Monday, March 28, 2016

Fantastic Hubble

Everyone is familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope. Even those who aren’t astronomy inclined have at least once or twice heard its name. The Hubble Space Telescope is famous due to a number of reasons. First, Hubble revolutionizes our view of the universe. With the breathtaking images captured by the telescope to the numerous astronomical breakthroughs that it have discovered. It is undeniable that Hubble is one of the leading astronomical telescopes that many scientists have relied upon. Together with the Kepler Space Telescope, Chandra X Ray Space Telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, Hubble is considered as NASA’s 4 major space telescopes, which is observing the universe at its visible wavelength.

Hubble Discoveries
·         Discovered dark matter and dark energy hence creating a 3-D map of mysterious dark matter.
·         Discovering Nix and Hydra, two moons of Pluto.
·         Using Cepheid variable as its standard candle, it helped determine the rate of the universe’s expansion.
·         Discovering that nearly every major galaxy is anchored by a black hole. It likewise discovered that at the center of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sagittarius because the Sagittarius constellation is seen passing at the center of the        Milky Way and there’s a * because some scientists are not yet convinced with the existence of black holes.)
·         Helping refine the age of the universe which is approximately 13.7 billion years old.
·         Hubble Deep Field, which contains numerous galaxies, squeezed into a single image. Also provided evidence for gravitational lensing.

Images of Hubble
*Description of each image is provided by NASA 
1. Orion Nebula
Thousands of stars are forming in the cloud of gas and dust known as the Orion nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light.
 2. Messier 101 or the Pinwheel Galaxy
This giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across, or nearly twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. About 100 billion of them could be similar to our Sun.
3. Sombrero Galaxy
A brilliant white core is encircled by thick dust lanes in this spiral galaxy, seen edge-on. The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light years from Earth.
4. Cat's Eye Nebula
 The Cat's Eye Nebula, one of the first planetary nebulae discovered, also has one of the most complex forms known to this kind of nebula. Eleven rings, or shells, of gas make up the Cat's Eye.
5. Carina Nebula



Hubble's 20th anniversary image shows a mountain of dust and gas rising in the Carina Nebula. The top of a three-light-year tall pillar of cool hydrogen is being worn away by the radiation of nearby stars, while stars within the pillar unleash jets of gas that stream from the peaks.
6. Messier 81 or Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
M81, a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way, is one of the brightest galaxies that can be seen from Earth. The spiral arms wind all the way down into the nucleus and are made up of young, bluish, hot stars formed in the past few million years, while the central bulge contains older, redder stars.
7. Whirlpool Galaxy


The large Whirlpool Galaxy (left) is known for its sharply defined spiral arms. Their prominence could be the result of the Whirlpool's gravitational tug-of-war with its smaller companion galaxy (right).
8. The Hubble Deep Field
 About 1,500 galaxies are visible in this deep view of the universe, taken by allowing the Hubble Space Telescope to stare at the same tiny patch of sky for 10 consecutive days in 1995. The image covers an area of sky only about width of a dime viewed from 75 feet away.
9. Crab Nebula


