This is a studyblr for everyone have some passion for science, especially astronomy and biology
129 posts
Latest Posts by study-astronomy-biology-ref - Page 2
Crab walks around with Jellyfish on its back to protect it from predators
These #jellyfish Cassiopea (upside-down jellyfish) partake in a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic dinoflagellates and therefore, must lay upside-down in areas with sufficient light penetration to fuel their energy source. Where found, there may be numerous individuals with varying shades of white, blue, green and brown.
Sometimes this jellyfish is picked up by the #crab Dorippe frascone and carried on its back. The crab uses the jellyfish to defend itself against possible predators.
Yes! It’s not ~very~ legal, but I think this is very important to know if you gonna do research.
I also read somewhere saying that if you have this kind of issue and you aren’t really in a rush, you could reach out to the people that did the research and ask them for the article! We all have the same problem with publication sites and most people just want their research to be known and cited. They would love to help you too, we’re all scientists after all. I, personally, haven’t tried this yet since I’m currently not doing any research, so I’m not 100% sure about the success probability. But hey, it worth a shot I have to say.
I havent seen anyone talk about this yet so im making a post.
So lets say you’re researching something for a paper (or just for fun) and the research paper you want to read is behind a paywall, or the site makes you create an account first, or makes you pay to download, or limits you to only 5 free articles, or otherwise makes it difficult for you to read what you want.
do not fear! copy the link to the article
go to sci-hub.se (the url is always changing so its best to check out whereisscihub.now.sh to find what the current url is)
slap the article link in there
bam! free access!
Want to See the Oldest Surviving Video of a Total Solar Eclipse?
It was done in – wait for it – 1900! The first total solar eclipse to be filmed has recently been restored. The film was done by Nevil Maskelyne, an illusionist turned astronomic videographer for the British Royal Astronomical Society.
This 1900 film is actually Maskelyne’s second attempt at filming a total solar eclipse. His first attempt was in 1898, when he traveled all the way to India to be at the right place to view a predicted total eclipse. Maskelyne got there in time, but sadly, his film was stolen, and the crime remains unsolved and the film unrecovered.
A Super-Black Coating by Surrey NanoSystems.
This product absorbs 99.7% of light at 600nm wavelength. Unlike the previous product, VantaBlack, this product is much more tolerant and can withstand handling - indicating more realistic worldwide applications.
Antibodies are the secreted form of B-lymphocyte receptors and are a part of adaptive immunity, but how are these proteins formed?
Above is a diagram illustrating Paul Ehlrich’s Side Chain Theory of Antibody Formation. Ehlrich proposed that immunoglobulin molecules, a fundamental component of adaptive immunity, served as membrane bound proteins that bound to particular threats, similarly to the former “key in lock” view of enzymes in catalyzing biological reactions. Ehrlich also suggested that the action of binding a pathogenic molecule to the receptor would generate a signal to stimulate the production of more receptors of the same specificity. These “side chains” that were added on would then break off from the cell surface and become what we call antibodies.
We now know, however, that soluble immunoglobulin receptors are specially manufactured to be secreted as antibody, rather than just “breaking off” of the lymphocyte, even though they have the same specificity as their membrane-bound counterparts.
Which U.S. state has banned some sunscreens from 2021, and why? ☀️ Find out in this month’s edition of #PeriodicGraphics in C&EN: https://ift.tt/2jSN4jl https://ift.tt/2JWdZ71
There’s a rare type of blood that’s shared by only 43 people in the entire world.
‘Rhnull’ blood doesn’t contain any of the Rh antigens that 99.9% of humans have. It’s often called ‘golden blood’ because it can be given to anyone who has a rare Rh blood type, but there are only 9 active donors, so it’s only used in extreme circumstances.
(Source, Source 2)
Hello there
As you can already tell, I haven't been really active (at all) on this account. The reason for this, to be honest, was the fact that Tumblr became stale to me, and besides that, I was very busy with my study for the university entrance exam for a year.
All of this caused this account to be abandoned for 2-3 years, which really not what I wanted at all because I created this account to help people with study and have reliable sources of information.
