Space!

floydfreak wrote:Possible signs of Alien life

Astronomers Have Spotted Something Very, Very Strange Surrounding A Distant Star

http://www.iflscience.com/space/milky-w ... rious-star

Since its first light in 2009, the Kepler Space Telescope has been scanning the cosmos in search of habitable worlds beyond our Solar System. During its routine observations, the telescope observed something very unusual. Nestled between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, sits a strange and intriguing star.

Kepler is designed to observe stars and look for tiny dips in their brightness. These dips, especially if they repeat, can be a sign the star has one or more planets orbiting it. By measuring the timing and the size of the dips, scientists can learn a great deal about the transiting planet. The data is then processed automatically by computers with algorithms designed to look for repeating patterns – a sign that something is orbiting the star.

Kepler focused on this one region for four years, observing as many as 150,000 stars simultaneously. Due to the massive amounts of data collected, Kepler scientists rely on “citizen scientists” through a website called Planet Hunters to help them scour the data for anything unusual. In 2011, one star in particular was flagged as unusual.

Kepler observed the star KIC 8462852 for four years starting in 2009. Typically, orbiting planets only dim the light of their host star for a period of a few hours to a few days depending on their orbit. A group of citizen scientists noticed that this star appeared to have two small dips in 2009, followed by a large dip lasting almost a week in 2011, and finally a series of multiple dips significantly dimming the star’s light in 2013.

Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoc at Yale, told The Atlantic: “We’d never seen anything like this star. It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.”

The pattern of dips indicates that the star is orbited by a large, irregular-shaped mass. If it were orbiting a young star, this mass might be a protoplanetary disc, but KIC 8462852 is not a young star. We would also expect to see the presence of dust emitting infrared light, which hasn’t been observed. So what is this orbiting mass? Scientists predict that whatever it is, it had to have formed recently as it would have been pulled in by the star’s gravity and consumed.


Boyajian recently published a paper offering several possible explanations for the bizarre transits. The leading theory is that a family of exocomets passed too close to the star, and were shredded into pieces by the star’s massive gravity. The remaining dust and debris could be left to orbit the star.

But researchers from UC Berkeley’s SETI Institute think it could be something else entirely: They think this could be a sign of alien technology. Boyajian is working with SETI and Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, to develop a proposal to observe the star with NRAO’s Green Bank Telescope to search for radio waves. If they detect anything intriguing, they then have plans to use the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico to listen for what could be the sounds of alien technology.

The first observations are estimated to take place in January, with a potential follow-up planned for next fall. Of course, if they stumble upon something incredible, the researchers could expect to follow-up with the VLA straight away. Kepler also plans to observe KIC 8462852 in May 2017, when the mass is expected to transit the star again.

Preezy wrote:Death Star?

Our galaxy in one 46BILLION pixel picture: Explore the biggest ever interactive image of the Milky Way ever made

Astronomers from the University of Bochum in Germany have created the largest interactive image of the Milky Way. The image created is 194GB, but can be viewed using a special tool they developed.

NASA is now hiring astronauts to head up Mars mission

Have you ever dreamed of becoming an astronaut? Well, this could be your chance.

NASA revealed on Wednesday that it will begin accepting applications for the next class of astronaut candidates starting on Dec. 14.

The agency is seeking pilots, engineers, scientists and medical doctors, among others to continue work on the International Space Station and to conduct deep space exploration.

"This next group of American space explorers will inspire the Mars generation to reach for new heights, and help us realize the goal of putting boot prints on the Red Planet," Charles Bolden, NASA's administrator, said in a statement.

twitter.com/NASA_Astronauts/status/661905751191912449

There are a few requirements, however, if you want to join NASA's illustrious crew. Candidates must have a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics. Although, advanced degrees are more desirable.

Future astronauts must also have three years of related professional experience or at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in a jet aircraft.

And one more thing. Candidates must pass the NASA long-duration spaceflight physical.

Salaries for civilian astronauts are based on the Federal Government's general schedule pay scale and traditionally start around $65,000, but can grow upwards of $100,000. Military astronaut candidates retain active duty pay, benefits and leave.

"This is an exciting time to be a part of America's human space flight program," Brian Kelly, director of Flight Operations at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement. "NASA has taken the next step in the evolution of our nation's human spaceflight program — and our U.S. astronauts will be at the forefront of these new and challenging space flight missions."

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-team-breaks-cosmic-distance-record wrote:By pushing NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to its limits, an international team of astronomers has shattered the cosmic distance record by measuring the farthest galaxy ever seen in the universe. This surprisingly bright infant galaxy, named GN-z11, is seen as it was 13.4 billion years in the past, just 400 million years after the Big Bang. GN-z11 is located in the direction of the constellation of Ursa Major.

(A lot more in link above.)

Poster illustrates every orbiter, lander, rover, flyby, and impactor that completed its mission and shows each trajectory.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0211/4926/files/P-Space_Zoom.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07176xp/the-sky-at-night-planet-9-from-outer-space (Will be removed on 19 March, 8 PM.)

Supersized black hole discovery forces universal rethink - Massive galactic objects, billions of times heavier than the sun, could be more common than was thought, say scientists

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... al-rethink

Despite being less famous than their elliptical and spiral galactic cousins, irregular dwarf galaxies, such as the one captured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, are actually one of the most common types of galaxy in the universe. Known as UGC 4459, this dwarf galaxy is located approximately 11 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear), a constellation that is also home to the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), the Owl Nebula (M97), Messier 81, Messier 82 and several other galaxies all part of the M81 group.

UGC 4459’s diffused and disorganized appearance is characteristic of an irregular dwarf galaxy. Lacking a distinctive structure or shape, irregular dwarf galaxies are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a nuclear bulge — a huge, tightly packed central group of stars — nor any trace of spiral arms — regions of stars extending from the center of the galaxy. Astronomers suspect that some irregular dwarf galaxies were once spiral or elliptical galaxies, but were later deformed by the gravitational pull of nearby objects.

Rich with young blue stars and older red stars, UGC 4459 has a stellar population of several billion. Though seemingly impressive, this is small when compared to the 200 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way!

Observations with Hubble have shown that because of their low masses of dwarf galaxies like UGC 4459, star formation is very low compared to larger galaxies. Only very little of their original gas has been turned into stars. Thus, these small galaxies are interesting to study to better understand primordial environments and the star formation process.

Text Credit: ESA (European Space Agency)
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA; Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt