JAXA ALOS Image: Heart of the Atacama from orbit

The Japanese Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS), captured this image on 30 May 2010.

Credit: JAXA/ESA

This ALOS satellite image shows the heart-shaped Miscanti lake and smaller Miñiques lake in northern Chile.

The lakewater is brackish – meaning that it's saltier than freshwater, but not as much as seawater.

This is due to the salinity in the soil. Chile's largest salt flat, the Salar de Atacama, lies to the west (not pictured).

Two partially snow-covered volcanoes can be seen above and below the lakes on the right, while plains stretch out to the west in a nearly vegetation-free environment.

The area pictured is part of the Atacama Desert, which runs along part of South America's central west coast.

It is considered one of the driest places on Earth, as moisture from the Amazon Basin is blocked by the Andes to the east, as well as from the Pacific Ocean by the Chilean Coastal Range to the west.

Pacific Ocean currents and wind circulation also play a major role in the desert climate.

Because of the Atacama plateau's high altitude, low cloud cover and lack of light pollution, it is one of the best places in the world to conduct astronomical observations and home to two major observatories.

The European ESO ALMA Observatory is located on the Atacama Plateau.

Some areas of the desert have been compared to the planet Mars, and have been used as a location for filming scenes set on the red planet.

Just last year, ESA tested a self-steering rover in the Atacama, which was selected for its similarities to martian conditions.

Crab Nebula's Strange Pulsar Heart Slowly Going Off-Kilter

A composite image of the Crab Nebula showing the X-ray (blue), and optical (red) images superimposed. 

The size of the X-ray image is smaller because the higher energy X-ray emitting electrons radiate away their energy more quickly than the lower energy optically emitting electrons as they move.

Credit: NASA/HST/ASU/J. Hester et al. X-Ray: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester

For the first time, astronomers have tracked the evolution of a pulsar's magnetic field over time, watching as it slowly tilts toward the dead star's equator.

The new observations of the pulsar, located in the Crab Nebula, could offer clues to the long-standing problem of what slows pulsars' rotation.

Andrew Lyne

"Most pulsars are millions or tens of millions of years old," said Andrew Lyne, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Manchester in the U.K., who led the study, which appears in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Science.

"So we don't expect to see significant changes. But we have been looking at this for a substantial portion of its lifetime, some 40 out of 1,000 years."

The supernova that birthed the pulsar in the Crab Nebula occurred in A.D. 1054. Chinese and Arab astronomers both noted it.

"It's a result we've waited 30 years for," said Vasily Beskin, an astrophysicist at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Beskin, who was not involved in the study, and his colleagues predicted that pulsar magnetic fields would move to their equators in the 1980s.

The new data also gave other insights. "Normally, magnetic fields don't move through superconductors," Lyne said. "This magnetic field is moving, which suggests the superconductor in the neutron star is not perfect."

It's not likely that astronomers will run across another like the Crab pulsar, because to see one at all, the radio beam has to sweep across the Earth, and the odds of one being in precisely the right orientation are small.

On top of that, the supernova that made the pulsar would have to be less than a few thousand years old, scientists say.

There are several supernovas of the correct age, but they aren't all the right type to produce pulsars, and even if they were, they aren't pointed the right way.

It still isn't completely clear why pulsars' magnetic fields look as they do. "I wouldn't class it as being a simple problem," Lyne said. "We're trying to understand why it should evolve in this way."

The Magnetar at the Heart of Our Milky Way

This is an artist's impression of PSR J1745-2900, a pulsar with a very high magnetic field ("magnetar") in direct vicinity of the central source of our Galaxy, a supermassive black hole of approximately 4 million times the mass of our sun. 

Measurements of the pulsar imply that a strong magnetic field exists in the vicinity around the black hole. 

Credit: MPIfR/Ralph Eatough.

Astronomers have discovered a magnetar at the centre of our Milky Way. This pulsar has an extremely strong magnetic field and enables researchers to investigate the direct vicinity of the black hole at the heart of the galaxy.

An international team of scientists headed by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn have, for the first time, measured the strength of the magnetic field around this central source and were able to show that the latter is fed by magnetic fields.

These control the inflow of mass into the black hole, also explaining the x-ray emissions of this gravity trap.

The discovery of a pulsar closely orbiting the candidate supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way (called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* in short) has been one of the main aims of pulsar astronomers for the last 20 years.

Pulsars, those extremely precise cosmic clocks, could be used to measure the properties of space and time around this object, and to see if Einstein's theory of General Relativity could hold up to the strictest tests.

Shortly after the announcement of a flaring X-ray source in the direction of the Galactic centre by NASA's Swift telescope, and the subsequent discovery of pulsations with a period of 3.76 seconds by NASA's NuSTAR telescope, a radio follow-up program was started at the Effelsberg radio observatory of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR).

"As soon as we heard about the discovery of regular pulsations with the NuSTAR telescope we pointed the Effelsberg 100-m dish in the direction of the Galactic centre," says Ralph Eatough from MPIfR's Fundamental Physics Research department, the lead author of the study.