But I'm back (yay), and I’m trying to get back and resurrect this account again. There will be a few changes (since I changed a lot in the last few years).
1. My love for science is still there and even stronger now because... *drum rolls*... I’m studying science at university now! More specifically, biotechnology major, planning on an immunology minor. So yes, besides primary astronomy contents, I'm planning on posting more biology stuff!
-> The name of this blog changed: study-astronomy-ref to study-astronomy-biology-ref
2. If you don’t know, this account is member-based. Even though I will be more active in the next few months, I can't be 100% be sure about keeping the account active for too long because of personal jobs and study. I had recruit more members for this account a while ago, but it didn't end well.
-> So if anyone wants to contribute to this blog as a pure studyblr, message, please. There, of course, will be standards and I will select the best people to run this blog smoothly, educationally and actively. For the best to everyone!
3. To me, this account is for people (very communism). So besides the science news, findings and study references, slide in the DM if you want something more interesting on this blog (science art? some Q&A? other cool science stuff?). I would be very happy if this blog could reach more people with similar interest and it could be a fun, wholesome and interesting place for anyone that has a passion for science and study! Wooray!
Maybe that's all I have to say. Stay tuned for more contents!
Head up to the sky, aliens. Keep on curious.
The gender divide in science is cultural rather than anything to do with women’s brains and some countries do much better than others, she says.
In astrophysics southern European countries like France, Spain and Italy do much better than northern European countries like Germany and The Netherlands, for instance.
“In all those countries the proportion of women is going up but the pattern has stayed the same, which is interesting,” she says.
“The progress is slow, things are changing gradually.”
Her advice to women in science? “Don’t be daunted, hang in there, work hard, of course, be courageous.”
NASA & TRAPPIST-1: A Treasure Trove of Planets Found
Seven Earth-sized planets have been observed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope around a tiny, nearby, ultra-cool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Three of these planets are firmly in the habitable zone.
Over 21 days, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope measured the drop in light as each planet passed in front of the star. Spitzer was able to identify a total of seven rocky worlds, including three in the habitable zone, where liquid water might be found.
The video features interviews with Sean Carey, manager of the Spitzer Science Center, Caltech/IPAC; Nikole Lewis, James Webb Space Telescope project scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute; and Michaël Gillon, principal investigator, TRAPPIST, University of Liege, Belgium. The system has been revealed through observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) telescope, as well as other ground-based observatories. The system was named for the TRAPPIST telescope.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at Caltech/IPAC. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer and http://spitzer.caltech.edu.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Largest Batch of Earth-size, Habitable Zone Planets
Our Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in an area called the habitable zone, where liquid water is most likely to exist on a rocky planet.
This exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1, named for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile. In May 2016, researchers using TRAPPIST announced they had discovered three planets in the system.
Assisted by several ground-based telescopes, Spitzer confirmed the existence of two of these planets and discovered five additional ones, increasing the number of known planets in the system to seven.
This is the FIRST time three terrestrial planets have been found in the habitable zone of a star, and this is the FIRST time we have been able to measure both the masses and the radius for habitable zone Earth-sized planets.
All of these seven planets could have liquid water, key to life as we know it, under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.
At about 40 light-years (235 trillion miles) from Earth, the system of planets is relatively close to us, in the constellation Aquarius. Because they are located outside of our solar system, these planets are scientifically known as exoplanets. To clarify, exoplanets are planets outside our solar system that orbit a sun-like star.
In this animation, you can see the planets orbiting the star, with the green area representing the famous habitable zone, defined as the range of distance to the star for which an Earth-like planet is the most likely to harbor abundant liquid water on its surface. Planets e, f and g fall in the habitable zone of the star.
Using Spitzer data, the team precisely measured the sizes of the seven planets and developed first estimates of the masses of six of them. The mass of the seventh and farthest exoplanet has not yet been estimated.
For comparison…if our sun was the size of a basketball, the TRAPPIST-1 star would be the size of a golf ball.
Based on their densities, all of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely to be rocky. Further observations will not only help determine whether they are rich in water, but also possibly reveal whether any could have liquid water on their surfaces.
