Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist | Narrated by Carl Sagan

"Wanderers is a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available."

"Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea of the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds—and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there."

"As some may notice I have borrowed ideas and concepts from science fiction authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, just to name a few. And visually, I of course owe many tips of my hat to painter Chesley Bonestell—the legendary master of space art."

"More directly, with kind permission from Ann Druyan I have also borrowed the voice of astronomer and author Carl Sagan to narrate the film. The audio I used are excerpts from his own reading of his book:
'Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space' (1994, Random House)
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159735/pale-blue-dot-by-carl-sagan/
—needless to say, a huge inspiration for this film.

Watch 1080p Vimeo version:
https://vimeo.com/108650530

For more information and stills gallery, please turn to: erikwernquist.com/wanderers

--------------
CREDITS:
VISUALS BY - Erik Wernquist - erik@erikwernquist.com
MUSIC BY - Cristian Sandquist - cristiansandquist@mac.com
WRITTEN AND NARRATED BY - Carl Sagan - from his book 'Pale Blue Dot' penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159735/pale-blue-dot-by-carl-sagan/, courtesy of Ann Druyan, copyright by Democritus Properties, LLC, with all rights reserved
COLOR GRADE BY - Caj Müller/Beckholmen Film - caj@beckholmenfilm.se
LIVE ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY BY - Mikael Hall/Vidiotism - mikael@vidiotism.com
LIVE ACTION PERFORMANCE BY - Anna Nerman, Camilla Hammarström, Hanna Mellin
VOCALIST - Nina Fylkegård - nina@ladystardust.se
THANK YOU - Johan Persson, Calle Herdenberg, Micke Lindgren, Satrio J. Studt, Tomas Axelsson, Christian Lundqvist, Micke Lindell, Sigfrid Söderberg, Fredrik Strage, Johan Antoni, Henrik Johansson, Michael Uvnäs, Hanna Mellin

THIS FILM WAS MADE WITH USE OF PHOTOS AND TEXTURES FROM:
NASA/JPL, NASA/CICLOPS, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, ESA, John Van Vliet, Björn Jonsson (and many others, of which I unfortunately do not know the names)

Duration: 3 minutes, 50 seconds
Release Date: 2015

#NASA #Space #Exploration #SolarSystem #CarlSagan #Science #Astronomy #Humanity #Future #STEM #Education #ErikWernquist #Film #Art #Visualization #Cosmos #Universe #HD #Video #APoD

Earth Rotation: Nepal, Himalayas

Earth's rotation is the rotation of the planet Earth around its own axis. The Earth rotates from the west towards east. As viewed from North Star or polestar Polaris, the Earth turns counter-clockwise.

Credit: Anton Yankovyi
Release Date: March 30, 2018

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Earth #Nepal #Himalayas #Asia #Astrophotography #Photography #Timelapse #Art #STEM #Education #नेपाल

Crossing Panama | International Space Station

Timelapse HD 1080p video
Credit: AstronautiCAST/JSC
Duration: 2 minutes, 15 seconds
Video Capture Date: February 13, 2018
Release Date: February 18, 2016

Original timelapse by Riccardo Rossi (ISAA) - Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License -

Music: Piano Beautiful Full Version by Maryna - Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike International License -
https://www.jamendo.com/artist/491819/maryna

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #ISS #Earth #Panama #CentralAmerica #Ocean #Pacific #Atlantic #Spacecraft #Astronauts #Expedition54 #Photography #Art #Science #HD  #Video #Timelapse #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect #AstronautiCAST

The Sun: Active Region Coming Around the Bend | NASA SDO

A good-sized active region with bright, towering arches began to rotate into view on April 19, 2018. The arches consist of charged particles spiraling along magnetic field lines revealed in this wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. They rise up above the sun's surface many times the size of Earth. We will keep our eyes on this region to see if it has the kind of dynamism to produce solar storms.

Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA
Image Date: April 19, 2018

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Solar #Sun #Earth #ActiveRegion #Plasma #SDO #Observatory #MagneticField #Ultraviolet #Wavelength #UnitedStates #Infographic #STEM #Education

Europe's ExoMars Spacecraft: First images from new orbit

April 26, 2018: The European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has returned the first images of the Red Planet from its new orbit. The spacecraft arrived in a near-circular 400 km altitude orbit a few weeks ago ahead of its primary goal to seek out gases that may be linked to active geological or biological activity on Mars.

The orbiter’s Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, took this stunning image, which features part of an impact crater, during the instrument’s test period. The camera was activated on March 20 and was tested for the start of its main mission on April 28.

“We transmitted new software to the instrument at the start of the test phase and after a couple of minor issues, the instrument is in good health and ready to work,” says the camera’s principal investigator, Nicolas Thomas from the University of Bern in Switzerland.

The image captures a 40 km-long segment of Korolev Crater located high in the northern hemisphere. The bright material on the rim of the crater is ice.

“We were really pleased to see how good this picture was given the lighting conditions,” says Antoine Pommerol, a member of the CaSSIS science team working on the calibration of the data. “It shows that CaSSIS can make a major contribution to studies of the carbon dioxide and water cycles on Mars.”

The image is assembled from three images in different colors that were taken almost simultaneously on April 15.

“We aim to fully automate the image production process,” says Nick. “Once we achieve this, we can distribute the data quickly to the science community for analysis.”

The team also plans to make regular public releases.

The orbiter’s camera is one of four instruments on the Trace Gas Orbiter, or TGO, which also hosts two spectrometer suites and a neutron detector.

The spectrometers began their science mission on April 21 with the spacecraft taking its first ‘sniff’ of the atmosphere. In reality, the sniffing is the spectrometers looking at how molecules in the atmosphere absorb sunlight: each has a unique fingerprint that reveals its chemical composition.

A long period of data collection will be needed to bring out the details, especially for particularly rare—or not even yet discovered—ingredients in the atmosphere. Trace gases, as hinted at from their name, are only present in very small amounts: that is, less than one percent of the volume of the planet’s atmosphere. In particular, the orbiter will seek evidence of methane and other gases that could be signatures of active biological or geological activity.

The camera will eventually help characterise features on the surface that may be related to trace gas sources.

“We are excited to finally be starting collecting data at Mars with this phenomenal spacecraft,” says Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s TGO project scientist. “The test images we have seen so far certainly set the bar high.”

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is on a multiyear mission to understand the tiny amounts of methane and other gases in Mars’ atmosphere that could be evidence for possible biological or geological activity.

The ExoMars program is a joint endeavor between ESA and Roscosmos. The Trace Gas Orbiter is the first of two missions in the program: the next is scheduled for launch in 2020 and will comprise a rover and a surface science platform. TGO will act as a communication relay for both. It proved this capability earlier this week in the first of a series of relay communications with NASA’s Curiosity rover, highlighting the cooperation between ESA and NASA to maintain a communications infrastructure around Mars for future missions.

Image Description#1:
The ExoMars Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, captured this view of the rim of Korolev crater (73.3ºN/165.9ºE) on April 15, 2018. The image is a composite of three images in different colors that were taken almost simultaneously. They were then assembled to produce this color view. The original image has a nominal scale of 5.08 m/pixel and was re-projected at a resolution of 4.6 m/pixel to create the final version. The dimensions are therefore about 10 x 40 km. The image was taken with a ground-track velocity of 2.90 km/s. The solar incidence angle was 76.6º at a local solar time of 07:14:11.

In this orientation, north is off-center to the upper left.

Image Description#2:
The ExoMars Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, captured this view of the rim of Korolev crater (73.3ºN/165.9ºE) on April 15, 2018. The image is a composite of three images in different colors that were taken almost simultaneously. They were then assembled to produce this color view. The original image has a nominal scale of 5.08 m/pixel and was re-projected at a resolution of 4.6 m/pixel to create the final version. The dimensions are therefore about 10 x 40 km. The image was taken with a ground-track velocity of 2.90 km/s. The solar incidence angle was 76.6º at a local solar time of 07:14:11.

