Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.aaa.org/EyepieceFiles/aaa/2013_04_April_Eyepiece.pdf Дата изменения: Wed Oct 14 23:22:16 2015 Дата индексирования: Sun Apr 10 03:40:43 2016 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п п

Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York
BREAKING NEWS:
MARTIAN SPACECRAFT LANDS IN NJ (April Fools!)

EYEPIECE
April 2013
Volume 61 Number 4 ISSN 0146-7662

Isaac Asimov Memorial "Debate About Nothing"
By Richard Brounstein

NASA ROVER FINDS CONDITIONS ONCE SUITED FOR ANCIENT LIFE ON MARS
WASHINGTON - An analysis of a rock sample collected by NASA's Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon - some of the key chemical ingredients for life - in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month. " A f u n d a me n t a l question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters i n W a s h in g to n . " F r o m NASA's Curiosity Drills to Test what we know now, the Martian Surface Materials answer is yes." Clues to this habitable environment come from data returned by the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments. The data indicate the Yellowknife Bay area the rover is exploring was the end of an ancient river system or an intermittently wet lake bed that could have provided chemical energy and other favorable conditions for microbes. The rock is made up of a fine grain mudstone containing clay minerals, sulfate minerals and other chemicals. This ancient wet environment, unlike some others on Mars, was not harshly oxidizing, acidic, or extremely salty. The patch of bedrock where Curiosity drilled for its first sample lies in an ancient network of stream channels descending from the rim of Gale Crater. The bedrock also is finegrained mudstone and shows evidence of multiple periods of wet conditions, including nodules and veins. Curiosity's drill collected the sample at a site just a few hundred yards away from where the rover earlier found an Ancient streambed in September 2012.
NASA Rover (con't on Page 5)

Imagine finding yourself in a room with a theoretical physicist, an experimental physicist, an astrophysicist, a cosmologist, a philosopher, and a science journalist. This must be an episode of The Big Bang Theory. But it's not - you're actually sitting with 1,500 other riveted audience members and thousands of online streaming viewers, as they all experience the AMNH 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate. This year's thought-provoking topic: "The Existence of Nothing." Your esteemed debate panelists: Eva Silverstein: Professor of physics at Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Lawrence Krauss: Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University John Richard Gott, III: Cosmologist and professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton Jim Holt: Philosopher, longtime contributor to the New Yorker, and writer on string theory, time, infinity, numbers, truth and nonsense (yes, nonsense, he says) Charles Seife: NYU professor of journalism, author, and theoretical mathematician

Moderating the debate was AAA's own Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium. Tyson created a relaxed atmosphere, describing this debate more as a "conversation that the scientists would have in a bar." (I wondered if that's the reason panelists were drinking their water out of wine glasses).
Debate About Nothing (con't on Page 3)


EYEPIECE

April 2013

WHAT'S UP IN THE SKY
AAA Observers' April Guide By Richard Rosenberg

Astronomical Fact of the Month

April's Evening Planets : Saturn is at opposition on April

28th. On this day Saturn rises in the east when the Sun sets. Jupiter gets lower during the month but is still gloriously bright. In the last week of April, Venus appears in the western twilight. constellations, now in the west, including Orion, Taurus the Bull, Auriga the Charioteer, the Dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor and Gemini the Twins. To find the stars of spring, look overhead to spot the Big Dipper. If we imagine a leak in its pot, its contents would land on Leo the Lion, containing the bright star Regulus. Returning to the Big Dipper and this time follow the arc formed by the pot's handle, we arrive at Arcturus in the constellation Bootes the Herdsman. Continuing along the arc takes us to Virgo, with its bright star Spica. low in the east. Mars is too close to the Sun. Fortunately, Saturn can be seen almost the entire night.

April' s Evening Stars: Still around are the brilliant winter

April's Morning Planets : Mercury will be difficult to spot

April's Morning Stars:

The spring constellations of Bootes, Virgo and Hercules are getting ready to set in the west. The Summer Triangle (with the constellations Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila and corresponding bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair) is near the zenith. Sagittarius is very low but if you have a dark sky the view is magnificent. The autumn constellations in the east include Cassiopeia, Perseus, Pegasus and Andromeda.

