Astronomy / Space Space news (IRL)

Alexander R

Alexander R
Giant asteroid belt discovered around the bright (and relatively close) star Vega:



LONG BEACH, Calif. – Astronomers have discovered a giant asteroid belt circling the bright star Vega, a find that may ultimately reveal an entire solar system of planets, scientists say.

Vega is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and located about 25 light-years from Earth. It gained fame as the fictional source of an alien signal in the science fiction novel “Contact” by famed astronomer Carl Sagan, which was adapted into a film starring Jodie Foster.

The star’s newfound asteroid belt layout suggest that Vega is surrounded by an icy outer belt of asteroids, as well as a warm inner space rock belt, researchers said. Their presence is also a clue that Vega could be surrounded by multiple undiscovered planets, they added.
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Alexander R

Alexander R
Fomalhaut System

A rather nice infrared image of the Fomalhaut System released today by the American Astronomical Society shows a large asteroid belt system and a rogue planet that appears to be on a collision course with said belt in about 20 years from now.

Riveting stuff.

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Newly released NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of a vast debris disk encircling the nearby star Fomalhaut and a mysterious planet circling it may provide forensic evidence of a titanic planetary disruption in the system.

Astronomers are surprised to find the debris belt is wider than previously known, spanning a section of space from 14 to nearly 20 billion miles from the star. Even more surprisingly, the latest Hubble images have allowed a team of astronomers to calculate the planet follows an unusual elliptical orbit that carries it on a potentially destructive path through the vast dust ring.

The planet, called Fomalhaut b, swings as close to its star as 4.6 billion miles, and the outermost point of its orbit is 27 billion miles away from the star. The orbit was recalculated from the newest Hubble observation made last year.

"We are shocked. This is not what we expected," said Paul Kalas of the University of California at Berkeley and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

The Fomalhaut team led by Kalas considers this circumstantial evidence there may be other planet-like bodies in the system that gravitationally disturbed Fomalhaut b to place it in such a highly eccentric orbit. The team presented its finding Tuesday at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif.
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/rogue-fomalhaut.html
 

Alexander R

Alexander R
Looks like alot of particulate matter, not sure why the starlight is spoked but possibly an artifact of how the imaging sensor processes light.
 

Alexander R

Alexander R
Largest spiral galaxy in the universe measured; 5 times the size of the Milky Way, would take 522,000 years to cross it if you were travelling at the speed of light.

Wow.

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Astronomers have long known that a spectacular barred spiral galaxy named NGC 6872 is a behemoth, but by compiling data from several space- and ground-based observatories and running a few computer simulations, they have now determined this is the largest spiral galaxy we know of.

Measuring tip-to-tip across its two outsized spiral arms, NGC 6872 spans more than 522,000 light-years, making it more than five times the size of our Milky Way galaxy.
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Cosmos

C
I never get tired of seeing the beautiful phenomena the cosmos has to offer.. It is humbling and raises so many questions.. The world might not be a wonderful place, but the cosmos is a blinding wonder!
 

deMangler

deMangler
Sweet merciful God! My poor useless eyes!

Exiting news though... Love their timescale too. Fed up with hearing about stuff planned decades from now.
 
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