The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant, all that remains of a tremendous stellar explosion. Observers in China and Japan recorded the supernova nearly 1,000 years ago, in 1054.
10. Messier 74
Bright knots of glowing gas light up the arms of spiral galaxy M74, indicating a rich environment of star formation. Messier 74, also called NGC 628, is slightly smaller than our Milky Way.
11. Eagle Nebula
A billowing tower of gas and dust rises from the stellar nursery known as the Eagle Nebula. This small piece of the Eagle Nebula is 57 trillion miles long (91.7 trillion km).
12. Arp 273
This rose shaped deep sky object is consisted of a pair of interacting spiral galaxies. Gravity from both galaxies have caused this object to be turned into a look alike of a rose.
13. Abell 1689
Abell 1689 is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known. The gravity of its trillion stars, plus dark matter, acts like a 2-million-light-year-wide "lens" in space. The gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of galaxies far behind it.
14. The "Caterpillar"
The "Caterpillar" is a Bok Globule within the Carina Nebula.
15. Starburst Galaxy or the Messier 82
Plumes of glowing hydrogen blast from the central nucleus of M82. The pale, star-like objects are clusters of tens to hundreds of thousands of stars.
16. The Horsehead Nebula
 The Horsehead Nebula is a cold, dark cloud of gas and dust, silhouetted against the bright nebula IC 434. The bright area at the top left edge is a young star still embedded in its nursery of gas and dust.
17. The Helix Nebula
This detailed picture of the Helix Nebula shows a fine web of filaments, like the spokes of a bicycle, embedded in the colorful red and blue gas ring around this dying star. The Helix Nebula is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth, only 650 light years away.
18. The Tarantula Nebula
In the Tarantula Nebula lies a bright cluster of brilliant, massive stars, Hodge 301. The cluster, in the lower right-hand corner, is blasting material from supernovae into the surrounding nebula.
19. Galaxy Cluster SDSS J1004+4112
The gravity of a galaxy cluster called SDSS J1004+4112 warps and magnifies the light from a distant quasar. Light from the quasar, the bright core of a galaxy fed by a black hole, appears in the center of this image and four other locations around it. Other distant galaxies appear as arcs.
20. Supernova Renmant Cassiopeia A
This youngest-known supernova remnant in our galaxy lies 10,000 light years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The light from this exploding star first reached Earth in the 1600s.
21. Butterfly Nebula
Gas released by a dying star races across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour, forming the delicate shape of a celestial butterfly. This nebula is also known as NGC 6302 or the Bug Nebula.
22. The Southern Ring Planetary Nebula
This planetary nebula, also known as the "Eight-Burst" Nebula because of its figure-8 appearance through amateur astronomer telescopes, is visible in the southern hemisphere. NGC 3132 is nearly half a light year in diameter and 2,000 light years away. Gases are moving away from the dying star at its center at a speed of nine miles per second (14.4 km/s).
23. Star Forming Pillar in the Cone Nebula
Radiation from hot stars off the top of the picture illuminates and erodes this giant, gaseous pillar. Additional ultraviolet radiation causes the gas to glow, giving the pillar its red halo of light.
24. Crater Copernicus on the Moon Luna
This image shows the ray pattern of dust that was ejected from the crater over a billion years ago, when an asteroid larger than a mile (1.6 km) across slammed into the Moon.
25. Scattered Light from the Boomerang Nebula
Two cones of matter are being ejected from the central star of the Boomerang Nebula. Measurements made in 1995 show the deep interior of the nebula to have a temperature of just one degree Kelvin above absolute zero, making it one of the coldest known places in the universe.
26. Views of Saturn Over the Years 
As Saturn takes its 29-year journey around the Sun, its tilt allows us to see its rings from different perspectives. Saturn's tilt also gives it seasons. The lowest image on the left shows the northern hemisphere's autumn, while the uppermost right image shows the winter.
27. Cat's Eye Nebula
Intricate structures of concentric gas shells, jets of high-speed gas and shock-induced knots of gas make up this complicated planetary nebula. The Cat's Eye Nebula is about 1,000 years old, and could have resulted from a double-star system.
28. The Tadpole Galaxy
The small, blue galaxy visible in the upper left corner of the Tadpole ripped through the larger spiral galaxy, distorting it and pulling out a long tail of stars, gas and dust. Young blue star clusters, spawned by the collision, are evident in the tail and spiral arms.
29. Supernova Remnant N 63A Menagerie