"On our first attempt the pulsar was not clearly visible, but some pulsars are stubborn and require a few observations to be detected. The second time we looked, the pulsar had become very active in the radio band and was very bright.

I could hardly believe that we had finally detected a pulsar in the Galactic centre!" Because this pulsar is so special, the research team spent a lot of effort to prove that it was a real object in deep space and not due to human-made radio interference created on Earth.

Additional observations were performed in parallel and subsequently with other radio telescopes around the world (Jodrell Bank, Very Large Array, Nançay). "We were too excited to sleep in between observations!"

"We were calculating flux densities at 6am on Saturday morning and we could not believe that this magnetar had just turned on so bright." says Evan Keane from the Jodrell Bank Observatory.

Other collaborations worked at different telescopes (Australia Telescope/ATCA, Parkes and Green Bank Telescope).

A research paper on the ATCA results by Shannon & Johnston appears in this week's issue of the Oxford journal MNRAS.

"The Effelsberg radio telescope was built such that it could observe the Galactic centre. And 40 years later it detects the first radio pulsar there," explains Heino Falcke, professor at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.

"Sometimes we have to be patient. It was a laborious effort, but finally we succeeded."

Journal References: R. P. Eatough, H. Falcke, R. Karuppusamy, K. J. Lee, D. J. Champion, E. F. Keane, G. Desvignes, D. H. F. M. Schnitzeler, L. G. Spitler, M. Kramer, B. Klein, C. Bassa, G. C. Bower, A. Brunthaler, I. Cognard, A. T. Deller, P. B. Demorest, P. C. C. Freire, A. Kraus, A. G. Lyne, A. Noutsos, B. Stappers, N. Wex. A strong magnetic field around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Galaxy. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12499

NASA SDO Image: Heart of space weather observed in action

An overlap of data from two NASA spacecraft confirms a sighting of magnetic reconnection on the sun, a process of realigning magnetic fields that lies at the heart of space weather. 

The teal image, from SDO, shows the shape of magnetic field lines in the sun's atmosphere. 

The RHESSI data is in orange. 

Credit: NASA/SDO/RHESSI/Goddard

Two NASA spacecraft have provided the most comprehensive movie ever of a mysterious process at the heart of all explosions on the sun: magnetic reconnection.

Magnetic reconnection happens when magnetic field lines come together, break apart and then exchange partners, snapping into new positions and releasing a jolt of magnetic energy.

This process lies at the heart of giant explosions on the sun, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can fling radiation and particles across the solar system.

Scientists want to better understand this process so they can provide advance warning of such space weather, which can affect satellites near Earth and interfere with radio communications.

One reason why it's so hard to study is that magnetic reconnection can't be witnessed directly, because magnetic fields are invisible. Instead, scientists use a combination of computer modeling and a scant sampling of observations around magnetic reconnection events to attempt to understand what's going on.

"The community is still trying to understand how magnetic reconnection causes flares," said Yang Su, a solar scientist at the University of Graz in Austria. "We have so many pieces of evidence, but the picture is not yet complete."

Now Su has added a new piece of visual evidence. When searching through observations from NASA's SDO, Solar Dynamics Observatory, Su saw something particularly hard to pull from the data: direct images of magnetic reconnection as it was happening on the sun.

Su and his colleagues reported on these results in Nature Physics on July 14, 2013.

While a few tantalizing images of reconnection have been seen before, this paper shows the first comprehensive set of data that can be used to constrain and improve models of this fundamental process on the sun.

Magnetic field lines, themselves, are indeed invisible, but they naturally force charged particles – the material, called plasma, which makes up the sun – to course along their length.

Space telescopes can see that material appearing as bright lines looping and arcing through the sun's atmosphere, and so map out the presence of magnetic field lines.

Looking at a series of images, Su saw two bundles of field lines move toward each other, meet briefly to form what appeared to be an "X" and then shoot apart with one set of lines and its attendant particles leaping into space and one set falling back down onto the sun.

"This is the first time we've seen the entire, detailed structure of this process, because of the high quality data from SDO," Su said. "It supports the whole picture of reconnection, with visual evidence."

Su said that with these images they could make estimates as to how quickly the magnetic fields reconnected, as well as how much material goes into the process and how much comes out.

Such information can be plugged into magnetic reconnection models to help refine theories about the process.

Mystery of Star Formation in Gas Cloud at Heart of Milky Way

Astronomers have finally solved a longstanding cosmic mystery — why a super-dense gas cloud near our Milky Way galaxy's core isn't churning out many new stars.

The gas cloud, known as G0.253+0.016, is simply swirling too fast, researchers said.

It lacks the requisite pockets of even denser material, which eventually collapse under their own gravity to form stars.

The results suggest that star formation is more complex than astronomers had thought and may help them better understand the process, researchers said.

In this image, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the mysterious gas cloud G0.253+0.016 is the black object on the left. The Milky Way's center is the bright spot at right.

