity of this, but I feel I should bring it to your attention anyway.
Reports from our good friends at CERN say that they’ve observed particles traveling at faster than light speeds. For those of you who know a bit about relativity, this ain’t all that cool. The speed of light is basically meant to be the fastest speed there is, and if this wasn’t the case then we may have a major breakdown of Einstein’s theory of relativity.
The scientists at CERN have concluded this based off results in which a beam of neutrinos fired from a particle accelerator in Geneva traveled 434 miles 60 nanoseconds faster than it should have. This may not sound like much, but the error was calculated at 10 nanoseconds and the scientists themselves seem fairly adamant in their results. -
Post reblogged from It's Okay To Be Smart
Dear Carl,
I have just finished The Cosmic Connection and loved every word of it. You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style, and when I read what you write, I hear you talking.
One thing about the book made me nervous. It was entirely too obvious that you are smarter than I am. I hate that.
Yours,
Isaac Asimov(Source: Shaun Usher of Letters of Note)
(Source: jtotheizzoe)
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Photo reblogged from It's Okay To Be Smart
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Photo reblogged from It's Okay To Be Smart
Not every cloud has a multi-coloured lining
A Pileus Iridescent Cloud Over Ethiopia
A group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colours of sunlight by different amounts.
Ahhh, good morning!
