NASA'S Galex Reveals The Largest-Known Spiral Galaxy

WASHINGTON -- The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for decades. Now a team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest-known spiral, based on archival data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission. GALEX has since been loaned to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

Measuring tip-to-tip across its two outsized spiral arms, NGC 6872 spans more than 522,000 light-years, making it more than five times the size of our Milky Way galaxy.

"Without GALEX's ability to detect the ultraviolet light of the youngest, hottest stars, we would never have recognized the full extent of this intriguing system," said lead scientist Rafael Eufrasio, a research assistant at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a doctoral student at Catholic University of America in Washington. He presented the findings Thursday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

The galaxy's unusual size and appearance stem from its interaction with a much smaller disk galaxy named IC 4970, which has only about one-fifth the mass of NGC 6872. The odd couple is located 212 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Pavo.
Astronomers think large galaxies, including our own, grew through mergers and acquisitions -- assembling over billions of years by absorbing numerous smaller systems.

Intriguingly, the gravitational interaction of NGC 6872 and IC 4970 may have done the opposite, spawning what may develop into a new small galaxy.

"The northeastern arm of NGC 6872 is the most disturbed and is rippling with star formation, but at its far end, visible only in the ultraviolet, is an object that appears to be a tidal dwarf galaxy similar to those seen in other interacting systems," said team member Duilia de Mello, a professor of astronomy at Catholic University.

The tidal dwarf candidate is brighter in the ultraviolet than other regions of the galaxy, a sign it bears a rich supply of hot young stars less than 200 million years old.

The researchers studied the galaxy across the spectrum using archival data from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the Two Micron All Sky Survey, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as GALEX.

By analyzing the distribution of energy by wavelength, the team uncovered a distinct pattern of stellar age along the galaxy's two prominent spiral arms. The youngest stars appear in the far end of the northwestern arm, within the tidal dwarf candidate, and stellar ages skew progressively older toward the galaxy's center.

The southwestern arm displays the same pattern, which is likely connected to waves of star formation triggered by the galactic encounter.
A 2007 study by Cathy Horellou at Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden and Baerbel Koribalski of the Australia National Telescope Facility developed computer simulations of the collision that reproduced the overall appearance of the system as we see it today. According to the closest match, IC 4970 made its closest approach about 130 million years ago and followed a path that took it nearly along the plane of the spiral's disk in the same direction it rotates. The current study is consistent with this picture.

As in all barred spirals, NGC 6872 contains a stellar bar component that transitions between the spiral arms and the galaxy's central regions. Measuring about 26,000 light-years in radius, or about twice the average length found in nearby barred spirals, it is a bar that befits a giant galaxy.

The team found no sign of recent star formation along the bar, which indicates it formed at least a few billion years ago. Its aged stars provide a fossil record of the galaxy's stellar population before the encounter with IC 4970 stirred things up.

"Understanding the structure and dynamics of nearby interacting systems like this one brings us a step closer to placing these events into their proper cosmological context, paving the way to decoding what we find in younger, more distant systems," said team member and Goddard astrophysicist Eli Dwek.

The study also included Fernanda Urrutia-Viscarra and Claudia Mendes de Oliveira at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and Dimitri Gadotti at the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile.

The GALEX mission is led by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages the mission and built the science instrument. GALEX was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. In May 2012, In May 2012, NASA announced it was loaning GALEX to Caltech, which continues spacecraft operations and data management using private funds.

Major NASA Air Pollution Study to Fly Over California

WASHINGTON -- A multi-year NASA airborne science mission is on its way to California to help scientists better understand how to measure and forecast air quality globally from space. Two NASA aircraft equipped with scientific instruments will fly over the San Joaquin Valley between Bakersfield and Fresno in January and February to measure air pollution. One aircraft will fly within 1,000 feet of the ground.

The aircraft are part of NASA's five-year DISCOVER-AQ study, which stands for Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality. Its researchers are working to improve the ability of satellites to consistently observe air quality in the lowest part of the atmosphere. If scientists could better observe pollution from space, they would be able to make better air quality forecasts and more accurately determine where pollution is coming from and why emissions vary.