Similarities abound in space. The Herschel and Spitzer telescopes have tagged bright stars Vega and Fomalhaut as kindred spirits. Sitting 25 light-years away from Earth, both have warm and cool asteroid belts separated by a gap, just as we have between Mars and Jupiter, and the Kuiper Belt's distant icy region beyond Neptune. Astronomers believe this stellar architecture suggests that multiple planets will be found between the belts in both systems. There are other similarities as well. Both stars are approximately twice the mass of our Sun, and burn a hotter, bluer, color in visible light. Both are around 400 million years old, but Vegas may be aging better, and actually be as much as 800 million years old. For now, Fomalhaut's main focus is its known extrasolar planet, Fomalhaut b, in its eccentric orbit at the inner edge of the system's NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captures Vega cometary belt.
Nebula of the Month Eskimo Nebula NGC 2392

Asteroid Belts and Planets By Evan Schneider

April "Skylights"
April 3 April 10 April 14 April 17 April 18 April 20 April 22 April 24 April 25 April 27 April 28 Last Quarter Moon at 12:37 a.m. (EDT) New Moon at 5:35 a.m. (EDT) The Moon is 2.2° from Jupiter. Nearby is the bright star Aldebaran Mars is in conjunction with the Sun and passes into the morning sky. It will not be seen for several months First Quarter Moon at 8:31 a.m. (EDT) The Moon is 5.6° south-southwest of Regulus The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this morning The Moon is extremely close to Spica Full Moon at 3:57 p.m. (EDT). The Moon is 3.5° south-southwest of Saturn Saturn is at opposition Venus is getting far enough from the Sun to be seen

For additional information visit: www.aaa.org/month413

Winter - it's cold outside. It's even colder in space. But across the void, we look out onto a vast assortment of nebulae, burning at temperatures way beyond our 5,000K Sun. The Eskimo Nebula is in one such area of space, just 5,000 light-years from us its heated gasses reaching 30,000K. T h e d y in g s t ar , named for the image resembling a face in a fur parka, was discovered in 1787 by British astronomer William Herschel. NASA/Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 show us that the parka is actually a disk of stellar material with a ring of comet-like objects, their elongated tails trailing as they streak away from center of the planetary nebula. The ejected material travels at high speeds, up to 900,000 mph, on a journey outward that started about 10,000 years ago.

By Evan Schneider

2


EYEPIECE
Debate About Nothing (Cont'd from Page 1)

April 2013

Our contributors are all accomplished scientists and professors. Each has published one or more books relevant to the subject of "nothing". Laurence Krauss, for example, published A Universe from Nothing. Charles Seife published Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. Tyson asked the distinguished group to describe "nothing" any way they wished to interpret it. Sometimes, the conversation turned to mathematics, discussing the value "0." Other times, the discussion encompassed aspects of cosmology, multi-verses, and the birth of our universe. Most interesting, was listening to the panelists as they tried to imagine what "nothing" actual is, and what it may look like. HISTORY OF NOTHING Seife was quick to point out that the Greek and Roman civilizations refused to integrate a zero into their number scheme, unless absolutely necessary for calculations. This had more to do with a cultural desire to always have something and not to accept that there could ever be nothing. This also goes into the longtime belief that the universe has always existed. Remember - the Big Bang Theory was not created until the 20th century. Before then, few accepted that there was a time when there was no universe...when there was indeed nothing. Neil DeGrasse Tyson focuses his Over time, socieaudience on the concept of "Nothing" ties accepted our very useful mathematical placeholder, zero, and accepted the fact that there was once nothing when there was no universe. If not for this early hypothesis, advanced mathematics, and thus all engineering projects, would have been impossible to create without the value "zero." WHAT EXACTLY IS NOTHING? Each panelist was asked to define the term "nothing." Surprisingly, this is not an easy answer. Holt gave a thoughtprovoking reply: "If not the universe, then what?" He would have us imagine a sphere with a radius. Then imagine the radius shrinking to smaller and smaller sizes until it shrinks to zero. That is his "nothing." It was Gott, however, who gave a humorous, but effective interpretation. He put his hands over his eyes and said: "See that blackness. That is what nothing looks like. It is all black." He put his hands behind his head where he could not see them and said "This is what the universe looked like before the Big Bang. It is impossible to see." THE QUANTUM WORLD AND NOTHING After discussing the concept of nothing by eliminating all matter, eventually we fall into the quantum world and how even the vacuum of space is still something that is not "nothing." Silverstein joined the conversation, pointing out that shrinking the radius of a sphere to nothing does not take into account all the chaotic behavior of matter in the quantum world. In addition, she queried, quantum mechanics and String

