Weird Galaxy Glows Bright in Amazing Telescope Photo

Interesting stuff… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com

A telescope in Chile has caught a spectacular new view of a peculiar galaxy with a monster black hole at its heart.

The new image shows the galaxy Centaurus A, which is a sprawling elliptical galaxy located about 12 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). The peculiar galaxy emits strong radio emissions and is the most prominent radio galaxy in the sky, according to officials from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

Centaurus A’s bright nucleus, powerful radio emissions, and jets may be produced by a supermassive central black hole that is 100 million times more massive than the sun, astronomers have said. As matter falls toward the black hole, the dense, central parts of the galaxy release huge amounts of energy, ESO officials said in a statement.

The new image of Centaurus A, which is also known as NGC 5128, was produced by the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope’s Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

The portrait reveals the elongated shape of the fainter, outer sections of the galaxy. The dreamy glow is created by hundreds of billions of cooler, older stars in the vicinity. But unlike most elliptical galaxies, Centaurus A has a broad patchy band of dark material at its heart that obscures the galactic center.

This dark region is full of gas, dust and young stars, ESO officials said. At the upper right and lower left edges of the band, bright, young star clusters can be seen. Star-forming clouds of hydrogen, with their distinct red glow can also be distinguished.

These intriguing features, and the strong radio signals from Centaurus A, strongly suggest that the galaxy is the result of a violent galaxy merger. The dusty band is likely the remains of a spiral galaxy that is being ripped apart by the gravitational pull of a massive elliptical galaxy, ESO officials said.

Reddish filaments that stretch from the galaxy to the upper left corner of the photo are stellar nurseries that contain hot, newborn stars. The inner filaments above the left side of Centaurus A’s dusty band, are about 30,000 light-years from the galaxy’s nucleus.

In the upper left corner of the image, the outer filaments are visible, which are even more distant, at approximately 65,000 light-years from the galaxy’s center.

Using long exposures and special filters that isolate light from glowing hydrogen and oxygen, researchers can spot special features, such as Centaurus A’s optical jet features. In fact, astronomers think a very faint trace of a counter jet reaching to the lower right of the image may have also been captured in this view.

Centaurus A is a popular subject for astronomers, and the elliptical galaxy has been studied at a variety of wavelengths, ranging from radio to gamma rays. X-ray and radio observations have helped researchers study how the energy released from the central super massive black hole interacts with its surroundings.

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‘Ring of Fire’ Solar Eclipse Occurs May 20

For you sky-watchers out there… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By Mike Wall | SPACE.com

Skywatchers in East Asia and the western United States should circle Sunday (May 20) on their calendars. That’s when a solar eclipse will block out most of the sun, leaving a spectacular “ring of fire” shining in the sky for observers located along the eclipse’s path.

The event is what’s known as an annular solar eclipse — from the Latin “annulus,” meaning “little ring” — and its full glory should be visible from much of Asia, the Pacific region and some of western North America, weather permitting. At its peak, the eclipse will block about 94 percent of the sun’s light.

Other parts of the United States and Canada will still see a partial solar eclipse, without being treated to the ring of fire effect, though the East Coast will miss the event since the sun will have set before it begins. The eclipse will occur in the late afternoon or early evening of May 20 throughout North America, and May 21 for observers in Asia. Check out this eclipse skywatching guide to learn more about viewing locations and times.

 Solar eclipses occur when the moon comes between Earth and the sun, casting a shadow on our planet. When the moon lines up perfectly with the sun and blots out all of its light, the result is a total eclipse. Partial eclipses cover only part of the sun’s face. [Annular Solar Eclipse of May 20, 2012 (Photo Guide)]

Annular eclipses are similar to total eclipses in that the moon lines up with the sun dead-on. But in this case, the moon is close to apogee — the farthest point from Earth in its elliptical orbit around our planet — so it’s a smidge too small in the sky to cover the solar disk completely. As a result, a ring of bright sunlight will still blaze around the moon’s circumference.

Like other types of solar eclipses, annular eclipses are spectacular but potentially dangerous skywatching events. Care must be taken to observe them properly, or serious and permanent eye damage — including blindness — could result.

Warning: Never look directly at the sun, either with the naked eye or through telescopes or binoculars without the proper filters.

To safely observe the May 20 annular eclipse, you can buy special solar filters to fit over your equipment, or No. 14 welder’s glass to wear over your eyes. Do NOT use standard sunglasses or any kind of homemade sun-shading contraption.

The safest and simplest technique is perhaps to watch the eclipse indirectly with the solar projection method. Use your telescope, or one side of your binoculars, to project a magnified image of the sun’s disk onto a shaded white piece of cardboard.

The image on the cardboard will be safe to view and photograph. Be sure to cover the telescope’s finder scope or the unused half of the binoculars, however, and don’t let anybody look through them.

