Spinning Black Holes

One of the many mysteries surrounding astrophysical black holes is why some are powering powerful jets - narrow beams of relativistic particles, and others don't. An intriguing possibility is that is related to the spin of the black hole and the surrounding disk of material falling into the black hole - if the two are aligned, you don't get jets, and if they are misaligned, you do. Read here for details. This would be very hard to test, and it isn't clear how you might get such a misalignment, but it is in an intriguing possibility.

A Cosmic Zoo

Supernova remnants and globular clusters are not as cuddly as panda bears and penguins, but I think they are just as pretty as you can see here.

The "Quiet" Black Hole

at the center of M31, has its own bursts, as revealed by Chandra. Go here to read more.

Rock Catalog

Available here, courtesy of the WISE satellite.

Poor Phoenix Mars Lander

While NASA's Opportunity rover is still going strong, it appears the Phoenix Mars Lander is down for the count. Go here to read more.

Heart and Soul...

... one will burn. Sorry for the obscure musical reference, but that is what came to mind when I saw this image of the "Heart and Soul" nebula taken by the WISE satellite. Enjoy!

The Birth of Binary Stars

A majority of stars in the Milky Way are not isolated like our Sun but are actually orbiting other stars. How did these binary stars form? There are lots of theories out there, but new images from Spitzer might have determine which is correct. Go here to read more. Enjoy!

Jupiter loses a Stripe

Just as clouds and storms on the Earth come and go, so do the ones on Jupiter. Though no storm on the Earth as big as this has ever disappeared so fast... Go here to read more.

Long Live Opportunity

The NASA rover on Mars, of course, which has made it the longest running human machine on Mars. Go here and here to read more. Congratulations Opportunity!

Pretty picture

Not necessarily that much new science content, but this sure is a pretty picture of nearby spiral galaxy M83. Enjoy!