nikola tesla said “if you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.”
the video below shows the “chladni plate experiment” which beautifully visualizes complex patterns that form as a result of resonant vibration on a solid surface. this experiment is achieved by connecting a metal plate to a speaker then, sprinkling sand on the plate’s surface, change the pitch (frequency measured in Hertz (Hz)) of sound that vibrates the plate, and watch the sand jump into the resonance pattern that results from each different sound wave vibration.
the patterns are beautiful, and i particularly like the transitions between different frequencies. 5201 Hz is my favorite pattern!
this is what the chladni patterns for a square plate look like:
chladni first performed this experiment by running a violin-type bow along the side of the metal plate to find the resonance, so it shouldn’t be as much of a fascinating surprise as i found it to be to see these patterns on a violin’s surface!
a similar thing happens to guitars, mandolins, cellos, cymbals, etc. super cool.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
This weekend’s full Moon is a “supermoon,” as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons of 2013. Even on Friday night, 36 hours before maximum illumination, the Moon already looked super:
David Hoffmann took the picture on June 21st from Ashland, Oregon. “The Moon will not be as close to Earth again until August 2014,” he says.
The scientific term for the phenomenon is “perigee moon.” Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon’s orbit. The Moon follows an elliptical path around Earth with one side (“perigee”) about 50,000 km closer than the other (“apogee”). Full Moons that occur on the perigee side of the Moon’s orbit seem extra big and bright.
On June 23rd, the Moon becomes full at 11:34 UT, only 23 minutes after it reaches perigee. This near-perfect coincidence makes the Moon “super.”
It’s true that a perigee full Moon brings with it extra-high “perigean tides,” but according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this is nothing to worry about. In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual. Local geography can amplify the effect to about 15 centimeters (six inches)--not exactly a great flood.
In other words, don’t worry. Just enjoy the super moonlight.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
Explanation: What’s happening to this spiral galaxy? Just a few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown, was likely a normal spiral galaxy -- spinning, creating stars -- and minding its own business. But then it got too close to the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 2937 below and took a dive. Dubbed the Porpoise Galaxy for its iconic shape, NGC 2936 is not only being deflected but also being distorted by the close gravitational interaction. A burst of young blue stars forms the nose of the porpoise toward the left of the upper galaxy, while the center of the spiral appears as an eye. Alternatively, the galaxy pair, together known as Arp 142, look to some like a penguin protecting an egg. Either way, intricate dark dust lanes and bright blue star streams trail the troubled galaxy to the lower right. The above recently-released image showing Arp 142 in unprecedented detail was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope last year. Arp 142 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation, coincidently, of the Water Snake (Hydra). In a billion years or so the two galaxies will likely merge into one larger galaxy.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
^ This artist’s impression shows the surroundings of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the active galaxy NGC 3783 in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). New observations using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile have revealed not only the torus of hot dust around the black hole but also a wind of cool material in the polar regions. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Over the years, researchers have taken myriad observations of black holes and their environs, but now ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer is giving us the most detailed look of the dust around a black hole at the center of an active galaxy ever obtained. Originally expected to be contained within the ring-shaped torus around the black hole, the observation held a surprise as astronomers discovered that a significant amount of the dust was located both above and below the torus. What can this mean? According to the latest findings and contrary to popular theory, it is possible the dust is being evacuated from the region as a cool wind.
For the last two decades, astronomers have discovered that nearly all galaxies harbor a black hole at their hearts. In many cases, these monsters increase in size by accreting matter from the immediate vicinity. This, in turn, is responsible for the creation ofactive galactic nuclei(AGN), one of the most energetic objects in the Universe. Surrounding the super-luminous giants are rings of cosmic dust which originate from space – drawn in like water swirling down a dark drain. According to theory, the intense infrared radiation exerted by AGN must have originated from these dusty eddies.
Thanks to the powerful eye of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, astronomers have now seen something new in a nearby active galaxy cataloged as NGC 3783. While they observed the expected hot dust clocking in at some 700 to 1000 degrees Celsius, what they also observed confounded them… Huge amounts of cooler dust both above and below the main torus.
As Sebastian Hönig (University of California Santa Barbara, USA and Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany), lead author of the paper presenting the new results, explains, “This is the first time we’ve been able to combine detailed mid-infrared observations of the cool, room-temperature dust around an AGN with similarly detailed observations of the very hot dust. This also represents the largest set of infrared interferometry for an AGN published yet.”