In this orientation north is just below center to the left.

Image Credit: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS
Image Date: April 15, 2018
Release Date: April 26, 2018

#NASA #ESA #Roscosmos #Mars #Space #Astronomy #Science #Geology #Crater #Korolev #Planet #RedPlanet #Landscape #Terrain #Geoscience #ExoMars #Orbiter #Spacecraft #Europe #Russia #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula: Wide-field view

This ground-based image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows the area around the Lagoon Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 8. This nebula is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2
Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin
Release Date: April 19, 2018
#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #ESA #Nebula #Lagoon #Messier8 #Anniversary #Telescope #STScI #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula: Infrared view | Hubble

To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colorful image of the Lagoon Nebula. Using its infrared capabilities, the telescope was able to peer through the thick clouds of dust and gas.

The most obvious difference between Hubble’s infrared and visible images of this region is the abundance of stars that fill the field of view in the infrared. Most of them are more distant, background stars located behind the nebula. However, some of them are young stars within the Lagoon Nebula itself.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI
Release Date: April 19, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #ESA #Nebula #Lagoon #Anniversary #Telescope #Infrared #STScI #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula: Fulldome view | Hubble

This fulldome clip shows the anniversary image released for Hubble’s 28th year in space: the Lagoon Nebula.

The observations made with Hubble reveal a fantastic landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. This dust-and-gas landscape is being sculpted by powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds unleashed by a young star. Located at the center of the image, the star, known as Herschel 36, is about 200,000 times brighter than our Sun.

Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, STScI
Duration: 20 seconds
Release Date: April 19, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #ESA #Nebula #Lagoon #Herschel36 #Anniversary #Telescope #STScI #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Diving into the Lagoon Nebula | Hubble's 28th Anniversary

On April 24, 1990, Hubble was launched into space. To celebrate its 28th year in orbit, some of Hubble’s precious observation time was used to observe the colorful Lagoon Nebula. One of only two star-forming nebulae visible to the unaided eye, this spectacular stellar nursery is not quite the tranquil landscape its name suggests.

This new Hubblecast explores the image in more detail and shows some of the delicate features of this cosmic lagoon.

Credit: ESA/NASA
Duration: 4 minutes, 7 seconds
Directed by: Mathias Jäger
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Written by: Rosa Jesse, Mathias Jäger
Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa
Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble, STScI
Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble
Music: Stellardrone
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen
Release Date: April 19, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #ESA #ESO #Nebula #Lagoon #Sagittarius #Anniversary #STScI #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Core of the Lagoon Nebula | Hubble's 28th Anniversary

A Garden of Gas and Dust

This video zooms into the core of a rich star-birth region called the Lagoon Nebula, located in the constellation Sagittarius in the direction of our Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge. The sequence then dissolves to a series of imagined three-dimensional flights past striking structures of this gaseous landscape. Viewers examine dark, dusty clouds silhouetted against a colorful background of luminous gas that has been heated by a massive star. Pillars of dense gas and bow shocks around newborn stars are shaped by the strong winds from the brightest stars. The intense high-energy emission from these same stars creates the glowing ridges of gas in ionization fronts. These features are some of the highlights of this vibrant region where new stars and planets are born.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon, D. Player, J. DePasquale, F. Summers, and Z. Levay (STScI)
Music: J. DePasquale
Acknowledgement: A. Fujii, Digitized Sky Survey, ESO/VPHAS, and R. Crisp
Duration: 2 minutes, 15 seconds
Release Date: April 19, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #ESA #ESO #Nebula #Lagoon #Sagittarius #Anniversary #STScI #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Swimming across the Lagoon Nebula | Hubble

The new image of the Lagoon Nebula, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 28th year in space, shows colorful clouds of gas and dust of this star-formation region in incredible detail.