And if you snap any good eclipse photos that you’d like to be considered for use in a story or gallery, send them to SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

‘Supermoon’ Tonight! Tips to See Year’s Biggest Full Moon, Meteor Shower

Our closest neighbor in space will be at its closest tonight. Hope you enjoy the view… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By Tariq Malik | SPACE.com

If the full moon looks a bit bigger and brighter in tonight’s sky, you’re not seeing things: It’s just the “supermoon” — the biggest moon of 2012. And there’s a meteor shower from Halley’s comet peaking tonight, too, adding to the sky show.

The full moon of May will hit its peak overnight tonight and early Sunday (May 5 and 6) just one minute after the moon makes its closest approach to Earth. The timing means the moon, weather permitting, could appear up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the average full moon, an event scientists have nicknamed the “supermoon.”

The moon will be at its fullest at 11:35 p.m. EDT (0335 Sunday GMT) just after hitting perigee, the point in its orbit that brings the moon closest to Earth. The technical name for the event is a “perigee moon,” though NASA and other scientists have dubbed May’s full moon as the supermoon of 2012.

The moon will be about 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) from Earth, about 12.2 percent closer to our planet than when the moon is at apogee, its farthest point. The average Earth-moon distance is about 230,000 miles (384,400 km).

The last time a supermoon occurred was in March 2011. That supermoon was actually closer to Earth than the moon will be tonight by about 248 miles (400 km).

Big moon rising

A good time to watch is during moonrise or moonset. At these times, due to reasons astronomers don’t fully understand, the moon can appear much larger than when it is higher in the sky. But the view is actually an optical illusion (also known as the “moon illusion”).

The moon is no larger than it is when it’s overhead in the night sky and you can prove it yourself. Here’s how, when the moon is low on the horizon measure its size with a ruler or your thumb and forefinger. When it’s higher up in the sky, try again. The distances will be the same.

For observers in California, the moon will rise at about 7:37 p.m. PDT, while skywatchers with a clear horizon on the East Coast will see it rise at 7:46 p.m. EDT, though you can find the exact time for your location using the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

The extra big full moon of May can mean higher tides on Earth, an effect called “perigean tides,” but

“In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual,” astronomer Tony Phillips wrote in a NASA supermoon alert. “Local geography can amplify the effect to about 15 centimeters (6 inches) — not exactly a great flood.” There is also no chance of the supermoon posing a threat to Earth.

Meteors from Halley’s comet

The supermoon is not the only celestial sight gracing the evening skies this weekend. Tonight, the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower will hit its peak, promising up to 60 meteors per hour for skywatchers with optimum viewing conditions (clear weather and away from city lights).

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is one of two “shooting star” displays created by dust left over by the famed Halley’s comet as it makes its 76-year trip around the sun. The Orionid meteor shower in October is the other meteor show from the comet.

While the supermoon is expected to outshine the fainter Eta Aquarid meteors, NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke predicts that some bright fireballs may be visible. Cooke and his observing team at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have already recorded several bright fireballs from the Eta Aquarids and are looking forward to seeing more tonight using the agency’s network of all-sky meteor cameras.

“Ideal viewing conditions are clear skies away from city lights, especially just before dawn,” NASA officials wrote in an Eta Aquarid meteor observing guide. ” Find an area well away from city or street lights. Lie flat on your back on a blanket, lawn chair or sleeping bag and look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. After about 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors. Be patient — the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.”

Views from NASA’s all-sky cameras are available to view the Eta Aquarid meteor shower remotely here: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/allsky.html

If you snap an amazing photo of the supermoon of May or Eta Aquarid meteor shower and would like to share it with SPACE.com for a story or gallery, send photos and comments to managing editor Tariq Malik at: tmalik@space.com.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Mars Volcanic Glass May Be Hotspot for Life

It would be so cool to discover life on Mars, or on one of Jupiter’s moons. So far, these are the most likely places within our “immediate” proximity where life appears likely. It would be even more cool if we were visited by some advanced civilization residing in deep space; as long as they were friendly… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By Nola Taylor Redd | SPACE.com

Glass sand on Mars may point the way to chemically-rich water ideal for hosting life. The newly discovered glass dune fields, spread across almost a third of the planet, likely formed from interactions between magma and ice, or water — interactions that could create the perfect environments for microbial life.

The northern lowlands spread across millions of square miles in the Red Planet’s northern hemisphere. But dark sediments in the region have puzzled planetary scientists.

Briony Horgan and James Bell, both of Arizona State University, used the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter to re-examine light radiated from the Martian plains. They determined that the strange readings were caused by sand composed of glass.

“We’re actually seeing glass particles, like glass sand,” Horgan said.

A glassy sea of sand

Such landforms are not unique to Mars. Iceland boasts thousands of square miles of desert dominated by glass sand.

The Martian dunes don’t just make an interesting vacation spot. They also provide tantalizing hints toward their formation.

“The only way to create an extensive glassy deposit like that is through explosive volcanism,” Horgan said. [Photos: Volcanoes on Mars]

“This is the first direct evidence on Mars for explosive volcanism on a planetary scale.”

When a Martian volcano erupts, the thin atmosphere and difference in pressure should make for some great pyrotechnics. But a fiery eruption alone won’t guarantee glass.  It takes an interaction with water or ice to manage that.

