Clean Dwarf Galaxy Help Chart Universe

The image above is of IC 1613, a dwarf galaxy that is found in the Cetus constellation.

IC 1613 is unique in that unlike other galaxies, this dwarf galaxy contains very little cosmic dust which allows a clearer exploration of what is inside it. Cosmic dust is made of various heavier elements, such as carbon and iron, as well as larger, grainier molecules. Not only does dust block out light, making dust-shrouded objects harder to see, it also preferentially scatters bluer light. As a result, cosmic dust makes objects appear redder when seen through telescopes than they are in reality. Astronomers can factor out this reddening when studying objects. Still, the less reddening, the more precise an observation is likely to be.

IC 1613 also contains two types of stars, Cepheid variables and RR Lyrae variables. These type of stars rhythmically pulsate, growing characteristically bigger and brighter at fixed intervals and are used to measure galactic distances.

Galaxies come in different sizes. Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is a regular sized galaxy which contains 200 to 400 billion stars. There are smaller galaxies like the dwarf galaxy which only has several billion stars inside it. Dwarf galaxies like IC 1613, are small and have been observed to be pulled toward and merge with nearby spiral galaxies.

The OmegaCam was used to capture the image above. The OmegaCAM is a 32-CCD, 256-million-pixel camera mounted on the 2.6-metre VLT Survey Telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Hubble Space Telescope Captures Image of A Lightsaber In Space

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image that resembles a lightsaber.

This cosmic object that seems to copy the iconic weapon of a Jedi can be found in the Orion B Molecular Complex in the constellation Orion, 1350 light years away. This object is a result of jets of gas and dust that are spewn out by a newly formed star. These lightsaber like objects are called Herbig-Haro Objects.

This particular object in the image is HH24.

Herbig-Haro Objects are young stars that occasionally blast off hot gas and other material into space. It is a result of stars ejecting materials that collides with nearby clouds of gas and dusty at very high speeds. Herbig–Haro objects are generally found in star-forming regions. Several are often seen around a single star and is aligned along its rotational axis.

Herbig-Haro objects are named after George Herbig and Guillermo Haro who first studied them in detail. The two astronomers (independent of each other) were studying star formations when they came upon these objects. They both recognized that these were a by-product of the star formation process.

ESO Studying Mysterious Dwarf Galaxy Formed After Cosmic Collision

The European Southern Observatory used its Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory to take detailed images of NGC 5291. NGC 5291 is located in the constellation of Centaurus. NGC 5291 is an elliptical galaxy that collided with another galaxy over 360 million years ago.

As a result of the collision, a dwarf galaxy was also formed; NGC 5291N. Astronomers have particular interest with this dwarf galaxy because according to their data, NGC 5291N mysteriously contains no old stars.

Centered in the image above is NGC 5291. Also seen is the Seashell Galaxy (MCG-05-33-005), a comma-shaped galaxy which appears to leech off NGC 5291’s luminous core. On the right side of the image is NGC 5291N. The dwarf galaxy was observed using MUSE's integral field spectrography.

The MUSE observations revealed unexpected oxygen and hydrogen emission lines in the outskirts of NGC 5291N.

A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy containing less stars than a regular galaxy. It is usually composed of up to several billion stars. A regular galaxy like the Milky Way has 200 to 400 billion stars. Since these dwarf galaxies are small, they have been observed to be pulled toward and merge with nearby spiral galaxies. The Milky Way is believed to be a result of a build up of several dwarf galaxies.

Studying Matter In The Universe

Filaments in outer space are called supercluster complexes or great walls. Galaxy filaments are the largest cosmic structures in the universe with lengths extending from 50 to 80 megaparsecs h-1.

These filaments are thread-like structures that form boundaries between large voids in the universe. Astronomers theorize that moments after the Big Bang, a bulk of the matter in the universe condensed into a web of tangled filaments connected to each other at the locations of massive galaxy clusters.

Matter known as ordinary, which makes up everything we know, corresponds to only 5% of the Universe. Approximately half of this percentage still eluded detection. Numerical simulations made it possible to predict that the rest of this ordinary matter should be located in the large-scale structures that form the 'cosmic web' at temperatures between 100,000 and 10 million degrees. A team led by a researcher from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, observed this phenomenon directly. The research shows that the majority of the missing ordinary matter is found in the form of a very hot gas associated with intergalactic filaments. The article reporting this discovery is published in the journal Nature.

The image above is a digital simulation of the large-scale distribution of matter, with filaments and knots.

Dark Matter Interactions Observed in Galaxy Collision at Abell 3827

While studying the simultaneous collision of four galaxies in the galaxy cluster Abell 3827, the European Southern Observatory's VLT and NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope may have, for the first time, observed dark matter interactions with other dark matter.