The image reveals a fantastic landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. This dust-and-gas landscape is being sculpted by powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds unleashed by a young star. Located at the center of the image, the star, known as Herschel 36, is about 200, 000 times brighter than our Sun.

Credit: ESA/NASA
Duration: 50 seconds
Release Date: April 19, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #ESA #Nebula #Lagoon #Sagittarius #Anniversary #STScI #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Inside NASA's Kennedy Space Center | Week of April 27, 2018

This week in space news, former shuttle astronauts Scott Altman and Tom Jones are inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, and a swarm of small robots put their programming to the test in the third annual Swarmathon competition.

Credit: NASA/KSC
Duration: 1 minute, 50 seconds
Release Date: April 27, 2018

#NASA #Space #Earth #Science #Astronauts #Swarmathon #Robotics #Technology #Engineering #Shuttle #STS #ISS #SLS #Kennedy #KSC #Florida #USA #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Lagoon Nebula: Hubble's 28th Birthday Picture

To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colorful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across.

This stunning nebula was first catalogued in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna, who sought to record nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. Since Hodierna’s observations, the Lagoon Nebula has been photographed and analysed by many telescopes and astronomers all over the world.

The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between February 12 and February 18, 2018.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI
Release Date: April 19, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #ESA #Nebula #Lagoon #Anniversary #STScI #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education

New NASA Administrator | This Week @NASA

April 27, 2018: Vice President Pence swears in our new NASA Administrator, a Hubble anniversary flythrough of a nebula, and the smell in the clouds of one of our outermost planets—a few of the stories to tell you about—This Week at NASA!

Credit: NASA
Duration: 3 minutes, 28 seconds
Release Date: April 27, 2018

#NASA #Space #Science #Astronomy #Hubble #ISS #Spaceflight #Human #Administrator #Uranus #Atmosphere #Mars #InSight #Spacecraft #Asronaut #STEM #Education #HD #Video

ESA's David Parker on plans for ESA/NASA Mars Sample Return Mission

European Mars Mission Updates | ESA

Interview with David Parker, ESA's Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, at the Berlin Air and Space Show, April 26, 2018.

Learn more: http://bit.ly/BringingMartianSoilToEarth

Berlin Air and Space Show Website
https://www.ila-berlin.de/en
https://www.ila-berlin.de/en/topics/space

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Duration: 5 minutes, 34 seconds
Release Date: April 27, 2018

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #SampleReturn #JPL #UnitedStates #ESA #Europe #JourneyToMars #Robotics #Technology #Spacecraft #Engineering #Exploration #Future #SolarSystem #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Bringing Mars Back to Earth | NASA JPL

April 26, 2018: NASA and the European Space Agency are now working together to explore options for a pair of missions that could take the next steps to bring samples back from Mars.

Credit: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Duration: 2 minutes, 22 seconds
Release Date: April 26, 2018

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #SampleReturn #JPL #UnitedStates #ESA #Europe #JourneyToMars #Robotics #Technology #Spacecraft #Engineering #Exploration #Future #SolarSystem #STEM #Education #HD #Video

NASA's Space to Ground: Color of the Sun

April 27, 2018: NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

During Expedition 55, researchers are studying Earth atmospherics, the effects of microgravity on bone marrow, materials’ responses to space environments, and biological samples’ responses to simulated gravity.

Credit: NASA Johnson (JSC)
Duration: 2 minutes, 45 seconds
Release Date: April 27, 2018

#NASA #ISS #Earth #Science #JimBridenstine #Astronauts #ScottTingle #RickyArnold #DrewFeustel #NorishigeKanai #Japan #JAXA #Expedition55 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #JSC #Houston #Texas #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Ancient Galaxy Pileups | ESO

April 25, 2018: European Southern Observatory ALMA and APEX telescopes have peered deep into space—back to the time when the Universe was one tenth of its current age—and witnessed the beginnings of gargantuan cosmic pileups: the impending collisions of young, starburst galaxies. Astronomers thought that these events occurred around three billion years after the Big Bang, so they were surprised when the new observations revealed them happening when the Universe was only half that age! These ancient systems of galaxies are thought to be building the most massive structures in the known Universe: galaxy clusters.

