Hubble Serves Up a Holiday Snow Angel
NASA – The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched “wings” of the nebula record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
A Galaxy Cluster Gets Sloshed
Like wine in a glass, vast clouds of hot gas are sloshing back and forth in Abell 2052, a galaxy cluster located about 480 million light years from Earth. X-ray data (blue) from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the hot gas in this dynamic system, and optical data (gold) from the Very Large Telescope shows the galaxies. The hot, X-ray bright gas has an average temperature of about 30 million degrees.
A huge spiral structure in the hot gas — spanning almost a million light years — is seen around the outside of the image, surrounding a giant elliptical galaxy at the center. This spiral was created when a small cluster of galaxies smashed into a larger one that surrounds the central elliptical galaxy.
The smaller cluster passed the cluster core, the direction of motion of the cluster gas reversed and it traveled back towards the cluster center. The cluster gas moved through the center again and “sloshed” back and forth, similar to wine sloshing in a glass that was jerked sideways. The sloshing gas ended up in a spiral pattern because the collision between the two clusters was off-center.
The Chandra data show clear bubbles evacuated by material blasted away from the black hole, which are surrounded by dense, bright, cool rims. As with the sloshing, this activity helps prevent cooling of the gas in the cluster’s core, setting limits on the growth of the giant elliptical galaxy and its supermassive black hole. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/BU/L.Blanton; Optical: ESO/VLT
- Galactic Views (16) (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)
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Posted in Nature, Science, SPACE WATCH
Tagged Chandra X-ray Observatory, European Space Agency, Galaxy, Galaxy groups and clusters, Milky Way, NASA, Space, Star-forming region, Very Large Telescope
By John B. Taylor – Like the one-time rebate of 2001, the temporary tax cut of 2008, the cash-for-clunkers and stimulus payments of 2009, or similar policies tried back in the 1970s, these temporary policies consistently fail to stimulate sustainable recoveries. And as this history shows, extending the temporary reduction from two months to six months or even to 12 months would be at best a marginal improvement.
Demand for investment will increase if policy unpredictability is reduced. And consumption demand will increase if workers’ incomes increase on a more permanent basis, which requires a sustainable recovery with much lower unemployment, not the current short-termism of stimulus packages. more> http://is.gd/IaEF3u
Posted in Business, Economy, Leadership, Regulations
Tagged Barack Obama, Car Allowance Rebate System, Financial crisis, Government, Harry Reid, Jobs, John Boehner, Tax, Tax cut, United States
By Charles Murray – Some experts believe that electric cars need to come first, or at least in tandem with renewables. In a V2G world, they say, electric cars would dump their battery power back onto the grid, serving as an enabler for wind and solar energy.
Because renewable energy is an intermittent power source, it needs to be backed up a by a “load balancer,” such as coal or nuclear. Proponents of V2G see the electric car battery as the balancing element of the future when wind and sunlight aren’t available. more> http://is.gd/Q5fYCY
CONGRESS WATCH Rep. Ryan: Prospects for Progress if We Stay the Course, Rep. Paul Ryan, theJournalTimes.com/US Congress
CONGRESS WATCH Congresswoman Kaptur’s Floor Speeches, US Congress Kaptur TV, YouTube [VIDEO]