“When lava or magma interacts with ice or water, it is quenched, which means it rapidly cools and solidifies,” said Claire Cousins of the University of London.

“This rapid cooling prevents any crystals from growing, and so a volcanic glass is produced.”

Cousins, who was not involved in the new research, has studied volcanic environments in Iceland and Antarctica as Martian analogues, and is investigating subglacial volcanoes on Earth as habitats for life.

The glassy plains also show evidence of water-related weathering. As ice melted across the lowlands, it mixed with the strange sand to form an acid. With enough exposure to the iron inside the sand, the chemicals would neutralize, which means that only a constantly renewed water source, like melting ice or snow, could cause the leaching the team saw.

Details on the newfound Martian landforms were published online in the journal Geology.

A hotspot for life

The glassy expanse would not be the best location to search for life. But it could lead to more promising environments.

“We definitely know searching for organisms in the northern lowlands is difficult,” Horgan said.

“I think the better place to go would be those source regions, the ice-magma interactions.”

Referring to hydrothermal systems and subglacial lakes, she said, “Those have been identified as places where biosignatures could have been preserved.”

Cousins agreed.

“Regions of volcano-ice interactions on Earth provide a wide range of hydrothermal environments that can be exploited by microbial life,” she said.

If a volcano erupts beneath a glacier, the heat could form huge subglacial lakes.

“It’s the perfect place for microbes,” Horgan said. “A nice, warm, safe place for microbes to hang out, with lots of chemicals around to munch on.”

Locating the lakes

Finding such water sources could prove to be a challenge.  After a volcanic  explosion, the newly-created sand could fall from the sky. But although scientists have modeled a number of possibilities, they haven’t quite been able to make the sand spread across the lowlands.

“There’s only a couple of ways to move this stuff around,” Horgan said.

Sand-sized ash is too heavy to travel far from the vents. The northern highlands are hundreds to thousands of miles from known volcanoes, however, which has left scientists puzzled.

The glass sand could provide a valuable clue. Because it requires ice or water to form, the subglacial lakes they suggest could solve part of the distribution problem.

Though the water would initially be contained – and ripe for life – eventually it could break free of the walls containing it, creating enormous floods across the lowlands.

“This would be similar to some of the catastrophic floods people have talked about for Mars.”

The presence of glass sand, and their requirement of water to form, bring a clearer understanding to the geology of the Red Planet, and a more concrete suggestion on where to look for life.

“It’s the first time we’ve really seen evidence for ice-related alterations on Mars,” Horgan said.

“It’s something we’re really excited to look into.”

This story was provided by Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program.

‘Supermoon’ Alert: Biggest Full Moon of 2012 Occurs This Week

For you star gazers out there… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com

Skywatchers take note: The biggest full moon of the year is due to arrive this weekend.

The moon will officially become full Saturday (May 5) at 11:35 p.m. EDT. And because this month’s full moon coincides with the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth — it will also be the year’s biggest.

The moon will swing in 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) from our planet, offering skywatchers a spectacular view of an extra-big, extra-bright moon, nicknamed a supermoon.

And not only does the moon’s perigee coincide with full moon this month, but this perigee will be the nearest to Earth of any this year, as the distance of the moon’s close approach varies by about 3 percent, according to meteorologist Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s skywatching columnist. This happens because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular.

This month’s full moon is due to be about 16 percent brighter than average. In contrast, later this year on Nov. 28, the full moon will coincide with apogee, the moon’s farthest approach, offering a particularly small and dim full moon.

Though the unusual appearance of this month’s full moon may be surprising to some, there’s no reason for alarm, scientists warn. The slight distance difference isn’t enough to cause any earthquakes or extreme tidal effects, experts say.

However, the normal tides around the world will be particularly high and low. At perigee, the moon will exert about 42 percent more tidal force than it will during its next apogee two weeks later, Rao said.

The last supermoon occurred in March 2011.

To view this weekend’s supermoon to best effect, look for it just after it rises or before it sets, when it is close to the horizon. There, you can catch a view of the moon behind buildings or trees, an effect which produces an optical illusion, making the moon seem even larger than it really is.

Editor’s note: If you’d like to share your supermoon photos for a possible story or gallery, send images and comments to SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik: tmalik@space.com.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Odds of Finding Alien Life Boosted by Billions of Habitable Worlds

How about that, there is a very good likelihood that God didn’t create us in his image. Certainly we’re not the only intelligent life in the entire universe… What would be the odds of that, given the billions of habitable “rocks” out there in space? TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By Nola Taylor Redd | SPACE.com – Sat, Apr 28, 2012

A new estimate of the number of habitable planets orbiting the most common type of stars in our galaxy could have huge consequences for the search for life.

According to a recent study, tens of billions of planets around red dwarfs are likely capable of containing liquid water, dramatically increasing the potential to find signs of life somewhere other than Earth.

Red dwarfs are stars that are fainter, cooler and less massive than the sun. These stars, which typically also live longer than Class G stars like the sun, are thought to make up about 80 percent of the stars in the Milky Way, astronomers have said.

