MessageToEagle.com - Last breaths of dying sun-like star have been captured by scientists using NASA's Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
The object observed by SOFIA, planetary nebula Minkowski 2-9, or M2-9 for short, is seen in this three-color
composite image. The SOFIA observations were made at the mid-infrared wavelengths of 20, 24, and 37 microns.
The 37-micron wavelength band detects the strongest emissions from the nebula and is impossible to observe from
ground-based telescopes.
Objects such as M2-9 are called planetary nebulae due to a mistake made by early astronomers who discovered these
objects while sweeping the sky with small telescopes.
Many of these nebulae have the color, shape and size of Uranus and Neptune, so they were dubbed planetary nebulae.
The name persists despite the fact that these nebulae are now known to be distant clouds of material, far beyond
our solar system, that are shed by stars about the size of our sun undergoing upheavals during their final life stages.
Although the M2-9 nebular material is flowing out from a spherical star, it is extended in one dimension, appearing
as a cylinder or hourglass.
Astronomers hypothesize that planetary nebulae with such shapes are produced by opposing flows of high-speed material
caused by a disk of material around the dying star at the center of the nebula.
SOFIA's observations of M2-9 were designed to study the outflow in detail with the goal of better understanding this
stellar life cycle stage that is important in our galaxy's evolution.
NASA's SOFIA telescope and the FORCAST instrument captured this color-composite image of
the planetary nebula Minkowski 2-9 (M2-9) showing a dying sun-like star. (NASA/DLR/USRA/DSI/FORCAST team)
"The SOFIA images provide our most complete picture of the outflowing material on its way to being recycled into
the next generation of stars and planets," said Michael Werner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
Calif., principal investigator of these observations.
"We were gratified to see the lobes so clearly using SOFIA.
M2-9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most
artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured above, the stars
transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes.
The expended gas frequently forms an impressive display called a planetary nebula that fades gradually over
thousand of years. Credit: B. Balick (U. Washington) et al., WFPC2, HST, NASA
M2-9, (photo above) is a butterfly planetary nebula 2100 light-years away shown in representative colors,
has wings that tell a strange but incomplete tale. In the center, two stars orbit inside a gaseous disk 10 times
the orbit of Pluto. The expelled envelope of the dying star breaks out from the disk creating the bipolar appearance.
Much remains unknown about the physical processes that cause planetary nebulae.
These early results demonstrate the scientific potential of this important new observatory."
The observations were made using the Faint Object Infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) instrument in
June 2011 by a team consisting of astronomers from JPL, the California Institute of Technology, the University of
California at Los Angeles, Cornell University and Ithaca College, Ithaca, N.Y. Preliminary analyses of these data
were first presented in January 2012 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas.
The SOFIA observatory combines an extensively modified Boeing 747SP aircraft and a 17-metric-ton reflecting telescope
with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters (100 inches) that is capable of reaching altitudes as high as 45,000 feet
(14 km), above more than 99 percent of the water vapor in Earth's atmosphere that blocks most infrared radiation
from celestial sources.
SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and is based and managed at NASA's Dryden
Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages the
SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association (USRA),
headquartered in Columbia, Md., and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart.
Why Do We See The Man In The Moon?
There’s something poetic about gazing up at the night sky, seeing the familiar face of the “Man in the Moon” who faithfully accompanies us through life.
The synchronous rotation of the Moon - it takes the same amount of time to spin around its own axis as it does to revolve around Earth -
is what causes the Moon to "lock eyes" with Earth.
This results in one of its hemispheres constantly facing us.
Alien Species Living In The Inner Milky Way Could Be In Danger
Few people doubt there is intelligent alien life in the Milky Way galaxy, but where can we expect to find it?
Astronomers think that while the inner sector of the MIlky Way Galaxy may be the most likely to support habitable worlds.
Unfortunately some of these places are also most dangerous to all life-forms.
Black Holes With No 'Table Manners' Eat Two Courses At Once!
It is still unknown how the supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galaxy centres accrete gas and grow.
Researchers from the University of Leicester (UK) and Monash University in Australia have investigated how some black holes got so big so fast that they are billions of times heavier than the sun.
Mercury Surprises Scientists
On March 17, MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) completed its one-year primary mission, orbiting Mercury, capturing nearly 100,000 images, and recording data
that reveals new information about the planet's core, topography, and the mysterious radar bright material in the permanently shadowed areas near the poles.
Living Earth Simulator - Supercomputer Predicting The Future
In Douglas Adams book the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy we encounter a machine called Deep Thought. It is the most powerful computer ever built. Deep Thought is capable of answering questions
concerning life, the Universe, and simply everything. Now scientists are planning to create a similar machine. It is called the Living Earth Simulator (LES).
