Astronomy

The NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope have collected much more clues on certain dark matter and the properties that they hold. They recently captured what is believed to be a powerful collision of galaxy clusters a good two years after the Bullet Cluster was first discovered. This new collision (which has been labeled the MACS J0025.4-1222) offer evidence on the inner workings behind the dark matter of the universe. This evidence will in turn help scientists to discover the separation between ordinary and dark matter.

Black holes have always been a mystery. Astronomers and scientists have both made assumptions as to what they could be for and exactly what they are – but until now no one has been able to completely understand them. Astronomers were able to get a closer look at a black hole this week – which allowed them to confirm certain theories about how they can discharge particles that are moving at the speed of light.

NASA scientists are preparing for a very unusual mission the likes that we haven’t seen in many years. They are hoping to discover hidden ice water in the lunar double of the moon – but the only way to do that is to ram two of their spacecrafts into the surface of the moon.  “I think that people are apprehensive about it because it seems violent or crude, but it’s very economical,” said Tony Colaprete, the principal investigator for the mission at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

All particles, such as protons and electrons, have antimatter counterparts with the same mass but the opposite charge. When protons and electrons meet they destroy each other. For decades the source of antimatter has been elusive.

The source of this antimatter has now been found. Stars getting ripped apart by neutron stars and black holes. When matter comes in contact with antimatter, they destroy each other, releasing energy called gamma rays. In 1978, gamma ray detectors were placed on balloons detected a type of gamma ray coming from space meaning there was antimatter in space.

Astronomers are alerting everyone to the best meteor shower of the whole year – which will begin on December 13th and carry into the 14th. David Levy and Stephen Edberg stated that the Geminid Meteor Shower will be amazing and that, “If you have not seen a mighty Geminid fireball arcing gracefully across an expanse of sky, then you have not seen a meteor.”

There are many mysterious things in space that researchers have not discovered and many that they don’t understand. One of the most confusing to them is the ultra high-energy cosmic rays. At this time 370 scientists and engineers from 17 different countries have gathered together in a group known as the Pierre Auger Collaboration. They have stated that they finally have evidence explaining what these phenomenons are. They are super-massive black holes that rumble at the hearts of many galaxies, crushing stars and gas out of existence and spewing jets of radiation and subatomic particles into intergalactic space.

Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth’s neighbourhood - a dead star with some unusual characteristics. The object, known as a neutron star, was studied using space telescopes and ground-based observatories.

But this one, located in the constellation Ursa Minor, seems to lack some key characteristics found in other neutron stars. Details of the study, by a team of American and Canadian researchers, will appear in the Astrophysical Journal. If confirmed, it would be only the eighth known “isolated neutron star” - meaning a neutron star that does not have an associated supernova remnant, binary companion, or radio pulsations.

Possibly one of the strangest phenomenons in the galaxy is a black hole. A black hole is an object with a gravitational field so powerful that a region of space becomes cut off from the rest of the universe, no matter or radiation, including visible light, that has entered the region can ever escape.

Our galaxy is full of planets, moons, and stars. Stars by far, take up the most space in our galaxy. In technical terms a galaxy is formed when stars are grouped together. But what are stars? A star is a luminous ball of plasma. Some are very small and others can be quite enormous. In fact you see a star every morning when you wake up.

Most people imagine space as a vastless void of blackness with stars everywhere. But what most people don’t know is that, like Easth, space has weather. And it seems that it has been proven that the weather that occurs in space affects us here on Earth.

According to the National Academy of Science, “Space weather describes the conditions in space that affect Earth and its technological systems. Our space weather is a consequence of the behavior of the sun, the nature of Earth’s magnetic field, and our location in the solar system.”