October 31, 2011

Good Morning,

Happy Halloween! There is a great article at the end of this issue that covers the flight of an unmanned airship that climbed higher than any other before it. Check out the last article for details.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Rate of merges between galaxies studied

BALTIMORE - Hubble Space Telescope images and computer simulations have pinned down the rate at which smaller galaxies merge to form bigger ones, U.S. astronomers say. The merger rate is one of the fundamental measures of galaxy evolution, yielding clues to how galaxies bulked up over time through encounters with other galaxies. Initial deep-field surveys made by Hubble generated an imprecise range of results, suggesting 5 percent or 25 percent of the galaxies were merging, depending on how the date was analyzed, NASA said in a release. In a study led by Jennifer Lotz of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, a new analysis of the observations combined with supercomputer simulation of galaxy collisions yielded a much more precise estimate that falls midway between the two estimates. "Our simulations offer a realistic picture of mergers between galaxies," she said. "Having an accurate value for the merger rate is critical because galactic collisions may be a key process that drives galaxy assembly, rapid star formation at early times, and the accretion of gas onto central supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies," Lotz said.


Ancient climate data may predict future

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Prehistoric data on greenhouse gases from studies of the ocean floor could predict Earth's climate future, researchers at the University of Missouri say. The greenhouse climate on Earth of the Late Cretaceous Epoch was influenced by circulation in the deep oceans, they said, and changes in those circulation patterns 70 million years ago could help scientists understand the consequences of modern increases in greenhouse gases. "We are examining ocean conditions from several past greenhouse climate intervals so that we can understand better the interactions among the atmosphere, the oceans, the biosphere, and climate," Kenneth MacLeod, professor of geological sciences, said in a UM release Thursday. While high atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide caused Late Cretaceous warmth, ocean circulation influenced how that warmth was distributed around the globe, the researchers said. "Understanding the degree to which climate influences circulation and vice versa is important today because carbon dioxide levels are rapidly approaching levels most recently seen during ancient greenhouse times," MacLeod said. "In just a few decades, humans are causing changes in the composition of the atmosphere that are as large as the changes that took millions of years to occur during geological climate cycles."


Large asteroid to be studied in Earth pass

GREENBELT, Md. - A giant asteroid that could threaten Earth in the distant future will pass close enough for Earth observatories to study and measure it, astronomers say. At its closest approach Nov. 8, asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass within 201,700 miles of Earth, inside the orbit of the moon, SPACE.com reported Thursday. Scientists will track the asteroid with antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., the space agency said. Although the asteroid's orbit regularly brings it into the vicinity of Earth, the November encounter is the closest it has come for at least the last 200 years, astronomers said. The last time an asteroid this big came as close to Earth was in 1976, although astronomers were unaware of the flyby at the time. The next known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028, NASA said.


Calif. airship reaches record height

BLACK ROCK DESERT, Nev. - An unmanned airship created by a California company flew 95,085 feet into the air, higher than any airship in history, the company said. JP Aerospace of Rancho Cordova took the twin-balloon Tandem airship to Nevada's Black Rock Desert Sunday for the launch, KTXL-TV, Sacramento, reported. Remotely controlled by an operator on the ground, the Tandem's two balloons are separated by a 30-foot-long carbon fiber truss while two 6-foot propellers are each driven by an electric motor to maneuver the airship. Once at the record-breaking height, the motors were turned on to fly the ship through a series of maneuvers. However, when one of the balloons burst the Tandem was brought down to a soft landing with the help of five parachutes. Tandem was built to be a "workhorse vehicle" to carry smaller research rockets to high altitudes at a fraction of the cost large aerospace companies are spending, company officials said. "We've spent about $30,000 and the past five years developing Tandem," JP Aerospace President John Powell said in a release.

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