A second look

Red dwarfs generally have not been considered viable candidates for hosting habitable planets. Since red dwarfs are small and dim, the habitable zone surrounding them — the region where an orbiting planet’s surface water can remain liquid — is relatively close to them.

“The habitable zone would be very, very small. Consequently, the chances that you would actually find any planet at the right distance from the sun to be attractive to life was likely to be small, too,” said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, Calif. [The Strangest Alien Planets]

But the study, based on data from the European Space Agency’s HARPS spectrograph in Chile, used a sample of 102 red dwarfs to estimate that 41 percent of the dim stars might be hiding planets in their habitable zone.

“The number of habitats might increase by a factor of 8 or 10,” Shostak told SPACE.com.

Difficult environments

One of the largest concerns about planets circling red dwarfs is radiation. A red dwarf’s habitable zone is generally closer to it than Mercury is to our sun, so a planet there would receive a strong shock of particles when storms erupted on the red dwarf.

“They could essentially give everything on the surface that’s exposed to the sky … a heavy dose of radiation,” Shostak said. “It could be fatal.”

However, if the alien planet had a magnetic field, this could provide some protection. So, too, could an ocean of water. Life that evolved beneath an ocean might be shielded from the brunt of the radiation.

(That’s not necessarily good news for SETI, which searches for signals from extraterrestrial life. “We’re not sure intelligent life, if under water, will be building radio transmitters and we’re going to hear from them,” Shostak said. “But it’s possible.”)

Another problem with planets tightly bound to their host star is a phenomenon known as tidal locking, in which one side of the world is perpetually turned toward the sun and receiving almost all of the heat.

But this isn’t considered as big of a problem now as it had been.

For one thing, research over the past few years has indicated that the presence of other planets can ease the grip of the parent star, keeping a planet from being perfectly stagnant.

Furthermore, if the planet has an atmosphere, it might also boast wind, which could move the hot atmosphere to the dark side and the cool atmosphere to the sunlit side.

“Clearly, if it’s too cold on one side and too hot on the other, somewhere in the middle there’s that lovely Goldilocks zone where everybody wants to build their condos,” Shostak said.

Even with these challenges, the sheer influx of tens of billions of potentially habitable planets improves the chances of finding alien life.

“SETI is looking for Mr. Right or maybe Ms. Right, depending on your point of view,” Shostak said. “It helps to find out that there’s 10 times as many candidates as there were before.”

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

5 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams

One thing is for certain, item 3 below is definitely true. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen often enough, but when it does it is really special. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Live Science

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor | LiveScience.com

When your head hits the pillow, for many it’s lights out for the conscious part of you. But the cells firing in your brain are very much awake, sparking enough energy to produce the sometimes vivid and sometimes downright haunted dreams that take place during the rapid-eye-movement stage of your sleep.

Why do some people have nightmares while others really spend their nights in bliss? Like sleep, dreams are mysterious phenomena. But as scientists are able to probe deeper into our minds, they are finding some of those answers.

Here’s some of what we know about what goes on in dreamland.

1. Violent dreams can be a warning sign

As if nightmares weren’t bad enough, a rare sleep disorder — called REM sleep behavior disorder — causes people to act out their dreams, sometimes with violent thrashes, kicks and screams. Such violent dreams may be an early sign of brain disorders down the line, including Parkinson’s disease and dementia, according to research published online July 28, 2010, in the journal Neurology. The results suggest the incipient stages of these neurodegenerative disorders might begin decades before a person, or doctor, knows it.

2. Night owls have more nightmares

Staying up late has its perks, but whimsical dreaming is not one of them. Research published in 2011 in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms, revealed that night owls are more likely than their early-bird counterparts to experience nightmares.

In the study 264 university students rated how often they experienced nightmares on a scale from 0 to 4, never to always, respectively. The stay-up-late types scored, on average, a 2.10, compared with the morning types who averaged a 1.23. The researchers said the difference was a significant one, however, they aren’t sure what’s causing a link between sleep habits and nightmares. Among their ideas is the stress hormone cortisol, which peaks in the morning right before we wake up, a time when people are more prone to be in REM, or dream, sleep. If you’re still sleeping at that time, the cortisol rise could trigger vivid dreams or nightmares, the researchers speculate. [Top 10 Spooky Sleep Disorders]

3. Men dream about sex

As in their wake hours, men also dream about sex more than women do. And comparing notes in the morning may not be a turn-on for either guys or gals, as women are more likely to have experienced nightmares, suggests doctoral research reported in 2009 by psychologist Jennie Parker of the University of the West of England.

She found women’s dreams/nightmares could be grouped into three categories: fearful dreams (being chased or having their life threatened); dreams involving the loss of a loved one; or confused dreams.

4. You can control your dreams

If you’re interested in lucid dreaming, you may want to take up video gaming. The link? Both represent alternate realities, said Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada.

