A giant magnetic star has been spotted about 20,000 light-years away from Earth in a constellation called Perseus.

This star is called NGC 1624-2, and it is about 35 times the Sun’s mass. This means it has a lot of fuel and it will be bright and hot, making it burn out after about 5 million years. This is about 1 percent of the Sun’s current age at midlife, so its lifespan will not be relatively long.

It is the most magnetic star found yet, and it is carrying with it a large amount of trapped particles. It can help find out about magnetism in stars and the evolution of stars and galaxies.

According to Space.com writer Charles Q. Choi, “this massive star possesses a magnetic field of 20,000 times stronger than the sun’s and nearly 10 times stronger than that detected around any other high-mass star.” Magnetic fields that are this strong are very rare and usually are only found in stars with much lower mass.

The magnetic field of this star is 11.4 times the star’s radius and it controls the wind of energetic particles streaming from NGC 1624-2. An astronomer from the Royal Military College of Canada, Greg Wade, said “the huge volume of this magnetosphere is remarkable. It’s more than four times wider than that of any other comparable massive star, and in terms of volume it is around 80 times larger.”

NGC 1624-2 is the most magnetic star known to man, however some mid-mass stars have magnetic fields about twice as strong. Our sun is a low mass star with a high magnetic field. Along with that, some dense remnants of dead stars called magnetars are often seen as the universe’s most magnetic objects.

A typical magnetar might have a magnetic field of about 500 million times larger, according to Wade. However, the flux, or strength of the magnetic field times the surface area of the star, of NGC 1624-2 is almost 700 times larger than your average magnetar.

The discovery of this star can be a very important step to learning about the fundamental processes that produce the magnetic fields of massive stars. The star is very distant though, and studying its light in detail requires monitoring the star with an immense light-gathering powered telescope.

To do this, the international team of scientists used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, and they found that this star rotates quite slowly. It takes about 160 Earth days to spin once. It takes the Sun about 25 Earth days.

Wade noted that he believes the star is slowed due to having to drag around its wind because it is bound to the magnetic field. “This is something that has to be tested, but it looks very likely,” he said.

They also used the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea to measure the strength of the star’s magnetic field. They looked specifically at variations in rotation directions of the electromagnetic waves absorbed and emitted by atoms in the magnetic field.

“An excess of clockwise-rotating waves indicates a magnetic field pointing towards us, while an excess of counterclockwise-rotating waves indicates a magnetic field pointing away from us,” Wade said. “The larger the excess, the larger the magnetic field. These excesses are usually very tiny, requiring many observations or careful processing of the data to tease out the signal. But in the case of NGC 1624-2, it was obvious from our very first observations that a remarkably strong magnetic field was present.”

Once they get more information on massive stars, there will be further insight on their galaxies. Wade states, “Magnetism, an essentially invisible phenomenon even to most astronomers, can have extraordinary impact.”

“The most important question we seek to answer is: What is the origin of magnetism in massive stars — where do the fields come from?” Wade said. “We believe this must happen when the stars are very young. It has recently been suggested that stellar collisions and mergers during star formation may be responsible. A major next step is to investigate these early stages of evolution, and in particular to examine the magnetic properties of binary star systems, since these may represent examples of systems that suffered encounters early in their history.”

Used to counter dim lighting situations, the average light bulb seems like a pretty self-explanatory invention—until it comes from the sun, that is.

The SOHO (Solar and Heliophelic Observatory) spacecraft captured a glowing eruption, distinctly shaped like a light bulb, from the star at the center of our solar system.

On Aug. 20, the SOHO (Solar and Heliophelic Observatory) spacecraft captured a glowing eruption, distinctly shaped like a light bulb, from the star at the center of our solar system. This spacecraft was launched in December of 1995, about 930,000 miles away from the Earth, and snaps images of the Sun’s outer layer (the corona) by creating a fake eclipse within the instrument. SOHO has been capturing images of the Sun for years, but nothing ever quite like this.

NASA scientists proudly called this eureka moment a “Coronal Mass Ejection”, or CME for short. These storms are not too infrequent, but a good amount of time has passed since one held the distinct shape of a light bulb. Scientists also believe this peak in solar activity to be similar to the happenings in 2002, and that the increase in storms is associated with the switching of the Sun’s solar poles, which happens about every decade.

In a nutshell, this storm is a cloud comprised of plasma and charged particles, and is millions of times more potent than a volcano. When pointed towards the Earth, these storms have the possibility of causing solar radiation storms, and even disrupting technology and power grids. In fact, many speculators of upcoming Dec. 21, 2012, events believe that this is what is going to happen on that day—a massive solar eruption that will end up knocking out power and potentially all electronic devices on Earth.