The video is available in 4K UHD.

The ESOcast Light is a series of short videos bringing you the wonders of the Universe in bite-sized pieces. The ESOcast Light episodes will not be replacing the standard, longer ESOcasts, but complement them with current astronomy news and images in ESO press releases.

Credit: ESO
Duration: 1 minute
Editing: Nico Bartmann.
Web and technical support: Mathias André and Raquel Yumi Shida.
Written by: Calum Turner and Richard Hook.
Music: Written and performed by Stan Dart (www.stan-dart.com).Footage and photos: ESO, M. Kornmesser, ESA/Hubble, A. Fujii, D. Malin Images, DSS, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Miller et al.
Directed by: Nico Bartmann.
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen.

Release Date: April 25, 2018

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organization in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 15 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious program focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organizing cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-meter Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

#ESO #Astronomy #Science #Stars #Galaxy #SPT234956 #Space #Earth #Chile #Atacama #Desert #ALMA #APEX #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #Art #STEM #Education #HD #4K #Video

Ancient Galaxy Megamergers | ESO

ALMA and APEX telescopes discover massive conglomerations of forming galaxies in early Universe

This artist's impression of galaxy protocluster SPT2349-56 shows a group of interacting and merging galaxies in the early Universe. Such mergers have been spotted using the ALMA and APEX telescopes and represent the formation of galaxies clusters, the most massive objects in the modern Universe. Astronomers thought that these events occurred around three billion years after the Big Bang, so they were surprised when the new observations revealed them happening when the Universe was only half that age!

April 25, 2018: European Southern Observatory ALMA and APEX telescopes have peered deep into space— back to the time when the Universe was one tenth of its current age—and witnessed the beginnings of gargantuan cosmic pileups: the impending collisions of young, starburst galaxies. Astronomers thought that these events occurred around three billion years after the Big Bang, so they were surprised when the new observations revealed them happening when the Universe was only half that age! These ancient systems of galaxies are thought to be building the most massive structures in the known Universe: galaxy clusters.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), two international teams of scientists led by Tim Miller from Dalhousie University in Canada and Yale University in the US and Iván Oteo from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, have uncovered startlingly dense concentrations of galaxies that are poised to merge, forming the cores of what will eventually become colossal galaxy clusters.

Peering 90% of the way across the observable Universe, the Miller team observed a galaxy protocluster named SPT2349-56. The light from this object began travelling to us when the Universe was about a tenth of its current age.

The individual galaxies in this dense cosmic pileup are starburst galaxies and the concentration of vigorous star formation in such a compact region makes this by far the most active region ever observed in the young Universe. Thousands of stars are born there every year, compared to just one in our own Milky Way.

The Oteo team discovered a similar megamerger formed by ten dusty star-forming galaxies, nicknamed a “dusty red core” because of its very red color, by combining observations from ALMA and the APEX.

Iván Oteo explains why these objects are unexpected: “The lifetime of dusty starbursts is thought to be relatively short, because they consume their gas at an extraordinary rate. At any time, in any corner of the Universe, these galaxies are usually in the minority. So, finding numerous dusty starbursts shining at the same time like this is very puzzling, and something that we still need to understand.”

These forming galaxy clusters were first spotted as faint smudges of light, using the South Pole Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory. Subsequent ALMA and APEX observations showed that they had unusual structure and confirmed that their light originated much earlier than expected—only 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.

The new high-resolution ALMA observations finally revealed that the two faint glows are not single objects, but are actually composed of fourteen and ten individual massive galaxies respectively, each within a radius comparable to the distance between the Milky Way and the neighbouring Magellanic Clouds.

