For All Mankind

For All Mankind is available on hulu for free right now.  If you haven't seen it, it's a documentary on a few of the Apollo missions, focusing mainly on the 11th mission and includes real Nasa footage as well as some interviews from the 60's.   There's no actual commentary, it's mainly just space footage and some interviews.  The soundtrack is pretty awesome though since it's done by Brian Eno, and it's especially fitting for the movie.  Instead of the really brass heavy patriotic soundtracks typically featured in space films it's got more of a 'weightless' sound as if you're in space, if that means anything at all.  The song An Ending (Ascent), pretty recognizable from the movie 28 day's later, I kinda think it fits better in a space film but you can be the judge of that.  Holla to my space zombies woot woot!!

The soundtrack and the movie for those interested.

Supernova 2012aw

In Messier 95, which is about 39 million light-years away, a supernova was detected by astronomers.  The supernova, SN 2012aw, was discovered on March 16, 2012.  SN 2012aw was classified as a type II supernova.  Type II supernovas occur when the star, before collapsing, has more than 9 times the solar mass.  The video is a sequence of images (from Parijat Singh's flickr) taken from March 15 to March 16.  Here's the astronomical telegram.

from Greek amateur astronomer Anthony Ayiomamitis

an inverted version of the first, the supernova is a bit easier to determine

source: persius.gr , wikipedia.org, badastronomy

Early Star Formation

Diagram of phases in stellar formation

Just recently, some astronomers have taken a look at the constellation Perseus using infrared and radio telescopes.  Using the Gould Belt Survey of the Herschel telescope, scientists have been able to observe a cluster of gas 770 light years away.  This cluster is thought to be in the early stages of star formation where gas and dust begin to condense into clumps by gravitational force.  The problem with most gas clusters in the near universe is that they are either already in later stages of star formation or are greatly affected by nearby stellar winds or supernova shock waves.  This find is great for astronomers trying to learn more about stellar evolution, particularly in earlier stages, since the discovered gas cluster is more detailed than anything found elsewhere.  Following is a short simulation on star formation.

The simulation begins with the gas cloud.  Small clumps of gas can be seen grouping together and a few stars are formed, the lower mass ones being kicked out first of the spinning clumps.

source: phys.org, youtube

Why is the moon yellow, white, red or grey?

When observing the moon from different periods of the day or year, the moon can appear to be different shades of red, yellow, or white.  The effect Earth's atmosphere has on the colors we observe is the primary factor in the moon's appearance.  The atmosphere absorbs some light and scatters mostly blue light.  This results in more of the blue light being scattered from the overall light, causing the observed light to be less blue.  If light is passing through more atmosphere to get to the observer less blue light is seen and more red light is seen.  Harvest moons occur during the autumnal equinox.  Traditionally harvest moon allowed farmers more hours of farming since the period of time between sunset and moon rise was relatively short. During the autumnal equinox, the moon rises earlier in the night and remains at a low angle with the horizon.  The light reflected by the moon passes through a greater amount of the Earth's atmosphere and gives the moon a reddish yellow shade.  This is also the reason for the sun appearing red along the horizon during sunset or sunrise.  When the moon reaches our zenith, it has a whitish grey color.

source: universetoday, wikipedia

Sunspot AR 1429

AR 1429: group in the top right

On March 10, sunspot AR 1429(pictured in the in the top left) began releasing two powerful M class solar flares.  The classification of solar flares is done by measuring the peak flux, in watts per meter squared, with a logarithmic scale.  A-type flares are the smallest in magnitude and X-type are the largest.  M-type flares are just below X-class.  A coronal mass ejection was also observed.  Coronal mass ejections occur when a large amount of ionized particles as well as electromagnetic radiation are released. The CME observed by LASCO (Large angle and spectrometric coronagraph) pictured in the top right.  During a solar storm, a lot of particles in Earth's upper atmosphere becomes ionized then recombines causing a release of radiation down towards earth's surface.  Astronomer Thomas Ashcraft captured these frequencies and can be heard at this link.  Another cool thing about solar flares is sometimes radio signals are able to propagate for longer distances.  Sometimes radio waves will be reflected off of the ionosphere allowing signals to travel much longer distances than usual.

source: spaceweather.com, nasa.gov

NGC 4449 Merger

On February 8, the National Astronomical Observatory in Japan announced the discovery of a merger of two dwarf galaxies, NGC 4449 and a smaller nearby companion galaxy.  The merger was evident by stellar streams detected in earlier images, but not confirmed.  Stellar streams are one of many details astronomers use to identify merger events.  Much of the physics behind galaxy formation is being explored today.  The mergers of smaller dwarf galaxies have been a relatively unexplored area in astronomy and this discovery helps specifically in the reasoning behind the halo of stars surrounding the NGC 4449 host galaxy.

source: noaj.org

Tim and Eric explain the universe