astronomija

Latvijā norit Starptautiskā Astronomijas gada aktivitātes

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:18:15 GMT

Tā kā 2009. gads pēc UNESCO iniciatīvas ir pasludināts par Starptautisko Astronomijas gadu, šodien (9. janvārī) notiks demonstrējumi Jelgavā, Hercoga Jēkaba laukumā, Rīgā pie Zolitūdes ģimnāzijas (Ruses iela 22), kā arī observatorijā „Starspace” Rāmkalnos, Inčukalnā, Jūrmalā, Pumpuros, Dubultu prospektā 101 (pie Pumpuru vidusskolas), pie Liepājas 1. ģimnāzijas ēkas, Daugavpils pilsētas Centra ģimnāzijas un Smiltenes ģimnāzijas, kā arī Latvijas Universitātes astronomiskajā tornī (Raiņa bulv 19). Debesis zinoša astronoma vai astronomijas entuziasta pavadībā ar teleskopu būs iespējams vērot no pulksten 18:00 līdz 20:00.
Lasīt visu rakstu.

Physical discourses: Iteration 1

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:43:08 GMT

Nākošajā sestdienā, 2008. gada 6. decembrī, kafejnīcā "Preses bārs" (Raiņa bulvāris 1) no plkst. 18:00 līdz plkst. 22:00 norisināsies pirmā "Fizisko sarunu" publiskā diskusija. "Fiziskās sarunas" ir eksperimentāla diskusiju sērija par dabaszinātnēm un to daudzveidīgajām refleksijām filosofijā un kultūrā.

Sākotnēji paredzētās tēmas:

Galvenās joprojām neatrisinātās problēmas eksaktajās zinātnēs
Pozitīvisms, loģiskais pozitīvisms un naturālisms kā pasaules skatījums
CERN un Lielais hadronu pretkūļu paātrinātājs (Large Hadron Collider, LHC) tehniskā, zinātniskā un kultūras plānā

Dalībnieki tiek lūgti un iedrošināti piedāvāt paši savas tēmas un interesējošos jautājumus.
Dalība bez maksas.

Potenciālie dalībnieki tiek lūgti pieteikties diskusijām pa e-pastu: astronfo@gmail.com, vēstulē norādot vārdu un uzvārdu, kā arī vēstules virsrakstā norādot "Diskusijas".
Pieteikšanās spēkā līdz 04.12.2008., ieskaitot.

senie latvieši un astronomija

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:33:27 GMT

Kādi bija seno latviešu nosaukumi un ticējumi saistībā ar zvaigznēm un zvaigznājiem?
Nu, piemēram, Orions esot arī Dieva dēls ar zelta zīda jostu...

Stargazing - A Graphic Guide to the Heavens

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:07:16 GMT

Filma četrās daļās Stargazing - A Graphic Guide to the Heavens. Iespējams, ka jāreģistrējas, lai tiktu pie torrenta.

Skrīnšoti:

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:04:20 GMT

kosmosa skaņas http://spacesounds.com/navigator/index.html

NASA Voyager Recordings - Symphonies of the Planets

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:56:03 GMT

Torrents (visi pieci diski)

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 11:55:09 GMT

Teleskopi, binokļi, fotoaparāti un citas optiskās ierīces (pēc pašu izvēles un iespējām) Siltas drēbes Sarkanais lukturītis Telts un guļammaiss Pārtika Labs garastāvoklis un astronomisks noskaņojums! Atceries! Lielākā daļa astronomisko novērojumu notiks naktīs, tāpēc iekārto savus vasaras plānus tā, lai Tu varētu ērti uzturēties astronomijas festivāla norises vietā no 12. līdz 14. augustam! Tas būs lielisks piedzīvojums!

porcelāna mēnestiņš...

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 06:35:34 GMT

12. - 14. visi dzīvojās pa Kocēniem un skatās zvaigznes =)

planētu izmēri

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 15:19:34 GMT

reku labi foto salīdzināšanai
http://fishki.net/comment.php?id=3938

Nedaudz atgādina "Lord of the Rings" :DD

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 07:14:12 GMT

Astronomers looking at one the brightest stars in the southern sky have made a surprise discovery: it has been hiding a bright, visible ring of dust that just screams "Planets!"

Fomalhaut, 23 light-years from Earth, is the 17th brightest star in the night sky, residing in the Southern Fish constellation (Piscis Austrinus), so it's easy to see with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere. But it took the Hubble Space Telescope with a clever device to block out the glaring light of the star itself and see the graceful, elongated band of dust.

vai juus piedaliisieties nometnee?

