Concordia Sky
18-10-2012 03:01 PM CEST
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
Another starry night – or day – at Concordia research station in Antarctica. This photo was taken during four months of winter when the Sun never rises above the horizon.
Built on an ice plateau 3200 m up in one of the remotest places on Earth, the base hosts many research projects, from meteorology and glaciology to astronomy, technology and human biology.
ESA sponsors a medical research doctor in Concordia every winter to study the long-term effects of isolation.
Credits: ESA/IPEV/PNRA – A. Kumar
Radioactive decay of titanium powers supernova remnant
18-10-2012 11:28 AM CEST
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
Supernova remnant SNR1987A is located 166 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light from the stellar explosion arrived at Earth in 1987, and has since provided astronomers with a natural laboratory to monitor how the brightness of a supernova changes over time.
Dominating this Hubble Space Telescope view of the remnant are two glowing loops and a very bright ring of shocked hotspots surrounding the location of the now-exploded central star. The material making up these loops and rings was probably ejected from the star earlier in its history and is now being illuminated by the supernova and its shockwave.
The titanium-44 detected by Integral is powering only the innermost part of the remnant.
Astronomers expect a neutron star to have been left after the explosion, but no definitive evidence for it has yet been found.
The field of view is about 25 x 25 arcseconds.
For more information, please click here.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA
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