Emilie+F.

 **World's most powerful millimeter/submillimeter-wavelength telescope opens for business and reveals its first image ** October 4, 2011 Thousands of scientists around the world have been competing to explore space. Recently scientists have developed a telescope called the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) which “reveals a view of the universe that cannot be seen by visible-light and infrared telescopes”. It is located on the Chajnantor plateau in northern Chile because the high altitude (16,400 feet) allows a closer view of space. It has 66 antennas that have been placed close together to produce a clearer image of space and scientists are planning to add more. By using wavelengths nearly 1000 times longer than the wavelengths we can see, scientists are able to explore extremely cold parts of the universe such as dense clouds of cosmic dust and gasses that will form planets and stars. It is extremely popular in the scientific world because of its ability to see into the depths of space. Over 900 projects have been requested for the next nine months, but only about 100 can be accepted. Projects have been picked based on “scientific merit, their regional diversity, and also their relevance to ALMA's major science goals”. For example one team is “hunting for the building blocks of solar systems” which ALMA was made to find. []
 * Life of a Star Story: **

**Astrophysicists Find Evidence of Black Hole’s Destruction of Stars ** October 11, 2011 Cosmologists have found evidence that occasionally in a star’s orbit it will pass by the black hole at the center of our galaxy. The gravity of the black hole is strong enough to pull apart the star and consume some of it, but the rest of the star will continue on with its orbit in chaos. The remaining pieces of the star collide together violently producing radiation that could last for months. This phenomenon is called stellar tidal disruption flares (TDFs). In the past it was more difficult to detect TDFs because it was hard to distinguish them from supernovas and other more common types of flares. Also, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) or quasars produce an image similar to TDFs when they take in more matter from the accretion disk around them. Scientists used to only be able to use X-ray and UV satellites, but now they can use ground based optical telescopes to identify TDFs. They use a kind of process of elimination to sort out TDFs from supernovas and AGNs after monitoring them for about ten years. This is an important discovery because it provides scientists with a “new window into general relativity”. It was also reported that this discovery “ opens up a method to search for the possible existence of a large population of presently undetectable "intermediate mass" black holes which are hypothesized to be precursors to the super-massive black holes at the centers of most large galaxies.” I think that this new finding is an amazing step for astrophysics. []

**Astronomers Discover Rare Galaxy at Dawn of Time ** Dec 21, 2011 A galaxy was discovered on the edge of the universe about 12.9 billion light years away. Images from the Spitzer and Hubble telescopes showed that the galaxy was growing at an alarming rate of about one hundred stars per year which is about thirty times as many as our galaxy makes. The galaxy is named GN-108036 and even though it is producing more stars than our galaxy, the Milky Way is still one hundred times more massive. This galaxy is an important discovery because it is only a little younger than the universe and it is so far away because of this the light we see from it today is actually light that was produced close to the beginning of time. Studying this galaxy and others like it will help astrophysicists better understand the creation of the universe. This galaxy is an amazing discovery because it is extremely bright for a galaxy so close to the beginning of time. I think it is fascinating that our technology is so advanced that we are able to see 12.9 billion light years into space. []

**Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Launches Most Capable and Robust Rover to Red Planet ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Nov. 26, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">On November 26th a car sized rover named Curiosity was launched into space. Curiosity has the world’s most advanced scientific laboratory on board and is expected to land on Mars’s surface 352 million miles away on August 6, 2012. The rover is supposed to touch down on the foot of a mountain inside of Gale Crater. Curiosity will study Mars’s ability to sustain microbial life and its chemical ingredients for life. The rover has new tools that neither Spirit nor Opportunity such as a laser firing instrument to check the elemental composition of rocks from a distance. This is the first time we are using an instrument of this type on Mars. Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as either of the two rovers before. It has a mass of one ton and unlike the rovers before it; Curiosity will have a “rocket-powered descent stage” instead of air bags to cushion the landing. Its landing site was picked because of the clay and sulfate minerals indicating that there may have once been water. One of Curiosity’s main missions is to determine whether or not the conditions on Mars are livable for humans and if not find out what we need to do to make them livable. I think the data from this rover will change our understanding of extra terrestrial life. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">Solar Storms Could Sandblast the Moon ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Dec. 7, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Solar storms and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) can erode the surface of the moon and if they can do this they may also be the cause for loss of atmosphere in some planets. These planets, such as Mars, do not have a magnetic field to protect their atmosphere like Earth does. CMEs are a strong gust of solar wind or stream of plasma which is electrically conductive gas. These gusts are about a billion tons of plasma which is many times the size of Earth. CMEs can move up to a million miles per hour. The moon is vulnerable to CMEs because it barely has an atmosphere, called an exosphere. CMEs act as a sandblaster on the surface of the moon removing 100 to 200 tons of matter from the moon during a 2 day storm. CMEs remove fifty times more material than normal solar winds because they are faster, denser, and are made of heavy ions. NASA is launching a Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) in 2013 to test several predictions they have made about the sputtering that solar storms cause. CMEs are the same solar storms that cause northern and southern lights and scientists have been aware of the affects of these storms on Earth. Scientists are also planning on launching a Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) in late 2013 to study how CMEs affect its atmosphere and surface. I never realized how much is really going on right outside our atmosphere because we don’t instantly see the affects of a phenomenon like CNEs. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">Young Star Rebels Against Its Parent Star ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Dec. 15, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Images of a giant hydrogen cloud surrounding a young star were captured by Hubble. The Star’s name is Sh 2-106 or S106. It is in the end stages of its formation and will soon be a main sequence star like our sun. S106 has a mass of about fifteen times the mass of our sun. The young star is spewing off material into its parent cloud which illuminates the hydrogen surrounding it and gives it an hour glass shape. The hot and turbulent hydrogen gasses produce the spectacular images of the star that Hubble captured. These gasses are estimated to reach 10,000 degrees Celsius. The cloud is split by a cooler thick lane of dust. The dust almost completely hides the star from sight. The S106 got its name because it is the one hundred sixth star that astronomer Stewart Sharpless who cataloged it in the 1950s. S106 is a relatively small star formation at about two light years across. It’s located thousands of light years away from us in the direction of the consolation Cygnus, also known as the swan. I think the violent formation of this star is an excellent example of the power hidden deep in our universe. It also shows how massive the universe really is considering how many stars there are and how much space each one takes to form. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">Disaster Looms for Gas Cloud Falling Into Milky Way’s Central Black Hole ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Dec. 14, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Many galaxies, possibly all, have a super massive black hole at the center. The only super massive black hole close enough for astronomers to study in depth is the one located at the center of our galaxy. A gas cloud is headed to its doom. In the next few years it may be swallowed by the black hole at the middle of the galaxy. If this happens it will provide scientists with an ideal opportunity to prove their hypothesis about how black holes eat matter and emit light. We have observed black holes at the center of other galaxies growing bright and then fading. Some scientists hypothesize that this occurs whenever a black hole swallows up matter. We have been observing this particular cloud since 2008. Its edges have begun to gradually fray as it is rapidly pulled toward the black hole. Astronomers expect to see outbursts of X-ray and radio waves by 2013 as the cloud is torn apart. This will be a spectacular event because since we started observing this black hole in 1992 there have only been two stars that have come anywhere near as close as this cloud has to the black hole. These two stars passed unharmed. The cloud’s destiny will be much different. This cloud is thought to have been formed when two stars collided and stellar winds pushed the dust away. It is laminated by UV rays from nearby stars. I think this event will be a major landmark in the study of black holes. It will also help us better understand the universe. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">Detecting the “Heartbeat” of Smallest Black Hole Candidate ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Dec 15, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">Using NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) scientists have detected the smallest known black hole. The X-ray is nicknames “heartbeat” because it resembles an electrocardiogram. The black hole is named <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">IGR J17091-3624 after its astronomical coordinates. It is in a binary system with a normal star. The gas from the star circling the black hole is sucked toward the black hole creating an accretion disk around the black hole. This gas creates friction which heats up to millions of degrees and gives off X-rays allowing scientists to detect it. Astronomers noticed the binary in 2003 when there was an outburst. Scientists have discovered that it has an outburst every few years. They are unaware of exactly how far away it is from us. They think it could be anywhere from 16,000 to 65,000 light years away. A second system GRS 1915+105 is also tracked with X-ray technology. Scientists are excited to be able to observe another black hole with this technology. Scientists believe that the patterns of outbursts in these black holes are caused by accumulation and ejection in its disk. By comparing these small black holes with larger ones scientists have determined that the smaller “heartbeat” is faster than t he larger one. "Just as the heart rate of a mouse is faster than an elephant's, the heartbeat signals from these black holes scale according to their masses," said Diego Altamirano. These studies will help scientists better understand what happens in a black hole. I think in the next decade we will have a much better understanding of how they work, not only from this black hole, but from the one at the center of our universe. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">First Earth-Size Planets Beyond Our Solar System: Smallest Exoplanets Ever Confirmed Around a Star Like Our Sun ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Dec. 20, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f are two Earth sized planets that have been found orbiting a star. These are the first Earth sized planets outside of our solar system that have been found orbiting a star and the smallest planets found orbiting a star. They are too close to their star to have liquid water on them. This marks the next milestone in finding Earth like planets that can support life. These planets are in a five planet system named Kepler about 1000 light years away in the consolation Lyra. The planets 20e and 20f have very short orbits around their stars making them even hotter and inhospitable. They have surface temperatures of 1,400 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit. The Kepler mission is to find Earth like planets and this discovery proves that Earth like planets do exist. The Kepler system has a G star that is smaller and cooler than ours. All of its planets orbit within the size of Mercury’s orbit of our sun. The Kepler system also has planets with alternating planet size instead of small to large like ours. This leads us to believe that the planets were formed further away and came together into a system. By studying Kepler we are discovering the diversity of planetary systems in the universe. I agree with scientists who say it is only a matter of time before we find a planet with the right conditions to support life. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">[]

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">Scientists Find Microbes in Lava Tube Living in Conditions Like Those On Mars ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">Dec. 15, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">On Earth scientists have found microbes in the Cascade Mountains that thrive in Mars like conditions. They tolerate freezing conditions with low oxygen levels. They can also grow without organic food. The bacteria are from one of the most common genera of bacteria on Earth. For example, its “cousins” can be found on your skin and the bottom of the ocean. The bacteria use iron with olivine to grow. This is a common material found in volcanic rock and is also abundant on Mars. A reaction such as this one has never before been documented before. This reaction is possible because the bacteria are in the Lava Tube where they can get to the iron before the oxygen oxidizes the iron. Scientists were able to reproduce these conditions in a laboratory. Scientists believe that these conditions can be supported on Mars. We know that Mars has olivine and lava tubes on it which is why one scientist suggested looking for life in the caves of the Cascade Mountains. I believe that scientists are looking for life in the right forms which will get us a lot closer to finding life on Mars. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">[]