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 22:00:39 GMT

jaa kursh no jums piedaliisies nometnee???

lētie teleskopi iekš ebay.de

Thu, 19 May 2005 17:48:37 GMT

ahoi! es te ik pa laikam čekoju vārdiņu "bresser" iekš vācu ebay, cenas ir ļoti zemas! vidēji pa 20 eiro var nopirkt labus amatieru teleskopus (+ pasta izdevumi preces piegādei), vienreiz vispār pa 3 eiro aukcions beidzās, bet nu es to par vēlu pamanīju ;)
man te kiprā liels kārdinājums šitādu mantu iegādāties, reālais Galaktikas centrs redzams!
ja vajag helpu iekš ebay, dod ziņu ;)

Smuki

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 05:25:41 GMT

Jupiters.

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 14:29:46 GMT

Dust devils scoot across Mars

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 12:59:55 GMT

Rover snapshots catch whirlwinds in action.

Movies of dust-filled whirlwinds on Mars have been sent back by NASA's exploration rover, Spirit.

Up Close
Further Away

The Mars Global Surveyor orbiting probe has seen these 'dust devils' before, but Spirit's close-ups reveal much more detail about the miniature tornados. "This is the best look we've ever got of the wind effects on the martian surface as they are happening," says Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist from Texas A&M University, College Station, who is part of the rover team.

The robot is currently in the Columbia Hills overlooking Gusev Crater, the vast plain where it landed 463 days ago. Last month, the rover accidentally snapped a handful of blurry dust devils with its navigation camera. But the images showed little detail.

So the rover team told Spirit to take several series of 21 pictures, focusing on areas where dust devils were likely to be found. The pictures were taken about 20 seconds apart, on 15 and 18 April.

The dust devils are caused by convection currents set up by the temperature difference between the sun-baked surface of Gusev Crater and the chilly air above. Tracking the devils reveals which way the wind blows on Mars, and how they contribute to larger dust storms, helping scientists to build up a detailed picture of martian weather.

Spirit was actually hit by a dust devil in March, which helpfully swept clean its solar panels. Although dust build-up had reduced Spirit's power output by almost half, this spring-clean boosted the solar power back up to 93% of its original capacity.

The rover is now trundling over to a rocky outcrop nicknamed Methuselah, so called because the team believe it to be extremely old. They plan to study the rock in detail over the weekend.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050418/full/050418-15.html

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 12:38:32 GMT

'Brane-Storm' Challenges Part of Big Bang Theory

Faster than you can say "Ekpyrotic Universe," a movement has taken hold -- albeit like fingers on a ledge of eternal skepticism -- that would blow one of the basic tenets of the Big Bang to smithereens.

Think parallel branes and five dimensions. Science never sounded so cool.
The new idea would not replace the Big Bang, which has for more than 50 years dominated cosmologists' thinking over how the universe began and evolved. But instead of a universe springing forth in a violent instant from an infinitely small point of infinite density, the new view argues that our universe was created when two parallel "membranes" collided cataclysmically after evolving slowly in five-dimensional space over an exceedingly long period of time.

These membranes, or "branes" as theorists call them, would have floated like sheets of paper through a fifth dimension that even scientists admit they find hard to picture intuitively. (Our conventional view of 3-D physical space, along with time, make up the four known dimensions.)

The idea, put forth earlier this month at a Space Telescope Science Institute meeting in Baltimore, is based on other theories about possible multiple dimensions that are growing in acceptance. It was developed by Neil Turok of Cambridge University, Burt Ovrut of the University of Pennsylvania, and Paul Steinhardt and Justin Khoury of Princeton University.

"The [Ekpyrotic] scenario is that our current universe is [a] four-dimensional membrane embedded in a five-dimensional 'bulk' space, something like a sheet of paper in ordinary three-dimensional space," Turok told SPACE.com. "The idea then is that another membrane collided with ours, releasing energy and heat and leading to the expansion of our universe."

Crazy, but viable

"It's almost crazy enough to be correct," says Michael Turner, a longtime University of Chicago cosmologist who is familiar with the theory. He added that "when you're trying to crack a really hard problem, you need a crazy idea."

Turner said astronomers have reacted with great excitement to the new theory, in part because the idea of alternate dimensions is largely new to most of them. Cosmologists tend to welcome the idea as a healthy potential alternative to certain aspects of the Big Bang, but are cautious about the theory's prospects.

Mario Livio, who heads up the science division of the Space Telescope Science Institute, said it's way too early to predict whether the theory will withstand scrutiny by other researchers. But he called the concept very important and exciting: "We're talking about a new idea about the origin of our universe."

The Ekpyrotic Universe draws its name from the ancient Greek word ekpyrosis, meaning "conflagration" (disastrous fire or conflict). According to an ancient cosmological model with this name, the universe was created in a sudden burst of fire. The modern-day theorists say this ancient idea is not unlike the collision proposed in the new model.

