tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13275881519599627302024-03-13T06:03:40.181-04:00Cosmos Firma Reflections on a UniverseMarcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-190784989795241862016-09-28T16:41:00.000-04:002016-09-28T16:41:10.332-04:00Mea Culpa, Hartland Snyder<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When talking with my students about writing on the history of science, I often warn them to be cautious about oral histories—those long interviews with noted people that review their life’s accomplishments, often years after the fact. The personal anecdotes, tucked away in university and institutional archives, are so attractive to a writer, who is seeking to enliven a biography. But they are a minefield when it comes to accuracy, given the weaknesses of memory. “Trust, but verify” is always my classroom advice.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hartland Snyder (1913-1962)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If only I had practiced what I preached. My latest book, <i>Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved</i>, includes the story of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his graduate student Hartland Snyder in 1939 writing the first modern description of a black hole. They called it “continued gravitational contraction.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I described the two men as a unique pairing: Oppenheimer, raised in New York City amid privilege and wealth, joining forces with a crackerjack mathematician who “came from the working class" instead of the middle rungs of the ladder. This was based on an interview that Caltech physicist and Nobel laureate William Fowler, who knew both men, had given decades after the fact. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One might argue than anyone’s background, when compared with Oppenheimer’s, would look less affluent by comparison: as a young boy, Oppie was driven to private school by a uniformed chauffeur in a limousine. But Snyder’s family, it turns out, was solidly middle class. Hartland grew up in Salt Lake City, where his father served as a civil engineer. I recently learned this from Hartland’s nephew, Arthur Snyder, an experimental particle physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">While Oppenheimer was noted for his deep knowledge of literature, art, and music, Hartland has often been cast as the truck-driving boy from the sticks. In reality, he never drove a truck and was an accomplished violinist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hartland didn’t continue research on black holes after 1939 but did make notable contributions in other arenas. In 1947 he published a pioneering paper in <i>Physical Review</i> on quantizing space-time, a problem physicists are still wrestling with. And later in the 1950s, working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, he co-discovered the technique of “strong focusing” that allowed ever-bigger particle accelerators to be built. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Suffering a heart attack, Hartland died at the age of 49 in 1962, years before black holes were officially accepted as bona fide members of the cosmos. </span><br />
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Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-50327777274562265702015-10-15T11:41:00.002-04:002015-10-15T11:46:50.225-04:00Now There's a Drop to Drink<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM0jBtIrub2T7-QcN2zV8V4ro7t9p2ftgD5wWAbUx_oAoAdHjjngEGNeHg47a6opxGSIFImLdJYEvTYi6SyBup5CmaYY_GOr85_ZKpIvYi_W7GddEykF_QtnNSjPZmaPuH8gV4EHNp57-Y/s1600/Percival_Lowell_observing_Venus_from_the_Lowell_Observatory_in_1914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM0jBtIrub2T7-QcN2zV8V4ro7t9p2ftgD5wWAbUx_oAoAdHjjngEGNeHg47a6opxGSIFImLdJYEvTYi6SyBup5CmaYY_GOr85_ZKpIvYi_W7GddEykF_QtnNSjPZmaPuH8gV4EHNp57-Y/s320/Percival_Lowell_observing_Venus_from_the_Lowell_Observatory_in_1914.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Percival Lowell in 1914 at the eyepiece of his <br />
24-inch telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">NASA just released its latest news concerning water on Mars; liquid water appears to be creating streaks on Martian slopes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For more on the person who started this whole conversation about water on Mars more than a century ago, click <a href="http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/universe/112889/nor-any-drop-to-drink" target="_blank">here</a> to see my latest column for <i>Natural History</i> magazine. </span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-905034491162895422015-08-10T11:37:00.001-04:002022-12-29T19:26:58.061-05:00Rings, Rings, Rings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In my latest </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Natural History</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> column, I write about the solar system's Lord of the Rings―Saturn. Galileo led the way. Click </span><a href="http://www.marciabartusiak.com/uploads/8/5/8/9/8589314/ringsringsrings.pdf" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">here </a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">to check it out.</span></div>
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Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-71660833232040514312014-11-21T18:20:00.000-05:002014-11-22T08:34:47.955-05:00Wild Rays<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cosmic rays are mostly protons, but can also be atomic nuclei or electrons. So, why are they called cosmic "rays?" To find out, click <a href="http://www.marciabartusiak.com/uploads/8/5/8/9/8589314/wildrays.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> to check out my latest story in <em>Natural History</em> magazine.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of the Telescope Array, a cosmic-ray detector in western Utah (Ben Stokes, University of Utah)</td></tr>
