Water Not Flowing On Mars

A new finding raises doubts about the 2006 report that the bright spots on Mars some gullies suggest that liquid water flowed down the gullies sometime since 1999.

"It includes pure liquid water," says lead author Jon D. Pelletier of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Pelletier and his colleagues used topographic data from the images of Mars from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Since 2006, HiRISE was the most detailed pictures ever of Mars from orbit.

The researchers applied basic research in physics, as the fluid flows under the conditions of Mars, as a stream of pure liquid water would look like in the HiRISE images over how an avalanche of dry granular debris such as sand and gravel would be.

"The dry granular case was the winner," says Pelletier, UA associate professor of Geosciences. "I was surprised. I began to think we would prove it is liquid water."

Finding liquid water on the surface of Mars would mean the best seats to current life on Mars, says co-author Alfred S. McEwen, a professor of UA Planetary Sciences.

"What we hope to do was due to the dry-flow model, but that has not happened," said McEwen, HiRISE principal investigator and director of UA's Planetary Image Research Laboratory.

An avalanche of dry debris is a much better match for their calculations and also what their computer model predicts, says Pelletier and McEwen.

Pelletier says: "Right now, the balance of evidence suggests that the dry granular case is the most likely."

They add that their research does not exclude that the pictures show, currents of very thick mud with about 50 percent to 60 percent of the sediment. Such mud would have a consistency similar to molasses or hot lava. From orbit, the resulting deposit would be similar to that of a dry avalanche.

In December 2006, Michael Malin and his colleagues published an article in the journal Science before the bright stripes formed that in two gullies Mars since 1999 "suggest that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars during the last ten years."

Malin team used images from the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) of water troughs, had before 1999. Repeat images of the gullies in 2006 showed bright stripes, which were not there in the earlier pictures.

Then Pelletier and McEwen were at a scientific meeting and began chatting about the amazing new knowledge. They discussed how much more detailed images from HiRISE could be used to meat from the Malin team findings.

Pelletier had experience in dealing with the stereoscopic computer-generated topographic maps known as digital elevation models (DEMs), to find out how special landscape.

DEMs with images of the landscape, from two different angles.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft will regularly point on targets so that high-resolution stereo images, says McEwen.

Kirk DM of a crater in the Centauri Montes region, where the Malin team found a new bright stripes in a gully.

Once the DM, Pelletier uses the topographic information together with a commercially available numerical computer model to predict, such as deposits in this particular gully would appear, if a pure water compared to flood, the deposits appear as if they an avalanche dry.

The model also predicts specific conditions necessary to prevent any kind of debris flow.

"This is the first time that someone has applied for numerical computer models to the bright deposits in gullies on Mars or on DEMs produced by HiRISE images," says Pelletier.

When he compared the realities of the deposit and its bright HiRISE image to the predictions from the model, the dry avalanche model was a better fit.

"The dry granular case is simpler and largely complies with the observations," says Pelletier. "It is only a test. It's either more like one or more as b. We were surprised that it is more like B."

Pelletier, says these new findings show, "There are other ways to get deposits that look like these that did not require water."

One of the teams in the next steps with HiRISE images to examine similar bright deposits on less steep slopes to clarify what processes might have formed these deposits.

First Binocular Light Images

The Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham, Arizona has taken pictures with his heavenly twin side-by-side, 27.6 feet (8.4 meter) primary mirror, achieving first "binoculars" light.

U.S., Italian and German partners in the telescope, known as the LBT is the release of the pictures today. First binoculars light is a milestone not only for the LBT - now the world's most powerful telescope - but for astronomy itself, the partners say.

The first light binoculars images show three false-color rendition of the spiral galaxy NGC 2770th The galaxy is 102 million light years from year our Milky Way, a relatively close neighbours. The galaxy has a flat disk of stars and glowing gas and is slightly tilted in the direction of our line of sight.

The first picture combines ultraviolet and green light and stresses the clumpy regions of the newly formed hot stars in the spiral arms. The second image combines two dark red color in order to smooth the distribution of older, cooler stars. The third image is a composite of UV, green and deep red light and shows the detailed structure of the hot, temperate and cool stars in the galaxy. The cameras and pictures were taken by the major Binocular Camera team, led by Emanuele Giallongo in Rome Astrophysical Observatory.
The LBT is a light-gathering surface of a single 39-foot (11.8 meters) surfaces and light combined to achieve the sharpness corresponds to a single 75-foot (22.8 meters) telescope. It is located in 10480-foot Mount Graham in southeast Arizona.

"Being a fully functional binocular telescope is not only a time to celebrate here in the LBT, but also for the entire community of astronomy", UA Steward Observatory Director, Regents' professor and LBT Corp. President Peter A. Strittmatter says. "The pictures that the telescope will produce is not as previously seen. The strength and clarity of this machine is a class for itself. It offers unsurpassed-to-peer capability in the history since the birth of the universe."

Regents' Professor and Steward Observatory Mirror Lab Director Roger Angel was one of the UA astronomers designed the basic idea for the LBT in the early 1980s. The UA-Mirror Lab, known worldwide for breakthrough technologies mirror, occupation of the LBT mirror in its huge rotating oven and polished them with a unique technique stressed lap virtual perfection. Angel was previously involved in UA research, the development of adaptive optics technologies for the giant telescopes, technologies, the defeat of atmospheric turbulence.

"The LBT gives me the most satisfaction of all astronomy project I have worked, because it's very revolutionary, and because Arizona has the biggest and the best telescope in the world," says Angel. "If all parts are available, the LBT will be sharper images than any other telescope. I think it is the most likely telescope to the first pictures of planets around other stars, because of a unique advanced technologies used to build it."
International cooperation saw that the project to completion "is remarkable," says John P. Schaefer, chairman of the LBT Corp. Board of Directors and a member of the Research Group Corp. Board of Directors. "The LBT project was once only an idea, and now it is the world's most advanced telescope, developed by the international cooperation of more than 15 institutions. The completion of this one-of-a-kind instrument reflects what can happen when people come together towards a common goal. "

LBT Director Richard Green says: "The amount of time and effort to this project was to reach the point where we are today, is immense. We have, through challenging moments, but to see the telescope with the two operational level is a great feeling. Anyone who has worked on this, at all levels, is enormously proud of what has been achieved. "

Black Hole Sheds Light On Galaxy

A light echo occurs when interstellar gas is heated by radiation and reacts by emission of light. An international team led by Stefanie Komossa of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, the light echo an enormous X-ray flare, which was almost certainly produced when a single star was interrupted by a supermassive black Hole. For the first time, the light echo of such a rare and highly dramatic event could be observed in great detail. The light echo not only shown the stellar interference process, but it also offers a powerful new method for mapping galactic nuclei.

If a star is disrupted by a black hole at the core of a galaxy, the remains will inevitably attracted and absorbed from the black hole. This sudden increase in the accretion leads to a sudden burst of UV and X-ray light, because the gas from the star is disturbed very hot. As the high radiation travels through the core of the galaxy lights surrounding matter and thus makes it possible to probe regions of the galaxy, which would otherwise unobservable.

"To study the nucleus of a normal galaxy, as we look at the New York skyline at night during a power outage: You can not learn much about the buildings, streets and parks," said Stefanie Komossa. "The situation is changing, for example, while a fireworks display. It is exactly the same when a sudden burst of the high radiation of a galaxy is lit." However, the astronomers to hurry up and look through the telescope at the right time, since X-ray bursts is not very long.

From the strength, the level of ionization and the speeds derived from the rapidly changing emission lines, the physicists can tell which part of the galaxy, they are issued. The emission lines represent the "fingerprints" of the atoms in the hot gases heated by the flare. The galaxy catalog called SDSSJ0952 2143 was found in December 2007 by Komossa and her team in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Archive caught their attention because of its superstrong iron lines: the strongest (relative to oxygen emission), the ever observed in a Galaxy. They are the authors is an indication of a molecular torus, plays an important role in the so-called unified models of active galaxies.

The Unified model posits that all active galaxies are made from identical components and the perceived differences are only due to the different directions from which the galaxies. An important element of this model is the molecular torus, which surrounds the black hole and its accretion disk and covers be, if they come from certain directions. The width of the spectral lines that scientists measure is influenced by the direction and the view is from the molecular torus.

If the expectations of Komossa and her colleagues confirmed, this will be the first time that scientists have seen a strong time-variable signal from a molecular torus. From the easy coverage, the torus can be mapped and its geometry deduce that something was not possible until today.

In the same vein is the detection of variable emission in the infrared band: It can be seen as the "last cry for help" of the heated dusty torus matter before the dust is destroyed by the flash.

In addition to the remarkably strong iron lines, the scientists also found a very peculiar form of hydrogen emission lines, had never before seen. This line information on activities of the disk of matter around the black hole, which consists mainly of hydrogen.

"Probably we will see the rubble disrupted the star is currently accreted from the black hole," says Zhou Hongyan from the MPE, co-author of the research paper.

The recently discovered light echo further and will be prosecuted with powerful telescopes. The burst itself has faded away. The first observations with the Chandra X-ray satellite show measurable already weak X-rays from the galactic core. "Reverberation mapping of light echoes opened new opportunities to study galaxies," concludes Komossa. The team will now use this method to the physical conditions in the circumnuclear material in active and non-active galaxies.