Renowned psychic Jim Karol who performed at the University of New Haven on Thursday, Aug. 30, seemed to hold similar views regarding the state of the Sun and its condition. He believes that there will be an increase in solar storms, leading to possible technological problems on Earth. All anyone can really do is wait and see what the Sun has in store for the future, and hope that its storms have ceased for now.

As recently as 50 years ago, the idea of putting a man on the moon was viewed as—no pun intended—an astronomical impossibility.

The commander of NASA’s ship Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, became the first person to set foot on the moon. And, on Aug. 25, 2012, Neil Armstrong passed away in Cincinnati.

In mid-1961, President John F. Kennedy announced a goal to see an American safely to the moon by the end of the decade, thus adding new pressure to the “Space Race” against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Even after JFK’s assassination, his ambitious goal was realized on July 20, 1969. The commander of NASA’s ship Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, became the first person to set foot on the moon.

And, on Aug. 25, 2012, Neil Armstrong passed away in Cincinnati.

“As long as there are history books,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, “Neil Armstrong will be included in them.”

Armstrong is considered a legend of space exploration and an American hero. He was only 38 years old when the entire world watched him change history by taking the first steps outside of a spacecraft.

On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and fellow astronauts ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins landed on the moon after four days and 250,000 miles of space travel.

Armstrong and Aldrin spent over two hours on the surface of the moon, during which they placed an American flag and collected samples for analysis back on Earth. None of the three men returned to space after the Apollo 11 mission.

The USSR never did put a man on the moon. There have only been 12 people to set foot on the moon, all of them Americans from six separate Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972.

There have been 23 unmanned landings in the years since. In 2005, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) told National Geographic that they would like to return humans to the moon by 2018.

Neil Armstrong, the first member of an extremely exclusive group of legends, passed away at 82 years old due to “complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures,” according to his family.

He was a Korean War veteran and also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest non-military award offered in the U.S, for his role in the Apollo 11 mission. Despite being hailed as a national hero, Armstrong was, by all accounts, a humble and modest man who preferred teaching and spending time with his family to interviews and fame.

Most are familiar with Armstrong’s famous quote uttered while walking on the surface of the moon, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Many media outlets and bloggers are calling his death “one giant loss for mankind.”

Both President Barack Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney agree with this claim. President Obama ordered all flags in the nation to be at half-mast Friday, Aug. 31, for Armstrong’s funeral.

In a press release, he also summed up the view of pretty much every news story and social network post in the nation by stating that Armstrong was one of “the greatest American heroes…of all time.”

NEW YORK (AP) — In a city understandably wary of low-flying aircraft, New Yorkers and tourists alike watched with joy and excitement Friday as space shuttle Enterprise sailed over the skyline on its final flight before it becomes a museum piece.

Ten years after 9/11, people gathered on rooftops and the banks of the Hudson River to marvel at the sight of the spacecraft riding piggyback on a modified jumbo jet that flew over the Statue of Liberty and past the skyscrapers along Manhattan’s West Side.

“It made me feel empowered. I’m going to start crying,” Jennifer Patton, a tourist from Canton, Ohio, said after the plane passed over the cheering crowd on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the floating air-and-space museum that will be the shuttle’s permanent home.

“I just feel like to have a plane fly that low over the Hudson, right past New York City, and to have everyone cheering and excited about it, shows that we don’t have fear, that we have a sense of ‘This is ours.’”

Onlookers bundled up on the blustery spring day along the piers on the West Side, cameras slung around their necks. The roar of the aircraft could barely be heard over the howling winds. In truth, the camera angles on TV made it seem as if the shuttle was a lot closer to the buildings than it really was.

The low-altitude flight was well-publicized, and few people were caught off-guard. Not one person called 911 to report a low-flying plane, police said.

That’s a striking contrast to what happened in 2009 when the Pentagon conducted a photo-op flyover in lower Manhattan by a passenger jet and F-16 fighter. The sight of the aircraft flying past the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan’s financial district set off a flood of 911 calls and sent office workers rushing into the streets in panic.

On Friday, the jet carrying the shuttle turned east and flew over central Long Island. Nassau County office workers looked out their windows in delight as it passed over the Roosevelt Field Mall, near the spot where Charles Lindbergh took off for Paris in 1927.

The shuttle then touched down at Kennedy Airport, where a controller radioed: “Welcome to New York, and thanks for the show.”

The shuttle will be taken to the Intrepid by barge in June and is scheduled to open to the public in mid-July.

Enterprise never went on an actual space mission; it was a full-scale test vehicle used for flights in the atmosphere and experiments on the ground.

It comes to New York as part of NASA’s decision to end the shuttle program after 30 years.

