Gravity waves.

Researchers from the BICEP2 collaboration have found direct evidence for the inflationary model of the universe. The model that states that after a fraction of a second after the big bang, the universe began to increase exponentially in size. In order to solve other issues that were of concern in cosmology. One of them being, "Why is the universe so uniform?". Their data represents the first images of ripples in space-time. Waves that were spawned right after the big bang, analogous to a rock causing waves on water. An inadequate analogy but it suffices. Gravity waves were phenomena predicted by Einstein in his General theory of relativity. The theory in which he used his Equivalence Principle. Where acceleration and gravity are essentially indistinguishable as well as seeing the fabric of space capable of distortions due to gravity. And if this space can be distorted, gravity waves should also appear on this fabric of space-time. The data found now confirms a link between quantum mechanics and general relativity, something which many theorists are working on. This is major step forward in modern cosmology because it was one of the last phenomena that General relativity predicted and is now experimentally confirmed. This confirmation spawned from data that the BICEP2 telescope collected from the cosmic microwave background radiation. This is essentially the light glow left over from the big bang. And as light can be polarized, we can detect if there is any polarization in the photons of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The team hunted for a specific polarization of light known as B-modes. Which represent a twisting or curling pattern in the orientation of the archaic light. Gravity waves can squeeze space as they travel, and it is theorized that this squeezing is what is causing the polarization of the photons. And what's even more crazy is that even gravity waves can be polarized. Being left handed or right handed, in some sense. "The swirly B-mode pattern is a unique signature of gravitational waves because of their handedness. This is the first direct image of gravitational waves across the primordial sky," said co-leader Chao-Lin Kuo (Stanford/SLAC).The place where they went was the south pole, where air would be cold and dry, ideal for measurements such as this. Perfect for observing faint microwaves. Another surprise that the researchers were presented with was that the B-mode polarization was stronger than some cosmologists had predicted. This data now provides insight as to when inflation may have occurred and the intensity of the process. Source

These image show the fluctuations in temperature. And the black lines show the twisting pattern in polarized photons of the CMB.
Image Credit: BICEP2 Collaboration. 

James Webb Telescope

Scientists and engineers have begun to assemble and test the James Webb Space Telescope. One of the engineers that prepare and clean the mirrors for the telescope described it as an operation. Going into suit and taking an air shower are required in order to go into the room with the telescope. The telescope will use four main instruments to detect light from distant galaxies and celestial bodies. The Near InfraRed Camera, provided by the University of Arizona, will be detecting the earliest galaxies and stars. The Near InfraRed Spectrograph, from the European Space Agency, can analyze the spectrum of a hundred objects simultaneously and will assist in studying the temperature, mass, and chemical components of celestial bodies. The Mid-InfraRed instrument will be used to detect distant galaxies and newly formed stars. And the Fine Guidance Sensor/Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectograph will allow the telescope to point accurately and take high definition images of planets outside the solar system. The primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope is 6.5 meters in diameter and made up of 18 Beryllium segments that are gold coated to help capture most of the infrared light. Although the European Space Agency created three of the four components, NASA has to assemble and test the telescope to see if it can withstand the environment of space. They simulate it using cryogenics in order to see how the mirrors and instruments withstand. The budget of the telescope is 8 billion, and it will replace the Hubble telescope, which scientists expect to retire somewhere around 2020. The telescope will be positioned at the L2 Lagrange point, nearly four times the distance from the Earth to the Moon and it will orbit the Sun. The mission will pick up where Hubble will leave off. The size of the Webb telescope is much larger than Hubble. Which is the size of a school bus. While the Webb telescope is about the size of a Boeing 737 jet. And since the Hubble's primary mirror is at 2.4 meters in diameter, there will be much more light gathered by Webb. The larger the mirror, the better the images. Using its robust mirrors, scientists will be able to study galaxies that formed right after the big band, the process of stellar and planetary formation, and even the composition of planets to see if they are capable of hosting life.
The launching of the telescope in 2018 is going to be difficult however, since it will need to pass cryogenic tests and be able to fold its components in the rocket.The primary mirror weighs six metric tons, and will spend one week in aligning its mirrors after a six month commissioning period as it goes into outer space. And after this has been completed, the telescope will be handed over to astronomers with the best proposals. Much like the committee for Hubble. I personally cannot wait to see what objects and mysteries will be seen and solved with this telescope. Heralding a new era of research for astronomers.
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Tendrils of Galaxies

Astronomers in Australia have shown that galaxies in vast empty regions of space are actually connected into a "cosmic string". The majority of galaxies in the universe are found to be in clusters, and these clusters are what forms these strings of the Cosmic web. Astronomers believe that the void in between the filaments are empty. In fact, these empty spaces can be of interest because they could provide insight as to whether galaxies not in clusters have different properties than those that are in them. The absence of a strong gravitational field that pervades clusters might tell us that the stars in the galaxy were created right when the galaxy was created. Since no new material from other galaxies could interact with it.
However, the team of astronomers have found that there are smaller structures in these voids, tendrils.
Strings of few galaxies, unlike the many in the web like structure of clusters. This means that the voids might be smaller than once thought. And galactic structures lurk where astronomers believed there was nothing of major importance.
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Black Widow and Redback Pulsars

