Space Geodesy

 Project manager Stephen Merkowitz talks about his work with NASA's Space Geodesy Project, including a brief overview of the four fundamental techniques of space geodesy: GPS, VLBI, SLR, and DORIS.

Learn more about space geodesy at: http://space-geodesy.nasa.gov/

This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11031

Space Geodesy provides positioning, navigation, and timing reference systems and Earth system observations

Geodesy is the science of the Earth’s shape, gravity and rotation, including their evolution in time. A number of different techniques are used to observe the geodetic properties of the Earth including the space-geodetic techniques of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like the US Global Positioning System (GPS), and the French Doppler Orbitography and Radio-Positioning by Integrated Satellite (DORIS) system. These space-geodetic observations also provide the basis for the reference frame that is needed in order to assign coordinates to points and objects and thereby determine how those points and objects move over time. See:  SGP Science

See Also:

•  VLBI

• Global Geodetic Observing System

Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520

Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520

This composite image shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies, and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520, formed from a violent collision of massive galaxy clusters. 

The natural-color image of the galaxies was taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii. Superimposed on the image are "false-colored" maps showing the concentration of starlight, hot gas, and dark matter in the cluster. 

Starlight from galaxies, derived from observations by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, is colored orange. The green-tinted regions show hot gas, as detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The gas is evidence that a collision took place. The blue-colored areas pinpoint the location of most of the mass in the cluster, which is dominated by dark matter. Dark matter is an invisible substance that makes up most of the universe's mass. The dark-matter map was derived from the Hubble Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 observations by detecting how light from distant objects is distorted by the cluster of galaxies, an effect called gravitational lensing. 

 The blend of blue and green in the center of the image reveals that a clump of dark matter resides near most of the hot gas, where very few galaxies are found. This finding confirms previous observations of a dark-matter core in the cluster. The result could present a challenge to basic theories of dark matter, which predict that galaxies should be anchored to dark matter, even during the shock of a collision. Abell 520 resides 2.4 billion light-years away. See: Dark Matter Core Defies Explanation in Hubble Image

See Also:

• Hubble Maps the Cosmic Web of "Clumpy" Dark Matter in 3-D

EO: Earth Observatory

Twelve years after the Earth was buffeted by one of the more potent Sun storms in modern history, our nearest star crackled with activity again. A solar flare erupted on July 12, 2012, followed closely by a companion coronal mass ejection (CME)—a cloud of magnetically charged particles and energy that can disturb Earth’s magnetic field, disrupt satellites and ground-based electronics, and provoke auroras.

The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured these views of the flare in the Sun’s southern hemisphere on July 12, 2012. The top, global image shows the Sun as viewed at 131 Angstroms; the lower, close-up view is 171 Angstroms. Both ultraviolet wavelengths help solar physicists study the fine magnetic structures in the Sun’s super-heated atmosphere, or corona. The yellow and teal are false colors chosen by the science team to distinguish between the spectral bands. Download the movies linked beneath each image to see the active region develop and erupt. See:The Sun Erupts

 An X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM EDT. It erupted from Active Region 1520 which rotated into view on July 6.

This video uses SDO AIA footage in 131(teal), 171(gold) and 335 (blue) angstrom wavelengths. Each wavelength shows different temperature plasma in the sun's atmosphere. 171 shows 600,000 Kelvin plasma, 335 shows 2.5 million Kelvin plasma, and 131 shows 10 million Kelvin plasma.

 This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11043

See Also:

• Latest SDO IMage

ATLAS INCLUSIVE SEARCHES FOR SUSY AND DARK MATTER
Sascha Caron (Radboud University Nijmegen and NIKHEF)

See Also:Implications of LHC results for TeV-scale physics

-Information to Conference supplied by Theoretical Physicist Matt Strassler

Fermi Provides Insights?