Is this a black hole teething ring? From their observations, the researchers suspect the newly-discovered dust is flowing outward from the central black hole. This means the wind most likely plays a critical part in the tangled relationship of both the black hole and its surroundings. Apparently the black hole pulls immediate material into it, but the incredible amount of radiation this produces also seems to be pushing it away. Scientists are far from clear as to how these two processes work together, but the discovery of this dusty wind could lead to a better understanding of their evolution.
To get the resolution needed to study the core area of NGC 3783, astronomers needed to use the combined power of the Unit Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Through this union, an interferometer is created – one capable of “seeing” with the equivalent of a 130-meter telescope.
Another team member, Gerd Weigelt (Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany), explains, “By combining the world-class sensitivity of the large mirrors of the VLT with interferometry we are able to collect enough light to observe faint objects. This lets us study a region as small as the distance from our Sun to its closest neighbouring star, in a galaxy tens of millions of light-years away. No other optical or infrared system in the world is currently capable of this.”
What do these new observations mean to the world of astronomy? It might very well change the pattern of how we currently understand AGN. With proof that dust is being expelled by intense radiation, new models must be created – models which include this recent information of how dust can be distributed.
Hönig concludes, “I am now really looking forward to MATISSE, which will allow us to combine all four VLT Unit Telescopes at once and observe simultaneously in the near- and mid-infrared — giving us much more detailed data.” MATISSE, a second generation instrument for the VLTI, is currently under construction.
^ A Space Opera; not an opera more like synthesized orchestra & chorus of sounds of voices singing a couple of vowel sounds without consonants
From YOUTUBE NOTES | The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is made up of four separate optical telescopes (the Antu telescope, the Kueyen telescope, the Melipal telescope, and the Yepun telescope) organized in an array formation, built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at the Paranal Observatory on Cerro Paranal, a 2,635 m high mountain in the Atacama desert in northern Chile.
The array is complemented by four movable Auxiliary Telescopes. Working together in so-called interferometric mode, the telescopes can achieve an angular resolution of around 1 milliarcsecond, equivalent to the gap between the headlights of a car as observed from the same distance as between the Earth to the Moon.
^ IRIS will take a closer look at the lower parts of the sun’s atmosphere, which is producing the spectacular flare shown in this image. Credit: NASA&JAXA/Hinode
How does the sun’s energy flow? Despite the fact that we live relatively close (93 million miles, or eight light-minutes) to this star, and that we have several spacecraft peering at it, we still know little about how energy transfers through the solar atmosphere.
NASA’s next solar mission will launch Wednesday, June 26 (if all goes to plan) to try to learn a little bit more. It’s called theInterface Region Imaging Spectrograph(IRIS), and it will zero in on a spot in the sun’s lower atmosphere known as the “interface region.” The zone only has a thickness of 3,000 to 6,000 miles and is seen as a key transfer point to the sun’s incredibly hot corona (that you can see during total solar eclipses.)
“IRIS will extend our observations of the sun to a region that has historically been difficult to study,” stated Joe Davila, IRIS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Understanding the interface region better improves our understanding of the whole corona and, in turn, how it affects the solar system.”
^ A view of Aleksandr Misurkin during the spacewalk to prepare the International Space Station for a new Russian lab. Image via astronaut Karen Nyberg/NASA.
On Monday, two Russian cosmonauts conducted a 6-hour, 34-minute spacewalk to prepare for a new Russian module that will be launched later this year. Expedition 36 Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin also work on the first module ever launched for the ISS – the Zarya module which has been in space since 1998 – replacing an aging control panels located on the exterior.
The new lab will be a combination research facility, airlock and docking port, and is planned to launch late this year on a Proton rocket.
Watch video highlights of the EVA below:
This was the second of up to six Russian spacewalks planned for this year to prepare for the lab. Two U.S. spacewalks by NASA’s Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency are scheduled in July.
While Yurchikhin and Misurkin worked outside the ISS, the crew inside the ISS were separated and isolated from each other. Cassidy and station commander Pavel Vinogradov were sequestered in their Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft that is attached to the Poisk module on the Russian segment due to the closure of hatches to the other passageways on the Russian side of the station which would have made the Soyuz inaccessible if there was an emergency. Parmitano and US astronaut Karen Nyberg were inside the U.S. segment of the station, and were free to move around since entry to their Soyuz vehicle (TMA-09M) was not blocked by hatch closures, since it is docked to the Rassvet module that is attached to the Zarya module.
