RCW120: Glowing stellar nurseries

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bystander
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RCW120: Glowing stellar nurseries

Post by bystander » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:39 pm

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/objects/images/nursery.jpg
Provided by ESO, Garching, Germany

New image reveals glowing stellar nurseries
Sub-millimeter light is vital in studying the earliest stages of the birth and life of stars.

Astronomy.com
November 11, 2008

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=7593
Illustrating the power of sub-millimeter-wavelength astronomy, an Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope image reveals how an expanding bubble of ionized gas about 10 light-years across causes the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps that are the birthplaces of new stars. Sub-millimeter light is the key to revealing some of the coldest material in the universe, such as these cold, dense clouds.

The region, called RCW120, is about 4,200 light-years from Earth, towards the constellation Scorpius. ...

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neufer
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Re: RCW120: Glowing stellar nurseries

Post by neufer » Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:29 pm

bystander wrote:http://www.astronomy.com/asy/objects/images/nursery.jpg
Provided by ESO, Garching, Germany

New image reveals glowing stellar nurseries
Sub-millimeter light is vital in studying the earliest stages of the birth and life of stars.

Astronomy.com
November 11, 2008

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=7593
Illustrating the power of sub-millimeter-wavelength astronomy, an Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope image reveals how an expanding bubble of ionized gas about 10 light-years across causes the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps that are the birthplaces of new stars. Sub-millimeter light is the key to revealing some of the coldest material in the universe, such as these cold, dense clouds.

The region, called RCW120, is about 4,200 light-years from Earth, towards the constellation Scorpius. ...
Female ticks have market on gluttony
Image
Credit: Professor Frans Jongejan, University of Utrecht, Netherlands,
and University of Pretoria, Republic of South Africa.

<<Sex makes you fat. If you're a female tick, that is.

The "truly gluttonous" female ixodid tick increases her weight an astounding 100 times her original size after she mates, so a University of Alberta researcher investigated what it is about copulation that triggers such a massive weight gain.

In a new research paper reported in the Journal of Insect Physiology, Dr. Reuben Kaufman, from the Department of Biological Sciences, suggests several differences between the ixodid tick and her blood-sucking counterparts that help explain the weight gain. Using mosquitoes, tsetse flies, bed bugs and kissing bugs as comparison, Kaufman observed that no one in comparison to this female African tick when it came to weight gain following mating.

Kaufman suggests that the ixodid tick displays a significant difference in lifestyle from the other insects and that it is adaptive for the virgin to remain small before mating.

First, this species of tick remain on the host for many days, rather than minutes. "In this family of ticks, mating takes place on the host," says Kaufman. "Most other insects mate before or after their brief blood meal -the two acts are totally separate, but not with these ticks."

Female ticks require six to 10 days to engorge fully. First, she attaches herself to the skin. Then she feeds to 10 times her unfed weight and finally, after copulation she increases her weight a further tenfold......... >>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: RCW120: Glowing stellar nurseries

Post by bystander » Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:48 pm

neufer wrote:Female ticks have market on gluttony

<<... Sex makes you fat. If you're a female tick, that is ...>>
Art, were you a physicist or an entomologist. Giant ants, giant tarantulas, and now ticks (although, admittedly ticks and spiders are arachnids, not insects). I think I see a pattern emerging to your madness. :lol: The sad thing is, I'm going mad, too. Once you point them out, I see them, too.
Last edited by bystander on Tue Aug 30, 2011 3:32 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: added links

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neufer
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Re: RCW120: Glowing stellar nurseries

Post by neufer » Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:54 pm

bystander wrote:
neufer wrote:Female ticks have market on gluttony

<<... Sex makes you fat. If you're a female tick, that is ...>>
Art, were you a physicist or an entomologist.
I'm a physicist who grew up on '50's SF films.

Us MIT nerds would congregate on Saturday night to watch Boston's Ch. 7's WNAC-TV FANTASMIC FEATURES
(hosted by a light bulb named Feep) and we would comment on the faulty physics involved.

Image
bystander wrote: Giant ants, giant tarantulas, and now ticks (although, admittedly ticks and spiders are arachnids, not insects). I think
I see a pattern emerging to your madness. :lol: The sad thing is, I'm going mad, too. Once you point them out, I see them, too.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=U5oycUsfuLM

Welcome to bug-bedlam. Note, however, that RCW120 IS towards the constellation Scorpius. ...

<<According to Greek mythology, Scorpius corresponds to the scorpion which was sent by the goddess Hera (or possibly Gaia) to kill the hunter Orion, the scorpion rising out of the ground to attack. Every time Scorpius appears on the horizon, Orion starts to sink into the other side of the sky, still running from the attacker. Scorpius also appears in one version of the story of Phaethon, the mortal son of Helios, the sun. Phaethon asked to drive the sun-chariot for a day. Phaethon lost control of the chariot. The horses, already out of control, were scared by the great celestial scorpion with its sting raised to strike, and the inexperienced boy lost control of the chariot, as the sun wildly went about the sky (this is said to have formed the constellation Eridanus).>>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: RCW120: Glowing stellar nurseries

Post by bystander » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:16 pm

bystander wrote:Art, were you a physicist or an entomologist.
neufer wrote:I'm a physicist who grew up on '50's SF films.

Us MIT nerds would congregate on Saturday night to watch Boston's Ch. 7's WNAC-TV FANTASMIC FEATURES
(hosted by a light bulb named Feep) and we would comment on the faulty physics involved.
Kind of your own MST3K!

http://www.tv.com/video/15258/first-spa ... ideo;thumb
bystander wrote: Giant ants, giant tarantulas, and now ticks (although, admittedly ticks and spiders are arachnids, not insects). I think I see a pattern emerging to your madness. :lol: The sad thing is, I'm going mad, too. Once you point them out, I see them, too.
neufer wrote:Welcome to bug-bedlam. Note, however, that RCW120 IS towards the constellation Scorpius. ...
:o Oh no, more arachnids. Arachnophobia: Eight legs, two fangs and an attitude.

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