POP CULTURE POSTS

fyeahastropics:

THAT STAR IS NOT DEAD. 

Im sure you’ve seen the post or heard the quote “when you wish upon a star, technically that star is a million light years away and it’s already dead, just like your dreams”

This is false. That star is not dead, it is not millions of light years away! the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across, so the oldest light reaching us from a star in our galaxy would be less than 100,000 years old (because we aren’t on the very edge). Stars live for millions and billions of years! Sure that supernova we viewed from another galaxy is from a star that had been dead for ages, but the stars you see at night are much closer and very much still burning brightly! 

The light you are seeing of a star is old, but the star itself is not dead and neither are your dreams! 

-this has been a slightly uplifting rant by janestreetdog (who is peeved by this misconception) 

When you wish upon a star

The Planck Spacecraft had a series of various objectives including; hi-res imaging of the CMB, cataloging galaxy clusters, observe gravitational lensing, bright extra-galactic radio and infrared (dusty galaxy) sources. http://astronomyisawesome.com/universe/the-age-of-the-universe/

What Are the Bright Spots on Ceres?

Dwarf planet Ceres has more than 130 bright areas, and most of them are associated with impact craters. Now, Ceres has revealed some of its well-kept secrets in two new studies in the journal Nature, thanks to data from our Dawn spacecraft.

Two studies have been looking into the mystery behind these bright areas. One study identifies this bright material as a kind of salt, while the other study suggests the detection of ammonia-rich clays. 

Study authors write that the bright material is consistent with a type of magnesium sulfate called hexahydrite. A different type of magnesium sulfate is familiar on Earth as Epsom salt.

Researchers, using images from Dawn’s framing camera, suggest that these salt-rich areas were left behind when water-ice sublimated in the past. Impacts from asteroids would have unearthed the mixture of ice and salt.

An image of Occator Crater (below) shows the brightest material on Ceres. Occator itself is 60 miles in diameter, and its central pit, covered by this bright material, measures about 6 miles wide. With its sharp rim and walls, it appears to be among the youngest features on the dwarf planet.

In the second nature study, members of the Dawn science team examined the composition of Ceres and found evidence for ammonia-rich clays. Why is this important?

Well, ammonia ice by itself would evaporate on Ceres today, because it is too warm. However, ammonia molecules could be stable if present in combination with other minerals. This raises the possibility that Ceres did not originate in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where it currently resides. But instead, might have formed in the outer solar system! Another idea is that Ceres formed close to its present position, incorporating materials that drifted in from the outer solar system, near the orbit of Neptune, where nitrogen ices are thermally stable.

As of this week, our Dawn spacecraft has reached its final orbital altitude at Ceres (about 240 miles from the surface). In mid-December, it will begin taking observations from this orbit, so be sure to check back for details!

ake sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Where are her pants?

Textile Art + Science = Crocheted Chemistry

Dallas, TX-based textile artist Lauren Espy just completed crocheting the cutest chemistry set we’ve ever seen. Each handmade piece of amigurumi lab equipment, colorful beakers and test tubes, and a fiery little bunsen burner (our favorite), wears a smiling face that clearly says they’re ready to do some awesome science.

Follow Lauren Espy on Instagram to check out more of her crocheted creations. Espy sells some of her pieces via her Etsy shop, where she plans to list smaller pieces of crocheted chemistry equipment in the near future. So stay tuned!

[via A Menagerie of Stitches]

Where Your Elements Came From

(via APOD; Image Credit: Cmglee (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons )

The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made during supernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away. The gold in your jewelry was likely made from neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-duration gamma-ray bursts. Elements like phosphorus and copper are present in our bodies in only small amounts but are essential to the functioning of all known life. The featured periodic table is color coded to indicate humanity’s best guess as to the nuclear origin of all known elements. The sites of nuclear creation of some elements, such as copper, are not really well known and are continuing topics of observational and computational research.

“This Love” - Taylor Swift (Piano & String Version) by Sam Yung.

credit to the owners

First materials woven at atomic and molecular levels: Weaving a new story for COFS and MOFs

An international collaboration led by Berkeley Lab scientists has woven the first 3-D covalent organic frameworks (COFs) from helical organic threads. The woven COFs display significant advantages in structural flexibility, resiliency and reversibility over previous COFs.

There are many different ways to make nanomaterials but weaving, the oldest and most enduring method of making fabrics, has not been one of them – until now. An international collaboration led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, has woven the first three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (COFs) from helical organic threads. The woven COFs display significant advantages in structural flexibility, resiliency and reversibility over previous COFs – materials that are highly prized for their potential to capture and store carbon dioxide then convert it into valuable chemical products.

“We have taken the art of weaving into the atomic and molecular level, giving us a powerful new way of manipulating matter with incredible precision in order to achieve unique and valuable mechanical properties,” says Omar Yaghi, a chemist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley’s Chemistry Department, and is the co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (Kavli-ENSI).

“Weaving in chemistry has been long sought after and is unknown in biology,” Yaghi says. “However, we have found a way of weaving organic threads that enables us to design and make complex two- and three-dimensional organic extended structures.”

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