Saturn's Stormy Weather

As a powerful electrical storm rages on Saturn with lightning bolts 10,000 times stronger than lightning on Earth, the spacecraft Cassini will continue its 5-month wake of the dramatic events.

Scientists with NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission has been tracking the light visibly, lightning storm generation - the longest continuously monitored electrical storm always monitored by Cassini.

Saturn electrical storms resemble terrestrial thunderstorms, but in a much larger scale. Storms on Saturn have a diameter of thousands of kilometers (several thousand kilometers) and radio signals generated by their flashes are thousands of times more powerful than that of terrestrial thunderstorms.

Lightning flashes in the storm continued producing radio waves called Saturn electrostatic discharge, the radio and plasma wave science instrument on 27 first November 2007. Cassini's imaging cameras to monitor the location and appearance of the storm, first spotting it about a week later, on 6 December.

"The electrostatic radio outbursts and waxed to have lost intensity for a period of five months," said Georg Fischer, an employee at the radio and plasma wave science team at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. "We have similar storms in the years 2004 and 2006 that each lasted almost a month, but the storm is more far-lived. And it appeared after nearly two years in which we do not recognize storm electrical activity of Saturn."

The new storm is located in Saturn's southern hemisphere - in a region the nickname "Storm Alley" mission scientists - where the earlier storm were observed by Cassini.

"To see the storm, the imaging cameras to find the right place at the right time, and whenever our cameras can be found in the storm, the radio there are outbreaks," said Ulyana Dyudina, an ally of the Cassini Imaging Team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Cassini's Radio plasma wave instrument recognizes the storm every time he turns in prospect, which happens every 10 hours and 40 minutes, the approximate length of a Saturn day. Every few seconds, the storm is a radio pulse lasting for about one tenth of a second, which is typical of lightning bolts and other electrical discharges. These radio waves are detected, even if the storm on the horizon as seen from Cassini, a result of diffraction of radio waves through the atmosphere of the planet.

Amateur astronomers have kept track of the storm over his 5-month term. "As Cassini's camera can not track the storm every day, the amateur data is invaluable," said Fischer. "I am in constant contact with astronomers from all over the world, the most important actors is Marc Delcroix and other observers from the French Astronomical Society, Ralf Vande Bergh from the Netherlands, Christopher Go of the Philippines and Trevor Barry of Australia."

The storm will probably durable provision of information on the processes of power-intensive Saturn bolts. Cassini scientists will continue to monitor Storm Alley as the seasons change, so the beginning of autumn in the southern hemisphere of the planet.

Mars' Cold Insides

New observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that the crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer and colder than previously thought.

The results suggest any liquid water that may exist beneath the surface of the planet, and any living organisms in the water, it is lower than scientists had suspected.

"We've found that the rocky surface of Mars is not bend under the weight of the north polar ice cap," said Roger Phillips of the Southwest Research Institute. Phillips is the lead author of a new report this week in the online version of Science. "This means that the planet's interior is stiffer, and thus colder than we thought."

The discovery was with the instrument Shallow radar on the spacecraft, which has the most detailed images at the time of the interior layers of ice, sand and dust from which the north polar cap on Mars. The radar images show long, uninterrupted layers stretching up to 600 miles (1000 km), or about one fifth the length of the United States.
"In our first insight into the polar ice with the radar on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, we can clearly see stacks of the icy material, the history of Mars' climate," says Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Plaut is a science team member and a co-author of the paper. "radar" opens up a new route for the study Mars' past. "

The radar images show a smooth, flat border between the ice sheet and the rocky Martian crust. On Earth, the weight of a similar stack of ice would lead to the surface of the planet SAG. The fact that the Mars surface is not bending means that their strong outer shell, or lithosphere, a combination of upper-crust and mantle must be very thick and cold.

"The lithosphere of a planet is the rigid part. On Earth, the lithosphere is the part that breaks during an earthquake," says Suzanne Smrekar, deputy Researchers for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at JPL. "The ability of radar to see through the ice sheet and noted that there was no bending of the lithosphere gives us a good idea of today's temperatures inside Mars for the first time."

Temperatures in the outer part of a rocky planets such as Mars increases with the depth in the direction of the interior. The thicker the lithosphere, the more the temperatures gradually rising. The discovery of a thicker Martian lithosphere therefore means that any liquid water lurking in the aquifer beneath the surface should be lower than previously calculated, where the temperatures are warmer. The scientists speculate that all life on Mars in connection with the deep aquifers would also have to be buried deep inside.

The radar images also show four zones of finely distance layers of ice and dust, separated by thick layers of almost pure ice. The scientists think this pattern of thick layers of ice-free represents cycles of climate change on Mars for a period of about one million years. These climate changes are variations in the tilt of the planet's rotation axis and the eccentricity of its orbit around the sun. The observations support the idea that the north polar ice cap is geologically active and relatively young, about 4 million years ago.

Earth's Laws Still Apply In Distant Universe

The laws of nature are the same in the distant universe, because it here on Earth, according to new research by an international team of astronomers, including Christian Henkel from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn. Their research, published June 20 in Science, shows that one of the major figures in physics theory, the electron-proton mass ratio is almost exactly the same in a galaxy 6 billion light years away, as in Earth's Laboratories approximately 1836.15.

According to Michael Murphy, Swinburne astrophysicist and lead author of the study, it is an important result, as many scientists debate whether the laws of nature may be at different times and in different places in the universe. "We were able to show that the laws of physics are the same in this galaxy halfway across the visible universe, because it here on earth," he says.

The astronomers determined that by an effective look back in time in a distant quasar, labelled B0218 +367. The quasar's light, which has 7.5 billion years to us, was partially absorbed by ammonia gas in an intervening galaxy. Not only is useful in most ammonia bathroom cleaning products, it is also an ideal molecule to test our understanding of physics in the distant universe. Spectroscopic observations of the ammonia molecule have been associated with the Effelsberg 100m radio telescope in 2 cm wavelength (red-shifted from the original wavelength of 1.3 cm). The wavelengths at which ammonia absorbed Radio Energy from the quasar are vulnerable to this specific number of nuclear physics, the electron-proton mass ratio.

"By comparing the absorption of ammonia with other molecules, we were able to determine that the value of the electron-proton mass ratio in this galaxy, and confirm that it is the same as on earth," says Christian Henkel from MPIfR, an expert in molecular spectroscopy and co-author of the study.

The astronomers' goal is to continue the examination of the laws of nature in so many different places and times in the universe as possible in order to see how well the laws of nature, in testing situations. You need to absorb more galaxies. The studied galaxy, B0218 +367, is the only destination for this type of research so far. There must be much more target galaxies, once the right telescopes to find them available.

According to Murphy, this problem could be overcome with the proposed Square Kilometer Array (SKA) telescope project. "The SKA is the largest and most ambitious international project telescope ever conceived. After completion, there will be a huge gathering, and will allow us to search for more absorbing galaxies." The situation of Ska, was shortlisted for the Western Australia or South Africa, will be announced within the next 2 years.

Through its research on the forces of nature, the astronomers also hope that you a window into the extra dimensions of space that many theoretical physicists believe exist.

Ice On Mars

Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander 4 days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it. "It must be ice," Phoenix says principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the material was bright salt. Salt can not do that." The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called Dodo-Goldilocks when Phoenix's robotic arm that enlarged trench on June 15, during the 20th martian day, or sol, since landing.

Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on the 24th Sol Also early today, digging in a different trench, the robotic arm connected with a hard surface that has scientists excited about the prospect of next uncovering an icy layer. The Phoenix science team spent Tuesday analyzing new images and data successfully returned from the lander earlier in the day. Studying the initial findings from the new Snow White 2 trench, located to the right of Snow White 1, Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm, says, "We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench. " On Sol 24, Phoenix extended the first trench in the middle of a polygon at the Wonderland site. While digging, the robotic arm came upon a firm layer, and after three attempts to dig further, the arm went into a holding position.

Such an action is expected when the robotic arm comes upon a hard surface. Meanwhile, the spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is preparing a software patch to send to Phoenix in a few days so scientific data can be saved onboard again overnight when needed. Because of a large amount duplicative a file-maintenance data generated by the spacecraft Tuesday, the team is taking the precaution of not storing data in science Phoenix's flash memory, and instead downlinking it at the end of every day, until the conditions that produced those duplicative data files are corrected. "We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," says Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "Our 3-month schedule has 30 days of margin for contingencies like this, and we have used only one contingency day out of 24 sols. The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success."
Dice-size crumbs of light materials have disappeared from the inside of a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Mars Lander Phoenix 4 days, to convince scientists that the material was frozen water evaporates that after digging.

"It must be ice," says Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These small lumps disappear completely during the course of a few days, this is the perfect proof that there is ice. There were some question whether the material was bright salt. Salt can not."

The pieces remained at the bottom of a trench informally called Dodo-Goldilocks at Phoenix digging robotic arm extended on 15 June in the course of the 20th Martian day, or Sol, since the landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the ditch this morning, over 24 Sol.

Also this morning, digging in another ditch, the robotic arm in connection with a hard surface, scientists are excited by the prospect of an afterlife detection icy layer.

The Phoenix team for scientific analysis Thursday new images and data successful return from the lander earlier in the day.