The sun at the center of this system is classified as an ultra-cool dwarf and is so cool that liquid water could survive on planets orbiting very close to it, closer than is possible on planets in our solar system. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits are closer to their host star than Mercury is to our sun.
The planets also are very close to each other. How close? Well, if a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth’s sky.
The planets may also be tidally-locked to their star, which means the same side of the planet is always facing the star, therefore each side is either perpetual day or night. This could mean they have weather patterns totally unlike those on Earth, such as strong wind blowing from the day side to the night side, and extreme temperature changes.
Because most TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely to be rocky, and they are very close to one another, scientists view the Galilean moons of Jupiter – lo, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede – as good comparisons in our solar system. All of these moons are also tidally locked to Jupiter. The TRAPPIST-1 star is only slightly wider than Jupiter, yet much warmer.
How Did the Spitzer Space Telescope Detect this System?
Spitzer, an infrared telescope that trails Earth as it orbits the sun, was well-suited for studying TRAPPIST-1 because the star glows brightest in infrared light, whose wavelengths are longer than the eye can see. Spitzer is uniquely positioned in its orbit to observe enough crossing (aka transits) of the planets in front of the host star to reveal the complex architecture of the system.
Every time a planet passes by, or transits, a star, it blocks out some light. Spitzer measured the dips in light and based on how big the dip, you can determine the size of the planet. The timing of the transits tells you how long it takes for the planet to orbit the star.
The TRAPPIST-1 system provides one of the best opportunities in the next decade to study the atmospheres around Earth-size planets. Spitzer, Hubble and Kepler will help astronomers plan for follow-up studies using our upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018. With much greater sensitivity, Webb will be able to detect the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone and other components of a planet’s atmosphere.
At 40 light-years away, humans won’t be visiting this system in person anytime soon…that said…this poster can help us imagine what it would be like:
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
THE TRAPPIST-1 DISCOVERY
NASA’s announcement today was awe-inspiring. We’ve compiled the essential info you want to know about this incredible discovery.
OVERVIEW: 7 PLANETS, 3 HABITABLE
Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The seven exoplanets were all found in tight formation around an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Estimates of their mass also indicate that they are rocky planets, rather than being gaseous like Jupiter. Three planets are in the habitable zone of the star, known as TRAPPIST-1e, f and g, and may even have oceans on the surface.
“I think we’ve made a crucial step towards finding if there is life out there,” said Amaury Triaud, one of the study authors and an astronomer at the University of Cambridge. “I don’t think any time before we had the right planets to discover and find out if there was (life). Here, if life managed to thrive and releases gases similar to what we have on Earth, we will know.”
ONLY 40 LIGHT YEARS AWAY
The system is just 40 light-years away. On a cosmic scale, that’s right next door. Of course, practically speaking, it would still take us hundreds of millions of years to get there with today’s technology – but again, it is notable in that the find speaks volumes about the potential for life-as-we-know-it beyond Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope is already being used to search for atmospheres around the planets, and Emmanuël Jehin, a scientist who also worked on the research, asserts that future telescopes could allow us to truly see into the heart of this system: “With the upcoming generation of telescopes, such as ESO’s European Extremely Large Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, we will soon be able to search for water and perhaps even evidence of life on these worlds.”
ALIEN SKIES
In contrast to our sun, the TRAPPIST-1 star – classified as an ultra-cool dwarf – is so cool that liquid water could survive on planets orbiting very close to it, closer than is possible on planets in our solar system. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits are closer to their host star than Mercury is to our sun. The planets also are very close to each other. If a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth’s sky.
The planets may also be tidally locked to their star, which means the same side of the planet is always facing the star, therefore each side is either perpetual day or night. This could mean they have weather patterns totally unlike those on Earth, such as strong winds blowing from the day side to the night side, and extreme temperature changes.
A shot of just a tiny bit of the Andromeda Galaxy, from the sharpest ever view taken by the Hubble Space Telescope
Full size image
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
Making your own personalised guides is quite different from your normal note-taking. Study guides are more exam-oriented, instead of merely summarising and organising information. It is a tool to help you to study for your exams, and to guide you through answering exam questions. This how-to guide is a summary of my learning experiences in both high school and college, so I hope this can help everyone here.
