Topic: Caltech

NASA’s Kepler space telescope discovers White Dwarf bending light of nearby Star

April 7, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Kepler space telescope has witnessed the effects of a dead star bending the light of its companion star. The findings are among the first detections of this phenomenon — a result of Einstein’s general theory of relativity — in binary, or double, star systems.

The dead star, called a white dwarf, is the burnt-out core of what used to be a star like our sun. It is locked in an orbiting dance with its partner, a small “red dwarf” star. While the tiny white dwarf is physically smaller than the red dwarf, it is more massive.

This artist’s concept depicts a dense, dead star called a white dwarf crossing in front of a small, red star. The white dwarf’s gravity is so great it bends and magnifies light from the red star. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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Herschel Space Observatory searches for Massive Stars

March 31, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – In this new view of a vast star-forming cloud called W3, the Herschel space observatory tells the story of how massive stars are born. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions.

W3 is a giant gas cloud containing an enormous stellar nursery, some 6,200 light-years away in the Perseus Arm, one of our Milky Way galaxy’s main spiral arms.

W3 is an enormous stellar nursery about 6,200 light-years away in the Perseus Arm, one of the Milky Way galaxy’s main spiral arms, which hosts both low- and high-mass star formation. In this image from the Herschel space observatory, the low-mass forming stars are seen as tiny yellow dots embedded in cool red filaments, while the highest-mass stars — with greater than eight times the mass of our sun — emit intense radiation, heating up the gas and dust around them and appearing here in blue. (Image credits: ESA/PACS & SPIRE consortia, A. Rivera-Ingraham & P.G. Martin, Univ. Toronto, HOBYS Key Programme (F. Motte))

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NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captures image of giant star Zeta Ophiuchi speeding through Space

December 20, 2012 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA -  Like a ship plowing through still waters, the giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is speeding through space, making waves in the dust ahead. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a dramatic, infrared portrait of these glowing waves, also known as a bow shock.

Astronomers theorize that this star was once sitting pretty next to a companion star even heftier than itself. But when that star exploded, Zeta Ophiuchi was kicked away and sent flying. Zeta Ophiuchi, which is 20 times more massive and 80,000 times brighter than our sun, is racing along at about 54,000 mph (24 kilometers per second).

The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is having a “shocking” effect on the surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Stellar winds flowing out from this fast-moving star are making ripples in the dust as it approaches, creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads, which, for this star, are only seen in infrared light. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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The Spark of a New Era

October 21, 2011 |

Written by DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Seventy-five years ago this Halloween, at 9:00am, a truck from the California Institute of Technology turned on to a road owned by the Pasadena Water Department and after heading down a small hill came to a stop. Its tired occupants – they had spent the night before preparing and had only three hours sleep – clambered out and began the laborious job of carrying a truck full of cumbersome test equipment another 400 yards into the dirt and scruffy brush of Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco.

They were there in an isolated, dry, scrub-strewn gulch three miles north of the Rose Bowl to scientifically measure the thrust developed by one of the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket motors. They were there to accurately calculate the efficiency of the motor. They were there because, there, they most likely would not kill anyone – except perhaps themselves.

One of the early rocket motor experiments in the Arroyo Seco. (Image credit: JPL)

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Space Observatory Provides Clues to Creation of Earth’s Oceans

October 7, 2011 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth’s surface ended up covered in water.

New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth’s oceans. This remote region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.

New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory have discovered water with the same chemical signature as our oceans in a comet called Hartley 2 (pictured at right). (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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