Studies of the first results from the new Snow White 2 ditch, is on the right side of Snow White 1, Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm, said: "We have dug a ditch and discovered a hard layer in the same depth as the ice layer in our other ditch. "

On Sol 24, Phoenix extended the first trench in the middle of a polygon on the website Wonderland. While digging, the robotic arm was on a solid layer, and after three attempts to dig further, the arm was in a firm. Such action when the robot arm is based on a hard surface.

Meanwhile, the spacecraft team of Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is preparing a software patch to send to Phoenix in a few days as scientific data can be stored on board again overnight, if necessary. Due to the large amount a double file maintenance data collected by the spacecraft Tuesday, the team takes the pension does not have the storage of data in science Phoenix flash memory, and instead downlinking it at the end of each day, until the conditions that produced the duplicate files are corrected.

"We understand now what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," says Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "Our 3-month plan has 30 days the margin for unforeseen events like this, and we only have one day of contingency sol-gel-24. The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress on the path to success Mission. "

Black Holes Stop Star Formation

Astronomers have obtained unprecedented observational evidence of the role that supermassive black holes play in ending star formation in galaxies. The report was presented by Dr Sugata Kaviraj of Oxford University, UK, yesterday at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in St Louis, Missouri. This result is of special interest because it provides new insights into the role of black holes in the formation and evolution of massive galaxies. A study by the Oxford scientists using ultraviolet light provides solid observational evidence that the stormy centers of galaxies powered by supermassive black holes - 'Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) - take over from exploding stars (supernovae) as the main mechanism by which the gas that fuels star formation is dispersed, as galaxies reach a critical size of 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.

The results were recently published in the December 2007 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Kaviraj et al. MNRAS, 2007, 382, 960). "Our models of galaxy formation are all based on the notion that Active Galactic Nuclei are involved in 'snuffing out' - quenching - star formation in galaxies which are too large for mechanisms based on supernovae to explain," says Sugata Kaviraj, Leverhulme-Beecroft Fellow in Astrophysics at Oxford University, UK, who led the research. "Astronomers believe that the jets produced by Active Galactic Nuclei are powerful enough to 'blow away' star-forming gas from even the largest galaxies but up until now we have not had solid observational evidence to back this up The jets produced by typical Active Galactic Nuclei would have enough energy to power ten billion stars like our Sun! Our study indicates, for the first time from a purely observational viewpoint, the relationship between the mass of a galaxy and whether supernovae or AGN play a dominant role in star formation quenching , "Says Kaviraj. The scientific team from Oxford University, UK and the University of Hertfordshire, UK studied a special class of post-starburst galaxies, which lack ongoing star formation but whose spectra indicate that they formed a substantial fraction of their stellar mass in the very recent past. A recent period of vigorous star formation in these galaxies has therefore been rapidly quenched, making these objects perfect test-beds to probe the quenching process. The galaxies studied in this work are, by cosmological standards, nearby, at distances of 1.5 billion light-years or less. Using a novel combination of ultraviolet data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (an orbiting space telescope launched by NASA in 2003) and optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (one of the largest observational surveys that uses a dedicated 2.5-meter telescope equipped with a 120 megapixel camera;), the scientists were able to measure the efficiency with which quenching takes place in individual galaxies with unprecedented accuracy. "The work is very timely," stresses Marc Sarzi, Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire and academic visitor at Oxford. "Post-starburst galaxies are extremely rare objects and it is only thanks to the large volume encompassed by the Sloan survey that we could harness a significant number of them." Kaviraj adds, "In the AGN regime, the quenching efficiency is expected to scale positively with galaxy mass, while in the supernova regime the opposite trend is expected. We also know that AGN become significantly more abundant in galaxies with masses above roughly 10 billion times the mass of the Sun. Our results demonstrate that the expected dichotomy in the relationship between efficiency and quenching galaxy mass is indeed borne out by the data, exactly across the threshold expected mass - 10 billion times the mass of the Sun!

" According to co-author Joe Silk, who is Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford University and has pioneered the use of black holes in models of galaxy formation, "We simply do not understand the murky details of galaxy formation. Some form of 'feedback' is slowing down and quenching both star formation in nearby galaxies and the distant universe. These results point to the likely culprit being a combination of the effects of exploding stars and supermassive black holes, with black holes in dominating the massive galaxies, as envisaged in contemporary galaxy formation models ".

Quantifying the role that AGN play in quenching star formation is of prime importance to astrophysicists as it would enable them to calibrate their models of galaxy formation. While the observations used in this study were of nearby galaxies, the challenge now is to confirm these preliminary results and widen the scope of the work to include a representative sample of galaxies: this would include those that are much further away, dating back to the peak epoch of star formation some 10 billion years ago, when the Universe was only 25 percent of its current age! Efforts, led by Kaviraj, are underway to combine several large observational surveys that trace the evolution of the universe over the last 10 billion years, to study the properties of post-starburst galaxy populations. The research is expected to yield significant insights into the quenching process and provide valuable constraints on the currently accepted paradigm galaxy formation.

Astronomers have obtained unprecedented observations evidence of the role that supermassive black holes at the end star formation in galaxies. The report was by Dr. Sugata Kaviraj Oxford University, UK, yesterday at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. This result is of particular interest because it provides new insights into the role of black holes in the formation and evolution of massive galaxies.

A study by scientists from Oxford with UV light provides a solid observations evidence that the storm centers of galaxies powered by supermassive black holes - Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) - Acquisition of exploding stars (supernovae) as the main mechanism by the gas that fuels star formation is in free float, such as galaxies reach a critical size of 10 billion times the mass of the sun. The results were recently published in the December 2007 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Kaviraj et al. MNRAS, 2007, 382, 960).

"Our models of galaxy formation are all based on the idea that Active Galactic Nuclei are in" snuffing out "- quenching - star formation in galaxies that are too large for the probation on the supernovae to explain," says Sugata Kaviraj, Leverhulme - Beecroft fellow in astrophysics at the University of Oxford, UK, led the research.

"The astronomers believe that the jets of active galactic nuclei are powerful enough to" blow away "star-forming gas from even the largest galaxies, but until now we have not had solid evidence for this observation. The Jets typical Active Galactic nuclei would have enough energy to power ten billion stars like our sun, our study shows for the first time from a purely observational view, the relationship between the mass of a galaxy and whether supernovae or AGN play a dominant role in quenching star formation, "says Kaviraj .
The scientific team from the University of Oxford, UK and the University of Hertfordshire, England studied a special class of post-Starburst galaxies, the lack of current star formation, but their spectra indicate that they formed a significant part of their stellar mass in the recent past. A recent period of vigorous star formation in these galaxies Therefore, it was quickly cleared so that these objects perfect test environments to probe the quenching. The galaxies studied in this work, by cosmological standards, nearby, at a distance of 1.5 billion light-years years or less.

With a novel combination of UV data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (an orbiting space telescope launched by NASA in 2003) and optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (one of the largest surveys on observations, with a special 2 ,5-Meter telescope equipped with a 120-megapixel camera;), the scientists were able to measure the efficiency of quenching takes place in the individual galaxies with unprecedented accuracy.

"The work is very topical," stresses Marc Sarzi, Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire and academic visitors in Oxford. "Post-Star burst galaxies are extremely rare objects, and it's only thanks to the large amount indicated in the Sloan survey, which we use, a considerable number of them."

Kaviraj adds: "In the AGN regime, the quenching efficiency is expected that positive scale galaxy with mass, while in the supernova regime the opposite trend is expected. We also know that AGN are clearly many more galaxies with masses of about 10 billion times the mass of the sun. Our results show that the expected dichotomy in the relationship between efficiency and quenching galaxy mass is in fact the data, just above the threshold expected mass - 10 billion times the mass of the sun! "

According to co-author Joe Silk is Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford University and has pioneered the use of black holes in models of galaxy formation: "We have simply not understand the murky details of galaxy formation. Any form of 'feedback' slowing down and quenching both star formation in nearby galaxies and the distant universe. These results point to the perpetrators will probably be a combination of the effects of exploding stars and supermassive black holes, with black holes dominates the massive galaxies, as in contemporary Galaxy formation models.

Quantify the role that AGN in quenching star formation is of paramount importance that astrophysicists, as it would enable them to calibrate their models of galaxy formation. During the observations made in this study were in the vicinity of galaxies, the challenge now is to confirm these preliminary results and expand the scope of the work on a representative sample of galaxies: This category includes those who are much further away from the Peak epoch of star formation around 10 billion years ago, when the universe was only 25 percent of its current age!

The effort led by Kaviraj are under way, the observations of several large surveys, that traces the evolution of the universe in the last 10 billion years to the properties of the post-starburst galaxy population. The research work is expected to yield significant insights into the quenching and provide valuable restrictions on the current paradigm of galaxy formation.

Super Luminous Supernovae

Astronomers have announced today that they have found that the explosive transformation of a neutron star into a quark star (ie a Quark-Nova) has the right properties to explain the super-bright supernovae SN2006gy, SN2005gj and SN2005ap. Denis Leahy and Rachid Ouyed from the University of Calgary in Canada to present their findings today at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. Their results are of particular interest for two reasons: so far, astronomers do not have a satisfactory explanation for super-bright supernovas, and this provides evidence for the existence of quark stars - a manifestation of a new state of matter.

The objects of study are the three brightest supernova ever observed. SN2006gy was in the galaxy NGC1260 at a distance from Earth of 240 million light-years years; SN2005gj and SN2005ap in more distant galaxies. They were observed at Lick Observatory for SN2006gy (Smith et al, 2008), at Mount Palomar for SN2005gj (Aldering et al 2006), and at McDonald Observatory for SN2005ap (Quimby et al 2008). It produces 100 times more energy than normal supernova light and are a challenge to explain.

We are studying the properties of quark stars, which have been proposed to exist, but has not yet been confirmed. The compact solid objects in the universe are known neutron stars: 16 kilometers and about 1.5 times as massive as our sun. Neutron stars are made of densely packed neutrons together and produced by the collapse of the core of a massive star at the end of his life, including a supernova explosion. Quark stars are even denser, the same Mass, but only 12 kilometers. Quark stars may be produced if the density of a neutron star is high enough. In this case, the neutrons dissolve into quarks, and also much release enough energy to power an explosion similar to the original that the explosion formed the neutron star.

Super-bright supernova may be the result of the second explosion (the Quark-Nova), which converts the neutron star into a quark star. The first explosion, the neutron star would not be noticed, known as the super-bright supernovae have occurred so far away from the Earth. The shock wave from the second explosion takes a few weeks to heat the gas expelled from the first explosion. As a result, the gas is very large (a hundred times the sun-Earth distance) if it is heated and produces a bright long-supernovae.

NASA Finds New Type Of Comet Dust Mineral

NASA researchers and scientists from the United States, Germany and Japan have found a new mineral in material that probably came from a comet.

The mineral, a manganese silicide Brownleeite named, was discovered within an interplanetary dust particles or IDP, which seems to have 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup from comets. The comet was originally discovered in 1902 and will return every 5 years. The team, the discovery is led by Keiko Nakamura-Messenger, a space scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"When I saw this mineral for the first time I immediately knew this was something nobody had seen before," said Nakamura-Messenger. "But it took several more months to consistent data, because this mineral grains were only 1 / 10000 of an inch in size."

A new method for the collection of internally displaced persons has been proposed by Scott Messenger, another Johnson Space scientists. He predicted 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup comet was a source of dust grains could be caught in the stratosphere of the earth at a certain time of the year.

In response to its forecast, NASA conducted stratosphere dust collections, with an ER-2 aircraft flown amount of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The aircraft collected internally displaced from this particular comet stream in April 2003. The new mineral was in one of the particles. To determine the mineral origin and to examine other materials dust, a powerful new transmission electron microscope was in 2005 in Johnson.

"Due to its extremely small size, we had to use state-of-the-art nano-analysis techniques under the microscope to measure the chemical composition and crystal structure of Keiko's new mineral," said Lindsay Keller, Johnson Space scientists and Co - discoverer of the new mineral. "This is a highly unusual material that was not predicted to either a component or cometary have by condensation in the solar nebula."

Since 1982, NASA routinely collected cosmic and interplanetary dust with high-altitude research aircraft. However, the sources of most dust particles were difficult to pin down because of their complex history in space. The Earth accretes over 40000 tonnes of dust particles from space every year, mostly originating in the disintegration of comets and asteroid collisions. This dust is a topic of interest, because it from the original building blocks of our solar system, planets, and our body.

The mineral was surrounded by several layers of other minerals were only in extraterrestrial rocks. There were 4324 minerals, which by the International Mineralogical Association, or IMA. This finding adds another mineral that list.

The IMA approved new mineral, Brownleeite, is named after Donald E. Brownlee, professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle. Brownlee founded the field of IP research. The understanding of the early solar system founded by IDP studies would not exist without his efforts. Brownlee is also the Principal Investigator of NASA's Stardust mission.

Spacecraft To The Sun

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is to send a space probe closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone - and what he finds could revolutionize what we know about our Star and the solar wind influenced by the fact that everything our solar system.

NASA has developed APL develop the ambitious mission Solar Probe, will study the streams of charged particles of the sun hurls into space from a vantage point within the Sun's corona - its outer atmosphere - where the processes that produce heat, corona and solar wind. The next solar sample approach would zip past the sun at 125 miles per second, protected by a carbon composite heat shield, the weight of up to 2600 ° F and survive blasts of radiation energy and dust not on a level with which any previous spacecraft .

Experts in the U.S. and abroad have grappled with this mission concept for more than 30 years run in seemingly insurmountable technological and budgetary policy restrictions. But in February an APL-led team a sample of solar engineering and design study mission to the NASA request to detail how the robot mission could be. The study uses a team APL study in 2005 as a baseline, but then clearly changed the concept to meet demanding cost and technical conditions set by NASA.

"We knew we were on the right track," said Andrew Dantzler, Solar Probe project manager at Apl. "Now we have it all together in an innovative package, the technology is within reach, the concept is feasible and the entire mission can be done for less than $ 750 million [in fiscal year 2007 U.S. dollars] or on the Cost of a medium - Class planetary mission. NASA decided it was time. "

APL designed and built the spacecraft on a timetable for the introduction in 2015. The compact, solar-powered probe would weigh about 1000 pounds; preliminary designs include a 9-foot-diameter, 6-inch-thick carbon-filled foam solar shield summit of the spacecraft body. Two sets of solar arrays would retract or extend, as the spacecraft swings in direction or away from the sun while several loops around the inner solar system, so sure that the plates remain in the correct temperatures and performance levels. At its closest pass the spacecraft must survive solar intensity more than 500 times what spacecraft experiences during an orbit of the earth.

Solar Probe turning seven Venus flybys in the course of almost 7 years gradually shrink its orbit around the sun, come as close as 4.1 million miles (6.6 million kilometers) to the sun, even within the orbit of Mercury and about eight times closer than any spacecraft has before.

Solar Probe is a combination of in-place and remote measurements to achieve the mission is primarily scientific objectives: determining the structure and dynamics of the magnetic fields on the sources of solar wind; track the flow of energy, heats the corona and accelerates the solar wind system to determine what mechanisms to accelerate and transport energetic particles and explore dusty plasma in the vicinity of the sun and its influence on the solar wind and energetic particle formation. Details are set out in a solar probe for science and technology definition study team that NASA version will later this year. NASA version is also a separate announcement of opportunity for the spacecraft's science payload.

"Solar Probe is a true mission of exploration," says Dr. Robert Decker, Solar Probe project scientist at Apl. "For example, the spacecraft will go close enough to the sun to observe the solar wind speed from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly even though the cradle of the highest solar-energy particles. And, as with all of the missions of discovery, solar Sample is likely that more questions than it answers. "

APL's experience in developing spacecraft to explore the Sun-Earth relationship - or work near the sun - ACE, which recently marked its 10th Year of sampling energetic particles between Earth and sun; time setting, is currently examining solar effects on the Earth's upper atmosphere, the two STEREO probes, which have snapped the first 3-D images of explosive solar events called coronal mass ejections, and the radiation Belt Storm probes, consider the regions of energetic particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field.

Solar sample is fortified with heat-resistant technologies developed for APL MESSENGER spacecraft, which completed its first flyby of Mercury in January and will begin orbiting the planet and that in 2011. Solar Probe solar shield concept was partly influenced by the designs of the Messenger Sonnensegel

Small Planet, Small Star

Astronomers discovered an extrasolar planet only three times more massive than our own, nor the smallest observed orbiting a normal star. The star itself is not large, perhaps as little as one twentieth of the mass of our sun, suggesting that the research team that often relatively low-mass stars can be good candidates for hosting Earth-like planets.

Does Ange by David Bennett of the University of Notre Dame, the international research team presented its findings at a press conference Monday, 2 June 2008, at 11:30 CDT clock at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.

"Our discovery shows that even the lowest mass stars may host planets," says Bennett. "No planet yet found orbiting stars with masses less than 20 percent higher than that of the sun, but this finding suggests that even the smallest stars can host planet."

The astronomers used a technique called micro-lensing effect to find the planets, a method that can potentially planet, one tenth the mass of our own.

The gravitational constant Microlensing system, which came from Einstein's general theory of relativity, based on observations of stars, brighten when an object such as another star passing directly in front of them (relative to an observer, in this case the earth). The gravity of the passing star acts as a lens, much like a huge magnifying glass. If a planet orbiting the star gone, his presence is evident in the way of the background star brightens. A complete explanation of the art follows this release.

"This discovery shows the sensitivity of the Microlensing method to find low-mass planets, and we hope to discover the first Earth-mass planet in the near future," said Bennett.

Use of standard nomenclature, the Star-hosting of the newly discovered planet is synchronized MOA-2007-BLG-192L with MOA indication of the observatory, 2007 has been designated the Year of Microlensing event occurred, BLG stands for "Bulge, 192, indicating the Microlensing observation of the 192nd MOA this year and the L-lens with an indication of the stars in contrast to the background of other star in the distance. The planet has the name, but adds a provision letter it as an additional item in the star's solar system, says MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb.

MOA-2007-BLG-192L lives 3000 light years away and is available as a low-mass star burning hydrogen, an enabling nuclear reactions in its core business as our sun does, or a brown dwarf, an object like a star even without the mass to get Nuclear reactions in its core. The researchers were unable to confirm the category of the star fits in the nature of the observations and the margin of error.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Bennett was one of the pioneers in the use of micro-lens effect to demonstrate low mass planets. He has worked with employees around the world to find a number of planets, the increasingly closer in size to our own.