Goals for the study guides
It has to include everything on the syllabus for the examination
Omit things that are not going to be useful/helpful in exams
There are things that may be very informative, but if they have no relevance to the exam, it’s better to take them out of the study guide
Basically, the goal of making this study guide is to have one booklet/notebook that contain things you have learnt in that course, and most importantly, everything you need for the exam.
That means you (supposedly) wouldn’t have to refer to any other materials unless specified in the study guide
Making this booklet will help you to summarise and analyse information - a great way to study
Materials that you need
If you are in college, lecture notes are usually the most important material you should refer to when studying for exams. If you are in high school, textbooks are more likely to prevail. It depends on your course structure and the way your teacher/lecturer teaches.
Past papers / practice papers are great guidance for you when making study guides, because they help you to understand what will be on the exam paper, and most importantly, how you could answer the question.
Important tip: while making your own summary of the knowledge is useful, write down the model answer from the past paper in your study guide instead. That’s the way you should answer the question related to that topic in the exam, so you shouldn’t waste time putting in and memorising information that is not helpful.
For college students: tutorial questions usually offer great guidance as to what is going to appear in the exam. Putting those in the study guides is usually very helpful.
Organising the study guides
Here are a few tips when organising your notes:
Put a red star next to topics that you think are going to come up in the examination
Circle topics that you don’t understand / fail to grasp when making the study guides
Definitely use bullet points if possible
Highlight key words with definition in one specific colour, or anything that requires direct recitation
Because this is what you will study for the exam, also put down tips that are going to help you with the exams. (You can either draw a box to alert yourself or use a post-it note for these).
Answering structure / attack plan for common exam questions
Some common mistakes previous students made in the exam (which is usually brought up by the teacher / lecturer)
Important concept / clarification of misunderstandings
Remember to leave a page for each chapter and write a summary of it during revision
This will help you to understand the flow of the chapter and it is a great way to recall the information you have just organised
If you want to know more about how to take notes, here are some of my other posts:
A summary on how to take good lecture notes - #13
Type or write?
Type or write? updated + my approach
Should I take notes right now?
How to take outline notes?
Consolidating lecture notes and textbook notes
How to get better handwriting?
How to incorporate colours into note-taking and studying?
Baobab & Milky Way
A baobab tree and the central band of the Milky Way galaxy in the village of Antsiraraka in Madagscar, July 2010.
Credit: Florian Breuer
Stellar Outburst Brings Water Snow Line Into View
ESO - European Southern Observatory logo. 13 July 2016
Artist’s impression of the water snowline around the young star V883 Orionis
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has made the first ever resolved observation of a water snow line within a protoplanetary disc. This line marks where the temperature in the disc surrounding a young star drops sufficiently low for snow to form. A dramatic increase in the brightness of the young star V883 Orionis flash heated the inner portion of the disc, pushing the water snow line out to a far greater distance than is normal for a protostar, and making it possible to observe it for the first time. The results are published in the journal Nature on 14 July 2016.
ALMA image of the protoplanetary disc around V883 Orionis
Young stars are often surrounded by dense, rotating discs of gas and dust, known as protoplanetary discs, from which planets are born. The heat from a typical young solar-type star means that the water within a protoplanetary disc is gaseous up to distances of around 3 au from the star [1] — less than 3 times the average distance between the Earth and the Sun — or around 450 million kilometres [2]. Further out, due to the extremely low pressure, the water molecules transition directly from a gaseous state to form a patina of ice on dust grains and other particles. The region in the protoplanetary disc where water transitions between the gas and solid phases is known as the water snow line [3].
The star V883 Orionis in the constellation of Orion
But the star V883 Orionis is unusual. A dramatic increase in its brightness has pushed the water snow line out to a distance of around 40 au (about 6 billion kilometres or roughly the size of the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto in our Solar System). This huge increase, combined with the resolution of ALMA at long baselines [4], has allowed a team led by Lucas Cieza (Millennium ALMA Disk Nucleus and Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile) to make the first ever resolved observations of a water snow line in a protoplanetary disc.