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Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-26003629272144204302014-05-03T21:16:00.000-04:002014-11-21T18:29:13.453-05:00Who Originated the Name "Black Hole?"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKQYMHwUf-WzLJaYolJLNG_rUI8ym_YmJniDEU9K3RVQbfGRZ5GY5vDbRphvID2chmLy7hrtmjVrf-_wTElOnQTMt3-Q7nUCf8RKyJt8V_a1oXDl08mi-q3dDmIimGzuMlIsX4hSsvQ6xW/s1600/Black_hole_Cygnus_X-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKQYMHwUf-WzLJaYolJLNG_rUI8ym_YmJniDEU9K3RVQbfGRZ5GY5vDbRphvID2chmLy7hrtmjVrf-_wTElOnQTMt3-Q7nUCf8RKyJt8V_a1oXDl08mi-q3dDmIimGzuMlIsX4hSsvQ6xW/s1600/Black_hole_Cygnus_X-1.jpg" height="225" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKQYMHwUf-WzLJaYolJLNG_rUI8ym_YmJniDEU9K3RVQbfGRZ5GY5vDbRphvID2chmLy7hrtmjVrf-_wTElOnQTMt3-Q7nUCf8RKyJt8V_a1oXDl08mi-q3dDmIimGzuMlIsX4hSsvQ6xW/s1600/Black_hole_Cygnus_X-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKQYMHwUf-WzLJaYolJLNG_rUI8ym_YmJniDEU9K3RVQbfGRZ5GY5vDbRphvID2chmLy7hrtmjVrf-_wTElOnQTMt3-Q7nUCf8RKyJt8V_a1oXDl08mi-q3dDmIimGzuMlIsX4hSsvQ6xW/s1600/Black_hole_Cygnus_X-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In my latest column in <em>Natural History</em> magazine, I discuss the origin of the term "black hole." For many decades, the Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> was credited with coining the term. But he likely borrowed it from someone else. Click <a href="http://www.marciabartusiak.com/uploads/8/5/8/9/8589314/celestial_lockup.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> to check out the story. </span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Milky Way seen from Kitt Peak National Observatory</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Despite the fact that we can peer outward with our telescopes into deep space for billions of light-years, our local celestial landscape is downright murky. I write about this conundrum in my latest <em>Natural History</em> column, where I discuss how astronomers first tried to map the Milky Way's spiraling arms. Click <a href="http://www.marciabartusiak.com/uploads/8/5/8/9/8589314/milkyway.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> to check it out.</span> Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-1007110213300073402013-02-09T13:04:00.001-05:002013-02-09T13:04:19.468-05:00The Solar System Police<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Once a planet</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Pluto was not the first planet to be demoted. Another solar system object was not only demoted from planetary status but got re-promoted later. Read about in my latest column in <em>Natural History</em> magazine. <a href="http://www.marciabartusiak.com/uploads/8/5/8/9/8589314/solarsystempolice.pdf" target="_blank">Click here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: Hubble Space Telescope</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-34843740268910271352012-09-25T15:46:00.000-04:002012-09-25T18:45:52.730-04:00Cosmic Cradles<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In 1995 Robert Williams had a crazy idea. Then director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he decided to use his allocated time on the Hubble Space Telescope to train its mirror on one tiny spot of the sky</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">a dark, starless region near the handle of the Big Dipper. Over ten consecutive days the telescope took a series of 342 time-exposure photographs, images that were combined and computer-enhanced to produce the most deeply penetrating astronomical picture of its time. It was called the Hubble Deep Field. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What this stunning picture revealed were some 2,000 galaxies in different stages of development. Like a geological core sample, it displayed galaxies in the local, intermediate, and distant universe altogether, out to some 12 billion light-years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now a team of astronomers has assembled the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF for short. They've combined <i>ten </i>years worth of data taken by Hubble (some 2,000 images in all) from a patch of sky in the constellation Fornax. This one digs some 13.2 billion years back into time, to just half a billion years after the Big Bang. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hubble's eXtreme Deep Field</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">All I can say upon gazing at this image is, "Wow!" How can anyone doubt the possibility of other life beyond the solar system when we have these myriad cosmic cradles sprinkled through space and time.</span></div>
Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-49417404309135616162012-06-18T16:34:00.000-04:002012-06-18T19:39:03.514-04:00Remarkable Odyssey<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXTmpaukqJPOvhkWqXg3L9IrdJIPurRaTlOybV25XIAKBiTWeKL6sil0gUcdl76trKD6BedC1D0IK3960iDZfSKoMTvHJ_wUt5rrtf4GCJ0osKa06EIeF7MHMh4craPeC6B-24LimKeNLr/s1600/janeluu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXTmpaukqJPOvhkWqXg3L9IrdJIPurRaTlOybV25XIAKBiTWeKL6sil0gUcdl76trKD6BedC1D0IK3960iDZfSKoMTvHJ_wUt5rrtf4GCJ0osKa06EIeF7MHMh4craPeC6B-24LimKeNLr/s200/janeluu.jpg" width="141" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jane Luu<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My congratulations go out to Jane Luu (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), David Jewitt (UCLA), and Michael Brown (Caltech) for winning this year's prestigious Kavli Prize in astrophysics, which includes a cash award of $1 million. In 1992 both Luu, then at Harvard, and Jewitt, who was based at the University of Hawaii at the time, discovered the first large object orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune and Pluto. They quickly found others as well. Brown followed up in 2005 by finding Eris, an object about the same size as Pluto but with nearly a third more mass. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">All in all, these three astronomers proved the existence of the "Kuiper belt," a disk of icy planetesimals long proposed to lie beyond the outer planets of our solar system. Their discoveries ultimately caused Pluto to be demoted to "dwarf planet," joining its more similar companions in the belt. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was particularly thrilled for Jane, who I profiled in 1996 for <i>Astronomy </i>magazine. <a href="http://www.marciabartusiak.com/uploads/8/5/8/9/8589314/odyssey_of_jane_luu.pdf" target="_blank">Click here</a> to read how Jane's life journey took her from war-ravaged Vietnam to the outer reaches of our solar system.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: MIT Lincoln Laboratory</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-67615887264665239642012-05-15T19:42:00.000-04:002012-05-15T19:46:07.806-04:00Chasing Galaxies<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1vHno61vMG0Y7x26m9LmDuQlEfuxj8wlmRbXPP5yVG2QyNE2RHFf6rMtYXdz4gsPAJjjVpl3kIKsc20jaR5082sLjYhHSwYODlk-KSTK2IA1eZDLhc3jsLDhcp3hFVs9c8lrGVS9xq4b/s1600/Beatrice_Tinsley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1vHno61vMG0Y7x26m9LmDuQlEfuxj8wlmRbXPP5yVG2QyNE2RHFf6rMtYXdz4gsPAJjjVpl3kIKsc20jaR5082sLjYhHSwYODlk-KSTK2IA1eZDLhc3jsLDhcp3hFVs9c8lrGVS9xq4b/s200/Beatrice_Tinsley.jpg" width="152" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beatrice Tinsley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In this era that offers us such wondrous pictures of galaxies, showing their vivid evolution over the eons, it's easy to forget that astronomers once thought galaxies evolved relatively little after their initial formation in the early universe. And the woman primarily responsible for changing that view was Beatrice Tinsley. She is said to have "changed the course of cosmological studies." <span id="goog_2032506185"></span><a href="http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/universe/142188/chasing-galaxies" target="_blank">Click here</a><span id="goog_2032506186"></span> to read about this story in my latest column in the April issue of <i>Natural History. </i></span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-50544440742504826332012-04-03T19:24:00.000-04:002012-04-03T19:32:46.881-04:00Curiouser and Curiouser<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDroPSmKuyJUIdqavlniU-GtLvq4ZdCpZV9wn9n9tKVbeSHGobPp36xPWiKmb5wKzHG8C1aVc_s-h6EOtgK7jaW8HRhLnVPHgdlgjOdLbgog2dy8_0b3RHISNxYvS0z_wSix86dc6aGjAY/s1600/sirius1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDroPSmKuyJUIdqavlniU-GtLvq4ZdCpZV9wn9n9tKVbeSHGobPp36xPWiKmb5wKzHG8C1aVc_s-h6EOtgK7jaW8HRhLnVPHgdlgjOdLbgog2dy8_0b3RHISNxYvS0z_wSix86dc6aGjAY/s1600/sirius1a.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The bright star Sirius</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">and its tiny white-dwarf</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">companion. (Credit: The</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">McDonald Observatory)</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One hundred and fifty years ago, two astronomers in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, were testing the lenses of a new telescope they were building and in the process discovered an entirely new cosmic creature (although it took a while to figure that out). <a href="http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/universe/262167/curiouser-and-curiouser" target="_blank">Click here</a> to read more about it in my latest column for <i>Natural History</i> magazine. Happy Anniversary, white dwarf star!</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-88913361086400623002012-01-26T12:26:00.000-05:002012-01-26T13:17:39.877-05:00An Unfettered Mind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3t97rdQIGF0Ww2HsvxKXx3_Ce_5imUE3_RJ7YqvrJ2ctx8KLVoPP86e4-I8pzmBJ5XWQSROLFuCzkLp0-NM1ggoIdwNRpDhr70G0SDjPLCAHts_vaHVHnvu1Hs5uttwl963BJ1LpaO0Q/s1600/HawkingBook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3t97rdQIGF0Ww2HsvxKXx3_Ce_5imUE3_RJ7YqvrJ2ctx8KLVoPP86e4-I8pzmBJ5XWQSROLFuCzkLp0-NM1ggoIdwNRpDhr70G0SDjPLCAHts_vaHVHnvu1Hs5uttwl963BJ1LpaO0Q/s200/HawkingBook.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have another <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/stephen-hawking-an-unfettered-mind-by-kitty-ferguson/2012/01/03/gIQAdbDVEQ_story.html?sub=AR" target="_blank">book review</a> out, published in the <i>Washington Post </i>on Sunday, January 22. This time the book is <i>Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind</i>, by science writer Kitty Ferguson. It's a new edition of an earlier biography of Hawking that Ferguson published in 1991.</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-78264800467084662782011-11-30T19:50:00.001-05:002011-11-30T20:12:53.925-05:00Radioactive<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Check out my latest <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/radioactive-marie-and-pierre-curie--a-tale-of-love-and-fallout-by-lauren-redniss/2011/11/02/gIQANSMBDN_story.html" target="_blank">book review</a>, published in the <i>Washington Post</i> on November 13. The book is titled <i>Radioactive. </i>It's an intriguing, visual work about Madame Curie and her husband Pierre. The author is Lauren Redniss, who is both a writer and artist. Each skill is on beautiful display in this unusual presentation. Below, a sample of two of its 210 pages. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfYRXEqO7S8Y9w2VoqDdNk_KNXvuoy2Tqm6bR_17XA3l3bZe2oqA0my99YnMZTwDre7EA5mAUKXJf7wdbo1Nl43M8RxwNxWI3ccdHxapT8QAbs6Inq84AtREsYTYb-IMrnJFHGJ4urzX4/s1600/Radioactive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfYRXEqO7S8Y9w2VoqDdNk_KNXvuoy2Tqm6bR_17XA3l3bZe2oqA0my99YnMZTwDre7EA5mAUKXJf7wdbo1Nl43M8RxwNxWI3ccdHxapT8QAbs6Inq84AtREsYTYb-IMrnJFHGJ4urzX4/s400/Radioactive.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-20882381244784061232011-09-28T06:00:00.000-04:002011-09-28T06:00:02.281-04:00Fried Egg Nebula<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Does the universe want bacon with that?</span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6LFdgst7d_jg3jyml9dzcDTd61DvFaWCMt-Rzz_V_9ajgwQbKpWgVz1vUqa7FjwTlmRG3EoiwrFC8jwkEgy4ivL81j_dJQ-oUSkR92hTsfFDmRZfoPuVk5Ag0bcoIJPuC-M2h8D8UdFzK/s1600/Fried+Egg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6LFdgst7d_jg3jyml9dzcDTd61DvFaWCMt-Rzz_V_9ajgwQbKpWgVz1vUqa7FjwTlmRG3EoiwrFC8jwkEgy4ivL81j_dJQ-oUSkR92hTsfFDmRZfoPuVk5Ag0bcoIJPuC-M2h8D8UdFzK/s1600/Fried+Egg.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fried Egg Nebula</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">An international team of astronomers recently used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile to capture a unique picture of a hypergiant star situated about 13,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Scorpius. For obvious reasons, they've playfully named it the Fried Egg Nebula. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This humongous yellow star shines half a million times more brightly than our Sun (is there a sunblock strong enough?) and is a thousand times bigger. If it replaced our Sun, this 20-solar-mass star would almost engulf Jupiter. Earth would be toast.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This star is quite active, hence the two spherical shells of dust and gas that surround the central star, setting up the fried-egg appearance. This material was jettisoned outward in a series of explosive bursts over the last few hundred years. When this hypergiant finally dies as a brilliant supernova some day, watch out! </span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Image Credit: ESO/E. Lagadec</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-10641067411896926382011-08-15T12:56:00.004-04:002011-09-08T08:51:41.294-04:00Who Gave the Black Hole Its Name?<div style="text-align: left;"></div><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXUJyGywHhKmP5YH1j1EIS-UHcdnEr83LT-TLvTrS2oCcJsXjn7oUs7JlPfD6bT-EtOu4XSL9OrQFwjbSB75jhkSE2G-gA6Bt-0FTw8NCmZHSkKidkECQclAIoust_KjfQ0XAALRcgizJ/s1600/wheeleratblackhole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXUJyGywHhKmP5YH1j1EIS-UHcdnEr83LT-TLvTrS2oCcJsXjn7oUs7JlPfD6bT-EtOu4XSL9OrQFwjbSB75jhkSE2G-gA6Bt-0FTw8NCmZHSkKidkECQclAIoust_KjfQ0XAALRcgizJ/s320/wheeleratblackhole.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Wheeler in Black Hole, Nova Scotia, 1981</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Book after book attributes the phrase "black hole" to the Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler, who in the 1960s re-energized the field of general relativity by helping prove that if certain dying stars were massive enough they would not settle down as neutron stars but continue to collapse to a point, digging a pit into space-time. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Wheeler liked to tell the tale that he first used the term at a 1967 conference, quickly set up at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City once pulsars were discovered. Were the pulsars' mysterious beeps coming from red giant stars, white dwarfs, neutron stars? Wheeler told the assembled astronomers they might be the "gravitationally collapsed objects" that he studied. “Well, after I used that phrase four or five times, somebody in the audience said, ‘Why don’t you call it a black hole.’ So I adopted that,” Wheeler told me. He used the phrase again several weeks later during an after-dinner talk at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in New York City on December 29, 1967. It made it into print when an article based on that talk, titled “Our Universe: The Known and the Unknown,” was published in <i>American Scientist</i> in 1968. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But it turns out the term was already in the air. It had been circulating among conferees four years earlier at a symposium on relativistic astrophysics held in Texas at the end of 1963. The proof? <i>Life</i> magazine science editor Albert Rosenfeld mentioned black holes in his report on the conference. And the term was used again a few weeks later at the 1964 American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held in Cleveland. Ann Ewing of <i>Science News Letter</i> reported that astronomers and physicists at the conference were suggesting that “space may be peppered with ‘black holes.’” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But it's certainly true that the phrase didn’t catch fire until 1967. It seemed to need the imprimatur of John Wheeler, the dean of American general relativity, to give it gravitas. Once Wheeler gave his blessing, the phrase began popping up in the official scientific literature—although over the first year it was usually denoted as “the black hole,” an expression so exotic it needed to be constrained within quotation marks. </span></div>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-80772623681928524172011-07-06T06:00:00.013-04:002011-07-06T06:00:12.809-04:00Only Your Astrophysicist Knows for Sure<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Is the universe planning to turn blonde?