For the latest discovery, the research staff took advantage of two international cooperation Telescope: Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), which includes Bennett, and the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE).

Researchers in New Zealand from the first measurements of the new planet and its star with the new MOA-II telescope on Mt. John Observatory. The observatory is MOA-CAM3 camera, in an observation, can capture an image of the sky 13 times larger than the area of the full moon. Researchers in Chile made follow-up observations with high angular resolution adaptive optics images at the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory. The data from the observations was analysed by scientists around the world hailing from five continents.

"This discovery is very exciting because it means, Earth-mass planets can form around low-mass stars, are very common," said Michael Briley, astronomer and NSF officer who supervises the Bennett's. "It is a further important step in the search for Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of other stars, and it would not have been possible without the international cooperation between professional and amateur astronomers dedicated to measure these signals.

Black Hole Light Show

It is known that black holes can be slow time for a crawl and tidally stretch large objects in spaghetti-like strands. However, according to new theoretical research of two NASA astrophysicist, the wrenching gravity just outside the outer limit of a black hole is yet another bizarre effect: light echoes.

"The light echoes come because of the severe warping of space-time predicted by Einstein," says KEIGO Fukumura of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "If the black hole spins quickly, it can literally drag the surrounding space, and this may take some wild special effects."
Many black holes are surrounded by disks searing hot gas, swirl around to almost the speed of light. Hot spots within these sheets sometimes encounter random bursts of X-rays, which have been identified by an orbiting X-ray observatories. But after Fukumura and his colleague, Demosthenes Kazanas, things get interesting if they take account of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes how extremely massive objects like black holes actually chain and drag the surrounding space-time.

Many of these X-ray photons travel to Earth by different paths around the black hole. Because the black hole of the extreme gravity warps the surrounding space-time, it prevents the flight paths of the photons so that they come here with a lag, depending on the relative positions of the X-ray flare, the black hole, and the earth.
But if the black hole rotates very fast, then Fukumura and Kazanas calculations, the delay between the photons is constant, regardless of the source position. They discovered that the rapidly spinning black holes, about 75 percent of the X-ray photons arrive in the Observer after completing a fraction of an orbit around the black hole, while the remaining photons travel the exact same fraction of plus one or more full - Railways.

"For every X-ray burst from a hot spot, the observers will be two or more flashes, separated by a constant distance, so that a signal from a totally random collection of bursts of hot spots in various positions itself contains an echo" Kazanas says.
Although difficult to see the raw data, astronomers can a Fourier analysis or other statistical methods to collect these hidden echoes. Among other things, a Fourier analysis is a mathematical tool for extracting periodic behavior on a signal that would otherwise seem totally random. The echoes seems as quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs). An example of a QPO with a period of 10 seconds could exhibit peaks at 9, 21, 30, 39, 51 and 61 seconds.

If you consider a 10-solar-mass black hole, that a dying star, and if the black hole spins more than 95 percent of the maximum possible speed, the period of his QPOs would be about 0.7 milliseconds, which corresponds to about 1400 peaks per second, three times higher than any QPOs that have been observed around black holes. NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite could such a measure high-frequency QPOs, but the signal would have to be very strong.
Detecting these high-frequency QPOs would do more than just another confirmation of the prediction of Einstein's theory. It would be a real treasure trove of information about the Black Hole. The frequency of QPOs depends on the black hole mass, so that the recognition of this echo effect would give astronomers an accurate way to measure the mass of black holes. In addition, notes Kazanas, "This echoes only occur if a black hole is spinning near their maximum speed possible so that it now say that the astronomers the black hole spins really fast."

Old Galaxies Discovered

	Astronomers at Rutgers and Penn State universities have discovered galaxies in the distant universe, the ancestors of spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. This ancient objects, some of the first galaxies depending on the shape, is to see how they looked when the universe was only 2 billion years old. Today, researchers peg the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, so that the light from these galaxies travelled almost 12 billion years on Earth. The newly discovered galaxies are quite small, one-tenth of the size and one-twentieth of the mass of our Milky Way. They also have fewer stars, only a fortieth as many as in the Milky Way. From ground-based telescopes, they look like single stars in size. Latest images from the Hubble Space Telescope, but they show as regions of active star formation. "Finding these objects and discover that they are a step in the development of our galaxy is akin to the search for a fossil key on the path of human evolution," says Eric Gawiser, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. The researchers found that these galaxies have been fertile ground for new stars, which burned hot and bright. These stars ionized the hydrogen atoms around them, stripping them of their electrons and that they emit a fairy tale to tell of hot-band ultraviolet light known as Lyman-alpha. The researchers also noted that several of these galaxies, sometimes 10 or more, pulled together over the ensuing few billion years into a single spiral galaxy. "The Hubble Space Telescope has striking images of these early galaxies, where 10 times the resolution of ground-based telescopes," says Caryl Gronwall, Senior Research Associate at the Penn State's Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics. "They come in a variety of shapes, round, oblong, and even somewhat linear, and we will begin to precise measurements of their size." The astronomers discovered these galaxies as part of a 5-year census of galaxies in the early universe, a project called MUSYC (multi-wavelength survey by Yale and Chile). Gawiser, while a National Science Foundation (NSF) Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale, launched a search for different types of galaxies could be a precursor of the Milky Way-spirals; Gronwall led an investigation into the luminosity, density and distribution of the distinctive Lyman Alpha-emitters. Their statistical analysis and computer simulations of galaxies, such as clusters led to the conclusion reported for the first time in December 2007: Lyman-alpha emitters are the ancestors of spiral galaxies. "We knew from our understanding of the cosmological theory that spiral galaxies had a low mass galaxies like this," said Gawiser. "The challenge is that they actually find. We'd seen other galaxies early universe, but they were bigger and, in elliptical galaxies, not spirals." The astronomers undertook four types of observations to find and characterize the objects they were looking for. It takes the first step, in fact, the Lyman-alpha-emitting galaxies midst of all visible objects of Deep Space, with the 4-meter Blanco telescope at the NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. To measure their distance, they used the Magellan Telescope at Las Camp Anas Observatory in Chile, for measuring the redshift, an effect that shows how fast an object from the look back on a rapidly expanding universe. (The redshift in which they studied these galaxies is 3.1.) To determine how many stars are in the galaxies, they used the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope infrared array camera. And to determine how large the galaxies, they used the NASA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. "Astronomy has long been a model, where large surveys, followed by detailed studies of the interesting objects they find," says Nigel Sharp, program officer in NSF's division of astronomical sciences. "This beautiful couples the large area, wide-angle field of view of our ground-based telescope with the sharp focus of the Hubble that the probe in pale light. This team has the closest yet to find young galaxies that are similar to our own Milky Way in the Infancy. "
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A Trio Of Super-Earths

Today, in an international conference, a team of European astronomers announced a remarkable breakthrough in the field of extrasolar planets. With the HARPS instrument on the ESO La Silla observatory, they've found a system of triple super-earth around the star HD 40307th In addition, searches of their total sample and harps, the astronomers are a total of 45 candidates planet with a mass below 30 Earth masses and an orbital period of less than 50 days. This means that a solar-star of three ports such planets.

"Does every single star port planet, and if so, how many?"
Miracle planet hunter Michel Mayor of Geneva Observatory. "We can not yet know the answer, but we make great progress towards."

Since the discovery in 1995 of a planet around the star 51 Pegasi by Mayor and Didier Queloz, more than 270 exoplanets have been found, mostly around solar-like stars. Most of these planets are giants, like Jupiter or Saturn, and current statistics show that about 1 of
Stars 14 ports this kind of planet.

"With the advent of much more precise instruments such as the HARPS spectrograph on the ESO 3.6-m telescope at La Silla, we can now discover smaller planets with masses 2 to 10 times the mass of the earth,"
Says Stephane Udry, the mayor colleagues. Such planets are called super-earth, because they are more massive than the Earth, but less massive than Uranus and Neptune (about 15 Earth masses).

The group of astronomers have now discovered a system of three "super-earth to a more normal star, which is slightly less massive than our sun and located 42 light years away in the direction of the southern constellation Doradus and Pictor.

"We have very precise measurements of the speed of the star HD
40307 in the last five years, which clearly show the presence of three planets, "says Mayor.

The planet, with 4.2, 6.7 and 9.4 times the mass of Earth orbit the star with periods of 4.3, 9.6 and 20.4 days, respectively.

"The interference by the planets are really small - the mass of the smallest planet is a hundred thousand times smaller than the star - and only the high sensitivity of the HARPS made it possible to detect," says co-author Francois Bouchy, from the Institute Astrophysique de Paris, France.

Because each planet induces a movement of the star of only a few meters per second.

At the same conference, the team of astronomers announced the discovery of two other planetary systems, even with the HARPS spectrograph. In one, a super-Earth (7.5 masses) orbiting the star HD 181433 to 9.5 days. This star has a Jupiter-like planet with a period of close to 3 years. The second system includes a 22-mass of the planet earth with a duration of 4 days and a Saturn-like planets with a 3-year period as well.

"Of course these planets are only the tip of the iceberg," says Mayor.
"The analysis of all the stars studied with HARPS shows that around one third of all solar-like stars have either super-Earth or Neptune-like planets with orbital data shorter periods than 50 days."

A planet in a narrow, short-period orbit is in fact easier to find than a in a broad, long-period orbit.

