Beards Keep You Young, Healthy & Handsome, Says Science

A collage of solar images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows how observations of the sun in different wavelengths helps highlight different aspects of the sun’s surface and atmosphere.

Picture: NASA/SDO/Goddard / Rex Features

Mars rover snaps spooky portraits

A mosaic of images from the Curiosity rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager shows the rover’s camera mast and deck. The pictures were taken on Oct. 31 during operations at a Martian sampling site known as Rocknest.

It looks as if someone is taking portraits of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars from a few feet away — but wait a minute: Who’s the photographer?

The answer is that Curiosity itself is responsible for the pictures, with strong assists from image-processing gurus. These views show the six-wheeled, nuclear-powered mobile laboratory at a geological site of interest known as Glenelg, as of Sol 84 (Oct. 31). They were assembled from imagery captured by the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, looking backward from the end of the rover’s 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) robotic arm.

Fireworks spotted by space telescopes

The bright star U Camelopardalis, or U Cam for short, is surrounded by a tenuous shell of gas in an image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The flash of an earthly fireworks display can be over in an instant — sometimes literally — but the show is longer lasting in outer space. The dying red-giant star known as U Camelopardalis, 1,500 light-years away in a region of sky near the north celestial pole, is in the midst of a fireworks blast that lasts for centuries. /via msnbc

The ‘ring of fire’ annular solar eclipse as seen from Kanarraville, Utah. [Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty via Guardian]

What’s the closest active galaxy to planet Earth? That would be Centaurus A, only 11 million light-years distant. Spanning over 60,000 light-years. (NASA)

The sunspot region known as AR1429 seethes in a picture of the sun, captured on March 11 in hydrogen-alpha light by photographer Alan Friedman. A particularly angry region of the sun has been throwing some strong solar storms toward us over the past week, but there’s just one more blast to weather. (via msnbc)

Solar blast could have earthly impact: The sun unleashed one of the biggest flares ever seen during its current activity cycle late Tuesday — an X5.4-class outburst strong enough to trigger a radio blackout. The resulting geomagnetic storm could affect electrical grids, communication links, satellite navigation systems and airline schedules over the next couple of days. (source)

A new view of the Helix Nebula acquired with ESO’s VISTA telescope in infrared light reveals strands of cold nebular gas that are mostly obscured in visible light images of the Helix. (AFP)

The Comet Lovejoy is visible near Earth’s horizon in this nighttime image photographed by NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, Expedition 30 commander, onboard the International Space Station on Dec. 21, 2011.

Earlier this week, when International Space Station commander Burbank beheld comet Lovejoy streaking through space, he could not believe his eyes.

“[It was] the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in space, and that’s saying an awful lot because every day is filled with amazing things,” said Burbank. 

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Earth 2.0

NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the “habitable zone,” the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star

This diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-22, a star system containing the first “habitable zone” planet discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission. The habitable zone is the sweet spot around a star where temperatures are right for water to exist in its liquid form. Liquid water is essential for life on Earth.

Kepler-22’s star is a bit smaller than our sun, so its habitable zone is slightly closer in. The diagram shows an artist’s rendering of the planet comfortably orbiting within the habitable zone, similar to where Earth circles the sun. Kepler-22b has a yearly orbit of 289 days. The planet is the smallest known to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It’s about 2.4 times the size of Earth. (nasa)

The moon hangs over Earth’s limb in a picture from the International Space Station. (NASA)

Authorities near Penipe, Ecuador upgraded a possible eruption warning from yellow to orange on Nov. 28, 2011, as the activity of the Tungurahua volcano raised suddenly. Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute says increased activity that began Sunday is billowing columns of ash, sending superheated clouds of gas down the slopes and cascading hot rocks from the summit. (AFP)