ASTRONOMY - Satellites Behind Pinnacles

 2022 June 14

Satellites Behind Pinnacles
Image Credit & Copyright: Joshua Rozells

Explanation: What are all those streaks across the background? Satellite trails. First, the foreground features picturesque rock mounds known as Pinnacles. Found in the Nambung National Park in Western Australia, these human-sized spires are made by unknown processes from ancient sea shells (limestone). Perhaps more eye-catching, though, is the sky behind. Created by low-Earth orbit satellites reflecting sunlight, all of these streaks were captured in less than two hours and digitally combined onto the single featured image, with the foreground taken consecutively by the same camera and from the same location. Most of the streaks were made by the developing Starlink constellation of communication satellites, but some are not. In general, the streaks are indicative of an increasing number of satellites nearly continuously visible above the Earth after dusk and before dawn. Understanding and removing the effects of satellite trails on images from Earth's ground-based cameras and telescopes is now important not only for elegant astrophotography, but for humanity's scientific understanding of the distant universe.

SANTé/MEDECINE - Où doit-on jeter les emballages de médicaments?

Boîtes en carton et notices en papier sont à jeter dans la poubelle de tri sélectif. Seuls les emballages qui sont directement en contact avec les médicaments sont à rapporter à la pharmacie. Petite précision : les pharmaciens reprennent tous les médicaments qui restent dans l'armoire à pharmacie, qu'ils soient périmés ou non. Il est très important de les rapporter au pharmacien et de ne pas les jeter à la poubelle ou dans les toilettes car ce sont des produits à base de substances chimiques actives qui peuvent polluer l'environnement. Le pharmacien les remettra au réseau Cyclamed, qui assurera leur valorisation.

TopSanté

ASTRONOMY - M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy from Hubble

 2022 June 13

M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy from Hubble
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Processing & Copyright: Bernard Miller

Explanation: The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky. The featured image is a digital combination of images taken in different colors by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, highlighting many sharp features. Anyone with a good pair of binoculars, however, can see this Whirlpool toward the constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici). M51 is a spiral galaxy of type Sc and is the dominant member of a whole group of galaxies. Astronomers speculate that M51's spiral structure is primarily due to its gravitational interaction with the smaller galaxy on the image left.

MERVEILLEUX MONDE SOUS-MARIN - L'aurélie, la méduse commune

Mer Rouge : Région de Marsa Alam

Méduse aurélie (Aurelia aurita). Le diamètre de son ombrelle peut mesurer jusqu'à 40 centimètres. On distingue autour des centaines de petites tentacules.

Cette espèce vit dans toutes les mers du globe, elle est pélagique mais se rencontre aussi près des côtes.

Les animaux marins, et notamment les tortues et les dauphins qui se nourrisent de méduses confondent parfois les sacs en plastique avec elles, et s'étouffent. Cette forme de pollution est donc dangereuse pour la vie sauvage.

© Alexis Rosenfeld

FuturaSciences

ASTRONOMY - Find the Man in the Moon

 2022 June 12

Find the Man in the Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Dani Caxete

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Man in the Moon? This common question plays on the ability of humans to see pareidolia -- imagining familiar icons where they don't actually exist. The textured surface of Earth's full Moon is home to numerous identifications of iconic objects, not only in modern western culture but in world folklore throughout history. Examples, typically dependent on the Moon's perceived orientation, include the Woman in the Moon and the Rabbit in the Moon. One facial outline commonly identified as the Man in the Moon starts by imagining the two dark circular areas -- lunar maria -- here just above the Moon's center, to be the eyes. Surprisingly, there actually is a man in this Moon image -- a close look will reveal a real person -- with a telescope -- silhouetted against the Moon. This featured well-planned image was taken in 2016 in Cadalso de los Vidrios in Madrid, Spain. Do you have a favorite object that you see in the Moon?