The nature of dark matter is still a mystery but it is believed that it comprises 85% of the Universe’s mass; the rest being "normal matter". Without dark matter, galaxies would not be able to hold itself together and would fling themselves apart while they rotate. Dark matter keeps these galaxies together due to the constraining effect of its' gravity.

Researches observed that during the collision, one clump of dark matter appeared to be lagging behind the galaxy it surrounds. The dark matter is currently 5000 light-years behind the galaxy.

Dark matter has always been observed interacting with gravity but the computer simulation of the four galaxy collision at Abell 3827 show that extra friction from the collision would slow down dark matter and that the nature of that interaction is not gravity and still is unknown. It is also uncertain how long it took for the collision to happen.The friction that slowed the dark matter could have been a very weak force acting over about a billion years, or a relatively stronger force acting for “only” 100 million years.

Cometary Globule CG4 (God's Hand) Imaged by VLT

The VLT Survey Telescope, the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light, imaged cometary globule CG4 or God's Hand as it is also known.

Cometary globules are faint, dimly lit, and hard to detect gas clouds that resemble comets although they have no relation to them. Cometary globules are identified by their small size and are found to have isolated, relatively small clouds of neutral gas and dust surrounded by hot ionised material.

It is a mystery to astronomers as to how cometary globules are formed.

God's Hand is 1300 light years from Earth and can be found in the constellation Puppis (The Poop, or Stern). CG4 gas a diameter if 1.5 light years and its tail is 8 light years long. Compared to other celestial objects, the dimensions of CG4 are small.

This picture comes from the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO’s science archive.

Parkes Radio Telescope Receives Unexplained Fast Radio Burst From Space

Since 2007, astronomers have been trying to find an explanation for Fast Radio Bursts. These are brief bursts of radio waves which last only a few milliseconds. There have been seven records of this event but has not been observed live as it is happening.

A team of astronomers in Australia, using the Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales, developed a technique on how to capture this phenomenon and have succeeded in observing a live fast radio burst from space.

By coordinating with the Swift space telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, they pinpoint the source of the radio waves to be around 5.5 billion light years from Earth. It was also noted that the energy emitted by these millisecond long fast radio bursts is equal to the energy the Sun gives out in a single day.

Although they have no explanation on what these events are and what causes them, they theorize that it might be connected to neutron stars or black holes.

The results of their findings have been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) To Hunt and Study Exoplanets

The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS), a wide-field observing system by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) was launched and has achieved first light.

The Survey will focus on transiting exoplanets or planets that passes in front of their parent star. This movement by the exoplanets produces a slight dimming of the light emitted by the stars which can be detected by light sensitive instruments. The telescopes of NGTS will be focusing on discovering Neptune-sized and smaller planets, with diameters between two and eight times that of Earth.

The Next-Generation Transit Survey is located at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. The site benefits from the superb observing conditions and its excellent support facilities.

The NGTS telescopes are made up of an array of 12 modified versions of small high-quality commercial telescopes made by Astro Systeme Austria (ASA). Each has an aperture of 20 centimeters. The NGTS cameras are modified ikon-L cameras by Andor Technology Ltd built around red-sensitive deep-depletion CCDs by e2v.

The NGTS was made possible by a consortium comprised of the UK, Switzerland, and Germany.

Pulsar Disappears After Space-Time Warp Measured

Scientists have measured the space-time warp in the gravity of binary pulsar system J1906 and determined the mass of its neutron star before the pulsar vanished from view.

A binary pulsar system is comprised of a pulsar that is orbiting a binary companion which is usually a white dwarf or neutron star. In the case of Binary Pulsar J1906, the scientists have measured the solar mass of the accompanying neutron star to be 1.32 solar mass with a sphere only 10 kilometers (6.21 miles) across.

J1906 is the youngest double neutron star system whose mass has been measured.

The spin axis of the pulsar wobbles like a spinning top. Since the distance of the two neutron stars in J1906 is very close and each star weighs more than the Sun, the space-time between the stars is curved which affects the pulsar's spin axis. The wobble has been so much that the pulsar's beams no longer hit the Earth, making it disappear from sight.

It is expected that the pulsar will be visible again in 160 years.

A pulsar is a neutron star that formed when a massive star's core is compressed during a supernova. The supernova collapses the star's core and forms the neutron star. Pulsars are extermely dense and highly magnetized. They rotate and emit a beam of electromagnetic radiation which is picked up as radio waves in the form of pulses. The name pulsar is abbreviated from the term "pulsating star".

Ongoing Assassin Project Has Detected 89 Supernovas To Date

Ohio State University reported that their All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN, pronounced "assassin") project has had tremendous success in detecting supernovas (supernovae). Since May 2014, ASAS-SN has detected 89 supernovae which is more than all other professional astronomical surveys combined.

