New Theory of Beginning of Universe Suggest Not a Big Bang but a Black Hole

By on Sep 26, 2013 in Breaking News | 0 comments

A New Theory Suggest that the Birth of the Universe May Have Been from a 4-D Black Hole     A new journal published by astronomers at the University of Waterloo suggest that the birth of the universe didn’t happen from the Big Bang but a 4 dimensional black hole. If your brain hurts then just bear with me because this article is going to get rough. Let’s say that of course nobody actually knows how the universe was born without understanding what happened in the planck era, which deserves another write up but for now you can read this if you are interested.   Before we move on it is my duty to explain that this paper is only raising questions and not exactly answering them. Furthermore, these ideas are not entirely new to the scientific community and have been kicking around for about 20 years.   So before we had the stars, planets and galaxies we had a...

First Images from New APEX Camera

By on Sep 25, 2013 in Breaking News | 0 comments

New Images from Apex Camera   Credit: ESO   This is a brand new image of star formation region called NGC 6334 or called the Cat Paw nebula, taken by the new Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) camera. Actually APEX isn’t new but a camera called ArTeMiS, a new wide-field submillimetre-wavelength camera, was installed and can bring more in depth details to the images. The telescope is a 12 meter diameter telescope located high in the Atacama Desert. It operates at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths which is between infrared light and radio waves in the electromagnetic spectrum. The camera completed the tests and will now take a trip to Saclay in France in order to install the additional detectors in the instrument. According to the ESO (European Southern Observatory),”The new generation detector array of ArTeMIS acts more like a CCD camera than the previous...

Hubble Finds Densest Nearby Galaxy

By on Sep 24, 2013 in Breaking News | 0 comments

Hubble Finds Densest Nearby Galaxy     Hubble finds new evidence for densest galaxy in nearby galaxy. Well nearby in astronomical terms which is 54 million light years away from Earth. The galaxy M60-UCD1 is located near a massive elliptical galaxy known as NGC 4649 or M60. The galaxy weighs more than 200 million times the mass of our own sun or if you took all the matter within 80 light years of us it would equal that much weight. The density of the stars in that region weigh 15,000 times more than found in the Milky Way neighborhood. They describe this galaxy as an ultra compact dwarf galaxy. The stars are also 25 times closer than typical stars in a galaxy so you can start to see a sense of how close the stars are. With further observations astronomers found an interesting x-ray emitting energy source at its center. Finding it at the center wasn’t the interesting...

Young Stars are Born in the Prawn Nebula

By on Sep 23, 2013 in Breaking News | 0 comments

Young Stars are Born in the Prawn Nebula     This image is one of the latest news releases from the VLT or Very Large Telescope which is operated by the European Southern observatory. This is the Prawn Nebula located 6,000 light years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius. This is a star forming region with heavy amounts of gas and dust that are being condensed into new stars as well as planets. What causes these clouds to glow is the ultraviolet light that is given off from the stars. The radiation strips the electrons from the hydrogen atoms, then later recombines and emits the bright light you see here. The Prawn nebula is 250 light years across or 4 times the size of a full moon in our sky. The Prawn Nebula is also located within our Milky Way. The VLT is supported by 15 countries and has been focusing on studying nebula’s within the Milky Way. The Prawn...

Hidden Secrets of the Carina Nebula

By on Sep 22, 2013 in Pictures | 0 comments

Hidden Secrets of the Carina Nebula     This is a stunning image of the Carina nebula. It is located somewhere between 6,500 and 10,000 light years from Earth or right in our Milky Way. This image was taken in infrared by the European Southern Observatory. It holds two of the most massive and luminous stars in our galaxy called Eta Carinae and HD 93129A. Eta Carinae is about 100-150 times the mass of our sun and is 4 million times more luminous than it as well. Carina Nebula is a great example of how massive stars are born as well as the aftermath of being ripped apart leaving waves of gas everywhere. It’s a highly active region and is thought to be around for the last 3 million years. If you were to travel across the Carina Nebula it would take you about 260 light years. Some of the hidden secrets of the Carina Nebula lie with the Eta Carinae as it will eventually...

The Most Important Image in Astronomy: Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image

By on Sep 21, 2013 in Pictures | 0 comments

The Most Important Image in Astronomy: Hubble Deep Field Image     If you ever thought about what is one of the most exciting and important images in astronomy then check out Hubble’s ultra deep field image. You are looking at a region of space of 1mm by 1mm and that is 13 billion light years away! The universe is about 13.77 billion years old so that should give you some perspective in how far back we are looking. As you can see in the image there are a plethora of galaxies. Actually there are something like 10,000+ galaxies in the ultra deep field. Hubble started collecting data for the ultra deep field image in September of 2003 and completed in January of 2004. It took 400 orbits and 1 million seconds of exposure time! The furthest galaxy ever discovered is a galaxy that was born 380 million years after the Big Bang. Here is an image of all the oldest galaxies found...

When Galaxies Collide: Antennae Galaxy

By on Sep 19, 2013 in Pictures | 0 comments

When Galaxies Collide: Antennae Galaxy     The Antennae galaxy is located 45 million light years away from Earth in the constellation Corvus. The image above shows a zoomed out shot of the galaxies interacting with each other. The story goes that about 1.2 billion years ago there were two galaxies known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039. The two galaxies that have collided with each other and it get’s its name Antennae from the two streaks of gas and stars resulted from the galactic collision. The nuclei of the two galaxies has merged together to create one giant galaxy. Interestingly astronomers say that it’s not the stars that collide together but the gas and molecular clouds that collide and have ferocious formations of stars. The view above spans over 500,000 light years.  

Gorgeous Image of the Tadpole Galaxy

By on Sep 18, 2013 in Pictures | 0 comments

The Tadpole Galaxy     The Tadpole galaxy is a disrupted barred galaxy located 400 million light years from Earth in the northern constellation Draco. Tadpole galaxies tail of stars is one of the most striking features. It stretches across 280,000 light years whereas our Milky Way is about 100,000 to 120,000 light years across. The main body or galaxy itself is about 300,000 light years behind the tail. The Tadpole galaxy will likely lose its tail as it gets older. Now as you can see that the galaxy is disrupted and there is a theory of how that may have happened. The story goes that a smaller galaxy collided with the Tadpole galaxy from left to right in this view. It was then slung around behind the Tadpole galaxy by their gravitational attraction. During this event the interaction drew out the spiral galaxies stars and the intruder itself can be seen 300,000 light years...