Collections

View all

The Universe just got a little more crowded with the discovery of more than 300,000 potential galaxies in a tiny corner of the northern sky. A release of data gathered by the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope network in Europe has added extraordinary new levels of detail to the map of radio waves across the cosmos, inspiring dozens of studies on everything from magnetic fields to black holes.

It's moments like these we should be grateful of our relative blindness to the radiance of the night sky - at least, if we want sleep at night. Invisible to the human eye, the Universe is in fact ablaze with low frequency waves produced by accelerating particles and electromagnetic fields.

Measuring that radio hum requires some pretty sensitive equipment. LOFAR's array of 20,000 antennas scattered across 48 stations in the Netherlands and abroad is like having a huge radio-sensitive eye on our planet's surface.

Among its many tasks is an intensive survey of the northern night sky at radio frequencies of around 120 to 168 megahertz, which is expected to provide new information on a variety of softly shining astronomical phenomena.

So far only about 20 percent of the survey has been completed, and of that, scientists all over the globe can only access about 10 percent of available data. That might not sound like much, but they're clearly having a field day with it. The journal Astronomy and Astrophysics has just published 26 studiesbased on this initial data release, covering quasars, blazars, black holes, and intergalactic electromagnetic fields.

One of the big reveals in the mosaic of sources are 325,694 points where the glow of radio waves surges to at least five times the background noise. Around 70 percent of these can be linked with an optical signal, so it's fairly safe to say these bright spots represent galaxies we can add to our cosmic roadmap.

It's no secret that galaxies of sufficient size often harbour gargantuan black holes that swallow everything within reach with such temerity, they vomit jets of matter shining in radio waves. What hasn't been clear is just how strict this rule is, and whether these core black holes ever manage to clear their plate.

This new data is helping persuade scientists that these monsters have relentless appetites.
"LOFAR has a remarkable sensitivity and that allows us to see that these jets are present in all of the most massive galaxies, which means that their black holes never stop eating," says astrophysicist Philip Bestfrom the University of Edinburgh.

Pinpointing the locations of new galaxies doesn't just help us understand their inner structures, it provides a valuable tool to understanding the vast stretches of nothingness in between. Usually, radio waves are produced by the turbulence stirred up as galaxies collide.

"What we are beginning to see with LOFAR is that in some cases, clusters of galaxies that are not merging can also show this emission, albeit at a very low level that was previously undetectable," says astrophysicist Annalisa Bonafede from the University of Bologna. "This discovery tells us that besides merger events, there are other phenomena that can trigger particle acceleration over huge scales."

The sensitivity of LOFAR's eye on the sky has also helped researchers trace out the faint magnetic fields that have been predicted to exist in intergalactic space but until now too hard to detect.

"Magnetic fields pervade the cosmos, and we want to understand how this happened," says University of Hamburg astronomer Shane O'Sullivan.

Closer to home, the sheer magnitude of raw data collected by surveys such as this demands new ways to process information that are not just time efficient, but also aren't chewing through too much power. The data management collaborative, SURF, is currently storing more than 20 petabytes of LOFAR's information, which is still only a little more than half of the total.

"We have been working together with SURF in the Netherlands to efficiently transform the massive amounts of data into high-quality images," says cosmologist Timothy Shimwell from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and Leiden University.

SURF's technology and processes makes relatively short work of crunching the numbers into something that can be used by diverse teams of researchers. What's more, it's all run on 100 percent renewables.

This is just the beginning. There's plenty more sky left to uncover, which in the end could reveal around 15 million new sources of radio wave emissions, many stretching back to the dawn of the Universe. This is one bright future for the LOFAR sky survey.

This research was published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.



☆Pictured Below☆Spiral galaxy M106 superimposed with the LOFAR data (yellow). (Cyril Tasse/Paris Observatory/LOFAR)


Article By:
MIKE MCRAE
ScienceAlert
20 February 2019

Happy Birthday Ansel!

Today is Ansel Adams birthday. In honor of that here is a large format black and white shot from Arches National Park I hope he would like.

Taken on my Arca-Swiss 4x5 on Efke 25 sheet fim and processed in DR5 as a B+W chrome.

Google+ is closing soon. Be sure to follow my Flickr, IG, or Blog
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wildernessphotographer/
IG: @wildernessphotographer
Blog: https://www.wildernessphotographer.net/

#wildernessphotographer #utah #arches #largeformat #arcaswiss #film #landscape #anseladams

Following are the 6 technical #SEO aspects that help your search rankings getting better ....

