Heavens

The reddest galaxies with the largest central bulb show the largest bars -gigantic central columns of stars and dark matter-, according to a scientific study that used Google Maps to observe the sky. A group of volunteers of more than 200,000 participants of the galaxy classification project Galaxy Zoo contributed to this research.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government should embark on a coordinated, funded, and sustained effort to dispose of approximately 45,000 excess and underutilized facilities, says a new report from the National Research Council. Approximately $1.6 billion is spent annually to operate and maintain federal facilities that are no longer needed to support federal agencies' missions.

SAN FRANCISCO –November 3, 2011– A new study sponsored by NASA finds that space flights lasting six months or more can cause a spectrum of changes in astronauts' visual systems. Some problems, including blurry vision, appear to persist long after astronauts' return to Earth. The results are affecting plans for long-duration manned space voyages, such as a trip to Mars. The study team included ophthalmologists Thomas H. Mader, MD, of Alaska Native Medical Center and Andrew G. Lee, MD, of The Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas.

The TRMM satellite passed directly above a recently formed tropical cyclone in the Arabian Sea on November 2, 2011 at 0350 UTC (11:50 p.m. EDT, Nov. 1). An analysis of rainfall was done using TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments. TRMM data showed that rainfall rates with tropical storm Keila ranged from light to moderate along the south-eastern coast of Oman. Moderate to heavy rainfall was revealed to be spiraling into Keila's center of circulation in the Arabian Sea near the southeastern coast of Oman.

Scientists within the New York Center for Astrobiology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have compiled years of research to help locate areas in outer space that have extreme potential for complex organic molecule formation. The scientists searched for methanol, a key ingredient in the synthesis of organic molecules that could lead to life. Their results have implications for determining the origins of molecules that spark life in the cosmos.

New York, NY -- Anyone who uses multithreaded computer programs -- and that's all of us, as these are the programs that power nearly all software applications including Office, Windows, MacOS, and Google Chrome Browser, and web services like Google Search, Microsoft Bing, and iCloud, -- knows well the frustration of computer crashes, bugs, and other aggravating problems. The most widely used method to harness the power we require from multicore processors, multithreaded programs can be difficult for programmers to get right and they often contain elusive bugs called races.

The discovery of 13 diffuse interstellar bands with the longest wavelengths to date could someday solve a 90-year-old mystery.

Astronomers have identified the new bands using data collected by the Gemini North telescope of stars in the center of the Milky Way.

Nature reports on its website today findings that support recent ideas about the presence of large, possibly carbon-based organic molecules—"carriers"—hidden in interstellar dust clouds. The paper will also appear in the Nov. 10 print issue of the journal.

Converting sunlight into electricity is not economically attractive because of the high cost of solar cells, but a recent, purely optical approach to improving luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) may ease the problem, according to researchers at Argonne National Laboratories and Penn State.

Gamma-ray bursts are the brightest explosions in the Universe [1]. They are first spotted by orbiting observatories that detect the initial short burst of gamma rays. After their positions have been pinned down, they are then immediately studied using large ground-based telescopes that can detect the visible-light and infrared afterglows that the bursts emit over the succeeding hours and days. One such burst, called GRB 090323 [2], was first spotted by the NASA Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) that will fly on the next Landsat satellite came out of its first round of thermal vacuum testing Tuesday, Oct. 4 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- An international research team led by the University at Buffalo has shown that large energy fluctuations can rile even a "relaxed" system, raising questions about how energy might travel through structures ranging from the ocean to DNA.

The research appeared online Oct. 21 in Physical Review E.

The creation of the Universe was a messy business, and billions of years after the Big Bang, material still litters the dark space between stars. In these cold interstellar regions, gas and dust specks swirl together, sometimes coalescing to form new stars, sometimes expanding as dying stars spew forth new material into the void.

Fat doughnut-shaped dust shrouds that obscure about half of supermassive black holes could be the result of high speed crashes between planets and asteroids, according to a new theory from an international team of astronomers. The scientists, led by Dr. Sergei Nayakshin of the University of Leicester, publish their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Analysis of the data collected during Rosetta spacecraft fly-by indicates that the Lutetia asteroid that was observed in 2010 is a dense, intact relic dating back to the birth of our solar system. Rosetta passed the Lutetia asteroid at close range in summer 2010. The asteroid was measured to be more than 100 kilometers in diameter. The new research results in Science were acquired through international cooperation, and the analysis was based on a mathematical method developed by Professor Mikko Kaasalainen.

Three planets, each orbiting its own giant, dying star, have been discovered by an international research team. Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the astronomers observed the planets' parent stars -- called HD 240237, BD +48 738, and HD 96127 -- tens of light years away from our solar system.

One of the massive, dying stars has an additional mystery object orbiting it, according to team leader Alex Wolszczan, an Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State, who, in 1992, became the first astronomer ever to discover planets outside our solar system.