A fundamental challenge for space-based instruments monitoring air quality is to distinguish between pollution high in the atmosphere and pollution near the surface where people live. DISCOVER-AQ will make measurements from aircraft in combination with ground-based monitoring sites to help scientists better understand how to observe ground-level pollution from space.

"DISCOVER-AQ is collecting data that will prepare us to make better observations from space, as well as determine the best mix of observations to have at the surface when we have new satellite instruments in orbit," said James Crawford, the mission's principal investigator at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. "NASA is planning to launch that satellite instrument, called TEMPO, in 2017."

Because many countries, including the United States, have large gaps in ground-based networks of air pollution monitors, experts look to satellites to provide a more complete geographic perspective on the distribution of pollutants.

A fleet of Earth-observing satellites, called the Afternoon Constellation or "A-train," will pass over the DISCOVER-AQ study area daily in the early afternoon. The satellites' data, especially from NASA's Aqua and Aura spacecraft, will give scientists the opportunity to compare the view from space with that from the ground and aircraft.

"The A-Train satellites have been useful in giving us a broader view of air pollution than we've ever had before," said Kenneth Pickering, DISCOVER-AQ's project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "DISCOVER-AQ will help scientists interpret that data to improve air-quality analysis and regional air quality models."

Test flights are scheduled to start Jan. 16 with science flights continuing through mid-February. A four-engine P-3B turboprop plane from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., will carry eight instruments. A two-engine B200 King Air aircraft from Langley will carry two instruments. Sampling will focus on agricultural and vehicle traffic areas extending from Bakersfield to Fresno. The flight path passes over six ground measurement sites operated by the California Air Resources Board and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

The117-foot-long P-3B will fly spiral flights over the ground stations. These flights will be from an altitude of 15,000 feet to as low as 1,000 feet. They will sample air along agricultural and traffic corridors at low altitudes between the ground stations. The smaller B200 King Air will collect data from as high as 26,000 feet. The plane's instruments will look down at the surface, much like a satellite, and measure particulate and gaseous air pollution. The two airplanes will fly from NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif.

The DISCOVER-AQ mission is a partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and University of California campus branches in Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, and Santa Barbara. Other partners in the California campaign include the National Center for Atmospheric Research; the University of Maryland in College Park and Baltimore County; University of Colorado, Boulder; Pennsylvania State University, State College; University of Innsbruck in Austria; and Millersville University, Millersville, Penn.

DISCOVER-AQ is an Earth Venture mission, part of the Earth System Science Pathfinder program managed at Langley for the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

NASA Prepares for Launch of Next Earth Observation Satellite

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is scheduled to launch Feb. 11 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A joint NASA and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) mission, LDCM will add to the longest continuous data record of Earth's surface as viewed from space.

LDCM is the eighth satellite in the Landsat series, which began in 1972. The mission will extend more than 40 years of global land observations that are critical in many areas, such as energy and water management, forest monitoring, human and environmental health, urban planning, disaster recovery and agriculture. NASA and the USGS jointly manage the Landsat Program.

"For decades, Landsat has played an important part in NASA's mission to advance Earth system science. LDCM promises to extend and expand that capability," said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "USGS's policy of offering free and open access to the phenomenal 40-year Landsat data record will continue to give the United States and global research community a better understanding of the changes occurring on our planet."

After launch, LDCM will enter a polar orbit, circling the Earth about 14 times daily from an altitude of 438 miles (705 kilometers), returning over each location on Earth every 16 days. After launch and the initial checkout phase, the USGS will take operational control of the satellite, and LDCM will be renamed Landsat 8. Data will be downlinked to three ground stations in Gilmore Creek, Alaska; Svalbard, Norway; and Sioux Falls, S.D. The data will be archived and distributed at no cost to users from the USGS's Earth Resources Observation and Science Center in Sioux Falls.

"The Landsat program provides the nation with crucial, impartial data about its natural resources," said Matthew Larsen, USGS associate director for climate and land use change in Reston, Va. "Forest managers, for instance, use Landsat's recurring imagery to monitor the status of woodlands in near real-time. Landsat-based approaches also now are being used in most western states for cost-effective allocation of water for irrigation. This mission will continue that vital role."

LDCM carries two instruments, the Operational Land Imager (OLI), built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. These instruments are designed to improve performance and reliability over previous Landsat sensors.