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLdTKEMCmdfrDo_YP4rMtyIn09DLV6UrDkWCMT-eizkGUMX71dfxGuMkz7kr47YASXBYs1y8TH3TD_0N-PKVHHIbFt1A0p-8W30Oor7asoCpWf-8gvQDlIameUMmOe9O3jdUW06G2Ou7X/s1600/RhoOphiuchi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLdTKEMCmdfrDo_YP4rMtyIn09DLV6UrDkWCMT-eizkGUMX71dfxGuMkz7kr47YASXBYs1y8TH3TD_0N-PKVHHIbFt1A0p-8W30Oor7asoCpWf-8gvQDlIameUMmOe9O3jdUW06G2Ou7X/s200/RhoOphiuchi.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif, 'Helvetica Neue', Verdana; font-size: 11px;">The Rho Ophiuchi star formation region</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Using a telescope perched high in the Chilean Andes, an international team of astronomers discovered molecules of hydrogen peroxide, the chemical that bleaches hair, in a dense cloud of gas and dust near the star Rho Ophiuchi some 400 light-years distant. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This find is more than an amusing curiosity. Hydrogen peroxide is formed when two hydrogen atoms link up with two oxygen atoms (H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub>), a pair of elements critical for life. Moreover, take just one oxygen out of hydrogen peroxide and you get water (H<sub>2</sub>O). So, further study of this molecule's chemistry out in deep space may help astronomers better understand the formation of water in the universe. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Image Credit: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #888888; font-family: Arial, sans-serif, 'Helvetica Neue', Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">ESO/S. Guisard </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-88754311792019695412011-06-29T13:00:00.006-04:002011-08-25T19:57:05.145-04:00The Ever-Changing Record<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I smiled when I heard the news. An international team of astronomers has just announced the discovery of the most distant quasar, the luminous core of a young and active galaxy situated a whopping 12.9 billion light-years away. That means the light from this quasar, likely generated as matter falls into a supermassive black hole, started on its journey just 770 million years after the Big Bang. </span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLPPyrWOlsJCT_EQSjWEBOYC6f_JOljXn-mo3HhyqSYpcbTKVrmBNB9TzO6l_6RtdGDVvrftV6kjVQqu_jhc8QrwtumuPZlZ0dj-2kjNBfEVz8xRsIBrr2sjqaGxzZuMyPTajn2K8Zqqn/s1600/distantquasar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLPPyrWOlsJCT_EQSjWEBOYC6f_JOljXn-mo3HhyqSYpcbTKVrmBNB9TzO6l_6RtdGDVvrftV6kjVQqu_jhc8QrwtumuPZlZ0dj-2kjNBfEVz8xRsIBrr2sjqaGxzZuMyPTajn2K8Zqqn/s400/distantquasar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif, 'Helvetica Neue', Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">This image of the record-setting quasar, ULAS J1120+0641, was <br />
created from images taken from surveys made by both the Sloan <br />
Digital Sky Survey and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope Deep <br />
Sky Survey. The quasar appears as a faint red dot close to the center.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I smiled because this headline has been regularly appearing in the news for nearly half a century, ever since Caltech astronomer Maarten Schmidt recognized the first quasar in 1963. Known as 3C 273, from its listing in a catalog of radio sources, Schmidt's quasar was about 2 billion light-years distant: small potatoes now but a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>huge </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">cosmic distance in its day. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Over the years, the most-distant-quasar record has gotten replaced as often as a newborn's diapers. But now the distances are so great that they present some problems: the light from this newfound quasar suggests that the quasar is being powered by a black hole about two billion times more massive than our Sun. How did such a gargantuan object grow so quickly in the early days of the universe? As team member Daniel Mortlock, of Imperial College London, notes, "It's like rolling a snowball down the hill, and suddenly you find that it's 20 feet across!" Theorists will surely be putting on their thinking caps to find a way.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-75330062452057570592011-06-15T13:00:00.031-04:002011-06-20T17:00:51.109-04:00Chicken or the Egg Question Answered?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One of the most fascinating findings in astronomy over the last decade has been the unique relationship between galaxies and the supermassive black holes lurking in their centers. Rather than being rare, a giant black hole appears to reside in each and every elliptical or spiral galaxy throughout the cosmos.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrSMbX7bU9VkqtW_dWQEmB07XNBZbKhVXGaVeDnE-RO72LNagh6FJ6Mh9XSwOmhB5iRY6dhFW-GU0IruIoVbjzz5dtWHQzaShjTp_vgkTGBxMr4P-I-2AcB3lEKu8NNS130k2_lxYufE0/s1600/blackhole3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrSMbX7bU9VkqtW_dWQEmB07XNBZbKhVXGaVeDnE-RO72LNagh6FJ6Mh9XSwOmhB5iRY6dhFW-GU0IruIoVbjzz5dtWHQzaShjTp_vgkTGBxMr4P-I-2AcB3lEKu8NNS130k2_lxYufE0/s320/blackhole3.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration of an active, supermassive <br />