Theory can provide a unique solution to the concept of "nothing." String Theory requires 10 spatial dimensions of matter. As we go back in time to the Big Bang, the special dimensions disappear and we eventually approach "nothing." CAUSE AND EFFECT Holt pointed out how cause and effect are important when determining the origins of the universe. He would ask "What is the First Cause?" As you go back in time to the cause of every state of matter, at some point you get to the first cause that resulted in matter. At some point, therefore, matter must have been created from nothing. WHY DOES OUR UNIVERSE EXIST AT ALL The discussions bordered on both philosophical and scientific perspectives. Krauss explained that only religion needs a creation theory of how something had to exist to create the universe out of nothing. Science accepts the concept of a universe created from nothing. This follows the Anthropic Principle, allowing the universe to be possible because we are here - very comforting even if it is self-centered for humans. Holt added that our universe is also very imperfect. He just does not understand what the creator was thinking, telling the audience "It looks like it was made in a lab by hackers." FINAL THOUGHTS ON NOTHING Most scientists did agree that "nothing" simply means that there is not anything there. Seife provided a mathematical description: Start with 0. Remove it and you get the null set. That is nothing. Silverstein, taking the most technical scientific posture, defined "nothing" as the "ground state of a gapped quantum system." In the end, it was certainly "something" of an evening.

And the Winner of the Largest-Known Spiral Galaxy Contest Is...
NASA: The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for decades. Now, a team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest-known spiral, based on archival data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission. Measuring tip-to-tip across its two outsized spiral arms, NGC 6872 spans more than 522,000 light-years, making it more than five times the size of our Milky Way galaxy. The galaxy's unusual size and appearance stem from its interaction with a much smaller disk galaxy named IC 4970, which has only about one-fifth the mass of NGC 6872. The odd couple is located 212 million light-years from Earth, in the southern constellation Pavo.
3


EYEPIECE

April 2013

Become a AAA Spring Starfest Team Member
Member Volunteers Needed
The AAA Spring Starfest is finally here! Come join your fellow amateur astronomers as we support our club and all of NYC. Volunteer opportunities are open to all members, their families, and even non-members.

Wanted: Event Night Staff
1 Experienced photographer 1 Writer/Tweeter/ blogger 10 Raffle tables staff members 10 Event staff members to set-up/ break down and distribute hand-outs (must be able to lift 15 lbs.) 2 Runners

Our AAA Gift to You
All staff volunteers will receive a special event "Limited Edition" T-shirt
Our Location: Woodlawn Cemetery is a national historic landmark that has commanding open area views, free of glare from local lighting, where the majority of the urban night sky can be seen. There will be telescopes of various magnifications and design, capable of reaching out into the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. Come have a look at the universe from the Bronx. Our Targets: Our astronomical targets will be both near and far. In our solar system, the cloud bands of Jupiter, its moons, and our Moon will be easily visible. Beyond, we will observe distant galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae. The sky is filled with opportunities each night. Directions: Enter at the Jerome Ave. entrance located one block north of the intersection of Jerome Ave. & Bainbridge Ave. Look for a table staffed by AAA members.
4

For more information and to join the AAA team
Contact: Susan Andreoli at vp@aaa.org VISIT THE AAA STORE for NEW STARFEST EVENT ITEMS
www.cafepress/amateurastronomersofny