While the new theory is full of complex math and obscure concepts, it is a somewhat soothing idea for anyone who has ever wondered what the heck lies beyond our universe. C'mon, admit it -- at least once you thought about the edge of the universe and mumbled, prayed, dreamed or asked: "But what is beyond that."

Viss raksts...

Saules virsma.

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 16:46:30 GMT

Early Universe was a Liquid

Wed, 20 Apr 2005 19:20:24 GMT

Quark-gluon blob surprises particle physicists.

The Universe consisted of a perfect liquid in its first moments, according to results from an atom-smashing experiment.

Scientists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, have spent five years searching for the quark-gluon plasma that is thought to have filled our Universe in the first microseconds of its existence. Most of them are now convinced they have found it. But, strangely, it seems to be a liquid rather than the expected hot gas.

Quarks are the building blocks of protons and neutrons, and gluons carry the strong force that binds them together. It is thought that these particles took some moments to condense into ordinary matter after the intense heat of the Big Bang.

To recreate this soup of unbound particles, the RHIC accelerates charged gold atoms close to the speed of light before smashing them together. Previous experiments have shown that these collisions create something the size of an atomic nucleus that reaches 2 trillion degrees Celsius, about 150,000 times hotter than the centre of the Sun.

"This stuff was last seen in the Universe 13 billion years ago," says Sam Aronson, a director of high energy research at Brookhaven.

Now experiments have revealed that this hot blob is a liquid, which lives for just 10-23 seconds. "This was completely unexpected," says Wit Busza of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the team of researchers who reported their discovery on 18 April at the American Physical Society conference in Tampa, Florida.

Hot water

"The surprising thing is that the interaction between the quarks and gluons is much stronger than people expected," says Dmitri Kharzeev, a theoretical physicist at Brookhaven. The strength of this binding keeps the mixture liquefied despite its incredible temperature. "It's as much a fluid as the water in this glass," Kharzeev says, pointing to his drink.

The researchers worked out the liquid's structure by tracking the particles that spray out as the droplet falls apart and quarks team up to form normal matter. "It's a very complicated thing," says Busza. "But we've been amazed at how simple the results are."

The resulting liquid is almost 'perfect': it has a very low viscosity and is so uniform that it looks the same from any angle.

This may help to explain why the deepest parts of the Universe seem similar wherever astronomers look, says Kharzeev. If the primordial liquid had been as viscous as honey, the Universe could have turned out much more lumpy, he explains. "We can be certain this will change our picture of the early Universe," he says.

The researchers now hope to measure the heat capacity, viscosity and even the speed of sound in the quark liquid. But the RHIC has been hit by cuts in the recent US budget, forcing it to reduce its operating time from 30 to 12 weeks next year. Further investigations will inevitably take years to complete, says Aronson.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050418/full/050418-5.html

Cosmic particle accelerator seen

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 17:18:28 GMT

Astronomers have discovered a loop-like structure some 20 light-years across close to the centre of the Milky Way.

The team that found it believes the vast, bizarre structure could be some form of cosmic particle accelerator.

The loop may produce sub-atomic particles with a thousand times more energy than those in man-made accelerators.

Details were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham.

The loop was seen using the European space telescope XMM-Newton to study it in X-ray wavelengths.

The galactic centre can only be observed at certain wavelengths - such as X-rays - because large amounts of dust lie in our line of sight, blocking out optical light.

"The X-ray spectrum of the loop is extraordinary," said Dr Masaaki Sakano of the University of Leicester.

Most diffuse X-ray sources in the Universe have a characteristic temperature because they represent the residual radiation from an event, such as a supernova.

"The loop has no characteristic temperature, so there is probably some ongoing process in there - that is our interpretation," Dr Sakano told the BBC News website.

"There are large amounts of high energy particles, so we interpret that they are being accelerated at the moment."

If this is so, the loop could be generating high-energy particles with an energy of up to one thousand trillion electron volts.

Particles such as these have been detected previously in supernova remnants and pulsar nebulae.

But they have never been detected in star-forming regions of the Universe.

The researchers saw the loop when looking at the Arches Cluster, a star-forming region close to the Milky Way's centre.

But it is not known whether the loop structure is physically associated with the Arches Cluster or just happens to be in the same line of sight.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4423975.stm
http://ebulletin.le.ac.uk/news/press-releases/2000-2009/2005/04/nparticle-8xc-wk7-d8c

Sapņu ķērājs

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 19:53:21 GMT

http://www.photographybysteven.com/images/Artwork/Dream-Catcher.jpg

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:12:45 GMT

http://www.blogjam.com/neil_armstrong
Looks fucking true.. is it? 0_o :)

Jūra uz Marsa?

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 18:05:44 GMT

Mars May Have a Frozen Sea
Images of Elysium plains seem to show ice floes.

The Mars Express spacecraft, currently orbiting the red planet, has taken snapshots of what appears to be a dust-covered frozen sea.