"It is very likely that there are many other planet: not only super-Earth and Neptune-like planets with longer periods, but also Earth-like planets, we can not recognize it yet. Add it to the Jupiter-like Planets already known, and you may well arrive at the conclusion that planets are everywhere, "concludes Udry.

Phoenix Makes First Trench In Science Reserve

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander began digging in an area called Wonderland early Tuesday, taking his first ground ball from a polygonal surface feature within the national park region, the mission scientists were for the preservation of science.

The lander's robot arm created the new test trench called Snow White, 17 On June 22nd Martian day, or Sol, after the Phoenix spacecraft landed on 25 May. New planned academic activities will resume no earlier than 24 Sol as engineers examine how the spacecraft handling is greater than expected amounts of data.

During the dig Tuesday, the arm may not reach the hard white material, possibly ice, that Phoenix suspended earlier in the first trench dug into the Martian soil.

That is exactly what the scientists expected, and both wanted. The Snow White trench is located near the middle of a relatively flat hummock or polygon, the name Cheshire Cat, where scientists predict it will take more or thick layers of soil above ground possible white material.

The Snow White trench is about two centimeters deep and 30 centimetres long. The Phoenix-team plans at least another day of digging deeper into the ditch Snow White.

It will examine the soil structure in the Snow White trench to decide at what depth they collect samples from a trench future, around the middle of the polygon.

Meanwhile, the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) instrument will continue its ongoing experiment in the first of its eight furnaces.

TEGA has eight separate small ovens to bake and sniff the earth to seek volatile components, such as water. The baking takes place in three different temperature areas.

Newly Born Twin Stars Show Surprising Differences

A new study, published in the 19th June issue of the journal Nature, suggests that a star in a series of identical twin stars, formed much earlier than the others. Because astrophysicists have assumed that the binary stars form the discovery represents an important new test for a successful star formation theories, forcing theorists back to the drawing board to determine whether their models can produce binary files with stars, taken at different times .

The twins were in the Orion Nebula, a well-known stellar nursery, which is 1500 light years away. The newly formed stars are about 1 million years old. With a full life of about 50 billion years, making it equivalent to 1-day-old human baby.

"Very young superpower binary files from it are the Rosetta stone to us about the history of life newly formed stars," says Keivan Stassun, Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Vanderbilt. He and Robert D. Mathieu from the University of Wisconsin-Madison initiated the project.

Superpower binaries are pairs of stars that revolve around an axis perpendicular to the direction to Earth. This orientation allows astronomers to determine the rate that the two stars orbit around each other-even if they can not resolve individual stars by measuring the periodic fluctuations in brightness, if the star pass against each other. With this information, the astronomers determine the masses of the two stars with Newton's laws of motion.

In this fashion, the astronomers calculate that the newly discovered twins have nearly identical masses that 41 percent of the sun. According to current theories, mass and composition are the two factors that determine a star of the physical properties and dictate the entire life cycle. Since the two stars condensed from the same cloud of gas and dust they should have the same composition. With the same mass and composition, they should be identical in every respect. Thus, the astronomers surprised when they discovered that the twins showed significant differences in the brightness, surface temperature and possibly size.

The astronomers the first measurements of the eclipses of the two stars of sifting through almost 15 years worth of observations of several thousand stars with a telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona and the SMARTS telescopes at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. For more information about the two stars, they made additional measurements using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas. By measuring the difference in the amount that the light during the darkness, the astronomers were able to find that one of the stars is two times brighter than the others, calculated that the bright star has a surface temperature of 300 ° higher than its twin . An additional analysis of the light spectrum from the couple also pointed out that one of the stars is about 10 percent larger than the others, but further observations are needed to confirm.

"The easiest way to explain these differences is when a star was about 500000 years before his twin," says Stassun. "This is a human birth order difference of about half a day."

In addition to causing theorists to re-examine star formation models, the new discovery can lead to the astronomers to readjust their estimates of the masses and the age of thousands of young stars less than a few million years old. Current estimates are based on models that are calibrated with measurements of young stars that binary were presumed to have simultaneously. The recalibration may be required as much as 20 percent for the mass of a typical young stars and as much as 50 percent for very low-mass stars like brown dwarfs, Stassun estimates.

Other participants in the study are doctoral Phillip Cargile and Alicia Aarnio from Vanderbilt and Aaron Geller from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, together with Eric stamp at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Hungry Black Holes

The largest black holes could eat as well as the small ones, according to NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and ground-based telescopes. This discovery supports the impact of Einstein's relativity theory that black holes of all sizes with similar characteristics, and will be useful for predicting the properties of a suspected new class of black holes.

The conclusion comes from a large campaign of observation of the spiral galaxy M81, which is about 12 million light years from Earth. In the center of M81 is a black hole that over 70 million times more massive than the sun, and generates energy and radiation as it moves gas in the central region of the galaxy to the inside at high speeds.

In contrast, the so-called stellar mass black holes, which is more than 10 times more massive than the sun, have a different food source. These smaller black holes acquire new material by drawing gas from the companion orbiting stars. Due to the large and small black holes exist in different environments with different sources of material to feed, a question remained whether they feed in the same way.

With these new observations and a detailed theoretical model, a team of researchers compared the characteristics of M81's black hole with the mass stellar black holes. The results show that either large or small, black holes indeed appear to eat like any other, and a similar distribution of X-rays, optical light and radio.

One of the effects of Einstein's theory of general relativity theory is that black holes are simply objects and their masses and spins determine their impact on the space-time. The latest research results suggest that this simplicity manifests itself despite complicated effects on the environment.

"This confirms that the feeding patterns for black holes of different sizes can be very similar," says Sera Markoff of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, led the study. "We thought that was the case, but until now we have not been able to nail."

The model that Markoff and her colleagues used to the black holes includes a silent disk of material spinning around the black hole. This structure would mainly produce X-rays and optical light. A region of hot gas around the black hole would be seen largely UV and X-ray light. A major contribution to the radio and X-ray light comes from jets, by the black hole. Multi-wavelength data is necessary to separate these overlapping light sources.

"If we look at the data, it appears that our model works equally well for the huge black hole in M81 as for the smaller guys," said Michael Nowak, a co-author from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Everything about this huge black hole looks the same unless it is almost 10 million times greater."

Among actively feeding the black hole in M81 is one of the dimmest, probably because it is "undernourished". However, it is one of the brightest as seen from Earth because of the relative proximity, so that high-quality observations.

"It seems as if the undernourished Black holes are the easiest in practice, perhaps because we can see, closer to the black hole," says Andrew Young from the University of Bristol in England. "They seem not to care too much get where their food."

This work should be useful for predicting the properties of a third, unconfirmed class called intermediate mass black holes with masses lie between those of the stellar and supermassive black holes. Some possible members of this class have been identified, but the evidence is controversial, so that specific forecasts for the properties of these black holes should be very helpful.

In addition to Chandra, three radio arrays (the Giant Meter Wave Radio Telescope, the Very Large Array and the Very Long Baseline Array), two millimeter telescopes (the Plateau de Bure interferometer and the Submillimeter Array) and Lick Observatory in the optics used to Monitoring of the M81. These observations were at the same time to ensure that brightness fluctuations due to changes in feeding rates are not confuse the results. Chandra X-ray is the only satellite able to isolate the soft X-rays of the black hole from the issuance of the rest of the galaxy.

This result confirmed earlier less detailed work by Andrea Merloni from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany and colleagues that suggested that the basic characteristics of larger black holes are similar to the small ones. Their study was not to simultaneous multi-wavelength observations nor the application of a detailed physical model.

Quantum Gravity - Revealed By Gamma Ray Bursts?

Gamma-ray bursts - the grand and mysterious flashes of high energy light now as probes for the most ranges from the earliest moments of the universe and time - may be another secret to reveal: quantum gravity.

Not yet observed in nature, the quantum gravity is the long sought missing link between Einstein's general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, the two pillars of modern physics inappropriate. NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), scheduled for a 2005 start may be able to identify for the first time the effects of quantum gravity in the speed of gamma-ray burst photons, after two NASA scientists.

The main message is that the gamma-ray bursts that GLAST are discovered and removed sufficiently strong enough to see the highest of the high energy photons travel a little slower than at lower-energy photons, weighted by the effect of quantum gravity.
Drs Jay Norris and Jerry Bonnell of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the math. The two observed, astronomers said that only time will tell whether this delay GLAST is the time to quantum gravity (and the figures, go with it) is still very speculative.

A gamma-ray burst is the largest outpouring of energy the universe has ever seen, apart from the "Big Bang". Each burst is as powerful as a billion trillion suns and satellite recognize burst or two per day. As usual the burst, but nobody is sure about what it means. They are only in the gamma-ray wave range, although their afterglows abate slowly into the x-ray and optical realm.
Gamma-ray bursts were discovered in the late 1960s, decades after the concepts of the general theory of relativity and quantum physics spiced the first lexicon.

General Relativity accounts for gravity, the force that acts in large scales. Quantum mechanics, part of the standard model, describes the behavior of the other three fundamental forces: electromagnetism and weak forces (in radioactive decay) and strong forces (holding subatomic particles together). These three forces act on small scales, and each has a particle, which transmits power: namely, photons (electromagnetism), gluons (for strong forces) and W and Z particles (for strong forces).