"These discoveries by ALMA are only the tip of the iceberg. Additional observations with the APEX telescope show that the real number of star-forming galaxies is likely even three times higher. Ongoing observations with the MUSE instrument on ESO’s VLT are also identifying additional galaxies,” comments Carlos De Breuck, ESO astronomer.

Current theoretical and computer models suggest that protoclusters as massive as these should have taken much longer to evolve. By using data from ALMA, with its superior resolution and sensitivity, as input to sophisticated computer simulations, the researchers are able to study cluster formation less than 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.

"How this assembly of galaxies got so big so fast is a mystery. It wasn’t built up gradually over billions of years, as astronomers might expect. This discovery provides a great opportunity to study how massive galaxies came together to build enormous galaxy clusters," says Tim Miller, a PhD candidate at Yale University and lead author of one of the papers.

Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Release Date: April 25, 2018

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organization in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 15 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious program focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organizing cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-meter Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

#ESO #Astronomy #Science #Stars #Galaxy #SPT234956 #Space #Earth #Chile #Atacama #Desert #ALMA #APEX #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #Art #STEM #Education

Hubble Technology Finds Earthly Applications | NASA

The decades-long career of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has resulted in a wealth of new technologies, many of which have found earthly applications.

Visit Hubble's new webpage on technology transfer at:
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-technology-transfer/

Credit: NASA Goddard
Duration: 1 minute
Release Date: April 25, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #Space #Technology #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Tonight's Sky: May 2018 | HubbleSite

In May, the stars and galaxies of Virgo and Canes Venatici, the full disc of Jupiter, and the Eta Aquarid meteor shower are all on view in the Northern Hemisphere.

"Tonight's Sky" is produced by HubbleSite.org, online home of the Hubble Space Telescope: http://HubbleSite.org

Credit: HubbleSite.org
Duration: 7 minutes
Release Date: April 20, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #Space #Skywatching #Planet #Saturn #Mars #Venus #Jupiter #Meteor #MeteorShower #Comet #SolarSystem #Stars #Star #Galaxy #MilkyWay #Constellations #Cosmos #Universe #Binoculars #Telescopes #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Evolution of Type IIb Stripped-Envelope Supernova | Hubble

April 26, 2018: This graphic illustrates the scenario for the processes that create a Type IIb stripped-envelope supernova, in which most, but not all, of the hydrogen envelope is lost prior to the primary star’s explosion. The four panels show the interaction between the SN 2001ig progenitor star, which ultimately exploded, and its surviving companion. 1) Two stars orbit each other and draw closer and closer together. 2) The more massive star evolves faster, swelling up to become a red giant. In this late phase of life, it spills most of its hydrogen envelope into the gravitational field of its companion. As the companion siphons off almost all of the doomed star’s hydrogen, it creates an instability in the primary star. 3) The primary star explodes in a supernova. 4) As the supernova’s glow fades, the surviving companion becomes visible to the Hubble Space Telescope. The faint remnant of the supernova, at lower left, continues to evolve but in this case is too faint to be detected by Hubble.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)
Release Date: April 26, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Science #Space #Supernova #Star #SN2001ig #Illustration #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

Companion to a Supernova | Hubble Space Telescope

Image Captured for the First Time

April 26, 2018: In the fading afterglow of a supernova explosion, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have photographed the first image of a surviving companion to a supernova. This is the most compelling evidence that some supernovas originate in double-star systems. The companion to supernova 2001ig’s progenitor star was no innocent bystander to the explosion—it siphoned off almost all of the hydrogen from the doomed star’s stellar envelope. SN 2001ig is categorized as a Type IIb stripped-envelope supernova, which is a relatively rare type of supernova in which most, but not all, of the hydrogen is gone prior to the explosion. Perhaps as many as half of all stripped-envelope supernovas have companions—the other half lose their outer envelopes via stellar winds.

The Full Story

Seventeen years ago, astronomers witnessed a supernova go off 40 million light-years away in the galaxy called NGC 7424, located in the southern constellation Grus, the Crane. Now, in the fading afterglow of that explosion, NASA's Hubble has captured the first image of a surviving companion to a supernova. This picture is the most compelling evidence that some supernovas originate in double-star systems.