"LDCM will be the best Landsat satellite yet launched in terms of the quality and quantity of the data collected by the LDCM sensors," said Jim Irons, LDCM project scientist at Goddard. "OLI and TIRS both employ technological advances that will make the observations more sensitive to the variation across the landscape and to changes in the land surface over time."

OLI will continue observations currently made by Landsat 7 in the visible, near infrared, and shortwave infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It also will take measurements in two new bands, one to observe high altitude cirrus clouds and one to observe water quality in lakes and shallow coastal oceans as well as aerosols. OLI's new design has fewer moving parts than previous versions.

TIRS will collect data on heat emitted from Earth's surface in two thermal bands, as opposed to the single thermal band on previous Landsat satellites. Observations in the thermal bands are vital to monitoring water consumption, especially in the arid western United States.

The LDCM spacecraft, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. in Gilbert, Ariz., will launch from Vandenberg's Space Complex 3 aboard an Atlas V rocket provided by United Launch Alliance. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center is responsible for launch management.

HR 6649 “Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2012” passes US House despite opposition by Congressmen Sherman, Bilirakis, Engel & Sarbanes but fails to reach the US Senate in time.

HR 6649 sought to give Turkey two "free" US Navy ships - The bill seeks to grant “gratis” two US Navy frigates to Turkey - LOS ANGELES - Jan 3, 2012 On December 31, 2012, the US House of Representatives, passed Resolution 6649, dubbed the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2012 that contained the “gratis” (i.e. free of charge) transfer of two guided-missile frigates from the US Navy to the government of Turkey.

At the urging of outgoing US House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and outgoing Ranking Member Howard Berman (D-CA), the US House voted to suspend the rules and pass the resolution with two-thirds majority. However, the legislation was not brought on time to the floor of the US Senate and will need to be re-introduced in the 113 th Congress. Four Congressmen spoke in opposition of the bill. In particular, in his House Floor speech Rep. Brad Sherman of CA (CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO), while accepting that Turkey is a NATO ally and shares a border with Iran and Syria, urged Congress to not pass a bill “in the dead of night” offering two naval ships for free without markup and debate. He noted that Turkey cannot use such ships in its defense from Iran or Syria since they only share a land border and raised the issue of Turkey having used its navy for the 1974 invasion of Cyprus. Among other things he stressed that “Turkey has recently threatened legitimate Cypriot and Israeli efforts to cooperation on energy exploration.  Ankara has boosted Turkish armed naval presence around the natural gas fields between Israel and Cyprus and declared invalid an agreement between Cyprus and Israel on demarcating their respective energy exploration areas.” Other Congressmen who spoke in opposition of the bill were Eliot Engel (D-NY), the incoming Ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), and John Sarbanes (D-MD). Congressman Engel, in his remarks, stressed: "Some people say this should continue because, after all, Turkey is an ally and we need to help them. Well, I look at it the other way. They're a NATO ally, so they have responsibility. And the way they're acting has been anything but responsible. This is not an inconsequential or trivial matter." Representative Sarbanes, in his comments, remarked that: "This is not a non-controversial bill. I know it's being brought here on suspension as though it is, and I'm sure in the past when we've had these transfers of vessels, excess defense materials and so forth, often that is a non-controversial action to take. In this case, it's anything but non-controversial, and I'm surprised, frankly, that the majority would bring the bill to the floor in this form." In his remarks, Rep. Bilirakis explained his opposition to H.R.6649, noting that: "the Turkish navy, as recently as last year, held naval live-fire exercises in the eastern Mediterranean. These provocative exercises took place near the natural gas fields of Israel and the Republic of Cyprus and threatened to disrupt peaceful and productive economic activity. Instead, Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that, in the eastern Mediterranean, Congress will continue to work to foster the relationships between the United States, Greece, Israel, and Cyprus in order to promote and foster issues of mutual, economic, and diplomatic importance." In the end, the HR 6649 passed the US House but never made it to the floor of the US Senate for approval and was not signed into law. However, this was purely a timing issue and it will most likely be re-introduced during the 113 th Congress. The American Hellenic Council, along with other Greek-American groups, notably the Hellenic-American Leadership Council and the American Hellenic Institute moved fast to oppose the passage of the bill or to instill language that opposes the unconditional transfer of those naval ships to Turkey without assurances that Turkey will abide by international maritime law and stop intimidating its neighbors Cyprus, Greece and Israel. “We rushed to inform our elected officials from California to oppose this bill that was brought up at the last moment in the middle of the fiscal cliff crisis. We want to thank Rep. Sherman, Bilirakis, Engel & Sarbanes for taking the honorable position on this issue.” mentioned Alexander Mizan, Executive Director of the AHC. “Although we were disappointed to find out that several Congress members that we have relationships with favored the bill, we did find some common ground with Los Angeles-based Congressman Sherman on the matter, who spoke against this bill. It will be an uphill battle but we are hoping that with the help of the Armenian and Jewish communities, with whom we are working together, we will be able to inform and educate our elected officials on the matte” Mizan mentioned. The bill is expected to be reintroduced during the 113 th Congress and the AHC is already making contacts with Members of Congress asking them to oppose it.