When a massive star exploded, spewing out its gaseous layers into a turbulent, star-forming region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, it left behind this chaotic cloud of gas and dust. The star that produced this supernova remnant was probably 50 times the mass of our Sun.
30. Stephan's Quintet
Three of the galaxies in this famous grouping, Stephan's Quintet, are distorted from their gravitational interactions with one another. One member of the group, NGC 7320 (upper right), is actually seven times closer to Earth than the rest.
31. Mars
This image was taken within minutes of Mars' closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years, on Aug. 27, 2003. In this picture, the red planet is 34,647,420 miles (55,757,930 km) from Earth.
32. Globular Cluster Omega Centauri
 A colorful collection of 100,000 stars are displayed in this small region inside the Omega Centauri globular cluster, a dense group of nearly 10 million stars. Omega Centauri is one of the biggest star clusters in the Milky Way.
33. The Monkey Head Nebula
The Monkey Head Nebula (also known as NGC 2174) is a star-forming region in which bright, newborn stars near the center of the nebula illuminate the surrounding gas with energetic radiation. The cloud is sculpted by ultraviolet light eating into the cool hydrogen gas.
34. Westerlund 2
Hubble's 25th anniversary image features a giant, sparkling cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2. The cluster resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina.















Sunday, March 27, 2016

Astronaut Sahda from UAE

At a very young age around my 7th year of standing on this planet, I dreamt of travelling through the stars. Right now I live in the United Arab Emirates, where 6 years ago when I was a third grader during a science class on the solar system, I happened upon a picture of the Milky Way and at that moment our teacher was explaining about living in space. After the class I went through what had been taught that day and I wanted to be a part of NASA’s space program, so I talked to people around me and they simply had a look which meant, you will never get to be one but my dad supported me. He bought me encyclopedias and many other books, one of my early favorite was DK’s space encyclopedia, which gave me the basic knowledge of space travel. On my 11th birthday, I was surprised with a Celestron telescope at this time most of the people around me understood, that this was my dream because they noticed that, I kept working on it all day. 2014 was the year all my hard work started to pay off, During the test launch of Orion space craft the announcer said some words that were really emotional and inspiring he said something like, “Go delta. Go Orion. This is the dawn of Orion, the dawn of America’s new age of space travel” the following year I joined twitter as an aspiring astronaut and got to know many kids who had the same dream and I started to get noticed. The first person I met was Mackenzie as @JrAstronaut who supported me and inspired me. Then I met Astronaut Abby as a friend who always stood by my side, she is a reason where I am today. She continues to inspire me every day and a few months after that I got to know UAE’s gonna send a probe to Mars and that is when I knew UAE had a space agency, then I got a message from MR. Ibrahim Al Qasim, the deputy project manager of the Emirates Mars Mission and the project manager of the Nayif-1 cube sat mission, asking me to visit the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC). I was really excited. Then the next year they had a space event called Mission: Space at downtown Dubai. There I met the Mars Mission project manager MR. Omran Sharaf and a few of the other people who work at MBRSC, their words were inspiring, they gave me a push like never before. Then came up an opportunity to be a part of the newly launched non-profit, called The Mars Generation, by Astronaut Abby. I joined it as an ambassador and then I was given a chance at my school to talk about the need for space travel and it went well except my voice. Then I got recognized at my school as an astronaut in training and after the speech kids came up to me, even my seniors and they were really glad in hearing my story. I knew that every opportunity I get is because of someone was there to inspire me and give me a push. MR. Omran showed me that and then with the help of Astronaut Abby and our principal I formed the Scholars Astro Club, at our school where my dreams all began. All the credit of my achievements inside the school goes to my principal who is a true supporter and the one who provides me with many opportunities that is really amazing. Then I got to visit the Sharjah center for astronomy and space sciences at Sharjah, UAE, where I met an astronomer named Ahmed whose words inspired me too. He told “so I’m an astronomer and you are an astronaut. Hoping to see you up there”. I got a message from my friend Tanya who lives in India about starting an internet community of aspiring astronauts I agreed and she started it out with just five members including me, it is now running with over 50 members we share a very different social background. Another great moment was when I got to meet Astronaut Chris Hadfield who really helped me along my way to success, by providing me and the other aspiring astronaut in the world with videos of living in zero G, that really helped. I met him after his talk in Dubai about his journey. The most inspiring part was when he gave me his watch and the people around were like “wow”(I gave it back). He then signed a headshot for me and he wished me luck on my path to be an astronaut. At the same event I got to meet MR. Ibrahim along with MR. Saeed and MR. Saud (whom I already met before). They work for MBRSC.  I enjoyed talking to them. That was the most recent event in my journey. And I hope there is more to come! I believe in going to Mars and I wish to be among the first ones to get there. Remember that it is always you who have to choose your dream. There is always something that interests you and you have to work towards it, inspiring people along the way. Let us start as students and end up serving the human race.


