Largest Batch Of Earth-size, Habitable Zone Planets

These slides, presented during the New Horizons’ press conference at the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, show the climate zones of Pluto compared to Earth. Pluto has an axial tilt of 120°, which creates extreme tropic and arctic regions. The two regions overlap, creating a ‘tropical arctic’ region that experiences both direct sunlight and prolonged sunlight and darkness. At the moment, Pluto is in an intermediate state between the extreme tropic and arctic climates.

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Could dark energy be caused by frozen neutrinos?

“Since its discovery in 1998, the accelerated expansion has lacked a compelling, simple explanation that didn’t hypothesize a completely new set of forces, properties or interactions. If you wanted a scalar field — a quintessence model — it had to be finely tuned. But in a very clever paper just submitted yesterday by Fergus Simpson, Raul Jimenez, Carlos Pena-Garay, and Licia Verde, they note that if a generic scalar field couples to the neutrinos we have in our Universe, that fine-tuning goes away, and that scalar field will automatically begin behaving as a cosmological constant: as energy inherent to space itself.”

The accelerated expansion of our Universe was one of the biggest surprise discoveries of all-time, and something that still lacks a good physical explanation. While many models of dark energy exist, it remains a completely phenomenological study: everything appears consistent with a cosmological constant, but nothing appears to be a good motivator for why the Universe should have one. Until now, that is! In a new paper by Fergus Simpson, Raul Jimenez, Carlos Pena-Garay and Licia Verde, they note that any generic scalar field that couples to the neutrino sector would dynamically and stably give rise to a type of dark energy that’s indistinguishable from what we’ve observed. The huge advance is that this scenario doesn’t require any fine-tuning, thanks to this dark energy arising from neutrinos “freezing,” or becoming non-relativistic. In addition, there are experimental signatures to look for to confirm it, too, in the form of neutrinoless double-beta decay!

WOW!!

This computer-simulated image shows a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy. The black region in the center represents the black hole’s event horizon, where no light can escape the massive object’s gravitational grip. The black hole’s powerful gravity distorts space around it like a funhouse mirror. Light from background stars is stretched and smeared as the stars skim by the black hole.

Credits: NASA, ESA, and D. Coe, J. Anderson, and R. van der Marel (STScI)

Full Story at Hubble Space Telescope/NASA.- Behemoth Black Hole Found in an Unlikely Place

High-res images at HubbleSite.org

Tardigrades: ‘Water bears’ stuck on the moon after crash 

The moon might now be home to thousands of planet Earth’s most indestructible animals.

Tardigrades - often called water bears - are creatures under a millimetre long that can survive being heated to 150C and frozen to almost absolute zero.

They were travelling on an Israeli spacecraft that crash-landed on the moon in April.

And the co-founder of the organisation that put them there thinks they’re almost definitely still alive.

The water bears had been dehydrated to place them in suspended animation and then encased in artificial amber.

“We believe the chances of survival for the tardigrades… are extremely high.”

Sleep is your superpower | Matt Walker

Sleep is your life-support system and Mother Nature’s best effort yet at immortality, says sleep scientist Matt Walker. In this deep dive into the science of slumber, Walker shares the wonderfully good things that happen when you get sleep – and the alarmingly bad things that happen when you don’t, for both your brain and body. Learn more about sleep’s impact on your learning, memory, immune system and even your genetic code – as well as some helpful tips for getting some shut-eye.

Behold NGC 6357, “cathedral to massive stars.” Credit: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (IAA, Spain). (NASA/APOD)

▪︎Copernican armillary sphere.

Date: 1807-1846 

Place of origin: Paris

From the source: Copernican armillary sphere from set of two armillary spheres and a celestial globe constructed in paper on pasteboard with metal fitments supported on a decorative mahogany baluster base. Shows planets out to Uranus, plus four asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Juno & Vesta, first quarter 19th century.

Jeff Williams: Record Breaker

Astronaut becomes U.S. record holder for most cumulative time in space!

The Olympics are over, but Americans are STILL breaking records. NASA astronaut Jeff Williams just broke Scott Kelly’s record of 520 cumulative days spent in space. When Williams returns to Earth on Sept. 5, he will have racked up 534 days in space. To celebrate this amazing achievement, here are some of the best images taken during his four spaceflights.

STS-101 Atlantis:

During May 2000, Williams made his first spacewalk during space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-101 mission. On this 10-day mission, Williams’ first spacewalk lasted nearly seven hours. He is pictured here outside the space station.

Expedition 13:

Williams experienced his first long-duration mission in 2006, when he served as flight engineer for Expedition 13 space station mission. During his time in orbit, he performed two spacewalks, saw the arrival of two space shuttle missions and resumed construction of the orbiting laboratory during his six-month tour. While on one of those spacewalks, Williams took this selfie.

Expedition 21/22:

Williams returned to space for another six-month mission in 2009 as a flight engineer on Expedition 21 and commander of Expedition 22. During that time, he hosted the crews of two space shuttle missions. The U.S.-built Tranquility module and cupola were installed on station. Here is an image of the then newly installed cupola.

Expedition 47/48:

This time around, Williams has been onboard the space station since March 2016, where he served as flight engineer for Expedition 47 and now commands Expedition 48. With over 7,000 retweets on Williams’ photo of an aurora from space, his Twitter followers were clearly impressed with his photography skills.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com 

What would happen if two galaxies or black holes became one?

Hi there!

Astronomers have had the opportunity to observe galaxies colliding so they have been able to learn more about them!

In a galaxy collision, although quite violent, nothing usually happens to the stars or any solar systems! This is due to the vast spaces between stars. Usually the friction and gravitational interactions between the galaxies is what makes it violent. Our very own Milky Way galaxy is on collision course for the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s predicted that nothing will happen to our solar system, that we will just be flung into another part of the galaxy!

Black holes on the other hand are much more violent. Astronomers haven’t actually witnessed black holes colliding, but through computer simulations they’ve been able to simulate it!

The collision begins once they come too close to each other to escape each other’s gravity. Once that happens they’ll spiral towards each other until they eventually collide. Since it’s so violent they actually send ripples into space time!

Hope that helped! If not, feel free to ask me anything else :) xx

I…am calm