“We know that the majority of massive stars are in binary pairs,” said Stuart Ryder from the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) in Sydney, Australia and lead author of the study. “Many of these binary pairs will interact and transfer gas from one star to the other when their orbits bring them close together.”

The companion to the supernova’s progenitor star was no innocent bystander to the explosion. It siphoned off almost all of the hydrogen from the doomed star’s stellar envelope, the region that transports energy from the star’s core to its atmosphere. Millions of years before the primary star went supernova, the companion’s thievery created an instability in the primary star, causing it to episodically blow off a cocoon and shells of hydrogen gas before the catastrophe.

The supernova, called SN 2001ig, is categorized as a Type IIb stripped-envelope supernova. This type of supernova is unusual because most, but not all, of the hydrogen is gone prior to the explosion. This type of exploding star was first identified in 1987 by team member Alex Filippenko of the University of California, Berkeley.

How stripped-envelope supernovas lose that outer envelope is not entirely clear. They were originally thought to come from single stars with very fast winds that pushed off the outer envelopes. The problem was that when astronomers started looking for the primary stars from which supernovas were spawned, they couldn’t find them for many stripped-envelope supernovas.

“That was especially bizarre, because astronomers expected that they would be the most massive and the brightest progenitor stars,” explained team member Ori Fox of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “Also, the sheer number of stripped-envelope supernovas is greater than predicted.” That fact led scientists to theorize that many of the primary stars were in lower-mass binary systems, and they set out to prove it.

Looking for a binary companion after a supernova explosion is no easy task. First, it has to be at a relatively close distance to Earth for Hubble to see such a faint star. SN 2001ig and its companion are about at that limit. Within that distance range, not many supernovas go off. Even more importantly, astronomers have to know the exact position through very precise measurements.

In 2002, shortly after SN 2001ig exploded, scientists pinpointed the precise location of the supernova with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Cerro Paranal, Chile. In 2004, they then followed up with the Gemini South Observatory in Cerro Pachón, Chile. This observation first hinted at the presence of a surviving binary companion.

Knowing the exact coordinates, Ryder and his team were able to focus Hubble on that location 12 years later, as the supernova’s glow faded. With Hubble’s exquisite resolution and ultraviolet capability, they were able to find and photograph the surviving companion—something only Hubble could do.

Prior to the supernova explosion, the orbit of the two stars around each other took about a year.

When the primary star exploded, it had far less impact on the surviving companion than might be thought. Imagine an avocado pit—representing the dense core of the companion star—embedded in a gelatin dessert—representing the star’s gaseous envelope. As a shock wave passes through, the gelatin might temporarily stretch and wobble, but the avocado pit would remain intact.

In 2014, Fox and his team used Hubble to detect the companion of another Type IIb supernova, SN 1993J. However, they captured a spectrum, not an image. The case of SN 2001ig is the first time a surviving companion has been photographed. “We were finally able to catch the stellar thief, confirming our suspicions that one had to be there,” said Filippenko.

Perhaps as many as half of all stripped-envelope supernovas have companions—the other half lose their outer envelopes via stellar winds. Ryder and his team have the ultimate goal of precisely determining how many supernovas with stripped envelopes have companions.

Their next endeavor is to look at completely stripped-envelope supernovas, as opposed to SN 2001ig and SN 1993J, which were only about 90 percent stripped. These completely stripped-envelope supernovas don’t have much shock interaction with gas in the surrounding stellar environment, since their outer envelopes were lost long before the explosion. Without shock interaction, they fade much faster. This means that the team will only have to wait two or three years to look for surviving companions.

In the future, they also hope to use the James Webb Space Telescope to continue their search.

The paper on this team’s current work was published on March 28, 2018 in the Astrophysical Journal:
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aaaf1e

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Ryder (Australian Astronomical Observatory), and O. Fox (STScI)
Release Date: April 26, 2018

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