“If you’re spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it’s practice,” Gackenbach told LiveScience in 2010. “Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams.” Her past research has shown that people who frequently play video games are more likely than non-gamers to have lucid dreams where they view themselves from outside their bodies; they were also better able to influence their dream worlds, as if controlling a video-game character.

That level of control may also help gamers turn a bloodcurdling nightmare into a carefree dream, she found in a 2008 study. This ability could help war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Gackenbach reasoned.

5. Why we dream

Scientists have long wondered why we dream, with answers ranging from Sigmund Freud’s idea that dreams fulfill our wishes to the speculation that these wistful journeys are just a side effect of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. Turns out, at least part of the reason may be critical thinking, suggests Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett who presented her theory in 2010 at the Association for Psychological Science meeting in Boston.

Her research revealed that our slumbering hours may help us solve puzzles that have plagued us during daylight hours. The visual and often illogical aspects of dreams make them perfect for the out-of-the-box thinking that is necessary to solve some problems, she speculates.

So while dreams may have originally evolved for another purpose, they have likely been refined over time for multiple tasks, including helping the brain reboot and helping us solve problems, she said.

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Dark Matter May Collide With Atoms Inside You More Often Than Thought

Interesting stuff… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By Charles Q. Choi | SPACE.com

Invisible dark matter particles may regularly pass through our bodies, and dozens to thousands of these particles may be colliding with atoms inside us every year, according to a new calculation.

However, radiation from these impacts is unlikely to cause cancer, investigators added.

Dark matter is one of the greatest scientific mysteries of our time — an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. Scientists think it might be composed of things called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, that interact normally with gravity but very weakly with all the other known forces of the universe.

Its ghostly nature makes it exceedingly difficult to directly prove whether dark matter really exists or what its properties really are. Dark matter is largely thought to be intangible, its presence detectable only via the gravitational pull it exerts.

Still, although dark matter particles are thought to interact only very rarely with normal matter, Earth and everything on it should be hurtling through a dense sea of dark matter, with billions of these particles rushing through us every second. Though the large majority of these particles would pass straight through us without hitting any of the atoms that make up our bodies, a few collisions would be likely. And the aftermath of such impacts could shed light on dark matter’s nature. [Gallery: Dark Matter Throughout the Universe]

Scientists calculated how many times dark matter particles ought to collide with atomic nuclei in adult-size bodies — lumps of flesh about 154 pounds (70 kilograms) in mass largely composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

Dark matter should most often collide with the hydrogen and oxygen nuclei in the body — the former makes up 60 percent of the atoms in the body, while the latter makes up about 60 percent of the mass of the body. Given the most common assumptions regarding what dark matter is, roughly 35 impacts between dark matter particles and atoms in your body should happen annually.

However, if the latest models are correct and dark matter interactions are more common than previously thought, there might be about 100,000 collisions annually for each human on the planet.

“Before we did these calculations, I had been under the impression that on the average, one WIMP would hit one of the nuclei in a human body in about 100 years. In fact I used to joke about the ‘WIMP death theory,’” said researcher Katherine Freese, a theoretical physicist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “Instead, it turns out that the number of WIMP interactions would be so much more frequent — as many as one per minute.”

Though recent research has suggested that our corner of the universe is actually not bathed in dark matter, Freese did not find this work compelling. ”The stars they looked at are 1.5 to 4 kiloparsecs (4,892 to 13,046 light years) below the galactic plane — nowhere near the sun,” Freese said. “I wouldn’t trust their extrapolation to the solar neighborhood, which relies on a lot of assumptions.”

The researchers also calculated whether the energy released from dark matter-human body impacts might cause cancer.

“We discovered that WIMPs are harmless to the human body,” Freese said.

“WIMPs are clearly a source of radiation, and their collisions could in principle be dangerous to humans,” Freese said. However, “we discovered that the answer is no. Other naturally occurring sources of radiation, from radon and cosmic rays, are a much larger problem for us. This is not unexpected, since WIMPs only interact via weak interactions, whereas cosmic rays are charged particles and thus have electromagnetic interactions, which are much more common and exchange more energy.”

Freese and her colleague Christopher Savage plan to submit their findings to the journal Physical Review Letters.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Japan astronomers find most distant galaxy cluster

To think that each one of those tiny disks in the photograph is a galaxy, some similar to our own Milky Way while others being much larger; each containing trillions of stars, planets, moons, asteroids, etc. is truly mind-boggling. Add to that the fact that it has taken light from these distant galaxies nearly 13 billion years to reach Earth (light travels at 186, 282 miles per second) and this gives us an indication of the vastness of space! For comparison, our Sun is approximately ninety-three million (93, 000, 000) miles from Earth, and it takes sunlight a little over 8 minutes to reach us.

Now, just for one minute, imagine if you can a being (God) actually creating all of this; in six days no less – it’s no wonder he had to rest on the seventh day! I’m being sarcastic of course.

Isn’t it amazing that people of faith believe the biblical story of Creation and other equally nonsensical fairy-tales – depending on their religion of choice? For an “intelligent” species, we certainly are stupid! TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

AFP

Japanese astronomers said Wednesday they had found a cluster of galaxies 12.72 billion light-years away from Earth, which they claim is the most distant cluster ever discovered.