NASA said the spacewalk was the 169th in support of space station assembly and maintenance, the sixth for Yurchikhin and the first for Misurkin.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
^ Nearby star Gliese 667C might have three potentially habitable planets. Credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico Arecibo.
A closer look at the previously-studied nearby star Gliese 667C has revealed a treasure trove of planets – at least six – with three super-Earths in the habitable zone around the star. Gliese 667C is part of a triple star system (Gliese 667) and is just over one third of the mass of our Sun. Now that we know there are multiple planets in the so-called Goldilocks zone – a region where liquid water could exist — Gliese 667C might be the best candidate for harboring habitable exo-worlds.
“We knew that the star had three planets from previous studies, so we wanted to see whether there were any more,” said Mikko Tuomi from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, one of the astronomers who led the new study of Gliese 667C. “By adding some new observations and revisiting existing data we were able to confirm these three and confidently reveal several more. Finding three low-mass planets in the star’s habitable zone is very exciting!”
^ Artist’s conception of the seven planets possibly found orbiting Gliese 667C. Three of them (c, f and e) orbit within the habitable zone of the star. Image is courtesy of Rene Heller/ Carnegie Institution for Science.
^ The Spiderweb, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope – a central galaxy (MRC 1138-262) surrounded by hundreds of other star-forming ‘clumps’. Credit: NASA, ESA, George Miley and Roderik Overzier (Leiden Observatory)
Once upon a time, when the Universe was just about three billion years old, galaxies started to form. Now astronomers using a CSIRO radio telescope have captured evidence of the raw materials these galaxies used to fashion their first stars… cold molecular hydrogen gas, H2. Even though we can’t see it directly, we know it is there by using another gas that reveals its presence – carbon monoxide (CO) – a radio wave emitter.
The telescope is CSIRO’s Australia Telescope Compact Array telescope near Narrabri, NSW. “It one of very few telescopes in the world that can do such difficult work, because it is both extremely sensitive and can receive radio waves of the right wavelengths,” says CSIRO astronomer Professor Ron Ekers.
One of the studies of these “raw” galaxies was performed by astronomer Dr. Bjorn Emonts of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science. He and fellow researchers employed the Compact Array to observe and record a gigantic and distant amalgamation of “star forming clumps or proto-galaxies” which are congealing together to create a single massive galaxy. This framework is known as the “Spiderweb” and is theorized to be at least ten thousand million light years distant. The Compact Array radio telescope is capable of picking up the signature of star formation, giving astronomers vital clues about how early galaxies began star formation.
Spitzer Space Telescope is one of NASA’s flagship astronomical observatories, peering into the Universe in the infrared. It ran out of coolant in 2009, losing some of its infrared capabilities, but it still takes wonderful data in two other colors of IR that are useful for mapping the galaxy.
Our Milky Way galaxy is a vast, flat disk, and astronomers are using Spitzer to take images of that disk in a 360-degree panoramic survey to be released later this year (in the clearly artificially acronymed Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire—Glimpse 360). However, they just released pictures of a few small regions that show the telescope is still doing a great job.
Looking toward the constellation of Canis Majoris, near Orion, they spotted an area where stars are being born, and it’s lovely:
^ Stars are born in a cloud of gas and dust in the constellation of Canis Major. Click to cromulently embiggen. All photos by NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Wisconsin
In these images, the green and blue colors are from Spitzer, and red is from observation by WISE, another IR mission that ended in 2011. The red comes mostly from long, complex chains of organic (carbon-based) molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. They are formed when stars are born and when they die. Green is gas, and blue is from older stars. Young stars appear more reddish-yellow, because they’re still encased in the thick shroud of dust in which they were born.
Not only is that pretty, but when you look at it in detail, you see that several of the stars have jets of matter blasting away from them, like in this part:
^ Human babies do this too.
Some of the stars have gas blowing away from them in opposite directions. The detailed physics of this is complex, but young stars blast away gas as they form. A swirling disk of material around a young star can focus that outflow from an expanding sphere into two conical beams going out from the poles of the disk. In the images you can see these beams as short, stubby green fingers pointing in opposite directions away from the star. (I’ve marked a couple with arrows. Don’t confuse them with the sharp spikes every star has; that has to do with the internal optics of the telescopes.)