The first LHC protons run ends with new milestone

Geneva, 17 December 2012. This morning CERN¹ completed the first LHC proton run. The remarkable first three-year run of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator was crowned by a new performance milestone. The space between proton bunches in the beams was halved to further increase beam intensity.
“This new achievement augurs well for the next LHC run starting in 2015,” said CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology, Steve Myers, “High intensity beams are vital for the success of the LHC programme. More intense beams mean more collisions and a better chance of observing rare phenomena.”
To put this into context, of the 6 million billion proton-proton collisions generated by the LHC, the ATLAS and CMS experiments have each recorded around 5 billion collisions of interest over the last three years. Of these, only around 400 produced results compatible with the Higgs-like particle whose discovery was announced in July.
A beam in the LHC is not a continuous string of particles, but is divided into hundreds of bunches, each a few tens of centimetres long. Each bunch contains more than a hundred billion protons. During the last few days, the space between bunches has been successfully halved, achieving the design specification of 25 nanoseconds rather than the 50 nanoseconds used so far. Halving the bunch spacing allows the number of bunches in the beam to be doubled. A record number of 2748 bunches was recorded in each beam last weekend, almost twice as many as the maximum reached previously in 2012, but at the injection energy of 450 GeV and without collisions. Several hours of physics were then performed with up to 396 bunches in each beam, spaced by 25 nanoseconds, each beam being accelerated to the energy of 4 TeV.
“The LHC’s performance has exceeded all expectations over the last three years,” said Steve Myers, “The accelerator delivered more than 6 million billion collisions and the luminosity has continuously increased. It’s a fantastic achievement, and I’m incredibly proud of my team.”
The luminosity, a crucial parameter measuring the rate of collisions of an accelerator, has reached a value of 7.7x10³³cm^-2s^-1, more than twice the maximum value obtained in 2011 (3.5x10³³cm^-2s^-1). The collision energy was increased from 7 TeV in 2011 to 8 TeV in 2012.
This year-on-year improvement in performance has allowed the LHC experiments to obtain important results quicker than expected. In addition to the spectacular discovery of a Higgs-like particle announced in July, the experiments have led to many other studies improving our understanding of fundamental matter.
At the beginning of 2013, the LHC will collide protons with lead ions before going into a long maintenance stop until the end of 2014. Running will resume in 2015 with increased collision energy of 13 TeV and another increase in luminosity.