Using a powerful telescope based in Hawaii, the team peered back through time to a point just one billion years after the Big Bang, the birth of the universe.

“This shows a galaxy cluster already existed in the early stages of the universe when it was still less than one billion years into its history of 13.7 billion years,” the team of astronomers said in a press release.

The discovery was jointly made by researchers from the state-run Graduate University of Advanced Studies and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii.

They found a “protocluster of galaxies”, which is expected to help scientists understand the structure of the universe and how galaxies developed.

The study is to be published in the Astrophysical Journal of the United States.

Researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have previously announced the discovery of a possible cluster of galaxies around 13.1 billion light-years from Earth, but that has not yet been confirmed, the Japanese researchers said.

Natural Antacid Helped Early Land Creatures Breathe

Interesting stuff… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: LiveScience

By Stephanie Pappas | LiveScience.com

The earliest creatures to crawl out of the water onto land may have concocted antacids out of their own bones, a clever innovation that would’ve let the animals breathe, researchers now find.

The earliest tetrapods, or four-limbed creatures, made their first evolutionary forays onto land about 370 million years ago. Breathing air came with challenges, though. A major one was getting rid of the air’s carbon dioxide, which, when it builds up, reacts with water in the body and forms an acid.

Now, growing evidence in modern reptiles suggests that bones that grew within the skin of early tetrapods may have acted as a natural antacid by releasing their neutralizing chemicals into the bloodstream. The result would have bought the creatures time to spend on land before they had to head back to the water to rid themselves of excess carbon dioxide.

“Now we know that dermal bone can do this and it’s something we didn’t know before, that gives us a basis that maybe this is why tetrapods had this feature, which previously we didn’t have a good explanation for,” study researcher Christine Janis, a paleontologist at Brown University, told LiveScience. “It’s the discovery of this new feature of the physiology of these living animals that lets us go back [in time].”

First on land

So let’s rewind the clock: The first tetrapods evolved from fish in the Devonian period, which spanned from about 416 million years ago to 359 million years ago. These early tetrapods had broad faces, not unlike frogs, and rather immobile ribcages. That means they wouldn’t have been able to get rid of extra carbon dioxide by breathing quickly, as humans and other mammals do with their longer snouts and flexible ribcages. Nor were the tetrapods small enough to exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen via their skin, as modern amphibians do. [Top 10 Useless Body Parts]

What tetrapods did have was complex “dermal bone,” or bone that forms from connective tissue in the skin instead of from cartilage like the long bones of the arm or leg.The concept of skin bone may seem strange, but it’s very common: The human skull, for example, is a dermal bone.

Early tetrapod bone showed many pits and furrows, indicating lots of blood supply, Janis said. Her colleagues, including paper co-author and biologist Daniel Warren of Saint Louis University, had found another piece of the puzzle: In modern turtles and alligators, this dermal bone helps the reptiles tolerate carbon dioxide buildup when they’re under water, unable to breathe.

Bone breathing

Tetrapods would have the opposite problem, Janis realized: They’d be able to release carbon dioxide through their skin while in the water, since their skin was more permeable than an alligator’s tough hide. But out on land, they’d need another means of release. It seemed very possible that tetrapods could have used their complex dermal bones as a storage unit for calcium and other acid-neutralizing minerals, releasing them as needed when body acid levels got too high, Janis said.

To test the idea, the researchers analyzed the skeletons of tetrapods. As you might expect, the tetrapods known by the skeletons to spend more time out of the water had the most complex dermal bones. The evolutionary history of the animal supports the hypothesis, as well.

“When [the dermal bone] gets lost, it gets lost in the lineage leading to modern reptiles when they start getting more mobile ribs,” Janis said.

She and her colleagues reported their work Tuesday (April 24) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

End of the early tetrapods

While the evidence is consistent with Janis’ theory, there’s no proof yet that tetrapods really used their bones in this way. The next step, Janis said, will be to look for chemical or other clues in modern reptiles who use their bones as antacid. If any telltale signs are established, researchers can then hunt for the same signals in ancient tetrapods.

The terrestrial tetrapods studied by Janis and her colleagues went extinct during the Permian period 299 million to 251 million years ago. It was a changing world, Janis said, and atmospheric carbon dioxide was increasing. It’s possible that tetrapods’ bone-dependent breathing wasn’t as effective in this new atmosphere.

“Who knows?” Janis asked. “I think the point to make is that this was probably a perfectly good way to live for awhile — millions of years — but in the end, there were things that had figured out better ways of how to get rid of carbon dioxide.”

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

How Humans Became Masters of the Earth

A brief but interesting article on human evolution… TGO

Refer to story below. Source: LiveScience

By Wynne Parry | LiveScience.com – Fri, Apr 20, 2012

NEW-YORK — Why is it that humans emerged from the natural world, yet we portray ourselves as modifiers of it, even its adversaries?

Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts thinks that fluctuations in the environment in which our ancestors lived were responsible. Our ancestors responded by becoming more versatile through a suite of changes that included an ability to modify our environment. Potts’ theory is known as the variability selection hypothesis.

Human ancestors adapted “to novelty and to change itself,” he told an audience here at a conference on climate change and human evolution at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory yesterday (April 19).

Our species, Homo sapiens, has existed for a mere 200,000 years, but since our line split from that of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, more than 6 million years ago, global climate has grown increasingly variable, fluctuating between warm and ice-age extremes, but becoming cooler overall.

Our ancestors’ East African habitat shifted from forest to savanna, and scientists have long suggested the arrival of the grasslands shaped their evolution.

Aside from the savanna, however, it has been only relatively recent that researchers paid much attention to climate and its effects on environment as an evolutionary force, said Potts, who directs the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program.

Researchers have begun examining a number of potential triggers that could have driven human evolution directly or indirectly, including cycles in Earth’s orbit and the wobble in its axis, heat, ice ages, changes related to the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, and dramatic fluctuations in lakes, as well as the shift from woodland to savanna.

Potts suggests that cumulatively, these changes in climate and the overall environment pushed our ancestors to evolve distinctly human characteristics.

When faced with extremes, a species has three options, he said: Die out, move to a suitable range, or become more adaptable.

The key innovations among our ancestors appear to have given them greater versatility, he said; for instance, there is now evidence that our ancestors began to walk upright about 6 million years ago, but maintained the option of climbing trees for millions of years afterward, he said.

Likewise, technological developments, such as stone tools or fire, gave our ancestors more options. Later on, a significant increase in brain size would allow them to behave in more flexible ways.

“In many ways this can be construed as a ratcheting up of adaptability,” Potts said.

But flexibility doesn’t guarantee survival.

“We are the only ones left from a diverse family tree,” Potts said. “The flip side of the adaptability question is the question of extinction.”

For instance, Paranthopus boisei, who was nicknamed Nutcracker Man for his impressive teeth and chewing muscles, may have used that ability not to chomp on nuts but for a wide range of foods. However, this flexibility — using his impressive, versatile chewing equipment — likely required a lot of energy, Potts said.

The last in this lineage, Homo sapiens or, “wise man,” today’s humans have spread out much farther than any of our ancestors, modifying our environment and ourselves. In the process, we have ourselves become drivers of environmental change, on a global scale.

“In the long view, the line between thriving and decline is a fine one,” Potts said. “That is a theme of human evolutionary history.”

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Nearby Dark Matter Mysteriously Missing

Those of us who enjoy learning and making an attempt to understand why things are the way they are find these articles quite interesting; those of us with simple minds don’t. Those who don’t are generally the religious types who believe God is the answer to everything that is unknown. Lucky for us that there are many among us with inquisitive minds who don’t settle for the easy way out and instead strive to understand the world around us. If not for them we’d still be living in caves. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Space.com

By Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor, Space.com | SPACE.com

A new study has found no trace of the mysterious substance known as dark matter around the sun, adding a twist to current theories, researchers say.

Dark matter is one of the greatest cosmic mysteries of our time — an invisible, intangible material thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. Scientists currently think it is composed of a new type of particle, one that interacts normally with gravity but only very weakly with all the other known forces of the universe. As such, dark matter is detectable only via the gravitational pull it generates.

Astronomers first proposed the existence of dark matter to explain why stars moved the way they did in the Milky Way. It was as if extra matter was present, exerting a gravitational pull that influenced the motions of the stars.

According to widely accepted theories, the neighborhood around the sun should be filled with dark matter, with billions of these particles rushing through us every second. However, the most accurate study yet of motions of stars in the Milky Way now has found no evidence for dark matter in a large volume around the sun.

“Our results contradict the currently accepted models — the mystery of dark matter has just become even more mysterious,” said study lead author Christian Moni Bidin, an astronomer at the University of Concepción in Chile.

Hunting dark matter

The scientists used telescopes at the La Silla Observatory and the Las Campanas Observatory, both in Chile, to map the motions of more than 400 red giant stars up to 13,000 light-years from the sun. This helped calculate the mass of material in the vicinity of the sun, in a volume four times larger than ever considered before.

“The amount of mass that we derive matches very well with what we see — stars, dust and gas — in the region around the sun,” Moni Bidin said. “But this leaves no room for the extra material — dark matter — that we were expecting. Our calculations show that it should have shown up very clearly in our measurements. But it was just not there!”

Dark matter models had predicted there should be about 0.9 to 2.2 pounds (0.4 to 1 kilograms) of dark matter in a volume the size of the Earth in the sun’s part of the galaxy. However, these new findings suggest there is at most 0.15 pounds (70 grams) of dark matter in that volume in our part of the Milky Way galaxy.

“Despite the new results, the Milky Way certainly rotates much faster than the visible matter alone can account for, so if dark matter is not present where we expected it, a new solution for the missing mass problem must be found,” Moni Bidin said.

Dark matter’s elusiveness explained?