EYEPIECE

April 2013

A Message from AAA President Marcelo Cabrera
Hello Members: I hope you saw comet Pan-STARRS in March. I was able to see it at our Winter Astronomy Class 2013. We had a fun night, and most students got to observe the comet from high above midtown Manhattan. On April 13, we will have our first Spring Starfest "live" from Woodlawn Cemetery. It will kick off the AAA observing season. For more information, visit the AAA website at: http://www.aaa.org/springstarfest. Be sure to check out more about our observing sites at http://www.aaa.org/observing, and see our full calendar of events at http://aaa.org/calendar. For our AAA Lecture Series at the AMNH, we have jus announced a surprise guest speaker. Al Nagler from Tele Vue Optics and inventor of the Nagler Eyepiece will present "Giant Eyepieces That Swallow Spacecrafts" on Friday, April 5. The balance of this season's schedule is available at http://www.aaa.org/lectures1213, or at the back of this issue of Eyepiece. We are currently interviewing candidates for the Board of Directors of the AAA. If you would like to be considered, please contact me at president@aaa.org. Thanks, everyone!

Sincerely,

NOTICE: AAA Annual Meeting May 15, 2013 - 6:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. 505 Eighth Avenue, 20th Fl Food, Fun, and Astronomy!

Contacting AAA Marcelo Cabrera President, AAA
NASA Rover (con't from Page 1)

Membership: members@aaa.org Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org General Club Matters and Observing: president@aaa.org

Telephone: 212-535-2922

Website: www.aaa.org

these results for several of the trace gases analyzed by the "Clay minerals make up at least 20 percent of the compoSAM instrument. sition of this sample," said David Blake, principal investigator "We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new for the CheMin instrument at NASA's Ames Research Center 'gray Mars' where conditions once were favorable for life," in Moffett Field, Calif. said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scienThese clay minerals are a prodtist at the California Institute of uct of the reaction of relatively fresh Technology in Pasadena, Calif. water with igneous minerals, such as "Curiosity is on a mission of discovolivine, also present in the sediment. ery and exploration, and as a team The reaction could have taken place we feel there are many more excitwithin the sedimentary deposit, during discoveries ahead of us in the ing transport of the sediment, or in mo n t h s a n d y e a r s t o c o me . " the source region of the sediment. Scientists plan to work with The presence of calcium sulfate Curiosity in the Yellowknife Bay along with clay suggests the soil is area for many more weeks before neutral or mildly alkaline. beginning a long drive to Gale CraScientists were surprised to ter's central mound, Mount Sharp. find a mixture of oxidized, lessInvestigating the stack of layers exoxidized, and non-oxidized chemiposed on Mount Sharp, where clay cals providing an energy gradient of minerals and sulfate minerals have the sort many microbes on Earth been identified from orbit, may add exploit to live. This partial oxidation NASA's Curiosity at the "John Klein" site, taken with the information about the duration and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was first hinted at when the drill diversity of habitable conditions. cuttings were revealed to be gray NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project has been using rather than red. Curiosity to investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale "The range of chemical ingredients we have identified in Crater ever has offered an environment favorable for microbial the sample is impressive, and it suggests pairings such as sullife. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed seven fates and sulfides that indicate a possible chemical energy months ago to begin its two-year prime mission. NASA's Jet source for micro-organisms," said Paul Mahaffy, principal Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the project investigator of the SAM suite of instruments at NASA's Godfor NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. dard Space Flight Center. (Article Credit: NASA/Dwayne Brown, JPL/D.C. Agle) An additional drilled sample will be used to help confirm 5


EYEPIECE

April 2013

WHAT IF???