 There's more to the cosmos than meets the eye. About 80 percent of the matter in the universe is invisible to telescopes, yet its gravitational influence is manifest in the orbital speeds of stars around galaxies and in the motions of clusters of galaxies. Yet, despite decades of effort, no one knows what this "dark matter" really is. Many scientists think it's likely that the mystery will be solved with the discovery of new kinds of subatomic particles, types necessarily different from those composing atoms of the ordinary matter all around us. The search to detect and identify these particles is underway in experiments both around the globe and above it.

Scientists working with data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have looked for signals from some of these hypothetical particles by zeroing in on 10 small, faint galaxies that orbit our own. Although no signals have been detected, a novel analysis technique applied to two years of data from the observatory's Large Area Telescope (LAT) has essentially eliminated these particle candidates for the first time. See: Fermi Observations of Dwarf Galaxies Provide New Insights on Dark Matter 04.02.12

NGC 147, a dwarf spheroidal galaxy of the Local Group

 

Dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) is a term in astronomy applied to low luminosity galaxies that are companions to the Milky Way and to the similar systems that are companions to the Andromeda Galaxy M31. While similar to dwarf elliptical galaxies in appearance and properties such as little to no gas or dust or recent star formation, they are approximately spheroidal in shape, generally lower luminosity, and are only recognized as satellite galaxies in the Local Group.^[1]

While there were nine "classical" dSph galaxies discovered up until 2005, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has resulted in the discovery of 11 more dSph galaxies—this has radically changed the understanding of these galaxies by providing a much larger sample to study.^[2]

Recently, as growing evidence has indicated that the vast majority of dwarf ellipticals have properties that are not at all similar to elliptical galaxies, but are closer to irregular and late-type spiral galaxies, this term has been used to refer to all of the galaxies that share the properties of those above. These sorts of galaxies may in fact be the most common type of galaxies in the universe, but are much harder to see than other types of galaxies because they are so faint.

Because of the faintness of the lowest luminosity dwarf spheroidals and the nature of the stars contained within them, some astronomers suggest that dwarf spheroidals and globular clusters may not be clearly separate and distinct types of objects.^[3] Other recent studies, however, have found a distinction in that the total amount of mass inferred from the motions of stars in dwarf spheroidals is many times that which can be accounted for by the mass of the stars themselves. In the current predominantly accepted Cold Dark Matter cosmology, this is seen as a sure sign of dark matter, and the presence of dark matter is often cited as a reason to classify dwarf spheroidals as a different class of object from globular clusters (which show little to no signs of dark matter). Because of the extremely large amounts of dark matter in these objects, they may deserve the title "most dark matter-dominated galaxies" ^[4]

See also

• Galaxy
• Dwarf galaxy
• Dwarf elliptical galaxy
• Galaxy morphological classification
• Galaxy formation and evolution
• Groups and clusters of galaxies
• Irregular galaxy
• Local group
• List of nearest galaxies
• Dark galaxy

 

External links

• A popular overview
• Universe Today, Some Galaxies Are Made Almost Entirely of Dark Matter

 

References

1. ^ Mashchenko, Sergey; Sills, Alison; Couchman, H. M. (March 2006), "Constraining Global Properties of the Draco Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy", The Astrophysical Journal 640 (1): 252–269, arXiv:astro-ph/0511567, Bibcode 2006ApJ...640..252M, DOI:10.1086/499940
2. ^ Simon, Josh; Geha, Marla (November 2007), "The Kinematics of the Ultra-faint Milky Way Satellites: Solving the Missing Satellite Problem", The Astrophysical Journal 670 (1): 313–331, Bibcode 2007ApJ...670..313S, DOI:10.1086/521816
3. ^ van den Bergh, Sidney (November 2007), "Globular Clusters and Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies", MNRAS (Letters), in press 385 (1): L20, arXiv:0711.4795, Bibcode 2008MNRAS.385L..20V, DOI:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2008.00424.x
4. ^ Strigari, Louie; Koushiappas, et al; Bullock, James S.; Kaplinghat, Manoj; Simon, Joshua D.; Geha, Marla; Willman, Beth (September 2007), "The Most Dark Matter Dominated Galaxies: Predicted Gamma-ray Signals from the Faintest Milky Way Dwarfs", The Astrophysical Journal 678 (2): 614, arXiv:0709.1510, Bibcode 2008ApJ...678..614S, DOI:10.1086/529488