CREDIT: NASA/Spitzer/Benjamin et al., Churchwell

Artificial Heart: Would you accept having no pulse?

We do not actually need a pulse to stay alive, we just require a means to ensure that bloody flow is continually circulated through the body. Doctors Bud Frazier and Billy Cohn created a new, continuous-flow artificial heart based on these principles, the continuous-flow left ventricular assist device (VLAD).

By using two turbines to replace the muscle of the heart, the system keeps blood moving continually by mimicking the heart’s pumping rhythm, without recreating the pulse.

Although it in no way looks like a natural organ, the device has so far been tested on 50 calves, and its first human subject, Craig Lewis, can be considered a success at the least as a temporary measure.

After being given a maximum of 12 hours to live due to a plethora of medical conditions, the surgery was performed to take out his original heart and replace it with the 10,000 RPM artificial alternative.

Within 48 hours, Lewis was able to sit up, speak, and even sketched. Although he passed away 5 weeks later, the causes are reportedly to have been due to his original conditions and the artificial device would never have been able to eradicate these issues, but it did allow him to live longer and say his goodbyes.

Since Lewis, several other patients have been fitted with the devices.

Cohn and Frazier’s continuous-flow left ventricular assist device was previously placed in a calf named Meeko, who lived on to lead a normal life after having his heart taken out and replaced with the turbines.

The surgery was performed by cutting the heart free, sewing collars of rubberized Dacron onto the atria, and then connecting the turbines on to the collars before activation.

Creating an artificial heart has been difficult up until now, as many metal and plastic experiments have resulted in the wearing out of material, and an inability to beat, mimicking the human pulse for more than 18 months.

Currently, there are other developments within artificial heart development, including the ‘Total Artificial Heart’ made by Arizona-based SynCardia Systems Inc., which replaces ventricles and a number of valves instead of taking out the entire organ.

However, it does require toting around a 12 pound external engine to power the heart, and according to the second patient to receive the operation, John Martino, it is extremely loud and is only a measure for patients who are waiting for a transplant rather than a permanent solution.

This new VLAD technology has the potential to help patients with conditions such as terminal heart disease in the future, and as the scientists themselves say, may mean we are a step closer to a ‘perfect’ artificial heart.

Cohn says that: “I think we’re on the verge, right now, of solving the artificial-heart problem for good. All we had to do was get rid of the pulse.”

Resveratrol: The Chemical in Red wine that improves your heart's health

It may soon be possible to receive the heart protecting abilities of red wine without having to drink a glass every day.

This is thanks to the synthesis of chemicals derived from resveratrol, the molecule believed to give wine its protective powers. The chemicals have the potential to fight many diseases, including cancer.

Plants make a huge variety of chemicals, called polyphenols, from resveratrol to protect themselves against invaders, particularly fungi but they only make tiny amounts of each chemical, making it extremely difficult for scientists to isolate and utilise them. 

The unstable nature of resveratrol has also hindered attempts at building new compounds from the chemical itself.

Scott Snyder at Columbia University in New York and his team have found a way around this: building polyphenols from compounds that resemble, but are subtly different to, resveratrol.

These differences make the process much easier. Using these alternative starting materials, they have made dozens of natural polyphenols, including vaticanol C, which is known to kill cancer cells (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature10197).

"It's like a recipe book for the whole resveratrol family," says Snyder. "We've opened up a whole casket of nature's goodies."

The Cold Cold Heart of Darkness

The Heart of Darkness

Some of the coldest and darkest dust in space shines brightly in this infrared image from the Herschel Observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important participation from NASA.

The image is a composite of light captured simultaneously by two of Herschel's three instruments -- the photodetector array camera and spectrometer with its spectral and photometric imaging receiver.

The image reveals a cold and turbulent region where material is just beginning to condense into new stars. It is located in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, 60 degrees from the center.

Blue shows warmer material, red the coolest, while green represents intermediate temperatures. The red filaments are made up of the coldest material pictured here -- material that is slightly warmer than the coldest temperature theoretically attainable in the universe.

Can Your X-Box Detect Heart Disease?

Heartworks, the first fully functioning virtual heart to help train cardiologists and doctors

A computer scientist at the University of Warwick in England has devised a way to use an Xbox 360 to detect heart defects and help prevent heart attacks.

The new tool has the potential to revolutionize the medical industry because it is both faster and cheaper than the computer systems that are currently used by scientists to perform complex heart research.

The system, detailed in a study in the August edition of the Journal of Computational Biology and Chemistry, is based on a video-game demo created by Simon Scarle two years ago when he was a software engineer at Microsoft's Rare studio, the division of the U.S.-based company that designs games for the Xbox 360.

Scarle modified a chip in the console so that instead of producing graphics for the game, it now delivers data tracking how electrical signals in the heart move around damaged cardiac cells.

This creates a model of the heart that allows doctors to identify heart defects or conditions such as arrhythmia, a disturbance in the normal rhythm of the heart that causes it to pump less effectively.