Spinning 390 times a second, PSR J1311−3430 periodically swings its radio (green) and gamma-ray (magenta) beams past Earth in this artist's concept. The pulsar heats the facing side of its stellar partner to temperatures twice as hot as the sun's surface and slowly evaporates it. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Pulsars have been known for their large rates of rotation and intense gravitational and magnetic fields. Plenty of interesting things occur when pulsars are paired with another companion. Most pulsars rotate with rpms of  about few thousand when they are young. They come into existence after a star has burned all of its hydrogen fuel and it collapses under the gravitational force when it over comes the pressure gradient. This leaves a very dense core many times the mass of the sun but a fraction of its size. Roger Romani, a member of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology states that black widow and redback pulsars are essentially millisecond pulsars (with a rotation completed in a millisecond) with normal companion stars that are low mass. Black widow systems have companion stars much lower in mass and size than the redbacks. One black widow system named PSR J13113430, has the tightest orbit of pulsars currently known, where the companion star (a dozen or so Jupiter masses and 60 percent the size of Jupiter) orbits every 93 minutes. These millisecond pulsars are also thought to have gone to such speeds due to their interaction with a companion. But then, how did isolated millisecond pulsars rejuvenate their speeds? This is where the devouring of the companion comes into play. When the companion star faces the pulsar it receives its high energy emissions and winds which heat and blow off the material from the star. Effectively producing a vanity mirror that then is degraded over time which provides important information about the emissions of the pulsar in great detail. Romani began to image another black widow system in the visible range and saw that the color changed from intense blue to dull red, or hot to cold within an hour an a half. The blue side had temperatures of about 12,000 C whilst the original temperature of the star was around 2,700 C. Other systems have also been detected in Keck and Gemini, noticing that the blow torch of the pulsar does not uniformly heat up the surface because of the observation of flares. The systems are then permeating with ionized gas, which absorbs radio waves and causes detection of pulses to have brief and irregular intervals. But gamma rays pierce the veil of ionized gas, since their energies are much larger than the absorption energies. And over time, these millisecond pulsars "devour" their companion, leaving isolated millisecond pulsars. Or so goes this theory. Source

Jellyfish Galaxies

New images from Hubble have supported the theory that jellyfish black holes are created when they are pulled into dense galaxy clusters. This stretches the spiral shape into the familiar sea creature and eventually turns into an elliptical galaxy as it is integrated into the cluster. A trio of researchers, two from the University of Hawaii and one from the University of Dunham, have studied images from Hubble and have witnessed what they believed to be how spiral galaxy evolve when they near a cluster. Cold gas from the galaxy gets pulled into the cluster, and the outer stars on the spirals also get pulled, resulting in the stretch that they are observing. The theory explains both the presence of the jellyfish galaxies and the orphan stars that are not part of the spiral galaxy. 

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Chandra X-Ray Observatory

The Chandra X-Ray has been NASA's flagship mission for X-Ray astronomy. It was first launched in July 23, 1999 and it is telescope that is designed to detect hot regions of the universe, such as exploding stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes. Since X-rays are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, Chandra must orbit above it. The observatory moves by the use of thrusters, one for propulsion and another for momentum unloading. The path it takes around the Earth is an elliptical orbit, in which the thrusters apply torques to help it maintain its altitude. The power of the observatory comes from the Sun's rays, which is then stored in its batteries and distributed throughout its system. Chandra's altitude is 200 times the height of Hubble, almost a third of the way to the moon. Chandra is also the largest space craft launched at a length of 45 feet and the mission that deployed it was commanded by the first woman commander. Chandra has the ability to detect particles entering a black hole up to the last second! This is why when it comes to quasars or supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, or any other phenomena with the production of high energy light, Chandra is the telescope to use.
Its telescope consists of different lenses than usual optical telescopes. Since the photons its observing  are at a higher energy, they ricochet off the mirrors if they are at a grazing angle. Thus, they have to be parallel to the incoming X-rays, which is why they are barrel shaped, rather than disk shaped. Another interesting feature is that the smoothness of the mirrors have been reached to a few atoms. This is the equivalent of making the Earth's surface so smooth that Everest would be less than two meters tall. They are coated with the reflective and rare metal Iridium.

Coating the mirrors at Optical Coating Laboratories inc.
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Galaxies siphoning off hydrogen!

I thought this was an interesting read. There's a pair of two galaxies that seemed to have a river of hydrogen flowing from one to the other. But there is a hypothesis that this could actually be the reason for major star formation in spiral galaxies and how they keep up the pace in star formation. Larger ones effectively siphon off this hydrogen, cold and diffuse, gas from smaller galaxies. Using the GBT, the Green Bank Telescope, astronomer D.J Pisano found the filament of tenuous gas using its immense single dish, unblocked aperture, and its location in the national radio quiet zone. There is also another theory in which this galaxy had a close encounter with its neighbor and the filament is just a ribbon of neutral atomic hydrogen. If this is the case, then there should be stars in this ribbon. Further study will enable astronomers to get a better idea of galaxy evolution.

Credit: D.J. Pisano (WVU); B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); Palomar Observatory -- Space Telescope Science Institute 2nd Digital Sky Survey (Caltech); Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope
Source: http://phys.org/news/2014-01-river-hydrogen-space-green-bank.html#jCp