Shifting water snowline in V883 Orionis
The sudden brightening that V883 Orionis experienced is an example of what occurs when large amounts of material from the disc surrounding a young star fall onto its surface. V883 Orionis is only 30% more massive than the Sun, but thanks to the outburst it is experiencing, it is currently a staggering 400 times more luminous — and much hotter [5].
ALMA image of the protoplanetary disc around V883 Orionis (annotated)
Lead author Lucas Cieza explains: “The ALMA observations came as a surprise to us. Our observations were designed to look for disc fragmentation leading to planet formation. We saw none of that; instead, we found what looks like a ring at 40 au. This illustrates well the transformational power of ALMA, which delivers exciting results even if they are not the ones we were looking for.”
ALMA image of the protoplanetary disc around V883 Orionis
The bizarre idea of snow orbiting in space is fundamental to planet formation. The presence of water ice regulates the efficiency of the coagulation of dust grains — the first step in planet formation. Within the snow line, where water is vapourised, smaller, rocky planets like our own are believed to form. Outside the water snow line, the presence of water ice allows the rapid formation of cosmic snowballs, which eventually go on to form massive gaseous planets such as Jupiter.
Zooming on the protoplanetary disc around V883 Orionis
The discovery that these outbursts may blast the water snow line to about 10 times its typical radius is very significant for the development of good planetary formation models. Such outbursts are believed to be a stage in the evolution of most planetary systems, so this may be the first observation of a common occurrence. In that case, this observation from ALMA could contribute significantly to a better understanding of how planets throughout the Universe formed and evolved.
The protoplanetary disc around V883 Orionis (artist’s impression)
Notes: [1] 1 au, or one astronomical unit, is the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun, around 149.6 million kilometres.This unit is typically used to describe distances measured within the Solar System and planetary systems around other stars. [2] This line was between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter during the formation of the Solar System, hence the rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars formed within the line, and the gaseous planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed outside. [3] The snow lines for other molecules, such as carbon monoxide and methane, have been observed previously with ALMA, at distances of greater than 30 au from the protostar within other protoplanetary discs. Water freezes at a relatively high temperature and this means that the water snow line is usually much too close to the protostar to observe directly. [4] Resolution is the ability to discern that objects are separate. To the human eye, several bright torches at a distance would seem like a single glowing spot, and only at closer quarters would each torch be distinguishable. The same principle applies to telescopes, and these new observations have exploited the exquisite resolution of ALMA in its long baseline modes. The resolution of ALMA at the distance of V883 Orionis is about 12 au — enough to resolve the water snow line at 40 au in this outbursting system, but not for a typical young star. [5] Stars like V883 Orionis are classed as FU Orionis stars, after the original star that was found to have this behaviour. The outbursts may last for hundreds of years. More information: This research was presented in a paper entitled “Imaging the water snow-line during a protostellar outburst”, by L. Cieza et al., to appear in Nature on 14 July 2016. The team is composed of Lucas A. Cieza (Millennium ALMA Disk Nucleus; Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile), Simon Casassus (Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile), John Tobin (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, The Netherlands), Steven Bos (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, The Netherlands), Jonathan P. Williams (University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai`i, USA), Sebastian Perez (Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile), Zhaohuan Zhu (Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA), Claudio Cáceres (Universidad Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile), Hector Canovas (Universidad Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile), Michael M. Dunham (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA), Antonio Hales (Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago, Chile), Jose L. Prieto (Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile), David A. Principe (Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile), Matthias R. Schreiber (Universidad Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile), Dary Ruiz-Rodriguez (Australian National University, Mount Stromlo Observatory, Canberra, Australia) and Alice Zurlo (Universidad Diego Portales & Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile). The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA. ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”. Links: Research paper: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1626/eso1626a.pdf Photos of ALMA: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&subject_name=Atacama%20Large%20Millimeter/submillimeter%20Array For more information about ALMA, visit: https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/alma.html Images, Text, Credits: ESO/Richard Hook/A. Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF)/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/ALMA//L. Cieza/IAU and Sky & Telescope/Videos: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/L. Cieza./ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)/M. Kornmesser. Music: Johan B. Monell. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article
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!