The hypothesis that the particles would provide for the force of gravity, the graviton. Well, a graviton is not something that you're looking for in a huge particle accelerator, as opposed to a Higgs boson or other exotic particles. The scientists are looking for, rather than the impact of Graviton, as in gravitational waves rocking chair objects in space or in the case of the Gamma-Ray Burst, gravitons slowing of a passing photon.
In quantum mechanics, the vacuum of space is no vacuum, but it is on the spot by virtual particles, such as the graviton. Light through this field of virtual particles is broken, just as it is, if the water or through any medium.

The Graviton that the nature of gravitational force, would interact with (or slow down) the particles with a greater gravitational potential. With mass directly proportional to the energy, as in E = mc2, higher energy photons have a greater gravitational potential than to lower energy photons - as if they weigh more.

The highest energy photons would therefore travel through space more slowly than lower-energy photons. (This does not violate the constancy of the speed of light, for light travels in the same speed only in an absolute vacuum.) To demonstrate the very slight difference in the photons speed, you need a very distant source emitting very high energy photons: that is , The gamma ray burst.

Last year, Dr. Bradley Schaefer of the University of Texas tested the consistency of the speed of light to great accuracy, with both high-and low-photons, and found no change in time. The photons in the main proceedings in question Norris and Bonnell analysis, though, are of higher energy than anything previously studied.

When it comes to burst photons, GLAST will determine the highest of the high. The instrument would be able to detect photons of gamma-ray bursts with energy thousands of times higher than those in Burst acknowledged that the missions before GLAST, as HETE-2 and SWIFT. Also, with the source of the gamma ray burst probably billions of light years away, GLAST might be a delay in photon arrival times as they travel through the endless soup of gravitons.
Such a scenario would be a strong evidence for the presence of the graviton and thus, the concept of quantum gravity. Of course, the quantum gravity is as speculative as it is, obviously delays in photons speed might have some astronomers zuzubilligen that this is the dynamics of the explosion and not the medium of space. However, the discovery of the LAG times is a deep revelation.

Several groups of scientists working on the issue of quantum gravity and how to recognize. A team led by Dr. John Ellis of CERN is looking at low-energy gamma-ray bursts, Dr. Karl Mannheim university observatory and his group are seeking high energy photons detected earlier burst, and a group headed by Dr .. TC Weekes the Whipple Observatory in Arizona is pouring through the data of the highest detected gamma-ray photons, from relatively nearby galaxies with active black holes.

Eindeutigen evidence of quantum gravity would ultimately open up new avenues for physicists' ultimate goal the unification of all four fundamental forces in the framework of a Grand Unified Theory - a theory states that the behavior of all matter and energy in all situations.

Quintessence, Accelerating The Universe?

When it doubt, go back to the basics. That is exactly what cosmologists have to explain why our universe seems to be accelerating.
The new buzzword in cosmology these days is "quintessence", borrowed from the ancient Greeks used the term to describe a mysterious "Fifth Element" - in addition to air, earth, fire and water - in the possession of the moon and stars in Place. Quintessence, some cosmologists say, is an exotic kind of energy field that pushes particles apart, overwhelming gravity and the other fundamental forces.

If quintessence is real, it would not be rare. Two-thirds of the universe would be the stuff. In the Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics in Austin, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, explained how the bottom line was dominant force in the universe a few billion years old, in a relatively short time, he says. Steinhardt not exactly warm on the set with his new theory.
Cosmology used to a quiet life. As recent as two years ago, most people were in agreement that, yes, the universe is expanding. In question was only whether the expansion would come slowly to a halt, and the universe falls back into itself, or whether the universe continue to float apart, but at a slower and slower. If there is enough matter in the universe, then gravity would halt the expansion and suck all know that we in the "big crunch". All cosmologists had to do was to add up the mass in the universe.

But in 1998, cosmologists were shaken from their seats by the discovery that the universe is expanding at an astonishing rate. New and Improved observations of distant supernovae have been rendering of the 'Big Crunch' question null and void.
Supernovae are stars explosions, and there are a few varieties. One, the so-called Type Ia supernovae, exploding with a characteristic energy. With a decent idea of the explosion and the absolute apparent brightness, astronomers determine the distance that these objects. Then know the redshift, they can calculate how fast the supernovae are away from us. If it is found that the most distant Type 1a supernovae have gone much faster then closer, suggesting that the universe's expansion is actually accelerating, not slowing down.
There are a few non-believers, with good reason. Some say that the most distant supernovae May only far (that is, dim), because the intervening dust dispersed its light. Also, we can not be sure that the most distant supernovae explode in the same way as closer.
Most cosmologists, however, have hopped on the train speeding universe. Their task now is to explain how they can be physically possible. Should not the force of gravity, the great attractor, hold the universe of Flying apart?

Einstein thought about, but for the wrong reason. He developed a Fudge factor called the cosmological constant. Einstein, and all others in the early 20th Century, thought the universe was static and that everything was within the Milky Way. The cosmological constant was an anti-gravity "vacuum" force to hold that gravity pulls from the universe. By 1930, Edwin Hubble discovered that the Milky Way was just one of a multitude of galaxies and that the universe is expanding. So there was no longer a need for a cosmological constant. Einstein, the number of his equations, he calls his "biggest mistake".

The problem with the cosmological constant, Steinhardt says, is that there is indeed constant. It provides the same force in the entire period. Observational evidence indicates that regardless of this force is that the acceleration of the universe, it was not constant over time. It had periods in which the power was negligible, because planets and stars and stripes squirrels never had.
"The cosmological constant is a very specific form of energy, a vacuum energy," Steinhardt said. "Quintessence covers a wide class of possibilities. It is a dynamic, temporally and spatially dependent developing form of energy with negative pressure sufficient to increase the pace of expansion."

Vacuum energy is the energy potential in an absolute vacuum, without the matter or radiation. Think of a chimney suck air from the living room, that's the universe of matter expanding into the great unknown. Quintessence is a quantum with both kinetic and potential energy. Depending on the relationship of both energy and the pressure they exert quintessence can either attract or repel.

Quintessence was to be expected, with around 10 billion years, according to the theory. That may be fairly early in a 15 billion years old universe, but cosmologist not see it. The dark energy was created when the universe 10-35 seconds old, they do not cause the universe to speed for another five billion years. That is a factor of more than 1050 - and in a relatively short time in terms of the redshift and the size of the universe.
Steinhardt quintessence indicates that during the transition from a radiation on matter-dominated universe when it cool enough for atoms and finally to form stars.
But what is quintessence? Nobody knows. Radiation, normal matter and dark matter probably all have positive pressure. They have therefore a gravitationally attractive force. Everything with negative pressure, the general theory of relativity dictates, would have a gravitationally repulsive force.

In essence, the quantum would have a very long wavelength of the size of the universe. His kinetic energy depends on the rate of vibrations in the field strength, its potential energy depends on the interaction of the field with matter. The more kinetic energy, the more positive pressure - that is not so likely to a universe long wavelength. So for the moment, potential energy and lower pressures. Therefore quintessence is a repulsive force.
This may change, says Steinhardt. Quintessence interaction with matter and evolves over time. Quintessence decay can also be used in new forms of hot matter or radiation. We are not necessarily doomed to a universe expands, that forever, which is every atom from here to infinity.

Sounds nice, but not everyone is sold.
"The theory of the universe is accelerating a work in progress," said James Peebles, professor emeritus at Princeton University. "I admire the architecture, but I do not want to move in just yet."

Namely, on the Texas Symposium, polite arguments over quintessence stretched well into the next interview. Some suggested that the nature of dark energy would become clear with a better understanding of gravity and gravitational waves. Steinhardt was admittedly at a loss with some of the questions. Astronomers and cosmologists are fascinated by quintessence, they simply need more information.

We will not be able to keep quintessence in our hands, nor can we probes to detect them directly. At best, we need tools, may find that the effect of the quintessence of the universe over time. Two space science missions are promising, said Steinhardt.

The Supernova Acceleration Project (SNAP) would systematically search for a large number of distant supernovae, beyond the reach of most space telescopes. Saul Perlmutter of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said, including in the Texas meeting, the efforts and described a not so complicated satellite with a two-metre telescope to search for supernovae at high redshift. SNAP would find about 2000 supernovae per year, enough to significantly close the error in bars calculations of the universe is expanding. The mission has not yet been funded.
Closer to the realization is Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP). It can detect small variations in the amount of quintessence of the sky as waves in the microwave background radiation remaining from when the universe was 300000 years old. Chuck Bennett, a MAP project manager at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is pretty excited.
"MAP is the best way to test quintessence in the immediate future," said Bennett. "Quintessence makes very specific predictions. To see if it is there or not is a non-brainer. To make a precise value, well, that's a bit more difficult."

At issue is how well the card can measure the quintessential factors in the equation, as the mass density of the universe, its geometry and the speed of expansion and the neutrino contribution.
Steinhardt certainly has a good track record. He was one of the originators of the theory of inflation and the acceleration predicts a universe in 1995. If quintessence has turned into something that scientists can sink their teeth into, it would be yet another confirmation of Einstein's theories, and a fine nod to the ancient Greeks, sent us this way.

String Theory, The Ultimate Theory?

