Thursday, May 10, 2012

Central Blackholes influence Star birth: Herschel


 We very well know that the black hole at the centre of the galaxy has a great influence on the life cycle of galaxy. This is certainly true when it comes to the case of star birth in a galaxy. But no one knows how and it wouldn't have proved true even today if it wasn't for the Herschel Space Observatory. To study the star birth, astronomers have to look at the galaxies with their telescopes. As we all know that almost all the galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers, and due to the accretion problems of these black holes, it is highly impossible to get a clear view of whats happening in the galaxy and thereby the star birth. But grateful to the SPIRE camera of Herschel Observatory its now made entirely possible to watch the interior of a galaxy inspite of the outshine produced by the accretion disks. “Herschel provides a new perspective and is conducting a number of surveys of galaxies near and far, in order to unravel the mysteries of the formation and evolution of galaxies across cosmic time,” said Dr. Göran Pilb’ratt, the ESA Herschel project scientist. Everything is quite casual till here but now when they compared the images obtained on the SPIRE camera with the wavelengths of the accretion material, it revealed the most intriguing thing. Time to wow :-) Studies with Herschel revealed that a galaxy with fastest growing black hole is the galaxy with less star formation and vice versa. So lets wait to get these results confirmed by an even accurate team of astronomers :-)

Hoping the results to be true signing of for today Yours Astro baby :-)

Ref: sci news
Date: 10-05-2012

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Japan loses the astronomy professor



58 year old Japanese astronomy professor Koichiro Morita was found dead with brain bleeding at his appartment. He was one of the main members of the team who had constructed the Alma radio telescope facilities. deep condolence....our astro world has lost one more gem....may his soul rest in peace :-)

Ref: La Tercera newspaper, Japan.
Date: 8-5-2012

Tycho helps NASA in studying Venus transit

/uploadedImages/RD/News/2012/05/MoonMirror.jpg
Tycho crater...the most explosive location on the lunar surface
Guys...you are well aware of Tycho crater on the moon right? Yeahhhhhh that is not all about it...It has helped something to come onto the tv screens now. The thing is astronomers used it as mirror to see the planet Venus's transit around the Sun. We cannot directly focus our telescopes to the Sun due to its heat intensity. So the telescope is being focused at this crater Tycho which helps by capturing reflected sunlight and isolate the sunlight portion falling onto the Venus. So this is all the concept behind the scene. So now this whole technique has got so many applications like it can help us study the planet's physical and chemical atmosphere. Secondly the spectroscopy study is made possible by an arsenal of Hubble instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, Wide Field Camera 3, and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. The whole experiment will be carried out for 7 hours during the transit to get accurate wholesome observations.
     I was really wondering why they are so focused at Venus's transit while there are hell lot more things to focus upon...may be now you are too ;-) Let me tell ya folks one thing...next transit will be at 2117...amazed? but its true...as we know the most important of the astronomical events occur very rare and this is one such!! So wishing the Hubble space telescope team a very good luck for this event, signing off for today.....

Yours Astro baby Pranu :-)
Ref: rdmag news
Date: 8-5-2012

Sunday, May 6, 2012

A black hole's homicide


This computer-simulated image shows gas from a tidally-shredded star falling into a black hole. Some of the gas also is being ejected at high speeds into space.
Its been long huh but have come up with something really interesting to share with you dudes. Heard about the recent homicide being undergone by a supermassive black hole? No? Jeez....then definitely I have got something to perk you up at your systems. Look Johns Hopkins University's department of physics and astronomy have discovered a black hole devouring a wandering star and was caught red handed when it is on its way gulping up this sun-like star (it might even more wow you if I tell you that the whole thing happened just in few weeks!). It waited for the star to come into its ergosphere and then shred it away once it got it's extraordinary gravitational force.It had undergone such a destruction that it outshone all other stars in it's galaxy. Not to get too scientific but the destruction thing was so strong that helium gas was flowing in a stream moving at 32 million kilometers an hour and this is exactly what helped them in figuring out it as a black hole swallow up. This is the first ever discovery of this kind of black hole devouring getting caught on the telescopes though one was found the last year as then it ended up as a real mystery. Letting you folks go into the evidences they're able to see the glow of accretion gas and they're also able to find the spectral composition of the accretion gas as mostly helium. This was made possible using data from the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory in Arizona. As an obvious guess the star is reckoned to be a helium cored star ;-)
using data from the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. Since each element has
using data from the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. Since each element has Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1aGmY)As an obvious guess the star is reckoned to be helium cored one ;-)

Date- 6 May, 2012.
Ref: cbc.ca news, redorbit.com

Stay glued to get more updates on this :-)
Signing out yours astro-baby Pranu :-)