AIR!
Earth’s atmosphere recently crossed 400 ppm CO2 for the first time in millions of years and probably will not go back below that amount during any of our lifetimes. (http://tinyurl.com/bus4xpt). But did you know there’s something else changing in the atmosphere to go along with that CO2 rise?
It’s pictured in this graph. This gas is going down, decreasing in the atmosphere as CO2 goes up. That gas? Oxygen. Oxygen in the atmosphere is decreasing.
Be honest…did you just stop and take a deep breath? It really is kinda creepy to realize that the gas everyone is taught as a kid they need to survive is going down in the atmosphere.
Anyway, why is oxygen going down? The same reason that carbon is going up; burning of fossil fuels.
Keep reading
FROM EARTH TO SPACE: Where space begins and Earth’s atmosphere starts to fade away
Photographing the Milky Way Over Greece
Alexandros Maragos is an Athens based filmmaker and photographer best known for his landscape photography, astrophotography and timelapse imagery. In his own words:
The Milky Way is the name of the spiral galaxy in which our solar system is located. It is our home in space. The Earth orbits the Sun in the Solar System, and the Solar System is embedded within this vast galaxy of stars. In the northern hemisphere, the Milky Way is visible in the southern half of the sky. This makes Greece one of the best places in the world to see and photograph the galaxy because of the country’s geographic location in Southern Europe at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
As a filmmaker and photographer I feel very fortunate to live here. Every time I want to shoot the night sky, all I do is to pick a new spot on the map and just go there and take the shot. Greece is a heaven for astrophotography. Whether you choose a mountain, a beach, a peninsula or any of the 6,000 islands, the Milky Way is always visible in the southern sky.
To see more of his work visit his website or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
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MBTI Studying Tips - Part 1
DISCLAIMERS:
What I did do: Collect information and organize them into an easy-to-read-and-understand-post. What I didn’t do: Write most of it. Most of the information here isn’t my own writing, but rather useful tips I found from various sources. Credit is given at the bottom of the post.
I wrote most of this by doing a hell lot of research online and trying to ask my friends of different types irl what they thought of it. I am no professional, and my words in no way should be taken as gospel. Please, please send me corrections or your thoughts if anything I wrote was inaccurate, I will appreciate all the feedback I can get.
Hello hello! Your old friend Skye is here with some tips for studying based on your MBTI personality type. Now before we jump straight into things, let’s answer a few basic questions:
What is MBTI?
MBTI stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is basically a personality test that classifies you into one of 16 different personality categories based on a four-letter code. This is what the “INFP” or “ESFJ” codes mean if you’ve been seeing them around in the community. The test assesses you on four of your main traits:
How do you prefer to direct your energy? (I vs E)
What kind of information do you prefer to gather? (S vs N)
What criteria do you prefer for making decisions? (T vs F)
What kind of environment do you prefer? (J vs P)
So how do I find out what’s my type?
You can take a free online quiz here!
Okay, but what’s with the ‘Introverted Thinking’ and ‘Fi’ and all the fancy terms?
You can read more about Cognitive Function Theory here! I will be basing my post off this theory because I think it’s a more comprehensive method of understanding MBTI.
Onwards! (The rest is under the cut bc skye rambled and it’s long af even tho I’m just covering the introverted functions)
Keep reading
at what point in history do you think americans stopped having british accents
yknow black dwarfs,,, do they actually exist and do they actually live longer than the universe,,
Yes. When stars of a certain mass run out of fuel, they expel their outer layers ( a planetary nebula)
What’s left, in the center is a white dwarf. The core of the original star. Can you see it in the center of this planetary nebula? (NGC 7662)
That white dwarf glows only because of heat, it is not actually making any new light. So, that white dwarf will cool down and leave a dark chunk of mass behind
Goodness look at the interplay between the light of the setting sun and the wave!!