Frog has Last Laugh with Epic Photobomb During LADEE Launch

By on Sep 12, 2013 in Pictures | 0 comments

Frog Photobombs LADEE’s Launch     On Friday September 6 the NASA mission LADEE or  Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer was launched into space to study the moon and get a more detailed look at the Moon’s atmosphere. Well LADEE wasn’t the only thing in the spotlight. A frog was caught in the middle of the launch (unfortunately) and is now immortalized in this photo. However why was the frog there in the first place? Was it by accident or did he just hop along to find what the fuss was all about? Well as it turns out the launchpad at the Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport actually has a high-volume water deluge system which is basically a pool that activates during the launch to protect the launch pad from damage. For more information check out Universe Today’s post.

Record Number of Black Holes Found in Andromeda (M31)

By on Sep 10, 2013 in Astonishing Discoveries | 0 comments

Andromeda Holds the Record of Most Black Holes Found in a Galaxy Other than Our Own Milky Way     Andromeda or M31 is one of the most famous galaxies in astronomy. It’s located 2.5 million light years away and it’s on a collision course with our galaxy the Milky Way. NASA’s Chandra observatory has been observing the universe in the x-ray wavelength and discovering black holes all across the universe. For the last 13 years with 152 observations Chandra has been able to add 26 new black holes to the previous 9 identified in Andromeda. Just think about that for a second. 35 total black holes. Each one of those black holes was caused by a star that was 5-10 times the mass of our Sun and collapsed into a black hole. Let’s take a closer look at Andromeda in x-ray vision.     This Chandra image shows 28 of the 35 black holes in Andromeda. Just seven...

Strange Brown Dwarf as Hot as Your Oven

By on Sep 6, 2013 in Astonishing Discoveries | 1 comment

Strange Brown Dwarf as Hot as Your Oven!     Astronomers gain interesting insight on these failed stars or brown dwarf stars. Brown dwarf stars are essentially star like bodies that have a mass larger than a planet but too small to trigger nuclear fusion and ignite into a full fledged star. These stars are born with very little heat and can produce temperatures from 260 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (125 and 175 degrees Celsius). Their mass can be anywhere from 5 to 20 times the size of Jupiter. Scientists have even discovered a brown dwarf star so cold that even the human body temperature is warmer. However, since they are cold and small it prompts a difficult task to astronomers to accurately measure how dim, big, and far away these stars are. Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope scientists have been able to discover 8 brown dwarfs with precise distances. This helped them...

Happy 36th Birthday Voyager 1!

By on Sep 5, 2013 in Events | 2 comments

Happy 36th Birthday Voyager 1! We Hope You Aren’t too Lonely!     Voyager 1 was launched by NASA on September 5th 1977. It is one of the most exciting spacecrafts NASA has launched simply because it’s travelling as far as it can go and it’s pushing the boundaries of space exploration. It is traveling at a break-neck speed of 17 km per second! For some comparison Earth orbits at 28 km per second. One of the saddest things is that Voyager 1 will no longer be able to power any of instruments in 2025. It’s amazing to think we were able to build something that would last at least 30 years in space where it’s astronomically difficult to account for everything! One of Voyagers first pictures was of Jupiter.     One of the most controversial topics is whether Voyager 1 has actually left our solar system. This doesn’t mean has it gone past...

Astronomers Find Super-Earth 40 Light Years Away to Likely Have Water-Rich Atmosphere

By on Sep 4, 2013 in Breaking News | 3 comments

Astronomers Find Super-Earth to Likely Have Water-Rich Atmosphere     Located 40 light years away from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus lies a super-Earth called GJ 1214 b. A group of japanese astronomers have been studying it to find out what kind of atmospheric properties it has. The research team used Subara Telescope’s two optical cameras with a blue transmission filter to observe the transit of the super-Earth. The observation would help them discern whether the planet had an atmosphere rich in hydrogen or water. Astronomers found that sky of GJ 1214 b did not show a strong Rayleigh scattering feature, which planets with cloudless hydrogen dominated atmospheres would predict. When combined with the other observations in other colors it led the team to believe that this planet had a water-rich atmosphere.   Planetary transits help astronomers investigate...