Here is another part of the image:
^ Chaos and beauty in star birth.
They’re not easy to spot, but if you look closely, you can see a few. The curved backward-comma one in the upper left is the most obvious.
^ This may be a young star beginning to shed its cocoon of gas and dust.I was also intrigued by the object inset here; the gas around it appears to be fuzzy, unlike the jets, but still on opposite ends of the star. I’m not clear what this is, but I suspect it’s a slightly older (though still infant) star, breaking free of its cocoon. Such bipolar structures are sometimes seen in these situations.
More images and descriptions are available in the Spitzer release about the Glimpse survey. These are clearly just a taste of what’s to come in the survey later this year. As an astronomer I’m delighted at the science that will come out of this, and as a human I am awed by the beauty. It’s the best of both—of all—worlds.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
I haven’t posted a dramatic picture of Mercury from the Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft in a long time—not since I moved to Slate, certainly—and I really like this new one, shown above. This is the limb, or apparent edge, of the planet seen near the planet’s south pole from the orbiting spacecraft.
Funny how much it superficially looks like the Moon. Both are airless and rocky, so the color and cratering are similar. But even if you woke me out of a cold sleep, I could tell you that’s not the Moon. I don’t know why, exactly: I’m familiar enough with the Moon’s surface but not so much that I could recognize any random spot.
But even so, these features are just different. The contrast is different than on the Moon, and the crater sizes don’t seem to have the same distribution. Ignoring the craters, the surface also seems flatter than the Moon's, which is littered with hills and mountain chains and hummocks.
This shot of Mercury does show some neat features. The crater with rays, those liner streaks, is probably the most obvious. That’s Han Kan, a 50-kilometer (30-mile) wide impact crater. Rays are formed when plumes of material shoot out from the impact site and settle onto the surface. They wear away with time (erosion from micrometeorites, impact from the solar wind, and even the thermal stress of the extreme temperature difference between day and night contributes to that), so seeing a rayed crater indicates relative youth.
You can also see a couple of double-walled craters, like a crater in a crater. That sometimes forms in larger impacts, thoughthe exact physics isn’t completely understood. (It’s hard to model a gigantic hypervelocity impact when you’re not exactly sure what all the physical processes going on happen to be.) The one just below center is Bach—here’s a shot of it looking straight down—and a little to the north is Cervantes. You can spot more of them, too, if you look around. It helps to have an atlas.
Mercury is a very hard planet to observe from Earth; its orbit around the Sun is smaller, so it never gets very far from the star. That means it’s only up at dawn and dusk, so you don’t get much time to view it before either it sets or the Sun rises. You’re also always looking near our horizon, through our thick air, distorting and dimming the view. In other words, there’s nothing like being there.
We’ve sent probes to the smallest planet in the past, but they were all “fly-by” missions; Messenger was the first to orbit. It’s been an amazing beast, withstanding the heat and radiation of the Sun for years—it went into orbit around Mercury in March 2011 after several years of travel to get there. The primary mission ended in 2012, but it was extended a year, and hopefully it will be extended again; we’re still awaiting word if it will get more time.
Obviously, I hope it does. Mercury is a fascinating little world, so familiar yet so strange. It’s certainly worth taking more time to get a closer look.
_________________ The music is apropos, and I suppose the vid and its title propound no peak-ring basin. Oh well, this was a musically funny find, anyway.
As much as astrophotographer, Thierry Legault, has been mentioned elsewhere, we can see another angle on his wont to make art by photographing spy satellites, among his many other astrophotos we’ve enjoyed. During the beginning few seconds of the video, Mr. Legault says, “People have the right to know that there are spy satellites above their heads. Not only spy satellites, but all kinds of satellites.…”
I’ve omitted putting the large photos in this post, and they can be viewed by clicking on the link above its description in the article, below. Highlights mine.
_________________ Spaced Out: The Satellite Hunter Motherboard, Erin Lee Carr | 7 months ago
Thierry Legault is not your average amateur astronomer, inviting the kids over and pointing a dinky backyard telescope at the Big Dipper. He’s a renowned astrophotographer, painstakingly chronicling the orbits of planets, distant galaxies, spaceships, and—to the chagrin of the intelligence community—of the spy satellites we’re not supposed to see.