Twitter: @2003sahda

Friday, March 25, 2016

Astronaut Tanya from India!

Tanya Singh is one of the first aspiring astronauts that I have came to know on Twitter. She posses a strong determination which is virulent that the people who have talked to her will immediately have the impression that she is dedicated to what she is doing. Not only does she wants to be a NASA astronaut in the future but she also wants to achieve her grandparents desire to see an astronaut. My friends, please welcome my friend Tanya and let us indulge in her own words as stated below on how she came to be an aspiring astronaut! Clear Skies!


From Tanya
I'm from keshalpur colliery,dhanbad, jharkhand this is in India. This place I used to live and it is a little bit village like area area where   people don't get good network if u recharged for 2g internet pack u will find that it works slowly like 1g and 3g as 2g and also people don't know anything about NASA and space only few of them know about it . when I was in 2nd grade I heard the story of kalpana chawla ( the first Indian astronaut went into space) from that time I want to be an astronaut and when I came to class 8th my parents asks me that what you want to be in future I said to my parents and family that I want to be an astronaut and want to join NASA after hearing this all the peoples asks me that what is NASA what type of job astronaut is? After hearing about it and job they all were in shock of two seconds including my mom also.They said that u can't be an astronaut its so hard and risky job. I'm belonging from a topical rajput Hindu family where girls were not to allowed even to do job if they are in village not in cities. For being an astronaut lots of money is required but my father has not permanent job he is without job from 8or 11years.I want to be an astronaut because of 2reasons one is that this is my papa's and grandpa's dream to see me an astronaut and second is that I want to prove them that I can be an astronaut. Being an astronaut is not only my dream its my life. This the short description of my story hopefully u like it.
Thank u

Thursday, March 24, 2016

We Have A Liftoff!!!

The Philippines first ever microsatellite, DIWATA-1, has successfully been launched, carried by the Cygnus spacecraft. The microsatellite will be aboard the International Space Station wherein it will monitor the climate of the Philippines over the years. I am so proud of the Philippines. This single milestone marks a very essential date on the history of my country!

Penumbral Eclipse in the Pearl of the Orient

Last March 23, 2016, the Philippines was once again given the chance to witness an eclipse, but this time, it is a penumbral eclipse. It is a common misconception that during a penumbral eclipse, the moon is turning red. Only during a total lunar eclipse does the reddening of the moon happens due to the Rayleigh scattering effect when the moon is passing through the umbra of the Earth. During a penumbral eclipse, the penumbra, or the lighter part of the shadow covers the moon that's why, we cannot observe any reddening. However, the dimming of the moon in general is conspicuous.
Here are some of the pictures I compiled during the penumbral eclipse. Clear Skies Everybody!

IMAGES FROM UNCLE JAMES KEVIN TY

IMAGE FROM SIR NORMAN MARIGZA

IMAGE FROM SIR MARK SINGSON

IMAGE FROM SIR VAL VILLANUEVA

IMAGES FROM UNCLE ALBERTO LAO


IMAGES FROM SIR ARNEL CAMPOS


IMAGE FROM UNCLE CHRISTOPHER LU


IMAGE FROM SIR BRY OCAMPO