See Also:

• Team detects clusters’ dark matter scaffold

NASA's Hubble Views a Cosmic Skyrocket

Source: Hubblesite.org

July 3, 2012: Resembling a Fourth of July skyrocket, Herbig-Haro 110 is a geyser of hot gas from a newborn star that splashes up against and ricochets from the dense core of a cloud of molecular hydrogen. This image was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2004 and 2005 and the Wide Field Camera 3 in April 2011. See: NASA's Hubble Views a Cosmic Skyrocket

Volcano and Aurora

Volcano and Aurora in Iceland
Image Credit & Copyright: Sigurdur H. Stefnisson

Explanation: Sometimes both heaven and Earth erupt. In Iceland in 1991, the volcano Hekla erupted at the same time that auroras were visible overhead. Hekla, one of the most famous volcanoes in the world, has erupted at least 20 times over the past millennium, sometimes causing great destruction. The last eruption occurred only twelve years ago but caused only minor damage. The green auroral band occurred fortuitously about 100 kilometers above the erupting lava. Is Earth the Solar System's only planet with both auroras and volcanos? See: Astronomy Picture of the Day

It is of great consequence that while we understand the sun has it's place in the sky,  do we understand the interactions that are taking place as the Earth radiates as well? If thunderstorms can releases information for us,  then it puts a whole new spin on what is happening within Earth's space.

See:

• Schumann resonance

Also See:

• 100 years ago: The discovery of cosmic rays

Latest SDO IMage

This image taken by SDO's AIA instrument at 171 Angstrom shows the current conditions of the quiet corona and upper transition region of the Sun.

Active Region 1515 released an M6.9 class flare beginning at 12:23 PM EDT and peaking at 12:32 on July 7, 2012. This region has been the source of much solar activity since July 2.

See: Today's Space Weather

This plot shows 3-days of 5-minute solar x-ray flux values measured on the SWPC primary GOES satellite. One low value may appear prior to eclipse periods. Click on the plot to open an updating secondary window. 6-hour 1-min Solar X-ray Flux plot.

Our Backyard Chickens

As you can see the picture is from 2010 so we have had them for a few years now. We have had chickens in the past, but not in as elaborate set up as we have now.

As you can see it only took a couple of days. Sort of designed it our selves.

This is Buddy our Rooster. Nancy beside him and in the background they are called the Divas as we cannot tell whose who as a account we cannot tell them apart.

So yes after being completed a home.

 This years we let the hen incubate 4 eggs and only two survived.  That's them four weeks old after hatching.

Higgs Search History

Status of Standard Model Higgs Searches in Atlas

See: F. Gianotti, ATLAS talk at Latest update in the searchfor the Higgs boson at CERN, July 4, 2012.

 

 The recent discovery at the LHC by the CMS and ATLAS collaborations of the Higgs boson presents, at long last, direct probes of the mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking. While it is clear from the observations that the new particle plays some role in this process, it is not yet apparent whether the couplings and widths of the observed particle match those predicted by the Standard Model. In this paper, we perform a global t of the Higgs results from the LHC and Tevatron. While these results could be subject to as-yet-unknown systematics, we nd that the data are signi cantly better t by a Higgs with a suppressed width to gluon-gluon and an enhanced width to, relative to the predictions of the Standard Model. After considering a variety of new physics scenarios which could potenially modify these widths, we nd that the most promising possibility is the addition of a new colored, charged particle, with a large coupling to the Higgs. Of particular interest is a light, and highly mixed, stop, which we show can provide the required alterations to the combination of gg and widths. See:  Are There Hints of Light Stops in Recent Higgs Search Results?