In the standard model of particle physics, particles are as points move through space, the pursuit of a line with the name "World online. To take account of the different interactions in nature observed, the particles with more degree of freedom to their position and velocity, such as mass, electric charge, color (this is the "cargo" in conjunction with the strong interaction) or spin.
The standard model has been in a framework, known as Quantum Field Theory (QFT), which gives us the tools to build both in line with theories of quantum mechanics and special relativity theory. With these tools, theories have been built, describing with great success three of the four known interactions in nature: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces.
It was a very successful agreement between electromagnetism and the weak force has been reached (electric Weak theory), and promising ideas put forward to try to strong force. But unfortunately the fourth interaction, gravity, as defined by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (GR), does not seem to fit into this scheme. Whenever you try to apply the rules of

QFT GR to get results that make no sense.

The usual areas of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics are quite different. General relativity theory describes gravity and thus is usually limited to the largest and structures, including the massive stars, galaxies, black holes and even in cosmology, the universe itself quantum mechanics is very relevant in the description of the smallest structures in the

universe, such as Electrons and quarks.

In most normal physical situations, either general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics is a prerequisite for a theoretical understanding, but not both. However, there are extreme physical conditions, which require these two fundamental theories for an adequate theoretical treatment.

Prime examples of such situations are space-time singularities, as the central point of a black hole or the state of the universe shortly before the Big Bang. These exotic physical structures with enormous mass scale (and thus the general theory of relativity) and extremely small distance scales (quantum mechanics).

Unfortunately, the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics are not compatible: any calculation, which also uses these two instruments, and the income nonsensical answers. The origin of this problem can be attributed to equations, which are badly behaved when particles interact with each other minutes scales in the order of 10-33cm - the Planck length.
Another problem with this model is that you assume that the existence of different forces and their carriers. Einstein hoped that a "unified" theory in which all the known forces would be composed of one single in a certain way. Electricity and magnetism used to be thought of as two forces, but now we know these are two different aspects of the same (electro-magnetic). Could the same kind of agreement to hold the four forces, which today are distinguishable?
String theory is currently the most promising example of a candidate unified theory. We do not yet know whether it correctly describes nature, but it seems to be a theory, largely describes a world similar to ours, and is endowed with beauty and consistency to an astonishing degree.

Strings
The physical idea is very simple. Instead of many types of point-like elementary particles, physicists postulate that in nature there are a number of individual string object. The string is not "everything" but it is a very simple and other things are made. As for the musical strings, this basic string can vibrate, and each vibration mode can be used as point-like elementary particles, as well as the Modes of a musical string perceived as their own notes!
String theory solves the problem of deep incompatibility of the two fundamental theories (GR and QFT) by modifying the properties of the general theory of relativity, if it scales in the order of the Planck length. Modern accelerator can only probe scales at a distance about 10-16cm, and thus these loops of string instruments seem to be objects.

However, the string theoretical hypothesis that they actually are tiny loops, dramatically changes the way in which these objects interact in the shortest distance from scales. This modification is allowed, what the gravity and quantum mechanics into a harmonious unit.
There is a price to pay for this solution, however. It turns out that the equations of string theory are self-consistent only if the universe contains, in addition to the time, nine spatial dimensions. Since the gross conflict with the perception of three-dimensional space, it might seem that string theory must be discarded. However, this is not true.

Several theories String
However, it is more than a theory. These theories are classified, depending on whether or not the strings are required closed loop, and whether the particles range fermions (particles, does matter). To fermions in string theory, there must be a special kind of symmetry called supersymmetry, which means for every boson (particles that transmits a force), there is a fermion. So does the supersymmetry particles, the forces to the particles that make up matter.
String Theory, which deals with bosons are not only more popular because they require 26 space-time dimensions and a particle with imaginary mass of the tachyon. There are a whole series of superstring theory, which is mathematically only require the ten dimensions. A few of the differences between them are closed-loop theories and others only with closed loop, the pause in open strings.

Massless theories with fermions only spinning one way (chiral) and string theories, the heterotic, which means the right and left moving strings. Different combinations of the above characteristics make us with 5 plausible (mathematically) theories.

M-theory
There was a difficulty in the investigation of these theories: physicists and mathematicians do not have instruments to the theories of all possible values of the parameters in the theories. Each theory was like a big planet, which we knew only a small island somewhere on the planet. But over the last four years, techniques have been developed to the theories more thoroughly, in other words, to travel around the lake in each of these planets and find new islands. And only then became clear that these five string theories are actually islands on the same planet and not different! There is an underlying theory of string that all theories are just different aspects. This was called M-theory.

One of the islands was found that in the M-theory planet corresponds to a theory that life is not at 10 but in 11 dimensions. This seems to be telling us that M-theory should than 11 dimensional theory that a 10 dimensional in some points in their area of parameters. Such a theory could have as a fundamental goal of a membrane, in contrast to a string. Like a drinking straw seen at a distance, the membranes would look like if we strings curl 11 Dimension in a small circle.

Radio Astronomy

It is surprising that many people, radio astronomy not be heard for ET phone home. SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), a relatively small part of radio astronomy. It seems that the public perception of radio astronomy conjures up images of astronomers in tight jeans wear headphones to see some weak signal buried in the galactic noise. If we have a brief reality check, we find that radio astronomy is similar to optical astronomy telescopes in this (instruments that detect, image and enlarge) are used to observe the cosmos.

The difference is that while optical telescopes present images that are familiar in composition (ie the images on frequencies that we can see directly). Radio telescopes to observe the cosmos much lower frequencies. Most of us have seen the spectacular images acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope. To be sure these images not only give us an insight into the wonders of the universe, but move us in spirit by a sense of awe. Unfortunately, the primary sensory cells input device for us humans (eyes) is very limited "bandwidth" (the range of electromagnetic frequencies, or "colors" to which it is sensitive), and although the images move us, they do not give up their secrets easily . As a result, much of what happens in the universe is hidden from our view.

To put it simply, every color is a different frequency, and most of the color, with the range of the cosmos is painted is invisible to our eyes. It only makes sense, our sensitivity, the instrumentation, on the other frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. The radio telescope is one of those instruments. It allows us to monitor and the image of the universe at frequencies below our visual capabilities, which shows much of what is going on in the universe. Because certain frequencies pass easily through annoying dust and gas clouds, we can now study until now blocked objects from our point of view. Also, because certain gases, molecules and materials in the universe either emit or absorb light to radio frequencies, these structures can be viewed by the radio telescope. This feature not only allows the viewer to the image of these objects, but also allows the observers to collect much more information such as composition, speed, temperature and mass.

The range of frequencies, the spectrum is immense, so that the diversity and the types of instruments that make up radio telescopes is diverse in terms of design, size and configuration. Lower frequency (10 MHz - 100 MHz (wavelengths of 30 meters to 3 meters)) instruments are usually arrays of antennas similar to "TV antennas or are stationary reflectors of gigantic proportions with moveable nodes some are over 30 Meters high and 500 meters wide. At higher frequencies (100 MHz to 1 GHz (wavelengths of 3 meters to 30 cm)) very large parabolic or spherical reflectors used as the large ball "Dish" in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. For frequencies of (1 GHz to 10 GHz (wavelength of 30 cm to 30 mm)) medium to large parabolic reflectors used 5 to 90 meters in diameter.

These reflectors are fully articulated and can observe any object simply by pointing the reflector. For frequencies above 10 GHz (wavelengths of 30 mm to .3 mm) high precision necessary parabolic reflectors are typically 3 to 20 meters in diameter. The reflectors are more like mirrors and are thermally stable and supported by complex structures, as the surface curvature is held to demanding standards. The surface of these tolerances reflectors are held to plus or minus one hundredth of a millimeter radio telescopes in the millimeter to Sub-millimeter wavelength range. Each type of instrument opens a new set of "Colors" for the astronomers can the universe.

Optical telescopes and gives these clear images because the wavelength of visible light is so small in relation to the diameter of the focus device (mirror or lens). Radio waves with wavelengths of enormous comparison: Do not focus on the clean "images" rather they tend to deal with each other, since the focus device (reflector) is tiny compared to the wavelength. For the construction of a 10 mm wavelength radio telescope with imaging capabilities of a small 4-inch optical telescope will have a reflector, about 2 km (over 6000 meters) in diameter, clearly this enormous size is impractical. It may at first sight that radio astronomy would be doomed to low detail rather boring observations and data collection tasks. The fact that light and radio waves tend to each other is a technique known as interferometry. Simply put, this allows two or more antennas brought to justice far apart or in arrays (such as the VLA "Very Large Array in New Mexico) to function as if they were a large antenna (Aperture Synthesis). The interference between the signals from each of the receiving antennas, if timing corrections are introduced, allows for image reconstruction with Fourier transformations. We can look at the resolution of a 2 km antenna, by using multiple antennas 2 km apart and correlation of data. With this technique, it is possible to obtain milliarcsecond resolution. A milliarcsecond is about the equivalent of seeing one quarter in New York from Los Angeles!

With the advent of DSP (Digital Signal Processing), faster and smaller computers, and the introduction of super implementation of amplifiers radio astronomy has made progress to a fraction neck pace. New arrays of antennas are currently being developed and built. Some contain more than a thousand individual antennas all in harmony, what resolutions, the rival optical telescopes. Other arrays cover a hectare and a process extends over a square kilometre as "Phased Array type imaging capabilities never seen before. The future of radio astronomy looks brighter than ever before.