Firestorm in Centaurus A

The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most amazing tools that astronomers have ever had. I don't think to many people would argue that. But in addition to that, it provides the world with some of the most amazing pictures of our Universe. It shows us a beautiful Universe that would be an abstract artist's dream. And just yesterday, another hit was released to the public: (you are gonna want to click to see the larger image.)

This is a nearby galaxy named Centaurus A, or well, a portion of Cen A. The image shows a close up of the dark and murky dust of Cen A lite up by the fires of starbirth happening throughout the galaxy. It is an interesting and dynamic place to read about.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to tell you all about it, I am literally on my way out the door for the weekend. I'll be checking comments either late Sunday or on Monday. To read more about this image and Cen A, I suggest checking out Bad Astronomy's article, or Space.com's, and for really huge and detailed version, check out HubbleSite.

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Posted in Centaurus A,Cosmic Dust,Hubble 16 comments

Farewell to Stardust

This is semi-related to last couple of posts, specifically A Dusty Blog Post and Mercurial Monday. And a bit of a eulogy to a fantastic and amazing spacecraft that provided groundbreaking science for 12 years.

One of the mission's I learned a little bit more about the science behind was Stardust-NExT. A spacecraft that undertook a fascinating mission in comet exploration. The probe is now burning the last of its residual fuel and is being decommissioned about 312 million miles away from Earth.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent these last commands today at about 7 PM EST (March 24). [I found it a sobering moment amongst my birthday celebration.]

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Posted in Asteroids,Comets,Cosmic Dust,EPOXI,Stardust 22 comments

A Dusty Blog Post

Dust, it's everywhere! From the Earth-based perspective, dust is that layer of film made up of dirt, mostly biological, that settles on things in the corners of your room, or floating in the air reflecting light. On a cosmological scale, dust is made up of a huge variety of materials, literally just about everything in the Universe. And once cosmic dust settles, it forms stars and galaxies.

Cosmic dust also has a pretty large range in size, from just a few molecules up to a couple microns (µm). There really is no upper limit, but after a certain point, things obviously start to become asteroids and comets and meteoroids and such. There is a proposed definition for a meteoroid of being between 100 µm and 10 m across. That would then classify dust any smaller then 100 µm, and starting on a molecular level. Human hair is usually around 100 µm thick.

Cosmic dust can further be distinguished by it's location.

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Posted in Asteroids,Comets,Cosmic Dust,Intergalactic,Meteoroids,Saturn 37 comments

Delayed Cosmic Posting

No time to write the cosmic dust article right now. Since both of my parents are working on my birthday, they are deciding to do everything tonight. I should have it up either late tonight or tomorrow, the new poll will be up in a couple of minutes.

I have also spent most of the day messing around with Firefox 4, which just dropped. I am enjoying it so far, just a little bit to get used to. I do suggest the Omnibar add-on if you get it though. That is probably the only Chrome feature I have really enjoys and am happy to see it implemented in Firefox.

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Posted in Cosmic Dust,Firefox 24 comments