black hole in a galaxy's center</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But which came first? The giant black hole, drawing in material to help form the galaxy, or did the galaxy form first, generating the environment for a dense collection of matter to collapse into a black hole at its heart? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Astronomers and theorists from Yale, Rutgers, and the Universities of Hawaii and Michigan have now gathered evidence suggesting that each galaxy and its black hole grow in tandem, starting less than a billion years after the Big Bang. As reported in the journal </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Nature</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, the team revealed this by looking at some 250 distant galaxies earlier spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope and searching </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">for the x-ray signals being emitted from each galaxy's central black hole. What they find is a distinct connection: the black holes growing and evolving over time along with their host galaxies. "This finding," says team member Kevin Schawinski of Yale University, "tells us there is a symbiotic relationship between black holes and their galaxies that has existed since the dawn of time." </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Image Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-88357479344369847332011-04-05T17:46:00.001-04:002011-08-22T11:46:05.336-04:00In a Grain of Sand<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There is something new under the Sun. And it took some 42 years to find it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In 1969, members of the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found nine meteorites lying on an icy field in the continent's Yamato Mountains. Ever since, these specimens (along with the 40,000 meteorites collected in Antarctica afterward) have been avidly studied. Yet, even after four decades of analysis, some surprises remained. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAN4mkfzkfKgFblmH32-UKOawzDZDnT1CkBS4rRMl2FR5NX7TvfyLuV7d0UN2h5GgNI9BUZ7txNKREO9synrIJ2D33CZGlxn1j9lP6r-iwcdQ6ldwPMidO5iW8tgOY2QHSM6BGW_Cit5M/s1600/antarcticmeteorites.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAN4mkfzkfKgFblmH32-UKOawzDZDnT1CkBS4rRMl2FR5NX7TvfyLuV7d0UN2h5GgNI9BUZ7txNKREO9synrIJ2D33CZGlxn1j9lP6r-iwcdQ6ldwPMidO5iW8tgOY2QHSM6BGW_Cit5M/s320/antarcticmeteorites.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="FigCaption">U.S. field team in Antarctica searching for meteorites in 1988-89.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One of the 1969 meteorites, known as Yamato 691, was recently examined with a transmission electron microscope located at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This 21st-century nanotechnology allowed researchers from the United States, South Korea, and Japan to zoom in on isolated grains in the meteorite that are less than a hundredth the width of a human hair. And what they discovered was an entirely new type of mineral, different from the 4,500 minerals already recognized by the International Mineralogical Association. The researchers dubbed it "Wassonite," in honor of UCLA professor John Wasson, an international meteorite expert. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Wassonite is made out of only two elements, sulfur and titanium. Yet these atoms join up to form a crystalline structure that has not been previously observed in nature. The mineral formed some 4.5 billion years ago, likely as part of an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Further study of the novel crystal promises to offer new insights on conditions in the early solar system. "In the words of the great English poet William Blake," says Simon Clemett, a space scientist at the Johnson Space Center and co-discoverer of the new mineral, "we are now able 'to see the world in a grain of sand.'"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: x-small;">Picture Credit: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-29321914764200935572011-03-09T12:36:00.001-05:002011-09-08T08:52:53.882-04:00Astrobites<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A common refrain from my science-writing students is, "Where do you get story ideas?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A good place to start is hanging out with graduate students and post-docs, who are often thinking and working on problems at the cutting edge. Many of my best magazine articles when I was starting out involved the work of these pioneering newcomers (many of whom are now the leading lights in their fields). </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If those interested in writing on astronomy can't make a personal university visit to find out what's on a graduate student's mind these days, there's a new website that offers the next best thing: Called "<a href="http://astroph.wordpress.com/">astrobites</a>," it's a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students for undergraduates. It beautifully fulfills its named mission―providing up-to-date summaries of the latest research in easy-to-go-down write-ups. The graduate students who post these reports―from Harvard, Michigan, UC Santa Cruz, Colorado, Arizona―aim to make active research areas enticing and accessible to undergraduates, but it serves just as well as a convenient overview for journalists seeking hot new topics popping up in the field of astronomy and astrophysics. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7OKFqW-T5zV0P5zAj8NhTJ6wpKO9b3rCoOaDPAA1Qk_KlXlQ_Aw_S1IPM6_fF-ukvVgnWP7g9hv96_i097poaJ-UtEBpxhxZMD62Q4ncGATUxEuXnL0YbKw3tTsNPRjW2CRY7yUA6mwRJ/s1600/BannerXmasTreeNebula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7OKFqW-T5zV0P5zAj8NhTJ6wpKO9b3rCoOaDPAA1Qk_KlXlQ_Aw_S1IPM6_fF-ukvVgnWP7g9hv96_i097poaJ-UtEBpxhxZMD62Q4ncGATUxEuXnL0YbKw3tTsNPRjW2CRY7yUA6mwRJ/s400/BannerXmasTreeNebula.jpg" width="348" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christmas Tree Nebula: Here just because it's pretty.