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The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has gone live, after months of moving into a geosynchronous orbit. Today, NASA scientists revealed "first light" images taken by the telescope. Let me introduce you, folks, to our very own star, the Sun (Latin: Sol). It is much more spectacular than you've ever imagined. in reference to: "With SDO looking on, decaying sunspot 1060 unleashed a minor "B3-class" solar flare. A shock wave issued from the blast site and raced across the surface of the sun (movie). SDO images clearly show magnetic loops and other structures rocking back and forth when the wave passes over them. Eventually, the wave disappeared over the sun's horizon--but the show wasn't over. Four hours after the initial blast, and some 200,000 km away, a massive prominence erupted (image)." - First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory - NASA Science ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Just when we think we've got a handle on what's going on, along comes some new knowledge that shakes our understanding of it all. NASA scientists have now confirmed findings reported a few years ago, that yes indeed, "dark flow", is real. Using a larger data set of 1,400 galaxy clusters and looking further out, they've been able to confirm that something has been pulling the known universe towards it -- at least to 2.5 billion light-years back -- and most likely, out to beyond the edge of the known universe. in reference to: New Proof Unknown "Structures" Tug at Our Universe ( view on Google Sidewiki )

MilkyWay@Home, the distributed computing project using the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform, is now the fastest computing project on that platform -- and probably the second fastest public distributed computing program, behind Folding@Home. MilkyWay@Home, using volunteer computing power from home users across the planet, has achieved 1,382 TFlops, as of January 12. Just for context -- that's just behind Jaguar, the Cray XT5 supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, that has performed at 1,759 TFlops and uses 224,162 Opteron cores -- compared to the 45 thousand users volunteering on MilkyWay@Home. For more on the MilkyWay@Home project, click here . in reference to: PCs around the world unite to map the Milky Way ( view on Google Sidewiki )

The GEO600 may have inadvertently discovered that "we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram." That, according to Craig Hogan, the director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics. GEO600 is a gravity wave detector in Germany hasn't had much success in finding gravitational waves -- but it has been having a lot of problems with noise -- noise that Craig Hogan may have independently predicted. Hogan thinks that the noise GEO600 has detected can be explained as microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time -- which is the limit of the space-time continuum described by Einstein. The physics behind the suggestion that the universe may be a holographic image is complex, to say the least. However, it's exactly what you think. The suggestion is that the universe is like a 3-dimensional holographic projection from a 2-dimensional surface. The suggestion comes from theoretical work done on black holes, to explain the black hole information paradox -- and sup...

I just found out that I missed this playing at the Fox Theatre on Dec. 6th. I was in China, so I wouldn't have caught if I had known -- but still -- damn! damn! damn! I would have wanted to see this. in reference to: "The Matter of Everything is a feature documentary that explores quantum reality and the interconnectedness of nature from the quantum to the universe. Challenging us to see beyond our everyday sense of experience, the film reveals what we are, a billionth of a billionth of the human scale. At that level, physicists at Fermilab, one of the world’s largest particle accelerators, describe a world more unified than ever imagined." - THE MATTER OF EVERYTHING » SYNOPSIS ( view on Google Sidewiki )

While the science itself is interesting -- and cool, in that the long left-for-dead Voyager spacecrafts continue to aid in scientific discoveries -- the real reason I'm writing this short post is because the Local Interstellar Cloud is also called the "Local Fluff." Currently, our solar system, moving through the Milky Way, is running into this interstellar cloud of mostly hydrogen and helium. in reference to: "Astronomers call the cloud we're running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or "Local Fluff" for short. It's about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C. The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it." - Voyager make...

Astronomers have taken the first ever direct photos of planets outside of our solar system . Three planets orbiting the star HR 8799, have been photographed in the infrared. And another, photographed by Hubble, orbits Fomalhaut. The planets are all larger than Jupiter. These planets are gas giants, but it can't be far off before direct photos are taken of smaller terrestrial planets. And won't that be cool?! We know we're not the only solar system. How long more before we find out that we're not alone?

The Dyson sphere , a hypothetical structure theorized by Freeman Dyson, would encompass an entire star in order to capture all of its radiant energy. It would make a cool engineering project.

