thescienceofreality:

thesciencellama:

This is my tribute to Neil deGrasse Tyson

KNEEL BEFORE NEIL!!!

This is perfect. 

cozydark:

How Big Can Black Holes Get? |

Some of the biggest black holes in the Universe may actually be even bigger than previously thought, according to a study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Astronomers have long known about the class of the largest black holes, which they call “supermassive” black holes. Typically, these black holes have masses ranging between a few million and a few billion times that of our sun.

This new analysis of the brightest galaxies in a sample of 18 galaxy clusters suggests that the masses of at least ten of the supermassive black holes in these galaxies are ultramassive, in that they weigh between 10 and 40 billion times the mass of the sun. Astronomers refer to black holes of this size as “ultramassive” black holes and only know of a few confirmed examples.

“Our results show that there may be many more ultramassive black holes in the universe than previously thought,” said study leader Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo of Stanford University and formerly of Cambridge University in the UK.

The researchers estimated the masses of the black holes in the sample by using an established relationship between masses of black holes, and the amount of X-rays and radio waves they generate. This relationship, called the fundamental plane of black hole activity, fits the data on black holes with masses ranging from 10 solar masses to a billion solar masses.

The black hole masses derived by Hlavacek-Larrondo and her colleagues were about ten times larger than those derived from standard relationships between black hole mass and the properties of their host galaxy. One of these relationships involves a correlation between the black hole mass and the infrared luminosity of the central region, or bulge, of the galaxy.

“These results may mean we don’t really understand how the very biggest black holes coexist with their host galaxies,” said co-author Andrew Fabian of Cambridge University. “It looks like the behavior of these huge black holes has to differ from that of their less massive cousins in an important way.” continue reading

astronomicalwonders:

The Cat Paw Nebula

image from: eso.org

for more wonders of the universe follow: AstronomicalWonders.tumblr.com

cozydark:

Loop Quantum Cosmology: New Paradigm Shift for the Infant Universe |

A new paradigm for understanding the earliest eras in the history of the universe has been developed by scientists at Penn State University. Using techniques from an area of modern physics called loop quantum cosmology, developed at Penn State, the scientists now have extended analyses that include quantum physics farther back in time than ever before — all the way to the beginning. The new paradigm of loop quantum origins shows, for the first time, that the large-scale structures we now see in the universe evolved from fundamental fluctuations in the essential quantum nature of “space-time,” which existed even at the very beginning of the universe over 14 billion years ago. The achievement also provides new opportunities for testing competing theories of modern cosmology against breakthrough observations expected from next-generation telescopes.

The research will be published on 11 December 2012 as an “Editor’s Suggestion” paper in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

“We humans always have yearned to understand more about the origin and evolution of our universe,” said Abhay Ashtekar, the senior author of the paper. “So it is an exciting time in our group right now, as we begin using our new paradigm to understand, in more detail, the dynamics that matter and geometry experienced during the earliest eras of the universe, including at the very beginning.” Ashtekar is the Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Physics at Penn State and the director of the university’s Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. Coauthors of the paper, along with Ashtekar, are postdoctoral fellows Ivan Agullo and William Nelson. continue reading

astronomicalwonders:

M8, The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius 

image from: astrophotography gallery 

for more wonders of the universe follow: AstronomicalWonders.tumblr.com

fyeahuniverse:

The Antennae Galaxies by NASA, CXC, SAO, NASA, JPL-Caltech, STScI

NGC 6744: Milky Way Look Alike by Harel Boren

ikenbot:

Cygnus OB2: Probing a Nearby Stellar Cradle

The Milky Way and other galaxies in the universe harbor many young star clusters and associations that each contain hundreds to thousands of hot, massive, young stars known as O and B stars.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.Drake et al, Optical: Univ. of Hertfordshire/INT/IPHAS, Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SST

The star cluster Cygnus OB2 contains more than 60 O-type stars and about a thousand B-type stars. At a relatively nearby distance to Earth of about 5,000 light years, Cygnus OB2 is the closest massive cluster. Deep observations with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of Cygnus OB2 have been used to detect the X-ray emission from the hot outer atmospheres, or coronas, of young stars in the cluster and to probe how these great star factories form and evolve.

About 1,700 X-ray sources were detected, including about 1,450 thought to be stars in the cluster. In this image, X-rays from Chandra (blue) have been combined with infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (red) and optical data from the Isaac Newton Telescope (yellow).

Young stars ranging in age from one million to seven million years were detected. The infrared data indicates that a very low fraction of the stars have circumstellar disks of dust and gas. Even fewer disks were found close to the massive OB stars, betraying the corrosive power of their intense radiation that leads to early destruction of their disks.

Evidence is also seen that the older population of stars has lost its most massive members because of supernova explosions. Finally, a total mass of about 30,000 times the mass of the sun is derived for Cygnus OB2, similar to that of the most massive star forming regions in our Galaxy.

spaceplasma:

HDW 2 Ancient Planetary Nebula in Cassiopeia

HDW 2 (Hartl-Dengl-Weinberger 2), also known as Sharpless 2-200 and PNG 138.1+04.1, is an ancient planetary nebula (PN) in Cassiopeia at RA 3hr 11m 29s and DEC +62d 45m 5s. The bright part of the object is about 6’ in diameter, North is toward the lower left and the field is ~32’ x 32’. According to Weidmann and Gamen (A&A, 526, A6, 2011) the central star (CSPN - central star of a planetary nebula) is a binary (bc-CSPN); a designation “corresponding to binarity for the cool CSPN”.

The object’s color is a mixture of the blue/green OIII and red/magenta H-a. It is roughly circular with a central area having marked striations and a dark region toward the south, surrounded by a thin gap and then what appears to be an outer bright ring, or halo that also has some fine structure. We are probably looking at the edge of an expanded, spherical shell from an earlier expulsive event. Beyond this, there is apparently an even older, diffuse outer halo lacking in structure and barely detectable with our system. There is a fainter reddish arc of background H-a nebulosity surrounding the object opening toward the north.

This image was compiled from 22.5 hours of 3 nm OIII and H-a narrowband data and an additional 75 min. of RGB for star color using a G2V sunlike white point. The H-a data were mapped to red/magenta and the OIII data were mapped to blue/green.

Credit: Don Goldman

sciencecenter:

That’s not a slick photoshop job

Nope, residents in the Bay Area could actually look up at the sky on September 12 and see pi, written out to 1000 digits, printed by 5 planes. The project, called Pi in the Sky, was undertaken by ISHKY, a group of artists, scientists, and programmers with the goal of exploring ”the boundaries of scale, public space, impermanence, and the relationship between Earth and the physical universe.” Just to prove it to you, here’s some live video of the digits being printed (sky written? sky printed? skrinted?) in real time:

What’s amazing to me is how fast the skrinting goes - any clue how they do it?

Quick Links

• Pi in the Sky - Open Culture
• CHEMTRAILS ARE REAL! (Just Kidding)

astronomicalwonders:

M42, Orion’s Sword

image from: astrophotography gallery 

for more wonders of the universe follow: AstronomicalWonders.tumblr.com

astronomicalwonders:

IC5070

image from: NASA.gov

For more wonders of the universe follow: AstronomicalWonders.tumblr.com

ikenbot:

The Wizard Nebula

An open Star Cluster NGC 7380 surrounded of the Diffuse Nebula Sh2-142 and a Wolf-Rayet star in Cepheus.

conduittothecosmos:

The Big Dipper, also known as Orion’s Belt (x)