A Pulsar With Planets
A pulsar is probably the deadliest object in the Universe. Despite their beauty, you wouldn’t want to get close to one of them! They are a type of neutron star that emits a highly focused beam of electromagnetic radiation from both magnetic poles. This radiation, deadly to any form of life, can only be visible when one of the two beams is turned to face towards the observer (which is hopefully not anywhere close). The radiation is so strong that it would disintegrate the molecular bonds holding together DNA strands, killing any life in the process. Pulsars rotate in an extremely regular period. It’s this rotation that makes them pulse,…
Astronomy Picture of the Week – Unusual Spiral Galaxy M66
This is a photo of an unusual spiral galaxy called M66, taken by the Hubble Telescope. It lies about 35 million light years from Earth and it spans 100,000 light years. At a first glance, this galaxy looks familiar. Why? Well, because it is similar to our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Both galaxies are spirals. However, what’s really unusual about this one is that it is asymmetric. Usually the force of gravity of a mega black hole (or group of mega black holes) attracts all the stars and interstellar gas in a symmetric pattern. If the mega black hole is not originally in the center of a galaxy it…
Saturn’s Moon Mimas Looks Like Pac-Man In Infrared
In an earlier article we have showed you how Saturn’s moon Mimas totally looks like the Death Star from the Star Wars movies. Now it seems that Mimas also looks like Pac-Man from the 1980s video game when seen in infrared. Saturn’s moon Mimas looks like Pac-Man when seen in infrared. This infrared picture was taken by the Cassini space probe. The picture above has been taken by the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) from the Cassini spacecraft, which is the result of the cooperation between NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency). As the graphic below explains it, normally the temperature distribution on any planet, moon or smaller body should…
Dark Asteroids Discovered, Possible Threat to Earth
An infrared space telescope, called the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has discovered several dark asteroids close to Earth that could possibly be a threat to our planet. Those asteroids are very dark and reflect less than 10% of the sunlight they receive, which makes them extremely hard to spot with traditional telescopes. However they absorb a lot of the sunlight and heat up which makes them quite bright in infrared. That’s why WISE could detect them. Near-Earth Object becomes visible in infrared WISE, the new space telescope launched on December 14, 2009 is expected to discover as many as 1000 near-Earth asteroids. However according to current estimates the number…
Possibilities for Life on Mars
An article was recently published by Scientific American, a very reputable science magazine, stating that evidence was found that life existed on Mars and was brought to Earth on a meteorite. The meteorite in question is called “Allan Hills 84001”. It was blasted from Mars by a huge meteorite impact 16 million years ago and crashed on Earth 13,000 years ago. It was only in 1996 that it was discovered in Antarctica. The meteorite appeared to contain some peculiar fossils. They being of biological nature was rapidly dismissed at the time. However, now scientists have re-examined them and concluded that they are indeed biological. They are fossils of ancient microscopic…
