Tycho’s Supernova Remnant
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: MPIA, Calar Alto, O. Krause et al.
(via allrightwallofchina)
Sun Is Moving Slower Than Thought
“Shocking” find may redraw picture of solar system’s cosmic shield.
The sun is moving through the Milky Way slower than previously thought, according to new data from a NASA spacecraft.
From its orbit around Earth, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellitemeasured the speeds of interstellar particles entering at the fringes of our solar system, 9 billion miles (14.5 billion kilometers) from the sun.
Plugging the new data into computer models, the IBEX team calculates that the sun is moving at about 52,000 miles (83,700 kilometers) an hour—about 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) slower than thought.
The discovery suggests that the protective boundary separating our solar system from the rest of the galaxy is missing a bow shock, a major structural component thought to control the influx of high-energy cosmic rays.
(via fyeahcarlsagan)
Cosmic Avenger
Image courtesy SSRO/PROMPT/CTIO
Before he joins the Avengers, Thor may need to retrieve his helmet—which is floating in space 15,000 light-years away.
Also known as NGC 2359, Thor’s Helmet is a nebula found in the constellation Canis Major. As seen in this recently released picture from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the cosmic cloud of dust and gas is being shaped like a winged helm by outpourings of radiation from the massive stars inside.
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A Jupiter-Io Montage from New Horizons
Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins U. APL, SWRI
How did the Equatorial Ridge on Saturn’s Moon Iapetus Form?
Saturn’s moon Iapetus is one of the most unusual moons in our solar system.
Perhaps the most bizarre feature of Iapetus is its equatorial ridge, a 20-km (12.4- mi) high, 200-km (124-mi) wide mountain range that runs exactly along the equator, circling more than 75 percent of the moon.
No other body in the solar system exhibits such a feature, and as Dombard et al. show, previous models have been unable to adequately explain how the ridge formed.
The authors now propose that the ridge formed from an ancient giant impact that produced a subsatellite around Iapetus.
Tidal interactions with Iapetus ultimately led to orbital decay, eventually bringing the subsatellite close enough that the same forces tore it apart, forming a debris ring around Iapetus.
Material from this debris ring then rained down on Iapetus, creating the mountain ring along the equator.
More information: Delayed formation of the equatorial ridge on Iapetus from a subsatellite created in a giant impact, Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets, doi:10.1029/2011JE004010 , 2012.
(Source: mellowsong, via allrightwallofchina)
Mapping the Infrared Universe: The Entire WISE Sky
TL;DR: Biggest picture of space you’ll see this week. WOW.
NASA has released the newest and most complete atlas of the entire infrared sky. The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has been soaking up interstellar spectra for three years, and this mosaic image represents the sum total of that survey.
By collecting 2.7 million pictures in four wavelengths, it has been able to catalog 560 million objects, most of which are stars and galaxies (almost equal numbers of each!). In a sense, this mosaic of 18,000 images (above) represents everything that we can see from Earth.
Of course, that’s not a big enough picture, is it? Click here to MEGA-EMBIGGENATE!!! (10,000 x 5,000 px!!) Don’t say I didn’t warn you :)
NGC 6302: Big, Bright, Bug Nebula
Credit: A. Zijlstra (UMIST) et al., ESA, NASA
