Heavens

Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of radioactive waves known in the universe. However, how they're made and where they come from have been a bit of a mystery.

But now a team of researchers, led by Michigan State University astronomer Laura Chomiuk, has made a discovery that may shed some light on the subject.

Using highly detailed radio telescope images, Chomiuk and her team have pinpointed the location where an explosion on the surface of a star, known as a nova, emitted gamma rays.

This, said Chomiuk, is something they did not expect to encounter.

The Northern Indian Ocean has awakened after a tropical slumber and created Tropical Storm Hudhud on Oct. 8 and NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Hudhud on Oct. 8 at 6:53 UTC (2:53 a.m. EDT and captured infrared data on the storm revealing bands of strong thunderstorms around the center.

Astronomers working with NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), led by Caltech's Fiona Harrison, have found a pulsating dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns. The object, previously thought to be a black hole because it is so powerful, is in fact a pulsar—the incredibly dense rotating remains of a star.

Two NASA satellites provided data on clouds, rainfall and the diameter of the eye of Super Typhoon Vongfong as it turned north in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Typhoon Vongfong formed on October 2, 2014 southeast of Guam. Typhoon Phanfone, that recently pummeled Japan, formed near the same area in the western Pacific Ocean.

Plant scientists are working to improve important food crops such as rice, maize, and beans to meet the food needs of a growing world population. However, boosting crop output will require improving more than what can be seen of these plants above the ground. Root systems are essential to gathering water and nutrients, but understanding what's happening in these unseen parts of the plants has until now depended mostly on lab studies and subjective field measurements.

Highly-detailed radio-telescope images have pinpointed the locations where a stellar explosion called a nova emitted gamma rays, the most energetic form of electromagnetic waves. The discovery revealed a probable mechanism for the gamma-ray emissions, which mystified astronomers when first observed in 2012.

"We not only found where the gamma rays came from, but also got a look at a previously-unseen scenario that may be common in other nova explosions," said Laura Chomiuk, of Michigan State University.

Astronomers have discovered a black hole that is consuming gas from a nearby star 10 times faster than previously thought possible. The black hole—known as P13—lies on the outskirts of the galaxy NGC7793 about 12 million light years from Earth and is ingesting a weight equivalent to 100 billion billion hot dogs every minute.

The discovery was published today in the journal Nature.

An international team of astronomers has been able to see into the heart of an exploding star, by combining data from telescopes that are hundreds or even thousands of kilometres apart. Their results are published at 18:00 hours on Oct 8 2014 in the journal Nature.

The remnants of Hurricane Simon were fanning out over the desert Southwestern U.S. on Oct. 8 and NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on the thunderstorms expected to bring flash flooding.

For Antarctica, key variables include the atmospheric and oceanic conditions, as well as the effects of an icy land surface, changing atmospheric chemistry, the ozone hole, months of darkness and more.

"Its really not surprising to people in the climate field that not every location on the face of Earth is acting as expected – it would be amazing if everything did," Parkinson said. "The Antarctic sea ice is one of those areas where things have not gone entirely as expected. So it's natural for scientists to ask, 'OK, this isn't what we expected, now how can we explain it?'"

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a laser-based imaging system that creates high-definition 3D maps of surfaces from as far away as 10.5 meters.* The method may be useful in diverse fields, including precision machining and assembly, as well as in forensics.

Treatment with dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA), an oral chelation agent, was linked to reductions in the amount of lead in blood in young children in Zamfara State, Nigeria following environmental lead contamination, according to a study by Jane Greig and colleagues from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

LONDON, ON – New research shows probiotic yogurt can reduce the uptake of certain heavy metals and environmental toxins by up to 78% in pregnant women. Led by Scientists at Lawson Health Research Institute's Canadian Centre for Human Microbiome and Probiotic Research, this study provides the first clinical evidence that a probiotic yogurt can be used to reduce the deadly health risks associated with mercury and arsenic.

Typhoon Vongfong strengthened into a Super typhoon on Tuesday, October 7 as NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead.

Typhoon Phanfone packed heavy rainfall as it brushed over Japan and NASA's TRMM satellite identified where the rain fell. That data was used to make a map of rainfall totals.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite has the ability to calculate rainfall rates within storms as it orbits around the Earth's tropics from space. TRMM data can also be used to create rainfall maps that show how much rain has fallen over given areas.