The pictures, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board the European Space Agency's craft, show a flat plain close to Mars's equator that is covered with irregular blocky shapes. They look just like the rafts of fragmented sea ice that lie off the coast of Antarctica. The camera team presented its findings at ESA's Mars Express Science Conference in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, on 21 February. The results will be published by Nature in March.

"I was expecting glaciologists to be sceptical of our interpretation," says team member John Murray of the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. "But when I showed the pictures to an expert on sea ice, he was utterly convinced."

The researchers think that the camera has snapped a sea that froze about 5 million years ago, and was then covered by volcanic dust.

"Five million years might sound like a long time," Murray says, "but in geological terms it is virtually yesterday. This suggests that pockets of liquid water have existed throughout Mars's geological history."

Fissure farm

The ice-raft features were seen about 5° north of the equator in a region called Elysium, which contains several enormous martian volcanoes. In the past, parts of Elysium have been flooded with both lava and water from deep fissures called the Cerberus Fossae.

"These cracks go down several kilometres to a water-rich layer," says Murray. Ancient floods of water have carved channels into the rock. But no one expected that any of the water would remain frozen on the planet's surface to this day.

The atmosphere of Mars is so thin that ice should simply sublime, evaporating without melting in the equatorial sunlight. But the team think that their frozen sea is insulated by a layer of volcanic dust, through which water vapour escapes only very slowly.

They suggest that the ocean formed from water gushing out of the Cerberus Fossae and, as it started to freeze, floating pack ice broke up into rafts. These became covered in dust from volcanic eruptions in the region.

While the entire sea froze solid, the ice between the rafts, which was unprotected by dust, sublimed to leave 'ice plateaus' surrounded by bare rock. The sparse cratering of this region shows that it cannot have formed more than about 5 million years ago.

Lively hopes

Another, more mundane possibility is that the blocks now visible in the plains of Elysium are not ice at all, but rock formed from solidified lava. However, Murray says that they do not look anything like lava features seen elsewhere on the planet. A volcanologist himself, he says: "I have spent 38 years looking at lava. I know what lava can do."

The 'frozen sea' is a mere 45 m deep and 800 by 900 km in area: about as big and as deep as the North Sea off Britain's coast on Earth. The MARSIS radar detector on Mars Express, which is scheduled to be deployed in April or May, is designed to search for reservoirs of water on or below the Martian surface. But sadly its resolution is slightly too low to be able to confirm whether such thin sheets are actually made of ice.

Murray says that the area is likely to be a priority for future studies of Mars, because if there is a deep layer of liquid water below the Cerberus Fossae, life could still exist in it. "This is where we'll find life, if it's there," he asserts.

Disgorged on to the surface in the floods that created a sea, the remains of such organisms might now lie frozen in the dust-covered ice. The European Space Agency is planning to send a lander mission to Mars at the end of the decade to look for life, and this icy area would make an ideal target, says Murray.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050221/full/050221-7.html

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 01:01:54 GMT

Ir pagājis gads, kopš divās dažādās vietās uz Marsa tika nosēdināti dvīņu mobīļi Spirit un Opportunity. Abi roboti, nu jau aptuveni četras reizes pārdzīvojuši tiem sākotnēji paredzēto darba mūžu, joprojām turas pie labas veselības un ik dienas turpina sūtīt uz Zemi gan jaunus attēlus, gan arī citus datus, kas gandrīz tajā pašā acumirklī ir pieejami NASA Marsa mobīļu misijas interneta lapā.

Bums pa pieri

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:59:44 GMT

1954. gada 30. novembrī Sailakogā (Sylacauga), Alabamas štatā, kā zibens no skaidrām debesīm nokrita 3.86 kg smags dzelzs-akmens meteorīts.

Elizabete Anna Hodžsa (Elizabeth Ann Hodges) laiski gulšņāja viesistabā uz sofas, kad piepeši māju satricināja pērkona dārdam līdzīgs troksnis. Meteorīts izsprāga cauri griestiem un aizķēra Hodžsas kundzes sānu, atstājot diezgan pamatīgu zilumu.

Lai gan šis ir vienīgais zināmais gadījums rakstītajā vēsturē, kad kāds būtu norāvies ar meteorītu pa bieti, esiet piesardzīgi! ;)

Smejies vai raudi

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:58:10 GMT

Šķiet, ka asteroīds 2004 MN₄ 2029. gada 13. aprīlī ar Zemi tomēr nesadursies. Jaunākie aprēķini rāda, ka tas aiztrauksies mums garām 4.7 Zemes rādiusu (~30,000 km) attālumā un būs redzams pat ar neapbruņotu aci kā +3.3 zvaigžņlieluma objekts, kas šķērsos debesjumu ar leņķisko ātrumu 42° stundā.