August 20, 2012

Good Morning,

A particular galaxy cluster is gaining attention as it breaks records in happenings such as star creation. Check out all the details on this megalithic celestial body in the third article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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ISS orbit adjustment maneuver fails

MOSCOW - The European Space Agency's ATV-3 space freighter failed on Wednesday to readjust the orbit of the International Space Station, a space industry source said. Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said earlier in the day the engines of the Edoardo Amaldi spacecraft, docked at Russia's Zvezda module on the ISS, would be fired to raise the ISS orbit by 4.8 miles to 258 miles, RIA Novosti reported. The orbital adjustment was intended to ensure the best conditions for the landing of Russia's Soyuz TMA-04M manned spacecraft on its return to Earth and the docking of the Soyuz TMA-06M manned spacecraft with the ISS, scheduled for October 15. Adjustments to the space station's orbit are conducted periodically to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to facilitate the successful docking and undocking of spacecraft. Another attempt could be made Friday, experts said.


Attempt at hypersonic flight fails

POINT MUGU, Calif. - An attempt at hypersonic flight ended Tuesday when a control fin on an unmanned scramjet-powered X-51A craft failed, the U.S. Air Force announced. The experimental X-51A Waverider failed in its bid to reach Mach 5, or around 3,800 mph. The craft separated as planned from its B-52 mother ship in flight over the Pacific Ocean above the Point Mugu Naval Air Test Range in California, but things quickly went wrong after that, an Air Force statement said. "The X-51 safely separated from the B-52 and the rocket booster fired as planned. However after 16 seconds, a fault was identified with one of the cruiser control fins. Once the X-51 separated from the rocket booster, approximately 15 seconds later, the cruiser was not able to maintain control due to the faulty control fin and was lost," the statement said. The flight had been intended to last 5 minutes, CNET reported. "It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the scramjet engine," Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager for Air Force Research Laboratory, said in a statement.


Record-breaking cosmic object seen

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A galaxy cluster, one of the largest objects in the universe, is breaking several cosmic records for star formation and energy output, U.S. astronomers say. The Phoenix cluster, located about 5.7 billion light years from Earth, is forming stars at the highest rate ever observed for the middle of a galaxy cluster and is the most powerful producer of X-rays of any known cluster, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., reported Wednesday. The cluster, one of the largest in the universe, is named not only for the constellation in which it is located but also for its remarkable properties, astronomers said. "While galaxies at the center of most clusters may have been dormant for billions of years, the central galaxy in this cluster seems to have come back to life with a new burst of star formation," Michael McDonald, a Hubble Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said. "The mythology of the Phoenix, a bird rising from the dead, is a great way to describe this revived object." The Phoenix cluster and its central galaxy and supermassive black hole are crucial objects for studying cosmology and galaxy evolution, scientists said. "This spectacular star burst is a very significant discovery because it suggests we have to rethink how the massive galaxies in the centers of clusters grow," said Martin Rees of Cambridge University, a world-renowned cosmologist who was not involved in the study.


World's oceans given 'health' rating

VICTORIA, British Columbia - An international team of scientists has given the world's oceans a health score of 60 out of 100, Canadian team members reported Wednesday. Researchers at the University of British Columbia were part of the effort to make the first global quantitative assessment of ocean health and its benefits to people and created the Ocean Health Index, based on the ecological, social, economic, and political conditions for every coastal country in the world. Within the global score of 60, those of individual countries varied widely, the researchers said, from Sierra Leone with a failing score of 36 to Jarvis Island, an uninhabited, relatively pristine island in the South Pacific with the highest score of 86, a UBC release reported. Canada was given a score of 70 while the United States received 63 and Britain received 62. "The Ocean Health Index offers an excellent framework to assess if things are getting better or worse in response to our actions," study co-author Daniel Pauly said. Whether the global average of 60 is good or bad is a matter of perspective, researchers said. "Is the score far from perfect with ample room for improvement, or more than half way to perfect with plenty of reason to applaud success? I think it's both," lead study author Ben Halpern, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said. "What the Index does is help us separate our gut feelings about good and bad from the measurement of what's happening."

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