Kategorie: Allgemein

When scientists are looking into space, the more they can see, the easier it is to piece together the puzzle of the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope’s mirror blanks have now been constructed. When polished and assembled, together they will form a mirror whose area is over seven times larger than the Hubble Telescope’s mirror. JWST’s mirror is made up of 18 mirror segments that form a total area of 25 square-meters when they all come together.
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/mirror_size.html

Wie kosmische Leuchtfeuer stehen Supernovae am Himmel. Wissenschaftler vom Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik und dem Nationalen Astronomischen Institut Italiens haben nun einen Weg gefunden, um Entfernungen im All mit den kosmischen Leuchtfeuern künftig genauer zu messen. Die Forscher konnten zeigen, dass alle Supernovae eines bestimmten Typs mit der gleichen Masse und der gleichen Energie explodieren – die Leuchtstärke hängt nur davon ab, wie viel Nickel die Supernova enthält. Mit diesem Wissen können die Forscher die Helligkeit der Supernovae jetzt genauer eichen. Daher können sie aus der Helligkeit einer Supernova, die sie mit ihren Teleskopen beobachten, künftig präziser bestimmen, wie weit von der Erde entfernt der kosmische Leuchtturm strahlt.
Supernovae als kosmische Leuchttürme:
Astrophysiker erklären Unterschiede in der Helligkeit von Sternexplosionen

Supernovae – Cosmic Lighthouses:
Astrophysicists explain the differences in the brightness of supernova explosions

Yesterday, ESA’s Planck satellite was on display for media gathered in Cannes. The press event took place at the facility of Alcatel Alenia Space, Prime Contractor for building the satellite. Special guest was George Smoot, Nobel Prize winner for Physics in 2006 for his research on the Cosmic Microwave background.
Images

ESA’s Planck satellite, due to study relic radiation from the Big Bang, is on display for the media in Cannes. Images of the spacecraft in all its glory will be published on the web at the end of Thursday’s press conference.
http://planck.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=17

Astronomers surveying the nearby Andromeda galaxy have discovered an association of stars in its outskirts, which they believe to be part of a separate galaxy that merged with Andromeda about 700 million years ago. The discovery corresponds to computer models created by University of Massachusetts Amherst astronomer Mark Fardal, which simulate a dwarf galaxy merging with Andromeda.
Evidence of Ancient Galactic Collision Found, Confirmed by UMass Amherst Astronomer’s Model

Mark Fardal: Dynamics in M31’s halo

For a brief time in April 2006, the active region surrounding the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way settled down. Ten different sources of high energy rays all faded away temporarily, and ESA’s Integral probe was able to capture images of less bright regions, which weren’t completely obscured by the bright objects in their vicinity.
Integral sees the Galactic centre playing hide and seek

A planet-hunting satellite that launched in December 2006 has opened its eye to the stars. Its first images suggest the satellite’s instruments are in good working order, paving the way for planet searching to begin in February 2007. The mission, called „Convection, Rotation & Planetary Transits“ (COROT) and led by France’s Centre Nationale d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), launched on December 27, 2006, from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will use a 27-centimetre telescope to look for the tiny brightness dips of stars caused by planets passing in front of them, potentially spotting planets just two or three times the size of Earth.
http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/GP_actualite.htm#janv2007

Astronomers have discovered the most distant population of star clusters ever seen, hidden behind one of the nearest such clusters to Earth. At a distance of more than a billion light-years, the newly discovered star clusters provide a unique probe of what similar systems in our own galaxy once looked like.
http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/media/releases/2007/mr-07-001.html

Providing the best evidence yet for an asteroid belt beyond the solar system, new measurements pinpoint the location of such a disk of warm dust surrounding the star Zeta Leporis. As the January 6, 2007 issue of „Science News“ reports, this dust lies about the same distance from Zeta Leporis as the solar system’s asteroid belt lies from the sun.
Article @ Science News

Mid-infrared resolution of a 3 AU-radius debris disk around Zeta Leporis

Like cold case investigators, astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to uncover evidence of a powerful outburst from the giant black hole at the Milky Way’s center.
https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/gcle/