The findings could explain why all attempts to detect dark matter in laboratories on Earth have failed so far — there is much less of it in the sun’s neighborhood than expected.

“Strictly speaking, the results do not say that dark matter does not exist — they only say it is not here,” Moni Bidin told SPACE.com. “We have not proven that dark matter does not exist, and even if we do, at this point we cannot explain many other phenomena that today are explained only by dark matter.”

One alternative to dark matter is known as Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or MOND, which tweaks how gravity works at large scales to help explain the motions of stars and galaxies that researchers observe. However, “to my knowledge, MOND also would have expected a massive ‘phantom disk’ to appear in our study, so our results should contradict its expectations, too,” Moni Bidin said.

Future astronomical surveys, such as the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, could help shed further light on dark matter, Moni Bidin said. Gaia will collect data to reconstruct the movement of millions of stars. “Thus, we will be able to test the presence of dark matter in a wide region of the galaxy,” he explained.

The scientists will detail their findings in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Japan study raises hopes of cure for baldness

For you men out there who are already bald or balding, there’s still hope… Maybe in about a decade or so you can grow a full head of hair. And by the way, you can do so without upsetting the God-freaks who are concerned with stem cell research; adult stem cells as opposed to embryonic stem cells would be utilized. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

AFP

Japanese researchers have successfully grown hair on hairless mice by implanting follicles created from stem cells, they announced Wednesday, sparking new hopes of a cure for baldness.

Led by professor Takashi Tsuji from Tokyo University of Science, the team bioengineered hair follicles and transplanted them into the skin of hairless mice.

The creatures eventually grew hair, which continued regenerating in normal growth cycles after old hairs fell out.

When stem cells are grown into tissues or organs, they usually need to be extracted from embryos, but Tsuji and his researchers found hair follicles can be grown with adult stem cells, the study said.

“Our current study thus demonstrates the potential for not only hair regeneration therapy but also the realisation of bioengineered organ replacement using adult somatic stem cells,” it said.

The combination of the new and existing technologies is expected to improve treatment for baldness, possibly allowing people to use their own cells for implants that will give them their hair back.

“We would like to start clinical research within three to five years, so that an actual treatment to general patients can start within a decade,” said researcher Koh-ei Toyoshima.

The study is published in the online science magazine Nature Communications.

Ex-NASA worker says fired over intelligent design

Religious indoctrination is so powerful that even well-educated individuals are unable to liberate themselves from its shackles.

People are free to believe what they want to believe, and having views contrary to one’s colleagues at work is no reason for termination. However, and this is where I would draw the line, pushing one’s beliefs on others, in his case by peddling Intelligent Design videos, is unprofessional and could create a disruptive if not combative environment. For some reason, it seems that religious people simply CANNOT keep their religion to themselves. They are always pushing their beliefs on others; a definite turn-off.

I know religious people out there will disagree with me, but just imagine the opposite. If a priest or pastor was to be handing out videos or literature on atheism, would that be acceptable to his superiors? TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By GILLIAN FLACCUS | Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — David Coppedge, a former computer specialist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, spent much of his free time advocating for the idea that a higher intelligence must have had a hand in creation. Now, a judge will decide if his commitment to that belief has also cost him his job.

Closing arguments in Coppedge’s wrongful termination lawsuit against the Pasadena-based JPL begin Monday after a five-week trial that has generated intense interest among proponents of the idea that life is too complex to have evolved through evolution alone. The case will be decided by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ernest Hiroshige because both sides agreed to forgo a jury.

Coppedge, who worked on NASA’s Cassini mission exploring Saturn and its many moons, claims he was demoted — and then let go — for promoting his views on intelligent design. The former “team lead” alleges that he was discriminated against because he engaged his co-workers in conversations about the idea and handed out DVDs on the topic while at work.

Coppedge lost his “team lead” title in 2009 and was let go last year after 15 years on the mission.

JPL denies the claims. In court papers, lawyers for the California Institute of Technology, which manages JPL for NASA, have said Coppedge received a written warning because his co-workers complained of harassment. They also said Coppedge lost his “team lead” status because of ongoing conflicts with others.

Caltech lawyers contend Coppedge was one of two Cassini technicians and among 246 JPL employees let go last year due to planned budget cuts.

Coppedge, who began working for JPL as a contractor in 1996 and was hired in 2003, is active in the intelligent design sphere and runs a website that interprets scientific discoveries through the lens of intelligent design. His father authored an anti-evolution book and founded a Christian outreach group.

He is also a board member for Illustra Media, a company that produces video documentaries examining the scientific evidence for intelligent design. The company produces the videos that Coppedge was handing out to co-workers, said Becker, his attorney.

His main duties at JPL were to maintain computer networks and troubleshoot technical problems for the mission. In 2000, he was named “team lead,” serving as a liaison between technicians and managers for nearly a decade before being demoted in 2009.

He sued in April 2010 alleging religious discrimination, retaliation and harassment and amended his suit to include wrongful termination after losing his job last year.

Coppedge is seeking attorney’s fees and costs, damages for wrongful termination and a statement from the judge that his rights were violated.