Cosmic Robbers: Black Hole Jets May Cause
Galaxy NGC 3801 To Die And Lose Its Stars
Armchair explorers of the cosmos can now have at their fingertips the nearly 2,000 distant planetary systems discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission.
Now available for free from the iTunes App Store, Kepler Explorer was developed through the OpenLab initiative at UC Santa Cruz,
which brought together faculty and students in astrophysics, art, and technology for a summer institute last year.
New Kepler Explorer:
View The 1,790 Distant Planetary Systems - For Free!
Armchair explorers of the cosmos can now have at their fingertips the nearly 2,000 distant planetary systems discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission.
Now available for free from the iTunes App Store, Kepler Explorer was developed through the OpenLab initiative at UC Santa Cruz,
which brought together faculty and students in astrophysics, art, and technology for a summer institute last year.
Warp-Speed Planets Are Some Of The Fastest Objects In The Milky Way
Warped planets are some of the fastest objects in the Milky Way and they zoom through space near the speed of light.
Some years ago astronomers were astonished when they they found the first runaway star flying out of our Galaxy at a speed of 1.5 million miles per hour.
The discovery intrigued theorists, who wondered: If a star can get tossed outward at such an extreme velocity, could the same thing happen to planets?
Though the universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, the discovery of a single variable star in 1923 altered the
course of modern astronomy. And, at least one famous astronomer of the time lamented that the discovery had shattered his world view.
Bright Star In The Constellation Lyra Is Cooler Than The Human Body
The coldest class of stars have temperatures as cool as the human body.
Astronomers hunted these dark orbs, termed Y dwarfs, for more than a decade without success.
When viewed with a visible-light telescope, they are nearly impossible to see.
Thermonuclear Burning In A Neutron Star Detected For The First Time!
It's a very important discovery!
For the first time, an international team of scientists have detected all phases of thermonuclear burning in a
neutron star, located close to the center of the galaxy in the globular cluster Terzan 5.
MessageToEagle.com - Last breaths of dying sun-like star have been captured by scientists using NASA's Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
There’s something poetic about gazing up at the night sky, seeing the familiar face of the “Man in the Moon” who faithfully accompanies us through life.
The synchronous rotation of the Moon - it takes the same amount of time to spin around its own axis as it does to revolve around Earth -
is what causes the Moon to "lock eyes" with Earth.
This results in one of its hemispheres constantly facing us.
Few people doubt there is intelligent alien life in the Milky Way galaxy, but where can we expect to find it?
Astronomers think that while the inner sector of the MIlky Way Galaxy may be the most likely to support habitable worlds.
Unfortunately some of these places are also most dangerous to all life-forms.
It is still unknown how the supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galaxy centres accrete gas and grow.
Researchers from the University of Leicester (UK) and Monash University in Australia have investigated how some black holes got so big so fast that they are billions of times heavier than the sun.
On March 17, MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) completed its one-year primary mission, orbiting Mercury, capturing nearly 100,000 images, and recording data
that reveals new information about the planet's core, topography, and the mysterious radar bright material in the permanently shadowed areas near the poles.
In Douglas Adams book the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy we encounter a machine called Deep Thought. It is the most powerful computer ever built. Deep Thought is capable of answering questions
concerning life, the Universe, and simply everything. Now scientists are planning to create a similar machine. It is called the Living Earth Simulator (LES).
Armchair explorers of the cosmos can now have at their fingertips the nearly 2,000 distant planetary systems discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission.
Now available for free from the iTunes App Store, Kepler Explorer was developed through the OpenLab initiative at UC Santa Cruz,
which brought together faculty and students in astrophysics, art, and technology for a summer institute last year.
Armchair explorers of the cosmos can now have at their fingertips the nearly 2,000 distant planetary systems discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission.
Now available for free from the iTunes App Store, Kepler Explorer was developed through the OpenLab initiative at UC Santa Cruz,
which brought together faculty and students in astrophysics, art, and technology for a summer institute last year.
Warped planets are some of the fastest objects in the Milky Way and they zoom through space near the speed of light.
Some years ago astronomers were astonished when they they found the first runaway star flying out of our Galaxy at a speed of 1.5 million miles per hour.
The discovery intrigued theorists, who wondered: If a star can get tossed outward at such an extreme velocity, could the same thing happen to planets?
Though the universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, the discovery of a single variable star in 1923 altered the
course of modern astronomy. And, at least one famous astronomer of the time lamented that the discovery had shattered his world view.
The coldest class of stars have temperatures as cool as the human body.
Astronomers hunted these dark orbs, termed Y dwarfs, for more than a decade without success.
When viewed with a visible-light telescope, they are nearly impossible to see.
It's a very important discovery!
For the first time, an international team of scientists have detected all phases of thermonuclear burning in a
neutron star, located close to the center of the galaxy in the globular cluster Terzan 5.