Sci Fi in reality

I open this thread for glory scf fi ppl .... I'd love if could be here all the achievements of modern astronomy.

Astronomers have discovered that two symmetrical jets shooting away from
opposite sides of a blossoming star are experiencing a time delay:
knots of gas and dust from one jet blast off four-and-a-half years later
than identical knots from the other jet...

...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa…news/spitzer20110316.html

NASA's Hubble Celebrates 21st Anniversary with 'Rose' of Galaxies

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa…/science/hubble-rose.html

Spitzer Detects Shadow of 'Super-Earth' in Front of Nearby Star

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re…/2011/05/110504111047.htm

uhhh good video,

It is interesting to note that the mathematics behind these calculations are very simple. Trigonometry.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/uni…tures/planet20110518.html

Free-Floating Planets May Be More Common Than Stars

rofl

Who is interested:

//It is interesting that you never get a wrong result//

[video]

fuf

Having a Solar Blast

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa…ews/News060711-blast.html

#sensor efficiency reduced#

A Big Surprise from the Edge of the Solar System

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa…heliosphere-surprise.html

Quote

The structure of the sun's distant magnetic field—foam vs. no-foam—is of
acute scientific importance because it defines how we interact with the
rest of the galaxy. Researchers call the region where the Voyagers are
now "the heliosheath." It is essentially the border crossing between the
Solar System and the rest of the Milky Way. Lots of things try to get
across—interstellar clouds, knots of galactic magnetism, cosmic rays and
so on. Will these intruders encounter a riot of bubbly magnetism (the
new view) or graceful lines of magnetic force leading back to the sun
(the old view)?

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Quote

The case of cosmic rays is illustrative. Galactic cosmic rays are
subatomic particles accelerated to near-light speed by distant black
holes and supernova explosions. When these microscopic cannonballs try
to enter the solar system, they have to fight through the sun's magnetic
field to reach the inner planets.

"The magnetic bubbles appear to be our first line of defense against
cosmic rays," points out Opher. "We haven't figured out yet if this is a
good thing or not."

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#cruise speed 360#

Voyager 1, Voyager 2 ----artist's concept

IC part II

Nearby Galaxy Boasts Two Monster Black Holes, Both Active

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa…/monster-black-holes.html

Quote

Zoom into Markarian 739, a nearby galaxy
hosting two monster black holes. Using NASA's Swift and Chandra,
astronomers have shown that both black holes are producing energy as gas
falls into them. The object is only the second-known binary active
galactic nucleus within half-a-billion light-years. (No audio.
Animation begins with visible light view of Markarian 739 and
transitions into an artistic rendering of the two black holes. Credit:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

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New Supernova Remnant Lights Up

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/21/

Quote

June 9, 2011: Astronomers using NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope are witnessing the
unprecedented transition of a supernova to a supernova remnant, where
light from an exploding star in a neighboring galaxy, the Large
Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth in February 1987. Named Supernova
1987A, it was the closest supernova explosion witnessed in almost 400
years. The supernova's close proximity to Earth has allowed astronomers
to study it in detail as it evolves. Now, the supernova debris, which
has
faded over the years, is brightening. This means that a different power
source has begun to light the debris. The debris of SN 1987A is
beginning to impact the surrounding ring, creating powerful shock waves
that generate X-rays observed with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Those X-rays are illuminating the supernova debris and shock heating is
making it glow in visible light. The results are being reported in
today's issue of the journal Nature by a team including Robert Kirshner
of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who leads a
long-term study of SN 1987A with Hubble. Since its launch in 1990, the
Hubble telescope
has provided a continuous record of the changes in SN 1987A.

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NASA Studying Ways to Make 'Tractor Beams' a Reality

NASA -
NASA Studying Ways to Make 'Tractor Beams' a Reality

"Tractor beams -- the ability to trap and move objects using laser light
-- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has
won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or
atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting
spacecraft for analysis.

The NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) has awarded Principal
Investigator Paul Stysley and team members Demetrios Poulios and Barry
Coyle at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., $100,000
to study three experimental methods for corralling particles and
transporting them via laser light to an instrument -- akin to a vacuum
using suction to collect and transport dirt to a canister or bag. Once
delivered, an instrument would then characterize their composition.

"Though a mainstay in science fiction, and Star Trek in particular,
laser-based trapping isn't fanciful or beyond current technological
know-how," Stysley said. The team has identified three different
approaches for transporting particles, as well as single molecules,
viruses, ribonucleic acid, and fully functioning cells, using the power
of light.

"The original thought was that we could use tractor beams for cleaning
up orbital debris," Stysley said. "But to pull something that huge would
be almost impossible -- at least now. That's when it bubbled up that
perhaps we could use the same approach for sample collection."

With the Phase-1 funding from OCT's recently reestablished NASA
Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program designed to spur the
development of "revolutionary" space technologies, the team will study
the state of the technology to determine which of the three techniques
would apply best to sample collection. OCT received hundreds of
proposals, ultimately selecting only 30 for initial funding. ... ...
"