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-67662571072122328342011-02-09T15:12:00.002-05:002011-09-08T08:53:52.934-04:00Cosmic Target Practice<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When new astronomical images come across my desk, most are often variations on a theme: something I've seen before, perhaps with better resolution or a few new features. But today I was wowed. Astronomers using both the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope created a composite image of a celestial object known as Arp 147, which appears like the mother of all bull's-eyes. The universe has pretty good aim when shooting at a target. </span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy6lKoD8n3fCe6xHZ9cy8cqVygA3cScZYBf56FIyeB5ceOxOCK2FqaZrox-YI5mcz1Py5d9WpJJiKV9O-iuPO8NzqVXOaK91qjp7PFnTrfh-8bqWDB6PypHyACkonE2qyAOTJoPxLB9ZDR/s1600/arp147_w1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy6lKoD8n3fCe6xHZ9cy8cqVygA3cScZYBf56FIyeB5ceOxOCK2FqaZrox-YI5mcz1Py5d9WpJJiKV9O-iuPO8NzqVXOaK91qjp7PFnTrfh-8bqWDB6PypHyACkonE2qyAOTJoPxLB9ZDR/s400/arp147_w1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cosmic Bull's-Eye: Arp 147</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On the left in the image above, you see an elliptical galaxy that millions of years ago passed right through what used to be a spiral galaxy on the right. All that remains of that spiral, located some 440 million light-years distant, is a massive ring of stars. The collision triggered a tsunami of star formation that raced around the ring. The ring is so bright in X rays that astronomers conclude that many of those newly-formed stars were likely quite massive. Consequently, they lived fast and died young, exploding as luminous supernovae and leaving behind both neutron stars and black holes. What a sight.</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-21693939238195237892011-01-27T16:23:00.002-05:002011-01-28T18:37:21.397-05:00In Honor of John Huchra<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">John Huchra, a veteran astronomer based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), unexpectedly died last fall at the age of 61. To honor his legacy, his friends and colleagues have now set up on the interactive website <em><a href="http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/Home.aspx">WorldWide Telescope</a> </em>a special tour titled, appropriately enough, "John Huchra's Universe." I highly recommend taking a look. To get instructions on how to access the tour on the WorldWide Telescope (or where to go to view a non-interactive version on YouTube), click <a href="http://aas.org/john_huchras_universe">here</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Watching the program brought back many memories for me, for John provided me with one of my first "scoops" in science journalism. In 1985 he and his collaborator Margaret Geller allowed me to get an early peek at their latest finding: a map of galaxy redshifts, taken through a narrow slice of the sky, out to more than half a billion light-years. It showed that galaxies are not smoothly distributed through the universe but instead congregate to form gigantic, nested bubbles<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">a cosmic foam. Inside the bubbles were equally huge voids. This wasn't a celestial architecture that anyone was expecting. It was <em>big</em> news. I wrote a story on it for <em>Science Digest</em>, a report timed to coordinate with John and Margaret's discovery announcement at the 1986 annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi05AONPeqVTgvy0cprmmv1KIdgVk9l9M94t3t8LnS2XVyzEJm5ZgLD2ILRS3pGph_TIx4fPQiQqHD3knmIzQrZw9YYgj3N4ScBsaiwCRxY6VS48c1zIrItwNvae0r853RY1XxpaXbq79DI/s1600/cfaredshiftsurvey1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi05AONPeqVTgvy0cprmmv1KIdgVk9l9M94t3t8LnS2XVyzEJm5ZgLD2ILRS3pGph_TIx4fPQiQqHD3knmIzQrZw9YYgj3N4ScBsaiwCRxY6VS48c1zIrItwNvae0r853RY1XxpaXbq79DI/s320/cfaredshiftsurvey1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original 1986 CfA map of galaxy distributions</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Theorists now believe that the bubblelike structures were forged when pressure waves moved through the early universe's hot primordial plasma, creating regions of compressed and rarefied matter. This led to galaxies forming predominantly in the areas of compression and the less dense voids enlarging over time and remaining relatively empty. Geller likened the distribution to a "kitchen sink full of soapsuds." </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Over the succeeding decades, astronomers have enlarged this map extensively. Here's a look at the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey carried out in the 1990s that extends out to two billion light-years:</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NAAaPkRAcaKsNmldUZSQwhbHqX63X4lxalZDci4uPwmTczin4_-BAs7F28zRCkLrW1Glt6GsC2e5h_M6wFSGXpIaVwl7TgNQMY1nYK7Vj8oQrVAqZ9B7ZXdIbaRYXk9y3GK74T_wziNr/s1600/2df_low.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="190" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NAAaPkRAcaKsNmldUZSQwhbHqX63X4lxalZDci4uPwmTczin4_-BAs7F28zRCkLrW1Glt6GsC2e5h_M6wFSGXpIaVwl7TgNQMY1nYK7Vj8oQrVAqZ9B7ZXdIbaRYXk9y3GK74T_wziNr/s320/2df_low.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Each point in the image represents a galaxy—tens of thousands overall in two slices of the sky</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-74704159315306378522011-01-05T11:52:00.000-05:002011-01-05T11:52:26.386-05:00Rings of Fire<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> <br />
