Ongoing important Science news thread

[Regulator75]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27441156

Fossilised bones of a dinosaur believed to be the largest creature ever to walk the Earth have been unearthed in Argentina, palaeontologists say.

Based on its huge thigh bones, it was 40m (130ft) long and 20m (65ft) tall.

Weighing in at 77 tonnes, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tonnes heavier than the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus.

Scientists believe it is a new species of titanosaur - an enormous herbivore dating from the Late Cretaceous period.

A local farm worker first stumbled on the remains in the desert near La Flecha, about 250km (135 miles) west of Trelew, Patagonia.

[Huntingwhale]

Hubble Team Unveils Most Colorful View of Universe Captured by Space Telescope

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have assembled a comprehensive picture of the evolving universe — among the most colorful deep space images ever captured by the 24-year-old telescope.

Researchers say the image, from a new study called the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, provides the missing link in star formation. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 image is a composite of separate exposures taken in 2003 to 2012 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3

Spoiler!

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/arc...14/27/image/a/

[Regulator75]

Bee's in France producing blue honey.

http://sciencealert.com.au/news/20142405-25561.html

French beekeepers were recently shocked when their bees started producing thick, blue and green honey.
After investigating, they discovered their bees were feeding on the colourful shells of M&Ms - a Mars processing plant was located just 4 km away.
The Mars waste-processing plant has now solved the problem and are cleaning any outdoor or uncovered containers that M&M waste was stored in, so it's unlikely you'll see the blue honey on the market any time soon.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Hubble Team Unveils Most Colorful View of Universe Captured by Space Telescope

Spoiler!

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/arc...14/27/image/a/

What are the ones in the top right and mid-left that are super shiny? Are they too close to the camera and are too bright? Or are they just hitting it at the right/wrong angle?

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Hubble Team Unveils Most Colorful View of Universe Captured by Space Telescope

Spoiler!

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/arc...14/27/image/a/

So this is light about 13 billion years old or 700 million years after the Big Bang. I can't beleive all those galaxy's formed in just 700 million years.

[photon]

Originally Posted by MattyC

What are the ones in the top right and mid-left that are super shiny? Are they too close to the camera and are too bright? Or are they just hitting it at the right/wrong angle?

You mean the ones that have the prismy star pattern around them? They're foreground stars from out own galaxy.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by photon

You mean the ones that have the prismy star pattern around them? They're foreground stars from out own galaxy.

You sure? The Deep Field was a patch of empty/dark space that Hubble stared at for 10 days. could a star from our own galaxy hide like that?

[photon]

Originally Posted by T@T

You sure? The Deep Field was a patch of empty/dark space that Hubble stared at for 10 days. could a star from our own galaxy hide like that?

Hide like what, it's right there in the picture.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...eme-deep-field

Only a handful of individual stars in the foreground of our own galaxy can be seen.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by photon

Hide like what, it's right there in the picture.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...eme-deep-field

I guess your right about stars from our galaxy but what I meant by "hide" was the stars were not visable when they picked the spot to look at.


It started out as a small dark spot with apparently nothing to look at, I didn't realise it picked up light from a few stars in our own galaxy, they must be extremely far away.

[Daradon]

So a question for you guys who know more about space than me.

Obviously the majority of space is empty space (not counting what we don't know about dark energy and matter and anything else that exists in 'empty' space). Both within galaxies, but even moreso outside of galaxies. And obviously stars exist within galaxies.

But, even if it's extremely rare, could a star conceivably be knocked out of a galaxy's gravity well and exist outside a galaxy, like a comet or other things? And if so, do we know of any such examples?

[photon]

Originally Posted by T@T

I guess your right about stars from our galaxy but what I meant by "hide" was the stars were not visable when they picked the spot to look at.

Ah ok, yeah it would depend on the size of the telescope and the brightness and distance of the star, I would guess that only a small portion of our galaxy has been surveyed.

The GSC-II has almost a billion stars out to magnitude 21, but there's hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy, probably most of them would require this kind of effort (i.e. imaging a chunk of sky for days) to detect.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Daradon

But, even if it's extremely rare, could a star conceivably be knocked out of a galaxy's gravity well and exist outside a galaxy, like a comet or other things? And if so, do we know of any such examples?

Sure don't see why not, I've seen simulations of galaxy collisions where it seems tons of stars get ejected.

As for detecting them, I'm not sure we could. We can see galaxies at galactic distances but that's hundreds of billions of stars. Hubble can discern individual stars in Andromeda, so I guess if it was a wandering star at that range it's possible.. finding one would be a real challenge though, that's a lot of space. To look at the entire sky the way Hubble did for the ultra deep field would take a million years.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Originally Posted by Daradon

So a question for you guys who know more about space than me.

Obviously the majority of space is empty space (not counting what we don't know about dark energy and matter and anything else that exists in 'empty' space). Both within galaxies, but even moreso outside of galaxies. And obviously stars exist within galaxies.

But, even if it's extremely rare, could a star conceivably be knocked out of a galaxy's gravity well and exist outside a galaxy, like a comet or other things? And if so, do we know of any such examples?

Rouge stars are possible. Sometimes they get ejected by super massive blackholes. I don't think we have discovered one yet. It's possible some of them are neutron stars that emit very little light, so we do not see them. There may be one heading our way for all we know.

[T@T]

It's so easy to look at the beauty of the Milky Way and other Galaxy's and yet is so hard to fathom the sheer size of them. 200 billion stars that are separated by trillions of miles from each other.

[Red Slinger]

Originally Posted by T@T

It's so easy to look at the beauty of the Milky Way and other Galaxy's and yet is so hard to fathom the sheer size of them. 200 billion stars that are separated by trillions of miles from each other.

This may be a dumb question but how do we get pictures of the Milky Way galaxy when we're in it? There hasn't been a probe that's left the galaxy (as far as I know). Or are the 'pictures' of the Milky Way either graphics or pictures of other similar galaxies?

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

This may be a dumb question but how do we get pictures of the Milky Way galaxy when we're in it? There hasn't been a probe that's left the galaxy (as far as I know). Or are the 'pictures' of the Milky Way either graphics or pictures of other similar galaxies?

I am assuming they know the relative distances of a majority of the stars in the neighbourhood and are able to extrapolate from there.

[troutman]

http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2213.html

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

This may be a dumb question but how do we get pictures of the Milky Way galaxy when we're in it? There hasn't been a probe that's left the galaxy (as far as I know). Or are the 'pictures' of the Milky Way either graphics or pictures of other similar galaxies?

Sorry, I had to laugh a bit at this.

Think of years X million(s) to leave our galaxy at our current tech.

[troutman]

What devoured this great white shark?


http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/10/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2

Australian researchers are hunting for what they call a "mystery sea monster" that devoured a 9-foot-long great white shark.

A tracking device previously planted on the shark was found washed up on a beach, and after analysis, it showed that it had suddenly undergone a rapid increase in temperature and a swift 1,900-foot (580-meter) dive beneath the waves.

Scientists attribute the more than 30-degree spike in temperature to the shark entering another animal's digestive system, and the unexpected plunge could be explained by the larger animal's rapid descent. Researchers found the tracking device about 2½ miles from where the shark was tagged.

The perplexing situation, which occurred four months after researchers tagged the shark, is chronicled in the Smithsonian Institute's documentary film "Hunt for the Super Predator," which airs in the United States on June 25.

[Coach]