#SEOStrategy #SEOAgency #SEOTips #Webmaster #HTTPS #MobileFirstIndexing #TechnicalSEO

Rome, Italy
teresapilcherphotography.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TeresaPilcherPhotography/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/teresapilcher/
Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/teresapilcher/

The 2018 Grammy Awards after party celeb looks are unique and amazing

http://www.styleglamor.com/2018-grammy-awards-after-party/

fragment © Holger Nimtz
Baltic Sea | Germany | 2019
https://www.holge.de/galerie

Follow me on instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/holger.nimtz/

Microwaving grapes to make plasma...

yes, you read that correctly.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wCrtk-pyP0I&feature=youtu.be

Billiards

#pakistan #punjab
#blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #monochrome #monochromephotography #street #streetphotography #people #peopleatwork #tailor
#portrait #portraiture #portraitphotography #street #streetphotography

Engineers can detect ultra rare proteins in blood using a cellphone camera

Belmore Falls Morton NP
Celebration: countdown 33

The 4th Earl of Belmore brought his wife here, the southern highlands, to escape the oppressive heat and mendacity of the City of Sydney. These remain good reasons to follow in his footsteps, and climb to the falls renamed in honor of the Governor's impressive beard.
On 12 March 1868 he was attending a picnic when Prince Alfred (commander of the visiting steam-powered warship HMS Galatea) was shot in a Fenian assassination attempt. As most of the police in the state of New South Wales were Irish, New South Wales teetered on the edge of becoming an Irish state and perhaps part of a pan-Pacific union with the Americas. The Earl kept his cool and the rebellion was put down.
The Earl's wife enjoyed the highlands, and they had 13 children, one of whom (Lady Edith) is reputed to have turned into a greylag goose

This wide shot shows the two top plunges and hints at the two lower unseen. The river drops 330m (1080') in a series of plunges to the Kangaroo River.

This image is taken from my video of the falls. The original was toned for structure. For this image, i reviewed the range of video frames noting that the sunlight lit different trees as the mist rolled up the river. I chose a new frame, looking for a little more balance between left and right.

Celebrate: Thank you. To celebrate what we all achieved on G+, i am publishing the 50 most viewed posts in this collection until shutdown. This is a reprocessed image of Belmore Falls (33th most viewed - viewed 1,919,852 times).

After shutdown, you can find me by visiting https://wheretofind.me/@peterquinton
Adventure with me at my website: http://www.silenttheory.net
The books we wrote here on G+ are now on Amazon: https://amazon.com/author/peterquinton
My footprints are on GoogleMaps: https://goo.gl/maps/r2CtN5y38XJ2

#CelebrateCountdown (please feel free to use this hashtag to celebrate your own favorite posts)

By making these 10 lifestyle changes, you can lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease.

https://health-zone.org/10-natural-ways-lower-blood-pressure/

Mt. Fuji over the Chureito Pagoda at Dawn

Follow Yuga on:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/KritaYuga
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kritayuga
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kuriyuga
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kritayuga

The possibility of a dramatic peace declaration looms large over the Trump-Kim summit, but ending the Korean War could open up a whole new set of problems for Washington if not done carefully.

This year, Android will have completed 10 years in the public space as Android Q is released. But there are some Android problems that probably won’t be fixed.

8 Things Your Ears Say About Your Health

Could your sore or ringing ears be a sign of something else? Find out more about what your ears can tell you about your health.

https://www.howfitness.info/what-your-ears-say-about-your-health/

Google May Use Different #Ranking Weights for YMYL-Type Queries ~ Search Engine Land:

#SEO #SEM #DigitalMarketing

From Discover on Google https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/samsung-galaxy-s10-plus-s10e-hands-on-video-leaked-cases-covers-galaxy-buds-reverse-charging-1995690?amp=1&akamai-rum=off

Your food choices may be the most influential variable you can control that relates to the health, vitality, and functionality of your precious brain. This article lists 10 best foods that boost your brain.

http://www.healthuses.com/10-foods-boost-brain-health/

Videos are So Rich in Content and So Effective that They are The Most Prevalent Means of Sending Messages on Social Media Today. Videos are One of the Most Effective Means of Engagement and Thus One of the Best Tools in the Digital Age.

#DigitalMarketing #SEO #SocialMediaMarketing #Business #SMM #VideoMarketing

History Of The Samsung Galaxy S http://ow.ly/mWmf30nKIHG

Huawei P30 Pro quad camera setup seemingly confirmed by company CEO - After officially kicking off the P30 series teasing games yesterday with March 26 Paris event confirmation and a 10-second clip meant to build buzz around the super-advanced zooming skills of its next flagship device, Huawei may have unintentionally revealed one of the key P30 Pro selling points. Over on Weibo, aka China's Twitter, Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu shared a seemingly innocuous picture of the m...

One of the best things about the Android OS is it allows for a lot of customization. We’ve got a list featuring some of the greatest apps you can use to customize your device, with information and ratings for each one. Let’s get started.

https://thetechinside.com/7-best-customization-apps-for-android/

There used to be a time when users had to resort to third-party solutions in order to keep Internet ads at bay. These days, much to the dismay of some advertisers, browser makers have taken it upon themselves to do the heavy lifting of helping users block…