Space shuttle Discovery flew over the nation’s capital last week and will end up at the Smithsonian. Endeavor is going to Los Angeles, and Atlantis is staying at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

NASA has postponed the launch of their new X-Ray telescope to allow more time to check issues with the rocket that boosts the telescope into orbit.

The space agency recently stated in a press release that the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) launch for the month of March would no longer go on as planned and would be launched on another date which would be released soon.

The telescope will be launched aboard the Pegasus XL rocket from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Island regions. Mission managers decided to delay the launch to double-check the flight software on the rocket which was having some complications.

NuSTAR is part of an explorer mission that will allow astronomers to study the universe using high energy X-Rays. It will be the first hard X-ray telescope to orbit the Earth and is expected to exceed the performance of the largest ground-based observations that have observed these regions of electromagnetic spectrums. NuSTAR will also be assisting and aiding in other astrophysics missions to explore the cosmos and the space spectrum.

By focusing on the higher energy X-Rays, NuSTAR will start to answer several fundamental questions including: How are black holes distributed through the cosmos, how were heavy elements forged in the explosions of massive stars, and what powers the most extreme active galaxies?

Some of NuSTAR’s primary objectives include but not limited to: conducting a census for black holes on all scales using wide-field surveys of extragalactic fields and the Galactic center, mapping radioactive material in young supernova remnants, studying the birth of the elements and to understand how stars explode, observing relativistic jets found  in the most extreme active galaxies, and to understand what powers giant cosmic accelerators.

NuSTAR will also be studying the origin of cosmic rays and the extreme physics surrounding collapsed stars while responding to targets of opportunity including supernovae and gamma-ray bursts.

NASA expects the telescope to be up and in orbit by the end of June if not sooner.

Scientists have recently confirmed that over 15 pounds of rock collected in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a 2011 meteorite shower. This is only the fifth occurrence of Martian meteorites falling to Earth, the last being 49 years ago.

These 15 pounds of rock matter are a relatively large addition to the 240 pounds of Martian matter known to have entered Earth’s atmosphere. Neither NASA nor Russian spacecraft has been able to return pieces of Marsm so the only examinable samples are those that have fallen as meteorites.

“It’s Christmas in January,” sad a former NASA sciences chief, Alan Stern. “It’s nice to have Mars sending samples to Earth, particularly when our pockets are to empty to go get them ourselves.”

Earlier this week scientists used chemical tests to determine the origin and age of the rocks. It has been theorized that millions of years ago something collided with Mars, sending rocks hurtling through the solar system before they reached Earth’s atmosphere, breaking into much smaller pieces.

This discovery of Martian matter excites scientists because they were found only six months after the meteorite shower. Most other discoveries have been found millions of years—or at the very least decades after they landed, making them susceptible to contamination.

“It’s incredibly fresh. It’s highly valuable for that reason,” said Carl Age, director of the Institute of Meteoritics. The samples were held by dealers who uncovered them. They are now selling them to NASA and other scientific agencies for a hefty price—up to $22,500 an ounce.

Many are hoping that NASA and the European Space Agency will team up in 2018 to send robotic spaceships to Mars that can collect and bring back rock and dirt samples so that we may know more about our mysterious neighbor.

Last Tuesday, an asteroid larger than an aircraft carrier darted between the Earth and moon. This was the closest encounter that such a large rock has had in 35 years. Scientists assured the public that they were 100 percent confident that the asteroid wouldn’t hit. Judging from the presence of this article in the Charger Bulletin, it’s safe to say that Earth was spared.

The asteroid, named 2005 YU55, was watched by ground antennas as it approached from the direction of the sun. The last time 2005 YU55 came this close was 200 years ago. Closest approach occurred at 6:28 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. The asteroid passed within 202,000 miles of Earth. For comparison, the Earth and moon are about 240,000 miles apart.

Jay Melosh, a professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University, says that the Earth and moon are safe – “this time.” If 2005 YU55 were to plow into Earth, it would blow out a crater four miles across, and 1,700 feet deep. This could cause a magnitude-7 earthquake, followed by a 70-foot-high tsunami.

The asteroid stretches a quarter-mile across. Nothing this large has ventured so close since 1976, and nothing this large will again until 2028. Astronomers consider 2005 YU55 a C-type asteroid. This type of asteroid contains carbon-based materials. “It’s not just a whirling rock like most of them,” says Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program. This type of asteroid is believed to have brought carbon-based materials and water to the early Earth, planting the seeds for life. If water-bearing minerals or ice were discovered on 2005 YU55, this would support that theory.

In the future, NASA says that it would like to send astronauts to an asteroid like this one. Any information gained from 2005 YU55, as well as other asteroids like it, will be used to figure out how to deflect an incoming Armageddon-style rock, should it become necessary in the future.

Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet being born. Adam Kraus, from the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy and Michael Ireland from Macquarie University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory used Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea to find the planet. The planet called LkCa 15 b is the youngest planet ever observed.

The planet is being formed out of dust and gas circling a two-milion-year-old star about 450 light years from Earth. The planet itself, based on scientific models of how planets form, is estimated to have started taking shape about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. The previous record holder was about five times older than LkCa 15 b.

In an online interview, Kraus said “We’re catching this object at the perfect time. We see this young star; it has a disc around it that planets are probably forming out of, and we see something right in the middle of a gap in the disc.” Kraus presented the amazing discovery last Wednesday at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Kraus and Ireland’s research paper on the discovery of LkCa 15 b is due to appear in The Astrophysical Journal.

The observations of planets, especially while they’re forming, can help scientists answer questions like whether planets form early in the life of a star or later, and whether they form relatively close to stars or farther away.  Planets can change orbits once formed, so it is difficult to answer such questions by studying older planets.

Other planets may also be forming around the same star. Because of this possibility, Kraus will continue to observe the star and hopefully will see other planets if there are in fact more to be found. Scientists have yet to be able to see such young planets before this instance because of the bright light of the stars they’re orbiting outshines them. Kraus and Ireland used two techniques to overcome this obstacle, and therefore see what had not been seen previous to this discovery.

One method, which is also used by other astronomers, was to change the shape of their mirror to remove light distortions that could be created by the Earth’s atmosphere. The other unique method they used was to put masks over most of the telescope mirror. The combination of these two techniques allowed the astronomers to obtain high-resolution images that let them see the faint planet next to the bright star. The astronomers found the planet while surveying 150 young dusty stars. This led to a more concentrated study of a dozen stars, near and distanced away from LkCa 15.

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After being delayed for years on end, NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite was launched into space, early on October 28.  The satellite’s mission is to improve weather forecasts and monitor climate change.

Shortly before 3:00 a.m. on Friday, the Delta 2 rocket was launched, lifting the satellite into orbit. After about an hour in the air, the satellite separated from the rocket and unfurled its solar panels. The final orbit of this satellite is 500 miles above Earth, far above the troposphere.

“It was a thrill to watch the bird go up this morning in the beautiful clear night sky with the stars out there,” said Mary Glackin, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, after the launch. NASA had invited a small group of Twitter followers to watch the launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, where the weather conditions were perfect for a launch. The sky was clear and there was little wind.

This small, SUV sized satellite is more advanced than its already orbiting brethren, and it carries instruments capable of making more precise readings and observations. Scientists say they cannot wait to use the satellites capabilities to better understand long-term climate shifts and extreme weather such as hurricanes. Mission project scientist Jim Gleason said he could not wait for the data to “start flowing.” The satellite will track changes in ozone, volcanic ash, wildfires, and even Arctic sea ice.

Many of NASA’s satellites are old and will need replacing soon. This satellite is meant to be a bridge between the aging fleet and NASA’s hopeful new generation, to be developed by NOAA. The government’s lack of funding for NASA has contributed to their programs’ problems and several developmental errors led to constant delays. This satellite is expected to orbit Earth for five years, and by then, NASA hopes to have its new weather fleet up and running.

While NASA’s space program has ended, they have booked their first flights using a spaceport in New Mexico. British billionaire, Richard Branson, owns what he hopes to be the first commercial space craft: Virgin Galactic. According to LA Times, Galactic has a confirmed order from NASA for one charter suborbital spaceflight so the space agency can conduct experiments. A potential $4.5 Million contract is in the works with NASA and charter flights.

Chief executive of Virgin Galactic, George Whitesides said, “We are excited to be working with NASA to provide the research community with this opportunity to carry out experiments in space. An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive.” The future goals for the Virgin Galactic include hopes of the first passenger flights sometime next year. Tourist costs of the flights are estimated to be around $200,000 according to LA Times.

The first NASA contracted flight will be leaving in southern New Mexico, in Albuquerque. The NASA filled space ship will be attached to a carrier aircraft when launched. The ship will then detach after it has reached a certain distance. The Associated Press said that more than 450 people have purchased tickets to fly with Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson said, “We want to be sure we’ve really tested the craft through and through before turning it over to the astronauts who bought tickets to go up,” he said. “If it takes a bit longer, we’ll take a little bit longer.”

Eventually, after receiving a license from the Federal Aviation Administration, commercial service will start. This commercial space craft flyer would be the first ever. It was designed with environment in mind too; the shuttle uses geothermal energy. Hopefully, after the first flight with NASA, the Virgin Galactic will be able to continue contracts with NASA, and move into commercial and tourism flights.