Skip to main content

Spitzer

Artist's impression and animation of a celestial impact suggested by observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.



Astronomers say that two rocky bodies, one as least as big as our moon and the other at least as big as Mercury, slammed into each other within the last few thousand years or so — not long ago by cosmic standards. The impact destroyed the smaller body, vaporizing huge amounts of rock and flinging massive plumes of hot lava into space.

Spitzer's infrared detectors were able to pick up the signatures of the vaporized rock, along with pieces of refrozen lava, called tektites. -- August '09 Press Release


Image and Animation Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A New Wave of Science Blogging?

One can imagine science bloggers would be a (the) primary beneficiary in a landscape where Google ranks sites based on the correctness of factual information provided by the [blog] .  What's more, it is not a stretch to conclude that science bloggers could very well be in the vanguard of a new wave of bloggers who earn Google’s trust by blogging within the confines of what is known. The news that Google is working on a system of ranking sites based on the quality of their facts should be greeted by science bloggers everywhere as a game-changer.
Post a Comment
Read more

640 Style Guide: Wider Videos and Images

YouTube video and Blogger image uploading and formatting specifications. [Note: These instructions are written for the classic Blogger post editor, composing in the Edit Html tab.] Instructions for posting wide screen YouTube videos. To embed wide screen videos, go to the video's url on YouTube . To the right of the Embed code, click on the Customize button. In the menu that expands below the Embed code, select 640x385 . Copy the Embed code and paste it into your post. Instructions for uploading images to be 640 pixels wide. [Note: These instructions work for images that are wider than they are tall.] In the image uploader, Choose a layout: "None", Image size: "Medium" To upsize images, double the width and height specifications of the image (width: 640px; height: XXXpx;) and change s320 to s640 in the image url. Advanced Image Editing: To place two "Medium" images side-by-side, delete the return break between them. Blogger's picture uploader d...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Build It,...

Field of Science is a science blog network. FoS is so named because Field of Science is a good, practical name for a website about science, but also--thanks to a certain movie--said name evokes illusions that are, more or less, analogous to what FoS is all about . . . FoS is home to bloggers who are doing actual science and whose blogging is clearly informed by their work. If you are a science blogger and your blog is powered by Blogger (or you wouldn't mind switching over to Blogger), and you are interested in joining FoS , complete an application and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. If you want to know more about the nuts, bolts and actuals, watch this presentation .
Post a Comment
Read more