The survey uses six 6-inch telescopes located in Hawaii (4) and in Chile (2). Amateurs worldwide has also volunteered their time and equipment to ASAS-SN. ASAS-SN covers the nearest 500 million light years around the Milky Way Galaxy which is about 1 percent of the observable universe.

According to the astronomists, ASAS-SN complements the work done by big telescopes since these telescopes are too sensitive to capture details of bright, nearby events. As an example, the image above was taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (left image). On 03 January 2015, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae looked at the same region (right image) and detected a bright supernova.

Aside from supernovae, the survey has also detected two tidal disruption events which are extremely rare sightings of what happens when a black hole captures a portion of a nearby star, and many M dwarf flares, which are believed to emanate from stars with extremely strong magnetic fields.

Mysterious Void In Space In Latest MPG/ESO Telescope Image

In the newly released ESO image, the starfield seemed to be devoid of stars in a particular area.

The new image of the MPG/ESO 2.2 meter telescope shows an area of empty space amidst a field of stars. This "dark area" is not really empty space but a dark cloud called LDN 483 or Lynds Dark Nebula 483.

Nebulas or Nebulae are clouds of dust and gas in space where planets and stars are formed. Dark Nebulas are different in the sense that the cloud has enough material of dust inside of it that it completely blocks all the light emitted by the stars behind it. Compared to other types of nebulae, dark nebulae are believed to have the most conducive and fertile environment to create stars.

LDN 483 is around 700 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent).

Probing the Spiderweb Galaxy Cluster (MRC 1138-262) Yields Surprising Data

A galaxy cluster is composed of smaller galaxies held together by gravity. It is the largest object found in the Universe.

Using the APEX telescope, astronomers probed the Spiderweb Galaxy which is a galaxy cluster 10.6 billion light years away. Formed by smaller galaxies, the Spiderweb Galaxy (also known as MRC 1138-262) has been studied for twenty years. It has been observed that the object contains a supermassive black hole and is a powerful source of radio waves.

The data from the observation has surprised scientists with their discovery of the formation of the stars in the galaxy cluster taking place. They have noted that instead of the stars being formed from the filaments of the cluster, APEX data has shown that the star formation region is concentrated in one area and not even centered on the galaxy cluster itself.

The Spiderweb Galaxy contains a supermassive black hole and is a powerful source of radio waves — which is what led astronomers to notice it in the first place. The object has thick dust clouds which the LABOCA camera on the APEX telescope can see through.

Star Cluster NGC 3293 Nestled Against Clouds of Gas and Dust in the Carina Constellation

ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile released a striking image of star cluster NGC 3293 with clouds of glowing red gas and streaks of dust in the background. NGC is composed of young stars are believed to be less than ten million years old and is about 8000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina (The Keel).

Using the Wide Field Imager (WFI) installed on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the observatory, astronomers study young star clusters such as NGC 3293 to learn more about the evolution of stars.

Star cluster are groups of stars that are held together by their own gravitational fields. Open star clusters and globular are the two types of clusters. NGC 3293 is an open star cluster; loosely clustered groups of young stars. The gravitational attraction between the stars in an open star cluster may be weak or non existent.

Globular star clusters are made up of hundreds of thousands of very old stars that are gravitationally bound. These stars are attracted to each other and form a very tight sphere. The stars within a globular star cluster orbit a galactic core and the amount of stars within get denser going toward the center.

These open clusters each formed from a giant cloud of molecular gas and their stars are held together by their mutual gravitational attraction. But these forces are not enough to hold a cluster together against close encounters with other clusters and clouds of gas as the cluster’s own gas and dust dissipates. So, open clusters will only last a few hundred million years, unlike their big cousins, the globular clusters, which can survive for billions of years, and hold on to far more stars.

Bubble Shaped Planetary Nebula Abell 33 In Hydra Constellation Imaged

A Nebula is an interstellar cloud made up of dist and gases. The word "nebula" is latin for cloud. These astronomical objects are regions where stars are made due to the materials present in the nebula which are needed to form a star.

Dust and ionized gasses such as hydrogen and helium start to amass together getting larger and larger until they become massive enough to form a star. Some of the materials present in the nebula can also form planets and other astronomical object.

Abell 33 found in the constellation Hydra, 2500 light-years from Earth, is a planetary nebula. This type of nebula does not form planets as the name implies. It was a misnomer that has been carried on when William Herschel incorrectly thought of that and coined the term. It has been called that every since.

Planetary nebulas are emission type nebulas that are formed when stars eject ionized gas in its later stages, this gas forms an expanding glowing shell. They are important in the evolution of stars since planetary nebulas contain heavy elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.

Galaxy Eater NGC 1316 in the Fornax Constellation Captured By ESO Telescope

In the Fornax constellation, there are two galaxies that are close to one another; NGC 1316 and NGC 1317. These two are quite close to one another but have two opposing histories. NGC 1317 has a quiet and silent past while NGC 1316 is a turbulent one.

