Guest guest Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 Om, An interesting article for the group: > Paramacharya Ceyonswami <ceyon > October 10, 2007 3:23:02 PM PDT > Indivar Sivanathan <INDIVAR, shakti, > " Jutikadevi (CDC/CCHIS/NCPHI) (CTR) Sivaraja " <avj7 > Gems in Space > > OM, > makes you wonder about our Central Sun and the connection with the > gems on Earth: > > WASHINGTON (AP) -- Astronomers have taken a baby step in trying to > answer the cosmic question of where we come from. > art.cosmic.dust.jpg > > > An illustration shows dusty grains blowing in the winds of a quasar, > or active black hole. > > > Planets and much on them, including humans, come from dust -- mostly > from dying stars. But where did the dust that helped form those early > stars come from? > > A NASA telescope may have spotted one of the answers. It's in the wind > bursting out of super-massive black holes. > > The Spitzer Space Telescope identified large quantities of freshly > made space dust in a quasar about 8 billion light years from here. > > Astronomers used the telescope to break down the wavelengths of light > in the quasar to figure out what was in the space dust. They found > signs of glass, sand, crystal, marble, rubies and sapphires, said > Ciska Markwick-Kemper of the University of Manchester in England. She > is the lead author of a study that will be published later this month > in Astrophysical Journal Letters. > > Dust is important in the cooling process to make stars, which are > predominantly gas. The leftover dust tends to clump together to make > planets, comets and asteroids, said astronomer Sarah Gallagher, a > study co-author at the University of California Los Angeles. > > " In the end, everything comes from space dust, " Markwick-Kemper said. > " It's putting all the pieces of the puzzle together to figure out > where we came from. " > > Astronomers figure that the planets that formed in the past several > billion years -- and those away from quasars -- came from dust that > was belched from dying stars. That's what happened with Earth. > > That still leaves a question about where the dust from the first > couple billion years of the universe came from, which helped form > early generations of star systems. > > " It's formed in the wind, " of the black holes, Markwick-Kemper said. > Gas molecules collide in the searing heat of the quasar, which is > thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, and form clusters. > > " These clusters grow bigger and bigger until you can call them dust > grains, " she said. > > Scientists who weren't part of the study hailed the work. > > Cornell University astronomer Dan Weedman, the former director of > NASA's astrophysics division, said the study was an important step in > answering a fundamental mystery of the early universe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.