I just finished reading Janna Levin 's How the Universe Got It's Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space . As the book's title alludes, Levin is a believer in a finite universe, with all the implications, even as she declares herself agnostic on the plausibility of free will. Levin supports her assertions of a finite universe, with the machinations of mathematics -- specifically, the branch describing topology . Levin is a theoretical astrophysicist. The actual content dealing with topology and supporting the argument for a finite universe would actually fit into just one chapter of the book's 200-pages -- and it presented nothing revolutionary, nothing new -- at least to my popsci understanding of the topic. Levin wrote for popsci audience. [Speaking of the CMB] This archaeological remnant of the big bang had journeyed from the farthest reaches of the cosmos that we can access and carries information about these earliest times, and so encodes all kinds of...

Astrobiologists at the Cardiff Centre have built a model of our solar system travels through our galaxy. Our solar system is on the outer edges of one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, taking its sweet ole time to complete a complete revolution (around 250 million years, if I remember correctly). But that's not the only movement of the solar system. Apparently, it bounces up and down through the plane of the Milky Way every 35-40 million years -- and with each bounce through the plane, the solar system is exposed to a denser region of the galaxy -- the plane has much more stuff. A bounce through that stuff could lead to catastrophic events -- such as comets colliding with Earth. In fact, the 35-40 million year cycle coincides quite well with mass extinction events on Earth. Now here's the bad news. We're up for another bounce through the galactic plane -- tomorrow in fact -- so place your head firmly between your knees, it's going to be a rough ride.

In the mispent youth of science classes and houses of ignorance, where robed mystics babble incoherently, we were led to the belief that there was a beginning. That the beginning was something miraculous and mysteriious, and if we stared too long we'd probably go mad with more questions -- or worse, blind. In the beginning, there was nothing, and from it, everything emerged -- space, time and the very laws of nature. The Man (Purusha) has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. He pervades the earth everywhere and extends beyond for ten fingers' breadth. The Man himself is all this, whatever has been and whatever is to be. He is the lord of immortality and also lord of that which grows on food. Such is his greatness, and the Man is yet greater than this. All creatures make up a quarter of him; three quarters are the immortal in heaven. With three quarters the Man has risen above, and one quarter of him still remains here, whence he spread out everywhere, pervadin...

Ever wonder how large everything is? Well, at least the known universe? People have been wondering for a long, long time about it. Some folks over at Princeton produced this map published in 2005, in the Astrophysical Journal [PDF], of the known universe. We have produced a new conformal map of the universe illustrating recent discoveries, ranging from Kuiper belt objects in the Solar system, to the galaxies and quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey . This may projection, based on the logarithm map of the complex plane, preserves shapes locally, and yet is able to display the entire range of astronomical scales from Earth's neighborhood to the cosmic microwave background. The conformal nature of the projection, preserving shapes locally, may be of particular use for analyzing large scale structure . Prominent in the map is a Sloan Great Wall of galaxies 1.37 billion light years long, 80% longer than the Great Wall discovered by Geller and Huchra and therefore the la...

The most massive black hole known, has been discovered -- weighing in at a massive 18-billion Suns. And it gets better. This black hole is so massive, it has another black hole, weighing about 100-million Suns, orbiting it. The smaller black hole makes a complete orbit of the larger one every 12 years, ploughing through its accretion disk twice during an orbit. Each time the smaller black hole moves through the larger's accretion disk, huge outbursts of radiation is released, causing the system to brighten. The two black holes form the heart of the quasar QJ287. As general relativity predicts, astronomers have observed the decay of the smaller black hole's orbit. At the rate of decay, the smaller black hole will be swallowed by the larger in 10,000 years.

Astronomers using the ESO's 3.6m telescope, have discovered a planet orbiting Gliese 581, a red dwarf star, that bear a striking resemblance to Earth . The planet has a radius 50% larger than Earth, with five times more mass and is 14 times closer to its star. Its orbit allows the planet to complete an orbit in 13-days. At that proximity to its star, you'd think the planet would be hot, but because Gliese 581 is smaller, cooler and is less luminous that our star, this new planet may actually have comfortable temperatures, and possibly even liquid water. Gliese 581 is just over 20-light-years away from us, in the constellation Libra. It belongs to the group of most prevalent and stable stars in our galaxy. Due to their low luminosity however, they are difficult to observe. While the newly discovered planet is gaining a lot of press lately for being Earth-like , the chances that the system could support life as we know it, is fairly small. While red dwarfs are stable, ha...