NGC 1316 which is about 60 million light years away from Earth, has shown signs that is has eaten up and swallowed other galaxies in the past and may be still doing it up to now. Faint dust trails and tidal tails left over from its feast surround the galaxy giving evidence of its violent background.

The image captured by the European Southern Observatory's MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope shows the two galaxies in close proximity to each other. The small spiral NGC 1317 has led an uneventful life, but NGC 1316 has engulfed several other galaxies in its violent history and shows the battle scars.

Star Cluster Messier 7 Shines Bright At The Tail End of The Scorpion

Star Cluster Messier 7 can be found shining brightly at the end of the tail end of the constellation Scorpius (The Scorpion). This group of stars is also known as Ptolemy's Cluster in honor of Claudius Ptolemy who discovered this star cluster around 130 AD. As the name implies, it is the 7th entry of Charles Messier's Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters done in 1764.

Messier 7 is about 800 light years from the Earth and is comprised of about 100 stars. It is a bright patch of stars that is visible to the naked eye found near the tail of the Scorpius constellation.

The latest images from the European Southern Observatory's Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope shows Messier 7 shining like diamonds against the backdrop of a multitude of stars.

These bright stars are believed to be close to exploding into a supernova as it is over 200 million years old.

Messier 7 is an open star cluster. Open star clusters are loose clustered groups of stars that are held together by a very weak gravitational attraction to each other.

Probing the Secrets of Asteroid Itokawa

Schematic of Asteroid Itokawa

Using the New Technology Telescope (NTT) by the European Southern Observatory, scientists have, for the first time, studied the internal structure of an asteroid.

The NTT studied the peanut shaped asteroid Itokawa. It helped scientists measure the asteroid's brightness variation as it rotates. Knowing the irregular peanut shape of Itokawa, the data gathered allowed them to accurately calculate its spin period. This also gave the scientists an insight to find out what the asteroid is like below the surface and also at its core.

This discovery, already a big step in understanding asteroids, will also help understand how planets are formed and what happens during outer space collisions.

VLT Successfully Maps Surface Features Of Brown Dwarf Luhman 16B

The European Southern Observatory for the first time has mapped the surface of a brown dwarf. ESO's Very Large Telescope charted the dark and light surface of Luhman 16B, an astronomical object known as a brown dwarf.

Brown Dwarfs are also known as a substar since these objects are too large to be planets but are not massive enough to be called stars. These objects are believed to be formed the way stars are formed but did not have enough density at the core to start a nuclear fusion.

The surface map of Luhman 16B is the first charting of the brown star which included the light and dark features of the surface. It is also the first mapping of the weather on the surface of Luhman 16B.

The brown dwarf, discovered in 2013, is only six light years from Earth and can be found in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail). Luhman 16B forms a pair with Luhman 16A which is the brighter of the two components. The pair is collectively referred to as Luhman 16AB.

The imaging was made possible with the CRyogenic high-resolution InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph (CRIRES) attached to the VLT.

Solving the Mystery of the Formation of Supermassive Galaxies (SMG)

Three billion years after the Big Bang, super massive galaxies (SMG) formed which is a mystery to scientists since most massive galaxies took most of the history of the universe to take shape.

These old galaxies are no longer forming new stars. But the stars inside these galaxies are compacted in a very small area making the size of these SMGs around three times smaller than similar mass galaxies today. They also are not flattened like current spiral galaxies with a center but they are elliptical.

Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute believe that they might have solved this mystery. They explain that these massive galaxies were formed by colliding galaxies that initiated star formation a few billion years after the Big Bang.

1 to 2 billion years after the Big Bang, they theorize that gas from early galaxies where driven into the center of the galaxy system which ignited to form new stars in the center making it compact. And because of the number of stars formed so quickly, the gas needed to form new stars are used up making it a dead galaxy.

In the image above, an extremely compact dead galaxy is compared to the size of the Milky Way. The two have about the same amounts of stars, which meant that the density of stars in the compact galaxies is more that 10 times higher than the stars in the Milky way.

Fruit Flies Raised in Outer Space Have Weak Immune System

An experiment that involved Drosophila fruit flies being raised in outer space at the Space Shuttle Discovery showed that the flies have a weaker immune system compared to regular Drosophila flies raised on Earth.

The flies were sent into space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as eggs. It takes about 10 days for the flies to develop into adults and after the return trip, scientists found that the space flies had a weak immune response system to fungus. However, the immune system reacted normally to bacteria.

Scientists noted that the flies also showed a high expression of heat-shock protein genes that moderate the Toll pathway which mediates fungus infections. They also believe that aside from the heat-shock proteins, microgravity could also interfere with the protein behaviors outside the cell which are important for Toll pathway signalling.

The 12 day space mission brings to light the link between gravity and the immune system.