NASA’s Observatories Begin Deepest Ever Look of the Universe     We’ve looked deep into the universe and almost at the point where we are getting closer to the birth of it. NASA’s Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra telescopes are teaming up to look deeper into the universe. Using the universe’s “zoom lenses” found in space these observatories should be able to uncover galaxies that are 100 times fainter than what we would normally see with these telescopes on their own. In a collaborative team effort called the Frontier Fields astronomers will record and observe data for the next three years. The way they are using the universe as a zoom lens is by using the gravitational fields caused by cluster of galaxies or targeting the most massive amount of matter in the universe. “The Frontier Fields program is exactly what NASA’s great...

How the Largest Star (W26) Known in the Universe is Tearing Itself Apart     A star called W26 located in a supercluster called Westerlund 1. W26 is located in our very own Milky Way and is considered a red supergiant and is 1,500 times bigger than our own sun! Just to humor you and try and give you some perspective think about this. Our Earth has a diameter of 12,742 km. Our sun has a diameter of 1,392,684 km and when we compare that to W26 it has a staggering diameter of 2,089,026,000 km! If W26 was placed in our solar system it would reach out to 13.9 AU (astronomical units – distance from sun to the Earth) which would be further out than Jupiter. That would mean every planet including Jupiter would be sitting inside W26! Now something interesting happened to W26 as astronomers were observing it using the VLT (Very Large Telescope) in Chile. Look at the photo above...