Over Christmas, two space telescopes—the European Space Agency's Herschel and XMM-Newton observatories—took a look at our closest spiraling neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy situated more than 2 million light-years away. It puts Andromeda in a whole new light....literally. The Herschel, which gathers invisible infrared light, detected intriguing rings of dust encircling the galaxy's center. Some speculate that these dust rings, not fully seen in the optical, may have formed from a past collision with another galaxy. Within these dusty circles, multitudes of new stars are forming. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRC9m3F2EYKSUDFna0ZpoR4q5hnfJQd44tNvlKEC9PIU7ZOVCMGz0ZzPbuweBLDcQJVb4C2eYRKgoB7T233dcL2j_N5dunYjzZHOIhi1SAIaZfT71pf9Welt5WE1TDSjBYn0L8bx1OZUDx/s1600/AndromedaInfrared.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRC9m3F2EYKSUDFna0ZpoR4q5hnfJQd44tNvlKEC9PIU7ZOVCMGz0ZzPbuweBLDcQJVb4C2eYRKgoB7T233dcL2j_N5dunYjzZHOIhi1SAIaZfT71pf9Welt5WE1TDSjBYn0L8bx1OZUDx/s400/AndromedaInfrared.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andromeda galaxy in infrared; x-ray sources in blue</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Meanwhile, the Newton x-ray telescope spotted hundreds of x-ray sources (the blue dots in the picture) smack dab in the center. Some are the debris from exploding stars; others are stars in close binaries getting their mass pulled off by the intense gravitational pull of their denser partners. The x rays are given off from the intensely heated matter. What a show! Stellar birth and death, captured in one intriguing image.<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Picture Credit: European Space Agency</span><br />
<br />
</span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-53821305926561501522010-12-21T00:01:00.001-05:002010-12-21T00:01:03.457-05:00Let the Sunshine In<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Today is the Winter Solstice. You may be lamenting the official start of winter (coincidentally the Boston area is now getting its first snowfall of the season), but I'm rejoicing. Starting today, and continuing over the next six months until the summer solstice, our daylight hours will be growing by roughly two minutes each day. Alleluia—the sun is coming back to us here in the northern hemisphere.</span> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH7UsTmuDMpNoaivvUUUqXgsDkvFqQQ12qlUIJMvge6Bmazkp8e2zfJPYrJrpwIXkujs2pVQnclHXh0qKoCb7_1diiz4BB_bi7o9jBS-ju5ar3ihykFemq9U9G8hYyMNRskFoo7AIzx336/s1600/wintersolstice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH7UsTmuDMpNoaivvUUUqXgsDkvFqQQ12qlUIJMvge6Bmazkp8e2zfJPYrJrpwIXkujs2pVQnclHXh0qKoCb7_1diiz4BB_bi7o9jBS-ju5ar3ihykFemq9U9G8hYyMNRskFoo7AIzx336/s200/wintersolstice.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And to put the cherry on the sundae, we get a lunar eclipse on the same day. That hasn't happened since December 21, 1638. Sir Isaac Newton wasn't even born yet. That came four years later. </span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1327588151959962730.post-27296229007651617782010-12-09T11:32:00.000-05:002010-12-09T11:32:32.405-05:00Evidence for Tiny Black Holes?<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Last month some astronomical news came out that didn't get much play, but I was fascinated by it. UCLA scientists are claiming they might have detected evidence for primordial black holes, tiny cosmic denizens first predicted by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s. If that's true, it's pretty big news, as here would be a means to study what happens when general relativity meets quantum mechanics—the holy grail of physics these last few decades.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">What Hawking did was ask how a black hole might affect its surroundings from the viewpoint of an atom. He concluded that space-time gets so twisted near a black hole that it enables pairs of particles (a nuclear particle and its antimatter mate) to pop into existence just outside the black hole. You could think of it as energy being extracted from the black hole's intense gravitational field and then converted into matter. At times, one of the particles disappears into the black hole, never to return, while the remaining one flies off. As a result, the hole's <em>total</em> mass-energy is reduced a smidgen. This means the black hole is actually evaporating!</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQvm9teQ-IrYh9lNIanvDGWeFBsaPtkVga3MpjrKWezVitS5I6nTCVLAAmXk9brroYN-VRSozC2uszJsKOmPWDHpJIL2OzZeFAE-l-Akt2tCwsSQpNDCqTRROsV_tgm3Kp9ViVc42tTFwI/s1600/primordialblackhole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="249" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQvm9teQ-IrYh9lNIanvDGWeFBsaPtkVga3MpjrKWezVitS5I6nTCVLAAmXk9brroYN-VRSozC2uszJsKOmPWDHpJIL2OzZeFAE-l-Akt2tCwsSQpNDCqTRROsV_tgm3Kp9ViVc42tTFwI/s320/primordialblackhole.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration of primordial black hole's final evaporation</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">For stellar-size holes, this bizarre quantum-mechanical process is just about meaningless. It would take trillions upon trillions of years for a regular black hole to shrink away to nothingness. But Hawking suggested that the early universe, in the first turbulent moments of the Big Bang, might have manufactured a multitude of tiny black holes. The smallest would have vanished by now, but objects containing the mass of a mountain, yet compressed to the size of a proton, would be shedding the last of their mass at this very moment in a short and spectacular burst of gamma rays. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That's what the team of UCLA scientists, led by David Cline, believe they are seeing. Looking over data from a number of gamma-ray telescopes, they have detected gamma-ray bursts lasting less than 100 thousandths of a second. That's the type of signal expected from the evaporation of primordial black holes. Of course, such signals could be also be arriving from a more common stellar process not yet identified. As Carl Sagan liked to say, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Cline agrees. He's urging others to start studying these events as well, to see if their claim holds up to scrutiny. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image Credit: Virginia Tech Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering</span></span>Marcia Bartusiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16480746307258528980noreply@blogger.com0