Can We Really Discover Gravity?
By Richard Brounstein

In March, scientists at the CERN Large Hadron Colthrough mathematics and not experiments. lider confirmed that the sub-atomic particle in the family of Boson particles known as the Higgs exists. They were pretty Our hope for the future is to someday confirm gravitasure last year (about 99.997% sure). That wasn't enough for tional theory and find experimental evidence. What if we can these quantum scientists. After going through several do more than just understand it? Science would prefer to affect petabytes of data, scientists are now calling the experiment a gravity in a practical way and not just by introducing mass to success. This is a huge accomplishment for science. The create a gravitational field. What if we could find the elusive Higgs particle is the messenger that creates mass in our uniGraviton (particle or string) and find a way to interrupt some verse. It is the reason that we have stuff from atoms and peoor all of its effect on matter? Science fiction stories have been ple to stars and galaxies. In the Standard Model of particle doing this for years. When you see people walking on the physics, this discovery checks off the list another critical point USS Enterprise in Star Trek, they walk in an artificial gravity particle in nature that is no longer theoretical, but is factual. field created by "gravity plating" on the floor. No one explains exactly how this magical floor works, but it makes it While the physics world is celebrating, we still have this much easier to work on a spaceship (as well as much easier to big elephant in the room. The Standard Model doesn't explain film stories). why a baseball, football, or spacecraft falls to the Earth. It What if we could someday does not explain gravity. create a device that can either interrupt gravity or enhance it To explain gravity, sciensomehow? How would this tists have a theoretical elemenshape our world of the future? I tary particle called the Graviton think the first invention people Boson. The Graviton communiwould want are anti-gravity cates the force of gravity just as devices on vehicles. We could the Higgs Boson communicates finally have flying cars just like the mass of our existence. We on "The Jetsons" or "Back to experience gravity everywhere the Future P2". Parking would in the universe, so something still be a problem for your flymust exist. Yet no quantum ing car even if no longer had to experiment has found it, leaving sit in traffic. Not every problem us with just a theory. is gravity's fault. We could One might think that all NASA/ESA concept drawing for LISA have everything flying much we have to do is discover this Trapping gravity waves in space more easily: skateboards, jet messenger particle with an acpacks, cars, and more. I want to celerator, the same way that scientists discovered the Higgs see someone run a marathon in anti-gravity shoes. We won't Boson, right? Unfortunately, the Standard Model cannot fit count their finish time. It would just be an experiment. Offithe Graviton Particle into its theory because its energy apcial athletes must use the natural gravity field. proaches infinity. Getting into outer space would no longer cost $10,000 a There are other more cost effective efforts under way to pound. We could get into orbit with much larger machines better understand gravity. NASA/ESA's Laser Interferometer using much less fuel, and land on Earth as easily as a helicopSpace Antenna (LISA) consists of three spacecraft positioned ter lands on a platform. five million kilometers apart in outer space. Each probe will Landing on Mars would also be much less of a challenge. maintain a constant laser beam shot at the other two detectors. The very impressive Curiosity landing was a great feat of engiIt would detect the ripple of gravity waves created by black neering. Just attach our anti-gravity device and use a small holes or stellar collisions. This will help confirm Einstein's rocket to land a 50 ton habitat on Mars, and we're ready to let General Theory of Relativity, and may even produce direct scientists do the work. I also want regular deliveries of supmeasurements of the Big Bang. We haven't seen the light at plies for the same price as shipping them across the oceans the moment of the Big Bang yet, but gravity waves may be here on Earth. We would have a self-sufficient Martian colony detectable, bringing us closer to the single most important up and running in just a few years. event in the known history of the universe. This does not actuSomewhere out there is the illusive Graviton (wave, parally help us find the elusive Graviton, but it is a step in the ticle or string). We will keep searching for it, since we know right direction. something must exist. I think of it every time I step on the Another effort to explain gravity is String Theory, where scale and dream of losing 10 pounds. If you need me, I will be all matter is made up of tiny one-dimensional oscillating lines at the gym fighting gravity. of energy that exist in 10 spatial dimensions. It can describe
the Graviton as a type of string with its unique properties. Problem solved, except that it is only a theory expressed 6
Richard Brounstein's monthly column, "WHAT IF," explores what today seems improbable or impossible. Stay tuned for more fascinating concepts.


