In the void of space, what is the one force with a constant pattern, existence and gravity?
Slicing through a 3D ALMA view of the material around the red giant star R Sculptoris (click here for video)
Slicing through a 3D ALMA view of the material around the red giant star R Sculptoris (click here for video)
Observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have revealed an unexpected spiral structure in the material around the old star R Sculptoris. This spiral is probably caused by a hidden companion star orbiting the star. This new ALMA video shows a series of slices through the data, each taken at a slightly different frequency. These reveal the shell around the star, appearing as a circular ring, that seems to gets bigger and then smaller, as well as a clear spiral structure in the inner material that it best seen about half-way through the video sequence.
By Staff | October 13, 2012
“We’ve seen shells around this kind of star before, but this is the first time we’ve ever seen a spiral of material coming out from a star, together with a surrounding shell,” said lead author Matthias Maercker of the ESO and Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn in a statement.
Astronomers point out that because red giants eject copious amounts of material, they are big-time contributors to the dust and gas that assist the formation of future generations of stars and planetary systems.
E = mc2
E = mc2
Orbitals of a carbon atom, as seen by a field-emission microscope.Image: From "Imaging the atomic orbitals of carbon atomic chains with field-emission electron microscopy," by I. M. Mikhailovskij, E. V. Sadanov, T. I. Mazilova, V. A. Ksenofontov and O. A. Velicodnaja, in PHYSICAL REVIEW B, Vol. 80, NO. 16; October 2009
New Microscope Reveals the Shape of Atoms (click here)
Improved field-emission microscope images electron orbitals, confirming their theoretical shapes
