Astronomers have observed two black holes in nearby galaxies devouring their companion stars at an extremely high rate, and spitting out matter at a quarter the speed of light.
Two black holes in nearby galaxies have been observed devouring their companion stars at a rate exceeding classically understood limits, and in the process, kicking out matter into surrounding space at astonishing speeds of around a quarter the speed of light.
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) XMM-Newton space observatory to reveal for the first time strong winds gusting at very high speeds from two mysterious sources of x-ray radiation. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, confirms that these sources conceal a compact object pulling in matter at extraordinarily high rates.
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Can eyeballs bounce? Like if you were to scoop someone's eye out and it came out in perfect shape would it bounce if it fell on the floor?
I’m not sure. They can be rubbery, but I’m not sure if the force required to make them bounce wouldn’t also make them go splat.
Maybe some biology/med students know (I don’t deal much with eyeballs as a Chemistry major).
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This week on NASA Explorers, we’re aboard the International Space Station!
Now that our scientists’ experiment has made it to space, it’s time to see how their samples behave in microgravity.
See how astronauts conduct science in space, while a team back here on Earth conducts their own piece of the project. Watch the episode here:
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Collaborate and Manipulate Data in Virtual Reality
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There is so much humanity has learned from the stars. A few weeks ago I stumbled on a beautiful Navajo creation story that alludes to this.
“When all the stars were ready to be placed in the sky the First Woman said: I will write the laws that are to govern mankind for all time. These laws cannot be written on the water as that is always changing its form, nor can they be written in the sand as the wind would soon erase them, but if they are written in the stars they can be read and remembered forever.” - Navajo creation story quoted in ‘Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith and the Search for Order’ by George Johnson Image: Photographer Jack Fusco recently captured this incredible view of the night sky above the Anza-Borrego Desert in California.
Nearby Star System May Host an Earth-Like Planet
Moonshoal by Brian Rutenberg
Mars is a cold desert world, and is the fourth planet from the sun. It is half the diameter of Earth and has the same amount of dry land. Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons and weather, but its atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist for long on the surface. There are signs of ancient floods on the Red Planet, but evidence for water now exists mainly in icy soil and thin clouds.
Earth has one, Mars has two…moons of course! Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic) are the Red Planet’s two small moons. They are named after the horses that pulled the chariot of the Greek war god Ares, the counterpart to the Roman war god Mars.
The diameter of Mars is 4220 miles (6792 km). That means that the Red Planet is twice as big as the moon, but the Earth is twice as big as Mars.
Since Mars has less gravity than Earth, you would weigh 62% less than you do here on our home planet. Weigh yourself here on the Planets App. What’s the heaviest thing you’ve ever lifted? On Mars, you could have lifted more than twice that! Every 10 pounds on Earth only equals 4 pounds on the Red Planet. Find out why HERE.
Mass is the measurement of the amount of matter something contains. Mars is about 1/10th of the mass of Earth.
Mars and Earth are at their closest point to each other about every two years, with a distance of about 33 million miles between them at that time. The farthest that the Earth and Mars can be apart is: 249 million miles. This is due to the fact that both Mars and Earth have elliptical orbits and Mars’ orbit is tilted in comparison with the Earth’s. They also orbit the sun at different rates.
The temperature on Mars can be as high as 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) or as low as about –225 degrees Fahrenheit (-153 degrees Celsius). How hot or cold the surface varies between day and night and among seasons. Mars is colder than Earth because it is farther from the sun.
You know that onions have layers, but did you know that Mars has layers too? Like Earth, Mars has a crust, a mantle and a core. The same stuff even makes up the planet layers: iron and silicate.
Ever wonder why it’s so hard launching things to space? It’s because the Earth has a log of gravity! Gravity makes things have weight, and the greater the gravity, the more it weights. On Mars, things weigh less because the gravity isn’t as strong.
Take a deep breath. What do you think you just breathed in? Mostly Nitrogen, about a fifth of that breath was Oxygen and the rest was a mix of other gases. To get the same amount of oxygen from one Earth breath, you’d have to take around 14,500 breaths on Mars! With the atmosphere being 100 times less dense, and being mostly carbon dioxide, there’s not a whole lot of oxygen to breathe in.
Mars has about 15% of Earth’s volume. To fill Earth’s volume, it would take over 6 Mars’ volumes.
For more fun Mars facts, visit HERE.
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