CERN is granted the status of observer to the United Nations General Assembly

Geneva, 14 December 2012. The United Nations General Assembly in New York today adopted a resolution granting CERN¹ observer status. This status gives the Organization the right to participate in the work of the General Assembly and to attend its sessions as an observer.
"It's a great honour for CERN to accede to the status of observer at the UN General Assembly", said CERN Director-General, Rolf Heuer. "CERN has a long tradition of close cooperation with the United Nations and its agencies, which dates back to 1954 when the Laboratory was founded under the auspices of UNESCO". In addition to this historical link, CERN has signed cooperation agreements with the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) and several of the UN specialised agencies.
The resolution to grant observer status to CERN was submitted by the Organization's two Host States, Switzerland and France, and was supported by its eighteen other Member States as well as by several non-Member States. The main factor behind it was that CERN's activities cover areas of considerable interest to the General Assembly. CERN and the United Nations are both actively involved in disseminating knowledge in the fields of science and technology, particularly with a view to development. Through its projects, which bring together scientists from all over the world, CERN also promotes dialogue between nations and has become a model for international cooperation.
"The granting of observer status demonstrates the importance that the UN attaches to science and to its role in society", said Rolf Heuer.  "CERN looks forward to offering the General Assembly and the other UN bodies the benefit of its expertise in the field with a view to promoting the essential role of basic science in development".
The United Nations and CERN have a very complementary role to play in accomplishing this mission. CERN has unique expertise in science and technology. The network of UN Member States will be instrumental in disseminating CERN's knowledge more widely and allowing developing countries to benefit from it. Capitalising on this complementarity, CERN and UNESCO are collaborating to strengthen the scientific and technological capabilities of countries in Africa in particular, for example by developing training programmes for teachers and librarians.
The adoption of the resolution in New York on Friday, 14 December will be followed by a meeting between Rolf Heuer and the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, on Monday 17 December.

The Kairological Qabalah by Dr Nicolas Laos

Rediscovering Western Esotericism within Philosophy, Science and the Revolutionary Secrets of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and the Illuminati.

By: Dr Nicolas Laos 

As an original and in-depth look at man’s existential problems and challenges, The Kairological Qabalah – Rediscovering Western Esotericism, contains an inspiring plan for the creation of a New Western Renaissance.
This book brings Western Esotericism under careful scrutiny and then re-interprets it for our modern age. From this new position, Dr Laos articulates a new esoteric system, The Kairological Qabalah, which is based upon the “opportune moment” of Kairos, where Man is the architect and manager of his own fate.

Endorsements

“Dr Nicolas Laos is an outstanding policy-analysis scholar. His analytical mind assists the reader to comprehend the meaning of the Greek word “esotericism” as well as the Greek concept of “Kairos” that focuses on the dynamic continuity between the reality of the world and the reality of consciousness.”
– Dr John M. Nomikos, Director, Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS) and Chairman, Mediterranean Council for Intelligence Studies
“Nicolas Laos offers a rational perspective about Western esotericism. Establishing connections between the Greek concept of Kairos (the right or opportune moment) and a redefined Qabalah (as an ecumenical esoteric system of correspondences and symbols), he opens new possibilities of dialogue between ancient symbolism and advanced sciences.”
– Metropolitan Daniel (de Jesús Ruiz Flores) of Mexico and All Latin America (Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Mexico)
“The volume at hand is a well-thought out, methodical and coherent professional study. In an orderly manner, this book delineates the profound meaning of the Greek word ‘esotericism’. To do eloquently so, Dr Laos travels carefully through history, cultures and civilizations…the author offers a reflective portrait about the inner confrontations, the spirituality and the multi-survival apprehension issues that humanity faces today.”
– Dr Elias D. Kallioras, Former Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of Black Sea Economic Co-operation (PABSEC) 

Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Part One: The Emergence and Development of Western Esotericism
Chapter 1: Esotericism as an Object of Historical Research
Chapter 2: The Noachites and the Spiritual Horizon of Western Esotericism
Chapter 3: The Creation of the Japhethite Ecumene and the Foundations of Western Esotericism
Part Two: The Kairological Qabalah: The Secret Mysteries of Nature and Science and the Mastering of Reality
Chapter 4: Kairos and Qabalah
Chapter 5: The Kairological Left-Hand Pillar
Chapter 6: The Kairological Right-Hand Pillar
Chapter 7: The Kairological Middle Pillar
Chapter 8: The Incarnate Logos and the Esoteric Significance of the Number Thirty-Three
Part Three: Esoteric Fraternities, Morality and Politics from the Perspective of the Kairological Qabalah
Chapter 9: The Rituals and Teachings of Western Esoteric Fraternities
Chapter 10: Western Esotericism and Moral Philosophy
Chapter 11: The Political Dimension of Western Esotericism and the Kairological Qabalah
Bibliography
Index
Hardcover / 266 pages / 140mm x 216mm
ISBN: 978-1-907347-09-2
Price £24.99 / $39.99 BUY NOW ON AMAZON  
http://www.whitecranepublishing.com/books/the-kairological-qabalah/