These days, we are inundated with a constant feed of reality defying images sent back to us from space by the very carefully calibrated equipment we send up there. But for Thierry, the act of capturing space is a much more personal process. It’s man versus nature.
And upon our rainy arrival at Charles de Gaulle Airport, there she was. As we looked up on the cold and rainy Friday of our arrival in Paris, looking forward to a fantastic voyage of space, the sky thundered its response.
In order to capture a planetary passing, a satellite, or a shuttle, Thierry often travels thousands of miles to the far reaches of the Earth, often in a race with time and weather, and he often fails. “It is not funnest part of the game, driving, and trying to find clear skies, but when it is successful, it is more rewarding,” Theirry says.
Ultimately, weather and timing matter, but so does technology. The very logistics of capturing these fleeting moments themselves tend to involve complex calculations and the help of sophisticated camera and telescope tracking technologies. He often doesn’t actually see the moments in space he photographs because he’s looking at his watch.
He is of course not alone in his quest to photograph our universe. We met up with him at the Meeting of Sky and Space at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie Congress, a massive event that takes place every two years to address how we look at space. Thierry was there to deliver a keynote lecture on the science and future of satellite-tracking and amateur astronomy. In the past decades, the field has revolutionized by digital equipment that can, for instance, help him follow tiny spy satellites as they zip across the sky, or simply help discover camera or telescope problems in real time.
“With a film camera the main disadvantage was you didn’t have the result immediately, but the day after or the week after,” he said. “So now with a digital camera, which is much more sensitive than film, we have the results right now so if the image is blurred or under exposed or over exposed or any kind of problem, we can correct the problem immediately. And so the learning curve for a beginner is much, much faster than before.”
Thierry’s work has appeared in the Guardian, CNN and Popular Science, and seen around the world. His name is synonymous with astrophotography, and he has the distinction of being the first person in the world to spot the Air Force’s miniature space shuttle, the X-37B, during its secret missions, apparently over Afghanistan, in 2011.
The spy organizations of the world—led by the US, which has more satellites in space than any nation—carefully guard the orbits of their classified spacecraft, machines that may be capable of seeing objects as small as perhaps 10 cm (4 inches) across on Earth. That makes Thierry and other amateur satellite-trackers around the planet a tiny thorn in the side of their intelligence effort. Still, he’s not very worried about becoming the subject of a clandestine satellite’s camera.
“We know their trajectory, their orbital data, and we take images with some details,” he said. “But we can’t discover really the capabilities of these satellites. So it’s more like a game,” he said with a laugh, “spying spy satellites.”
Still the passion that Thierry throws into his masterful combination ofscience and arttranscends the technicalities of space and politics. “I photograph satellites because it’s difficult, it’s kind of a challenge with myself. Each time I say ‘can you succeed or not?’ and ‘next time, can you do better? Can you do another satellite, something else, something more difficult?’ So it’s a way to improve my skill with a telescope. It’s like a game or a challenge.”
He savors the philosophical questions too, wondering as he looks up who else—besides the CIA—is looking back down. “When you look at a galaxy and you know that this galaxy is composed of hundreds of billions of stars and around all these stars, like the sun, there are many planets, and perhaps someone, who knows, who is watching us.”
In an age where our images of space come from images and reconstituted data streamed from machines launched by large corporations and NASA-sized organizations—and a future of spaceplanes and entrepreneurs promises to open space to everyone—Thierry Legault remains a lone wolf, a star hunter and satellite tracker who relies on his own methods for making fantastic voyages way beyond Earth.
http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/australia_sky.jpg ^ The full celestial vault, taken with a particular lens covering 180° (fisheye) from the Carnarvon National Park (Queensland), with the Milky Way (our Galaxy) in its brightest part passing near the zenith with the constellations (from left to right): Carina, Centaurus, Southern Cross, Scorpio, Sagittarius (galactic center), Aquila.
http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/wallamanfalls.jpg ^ At Wallaman Falls, between Townsville and Cairns, in north Queensland, the Full Moon enlightens the landscape and its light, combined with the water of the fall, creates a Moonbow. A bright shooting star crosses the Milky Way during the exposure.
See more of Thierry’s spectacular photographs on his website, check out a video of the LaCrosse’s “disappearance trick” on his YouTube channel, and watch more episodes of Motherboard’s Spaced Out.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
more like synthesized orchestra & chorus of sounds of voices singing a couple of vowel sounds without consonants 