ASTRONOMY - The Road and the Milky Way

 2022 June 11

The Road and the Milky Way
Image Credit & Copyright: David Cruz

Explanation: At night you can follow this road as it passes through the Dark Sky Alqueva reserve not too far from Alentejo, Portugal. Or you could stop, look up, and follow the Milky Way through the sky. Both stretch from horizon to horizon in this 180 degree panorama recorded on June 3. Our galaxy's name, the Milky Way, does refer to its appearance as a milky path in the sky. The word galaxy itself derives from the Greek for milk. From our fair planet the arc of the Milky Way is most easily visible on moonless nights from dark sky areas, though not quite so bright or colorful as in this image. The glowing celestial band is due to the collective light of myriad stars along the galactic plane too faint to be distinguished individually. The diffuse starlight is cut by dark swaths of the galaxy's obscuring interstellar dust clouds. Standing above the Milky Way arc near the top of this panoramic nightscape is bright star Vega, with the galaxy's central bulge near the horizon at the right.

ASTRONOMY - Arp 286: Trio in Virgo

 2022 June 10

Arp 286: Trio in Virgo
Image Credit & Copyright: Nicolas Rolland, Telescope.Live

Explanation: This colorful telescopic field of view features a trio of interacting galaxies almost 90 million light-years away, toward the constellation Virgo. On the right two spiky, foreground Milky Way stars echo the extragalactic hues, a reminder that stars in our own galaxy are like those in distant island universes. With sweeping spiral arms and obscuring dust lanes, the dominant member of the trio, NGC 5566, is enormous, about 150,000 light-years across. Just above it lies smaller, bluish NGC 5569. Near center a third galaxy, NGC 5560, is apparently stretched and distorted by its interaction with massive NGC 5566. The trio is also included in Halton Arp's 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 286. Of course, such cosmic interactions are now appreciated as part of the evolution of galaxies.

ASTRONOMY - Cosmic Clouds in Cygnus

 2022 June 9

Cosmic Clouds in Cygnus
Image Credit & Copyright: Wolfgang Zimmermann

Explanation: These cosmic clouds of gas and dust drift through rich star fields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the high flying constellation Cygnus. They're too faint to be seen with the unaided eye though, even on a clear, dark night. Image data from a camera and telephoto lens using narrowband filters was used to construct this 10 degree wide field of view. The deep mosaic reveals a region that includes star forming dust clouds seen in silhouette against the characteristic glow of atomic hydrogen and oxygen gas. NGC 6888 is the standout emission nebula near the top. Blown by winds from an massive Wolf-Rayet star it's about 25 light-years across and known as the Crescent Nebula. A faint bluish curl just below center in the frame is also the signature of a Wolf-Rayet star. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate and near the end of their stellar lives, both stars will ultimately go out with a bang in a spectacular supernova explosion. Toward the right, a massive, young O type star powers the glow of Sh2-101, the Tulip Nebula.

SANTé/MEDECINE - Espoir : Des bio-implants immunologiques contre le cancer

Des petites billes pourraient augmenter l’action des cellules immunitaires chargées de combattre le cancer.

Des billes de la taille d’une tête d’épingle, mises au point par des bio-ingénieurs de l'Université Rice, aux Etats-Unis, contiennent des cellules conçues pour produire d’importantes doses d’interleukine-2 (IL-2), une protéine activatrice des globules blancs chargés de combattre le cancer.

Une augmentation de l’action des cellules immunitaires tout en réduisant les effets secondaires

Implantées à proximité d’une tumeur, ces billes délivrent l’IL-2 au plus proche, augmentant l’action des cellules immunitaires tout en réduisant les effets secondaires. Chez la souris, le traitement s’est révélé redoutablement efficace, éradiquant en quelques jours les tumeurs dont souffraient les rongeurs. Des essais sur l’humain doivent commencer à l’automne.

SciencesAvenir

ASTRONOMY - Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean

 2022 June 8

Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean
Image Credit: NASA, Terra, MODIS; Text: Raymond Shaw (MTU)

Explanation: What are those unusual streaks? Some images of planet Earth show clear bright streaks that follow the paths of ships. Known as ship tracks, these low and narrow bands are caused by the ship's engine exhaust. Water vapor condenses around small bits of exhaust known as aerosols, which soon grow into floating water drops that efficiently reflect sunlight. Ship tracks were first discovered in 1965 in Earth images taken by NASA's TIROS satellites. Multiple ship tracks are visible across the featured image that was captured in 2009 over the Pacific Ocean by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite. Inspired by ship-tracks, some scientists have suggested deploying a network of floating buoys in the worlds' oceans that spray salt-aerosol containing sea-water into the air so that, with the help of the wind, streams of sunlight-reflecting clouds would also form. Why do this? These human-made clouds could reflect so much sunlight they might help fight global warming.