EYEPIECE

April 2013

AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
Faster Than a Speeding Bullet
new study using observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals that expanding debris of exploded stars produces some of the fastest-moving matter in the universe. This discovery is a major step toward understanding the origin of cosmic rays, one of Fermi's primary mission goals. "Scientists have been trying to find the sources of high-energy cosmic rays since their discovery a century ago," said Elizabeth Hays, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Now we have conclusive proof supernova remnants, long the prime suspects, really do accelerate cosmic rays to incredible speeds." Cosmic rays are subatomic particles that move through space at almost the speed of light. About 90% of them are protons, with the remainder consisting of electrons and atomic nuclei. In their journey across the galaxy, the electrically charged particles are deflected by magnetic fields. This scrambles their paths and makes it impossible to trace their origins directly. Through a variety of mechanisms, these speedy particles can lead to the emission of gamma rays, the most powerful form of light and a signal that travels to us directly from its sources. The Fermi results concern two particular supernova remnants, IC 443 and W44, which scientists studied to prove supernova remnants produce cosmic rays. IC 443 and W44 are expanding into cold, dense clouds of interstellar gas. These clouds emit gamma rays when struck by high -speed particles escaping the remnants. Scientists previously

Spin Doctors at NASA
Two X-ray space observatories, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, have teamed up to definitively measure the spin rate of a black hole with a mass two million times that of our sun. The supermassive black hole lies at the dust and gas-filled heart of a galaxy called NGC 1365, spinning almost as fast as Einstein's theory of gravity will allow. The observations are a powerful test of the theory, which says gravity can bend space-time, the fabric that shapes our universe, and the light that travels through it. "We can trace matter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from

A

could not determine which atomic particles are responsible for emissions from the interstellar gas clouds. After analyzing four years of data, Fermi scientists see a distinguishable feature in the emissions of both remnants. The feature is caused by a short-lived particle called a neutral pion, produced when cosmic ray protons smash into normal protons. The pion quickly decays into a pair of gamma rays, emission that exhibits a swift and characteristic decline at lower energies. The low-end cutoff acts as a fingerprint, proving that the culprits in IC 443 and W44 are protons. "The discovery is the smoking gun that these supernova remnants are producing accelerated protons," said Stefan Funk, an astrophysicist with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics. "Now we can work to better understand how they manage this feat and determine if the process is common to all remnants where we see gamma-ray emission."

regions very close to the black hole," said NuSTAR principal investigator Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology. "The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the motions of particles and the black hole's incredibly strong gravity." NuSTAR, an Explorer-class mission launched in June 2012, is designed to detect the highest-energy X-ray light in great detail. It complements telescopes that observe lowerenergy X-ray light, such as XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Scientists use these and other telescopes to estimate the rates at which black holes spin. Until now, these measurements were not certain, because clouds of gas could have been obscuring the black holes and confusing the results. With help from XMM-Newton, NuSTAR was able to see a broader range of X-ray energies and penetrate deeper into the region around the black hole. The new data demonstrate that X-rays are not being warped by the clouds, but by the tremendous gravity of the black hole. This proves that spin rates of supermassive black holes can be determined conclusively. Measuring the spin of a supermassive black hole is fundamental to understanding its history and that of its host galaxy. "These monsters, with masses from millions to billions of times that of the Sun, are formed as small seeds in the early universe and grow by swallowing stars and gas in their host galaxies, merging with other giant black holes when galaxies collide, or both," said Guido Risaliti of the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. Supermassive black holes are surrounded by pancake-like accretion disks, formed as their gravity pulls matter inward. Einstein's theory predicts the faster a black hole spins, the closer the accretion disk lies to the black hole. The closer the accretion disk is, the more gravity from the black hole will warp X-ray light streaming off the disk. 7


EYEPIECE

April 2013

WHY WE EXPLORE NASA Mission: Kepler to Universe: "Is There Anybody Out There?"
By Amy Wagner
"We find ourselves at a special moment in time for scientific discovery ­ as with Christopher Columbus, the A