Heavens

Could it be that dark matter "halos" — the huge, invisible cocoons of mass that envelop entire galaxies and account for most of the matter in the universe — aren't completely dark after all but contain a small number of stars? Astronomers from UCLA, UC Irvine and elsewhere make a case for that.

Astronomers have long disagreed about why they see more light in the universe than it seems they should — that is, why the infrared light they observe exceeds the amount of light emitted from known galaxies.

ESA's quartet of satellites studying Earth's magnetosphere, Cluster, has discovered that our protective magnetic bubble lets the solar wind in under a wider range of conditions than previously believed.

Earth's magnetic field is our planet's first line of defence against the bombardment of the solar wind. This stream of plasma is launched by the Sun and travels across the Solar System, carrying its own magnetic field with it.

Using a whopping nine-gigapixel image from the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory, an international team of astronomers has created a catalogue of more than 84 million stars in the central parts of the Milky Way. This gigantic dataset contains more than ten times more stars than previous studies and is a major step forward for the understanding of our home galaxy. The image gives viewers an incredible, zoomable view of the central part of our galaxy.

Astronomy & Astrophysics published the first analysis of a catalog of 84 million individual stars in the Milky Way bulge as a part of the VVV ESO public survey. This gigantic data set allows building the largest, deepest, and most accurate color-magnitude diagram ever produced, containing more than ten times more stars than any previous study.

When regulatory systems for medical products in low-and middle-income countries work, people live but when such systems fail, people die, according to experts from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Infrared imagery from the AIRS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite revealed that the strongest thunderstorms within the Atlantic Ocean's Tropical Depression 19 seem to form a backwards letter "C" stretching from northeast to southeast around the storm's center. That "C" is a band of thunderstorms around the eastern side of the storm.

The eighteenth tropical depression only took six hours to strengthen into Tropical Storm Sandy, confirming NASA research that sighting of hot towers leads to intensification. Sandy may further intensify into a hurricane and watches and warnings have been posted in the Caribbean Sea. On Oct. 23, a Hurricane Watch and Tropical Storm Warning were in effect for Jamaica, and a tropical storm watch was in effect for Haiti.

ARLINGTON, Va.—Adm. Mark Ferguson, vice chief of naval operations, headlined the opening of the ONR (Office of Naval Research) Naval S&T (science and technology) Partnership Conference and ASNE Expo Oct. 22, 2012, and highlighted the importance of innovative S&T programs being developed by the Navy. He also offered a revealing look at the potential future for the Navy if sequestration, or automatic defense cuts, goes into effect in January.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This can disrupt radio signals for anywhere from minutes to hours.

Hubble astronomers have looked at one of the most distant and brightest quasars in the universe and are surprised by what they did not see: the underlying host galaxy of stars feeding the quasar. The best explanation is that the galaxy is shrouded in so much dust that the stars are completely hidden everywhere. Astronomers believe that the James Webb Space Telescope will reveal the galaxy.

ANN ARBOR—Less than half of Generation X adults can identify our home in the universe, a spiral galaxy, according to a University of Michigan report.

"Knowing your cosmic address is not a necessary job skill, but it is an important part of human knowledge about our universe and—to some extent—about ourselves," said Jon D. Miller, author of "The Generation X Report" and director of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the U-M Institute for Social Research.

Tropical Depression 18 (TD18) formed over the southwestern Caribbean Sea at 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 22, and NASA's TRMM satellite saw a "hot towering" thunderstorm near its center of circulation hinting that it could become a tropical storm soon. A tropical storm watch has been issued for Jamaica.

When NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew over the developing TD18 early on Oct. 22 at 0040 UTC (Oct. 21 at 8:40 p.m. EDT), the satellite measured rainfall rates within the low pressure area and measured cloud heights of the thunderstorms that make up the low.

Get ready for a fascinating eating experience in the center of our galaxy.

The event involves a black hole that may devour much of an approaching cloud of dust and gas known as G2.

A supercomputer simulation prepared by two Lab physicists and a former postdoc suggests that some of G2 will survive, although its surviving mass will be torn apart, leaving it with a different shape and questionable fate.

RENO, Nev. – A research team at the University of Nevada, Reno has developed a new environmentally-friendly coating for aluminum to replace the carcinogenic chromate coatings used in aerospace applications. The chromate conversion coatings have been used for more than 50 years to protect aluminum from corrosion.

The team presented their research last week at the international Pacific Rim Meeting on Electrochemical and Solid-State Science in Hawaii.

Most big galaxies fit into one of two camps: pinwheel-shaped spiral galaxies and blobby elliptical galaxies. Spirals like the Milky Way are hip and happening places, with plenty of gas and dust to birth new stars. Ellipticals are like cosmic retirement villages, full of aging residents in the form of red giant stars. Now, astronomers have discovered that one well-known elliptical has a split personality. Centaurus A is hiding a gassy spiral in its center.