The colored curves describe different velocity dependencies of the scattering strength; it is scaling as v to the nth power. The horizontal axis, k, is a measure of how separated two points in space might be; larger k corresponds to smaller physical separation. The vertical axis (technically known as a “power spectrum”) describes how correlated two points separated by a scale 1/k are; higher number mean more correlation. The one point with error bars shows that most of the models the authors consider are not very favored by the data. (Credit: C. Dvorkin, K. Blum, and M. Kamionkowski)
via astrobites
After a month surfing in and out of the atmosphere of Venus down to just 130 km from the planet’s surface, ESA’s Venus Express is about to embark on a 15 day climb up to the lofty heights of 460 km. (Credit: ESA – C. Carreau)
via esa
Chao-Lin Kuo, who helped design the BICEP2 experiment, isn’t bothered by criticism that cosmic dust may account for his results. He just wants to know the truth. (Credit: Chao-Lin Kuo)
via scientificamerican
This illustration depicts a main membrane out of which individual universes arise; they then expand in size through time. (Credit: Moonrunner Design)
via scienceblogs
Researchers at Washington State University have used a super-cold cloud of atoms that behaves like a single atom to see a phenomenon predicted 60 years ago and witnessed only once since.
via scientificcomputing.com
Colliding galaxy clusters MACS J0717+3745, more than 5 billion light-years from Earth. Background is Hubble Space Telescope image; blue is X-ray image from Chandra, and red is VLA radio image.
via www.astronomy.com
This artistic representation shows the potentially habitable exoplanet Kapteyn b and the globular cluster Omega Centauri in the background. It is believed that this cluster is the remaining core of a dwarf galaxy that merged with our own Milky Way Galaxy billions of years ago bringing Kapteyn’s star along. Image credit: PHL / UPR Arecibo / Aladin Sky Atlas.
via www.sci-news.com
Light from the explosion 12 billion years ago of a massive star at the end of its life reached Earth recently. An image of its peak afterglow, circled with blue and yellow, was captured by Southern Methodist University’s ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, Texas. A bright star sits alongside the afterglow from GRB 140419A. Credit: ROTSE-IIIb, SMU
via phys.org
A computer simulation of gas (in yellow) falling into a black hole (too small to be seen). Twin jets are also shown with magnetic field lines. Alexander Tchekhovskoy (LBNL)
via www.astronomy.com
Rocky world could be the first of an entirely new class of planet. An illustration of mega-Earth Rocky world could be the first of an entirely new class of planet. An illustration of mega-Earth The newly discovered ”mega-Earth” Kepler-10c dominates the foreground in this artist’s conception released by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 2, 2014.
via news.nationalgeographic.com
Penn astrophysicist Mark Devlin and Jackie Tileston, an associate professor of fine arts at PennDesign, collaborated on the ARTacama Project, the “highest known art installation in the world” three miles above sea level in the Chilean mountains.www.upenn.edu
