{"id":31,"date":"2008-01-10T15:33:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-10T20:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thespacewriter.com\/wp\/2008\/01\/10\/a-firehose-of-astronomy\/"},"modified":"2008-02-23T22:01:26","modified_gmt":"2008-02-24T03:01:26","slug":"a-firehose-of-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thespacewriter.com\/wp\/2008\/01\/10\/a-firehose-of-astronomy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Firehose of Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial\"><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"70%\"><center><\/p>\n<h2>The Cosmic Continuation<\/h2>\n<p><\/center>Today&#8217;s the next-to-last full day of the AAS meeting, and the news just keeps rollin&#8217; out! Here are the cosmic stories making the press release headlines today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The National Radio Astronomy Observatory released <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nrao.edu\/pr\/2008\/m81clouds\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">a new radio image of the spiral galaxy M81 and its satellite M82,<\/a> taken with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank telescope. The new image shows clouds of hydrogen gas discovered streaming among the members of the M81 galaxy group. Also from NRAO, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nrao.edu\/pr\/2008\/things\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">a new set of radio images of galaxies some 6 to 50 million light-years away.<\/a> These are expected yield new insights into many aspects of star birth, motions of gas within galaxies, and the relationship of normal to dark matter in and around galaxies.<\/li>\n<li>While we&#8217;re talking about places in New Mexico (well, we weren&#8217;t, but VLA is in Socorro, NM), there are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mro.nmt.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">two new state-of-the-art telescopes<\/a> coming on line in New Mexico at the Magdalena Ridge Observatory.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of new equipment, the <a href=\"http:\/\/mcdonaldobservatory.org\/news\/releases\/2008\/0110.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">McDonald Observatory<\/a> is upgrading its telescopes and instruments to help astronomers delve more deeply into studies of the mysteries of &#8220;dark energy.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Hubble Space Telescope is in the news this week with several releases: first, <a href=\"http:\/\/hubblesite.org\/news\/2008\/04\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">it found a double Einstein ring<\/a> (a gravitational lens caused visual artifact).  Second, astronomers are <a href=\"http:\/\/hubblesite.org\/news\/2008\/03\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">using HST to dissect galaxies to probe the effects of dark matter<\/a> on galaxy actions. Third, researchers studying <a href=\"http:\/\/hubblesite.org\/news\/2008\/01\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">a newly discovered dust disk around a young star called HD 61005<\/a> (called &#8220;the Moth&#8221;) are learning about new aspects of the formation and evolution of planetary systems.<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sdss.org\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">Sloan Digital Survey<\/a> is beginning a new set of surveys to study the distant universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and giant planets around other stars.<\/li>\n<li>Spitzer Space Telescope has detected what astronomers are calling &#8220;plump&#8221; black holes in skinny galaxies. For the skinny on that one (and a cool artist&#8217;s concept of what this might look like) go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spitzer.caltech.edu\/Media\/releases\/ssc2008-01\/release.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">to the Spitzer Space Telescope<\/a> site.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, astronomers at NaSA Goddard Space Flight Center are studying a bizarre side effect of black holes:  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/topics\/universe\/features\/blackhole_echo.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external\">light echoes.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I just got back from an overview of the state of the art in radio astronomy, preceded by a code-writing workshop using GoogleSky. The Google folks are here in force, helping astronomers make use of Google tools on their web pages and in the classroom. Now&#8230; I&#8217;m headed down to the exhibit hall! I&#8217;ll have more thoughts and stories later on.<\/table>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cosmic Continuation Today&#8217;s the next-to-last full day of the AAS meeting, and the news just keeps rollin&#8217; out! Here are the cosmic stories making the press release headlines today: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory released a new radio image of the spiral galaxy M81 and its satellite M82, taken with the Robert C. Byrd &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thespacewriter.com\/wp\/2008\/01\/10\/a-firehose-of-astronomy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Firehose of Astronomy<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[17,50,13,27],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Firehose of Astronomy - The Spacewriter&#039;s Ramblings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thespacewriter.com\/wp\/2008\/01\/10\/a-firehose-of-astronomy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Firehose of Astronomy - The Spacewriter&#039;s Ramblings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Cosmic Continuation Today&#8217;s the next-to-last full day of the AAS meeting, and the news just keeps rollin&#8217; out! 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