Jun 24 2009
From The Space Library
NASA announced that its ESA craft had detected sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn’s outermost ring, an indication that Saturn’s moon Enceladus might harbor a reservoir of liquid water beneath its surface. In 2005 ESA had discovered on Enceladus water-ice jets, which replenish Saturn’s outermost ring with tiny ice grains and vapor. Analysis of the data from ESA’s cosmic-dust detector concluded that only the presence of liquid water could account for the dissolution of the significant amounts of minerals necessary to produce the levels of salt detected in the ring. Frank Postberg, ESA scientist for the cosmic-dust analyzer at the [Max Planck Institute]] for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, explained that the grains include table salt and carbonates, like soda, in concentrations that match the predicted composition of an Enceladus ocean. He added that, if the liquid source is indeed an ocean, its presence, coupled with the heat measured near the moon’s south pole and the organic compounds found in the plumes, creates an environment suitable for the formation of life precursors.
NASA, “Salt Finding from NASA’s ESA Hints at Ocean Within Saturn Moon,” news release 09-147, 24 June 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jun/HQ_09-147_ESA_Enceladus_Salts.html (accessed 22 July 2011).
NASA’s MFSC and the Chandra X-ray Observatory announced that a long observation from Chandra, the SST, and ground-based observatories had identified for the first time the source of energy producing so-called cosmic blobs. The Chandra observations had helped reveal that the so-called blobs are not infant galaxies, as astronomers had previously thought, but more likely “adolescent” galaxies about to stabilize. The telescopes had observed a collection of 29 blobs in one large field in the sky called SSA22. The blobs had become visible from Earth when the universe was approximately 2 billion years old, or 15 percent of its current age. Chandra data had revealed a signature in five blobs indicating the growth of supermassive black holes—a point- like source with luminous x-ray emission. An additional three blobs provided possible evidence for such black holes. Further observations, including Spitzer data, had determined that remarkable levels of star formation dominated several of these galaxies. Calculations had revealed that the radiation and outflows from the black holes, and from the bursts of star formation, were powerful enough to light up the hydrogen gas in the blobs. Scientists stated that, although the gas in the blobs would not likely cool down to form stars, it would add to the hot gas found between galaxies, indicating that SSA22 could evolve into a massive galaxy cluster. James E. Geach of Durham University in the United Kingdom, lead author of the study, which the Astrophysical Journal would publish in its 10 July 2009 issue, remarked that scientists would need to look further back in time to capture data indicating that the blobs were forming galaxies and black holes.
Chandra X-Ray Center, “Galaxies Coming of Age in Cosmic Blobs,” news release, 24 June 2009, http://chandra.si.edu/press/09_releases/press_062409.html (accessed 5 August 2011); Clara Moskowitz, “Secrets of Space Blobs Revisited,” Space.com, 24 June 2009, http://www.space.com/6885-secrets-space-blobs-revealed.html (accessed 8 August 2011); Seth Borenstein, “Telescope Finds Space Blobs Are Pubescent Galaxies,” Associated Press, 25 June 2009.
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