Nasa's article about the 1572 Cassiopeian constellation supernova.

[Ðekel]

thought this might be of interest here.

Nasa's site currently has a piece on "Tycho's star", another name for the supernova that appeared in Earth's skies in 1572 in the constellation of "Cassiopeia".

the article discusses gamma ray bursts.

excerpt;

Better understanding the origins of cosmic rays is one of Fermi's key goals. Its Large Area Telescope (LAT) scans the entire sky every three hours, gradually building up an ever-deeper view of the gamma-ray sky. Because gamma rays are the most energetic and penetrating form of light, they serve as signposts for the particle acceleration that gives rise to cosmic rays.

"This detection gives us another piece of evidence supporting the notion that supernova remnants can accelerate cosmic rays," said co-author Stefan Funk, an astrophysicist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), jointly located at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, Calif.

In 1949, physicist Enrico Fermi -- the satellite's namesake -- suggested that the highest-energy cosmic rays were accelerated in the magnetic fields of interstellar gas clouds. In the decades that followed, astronomers showed that supernova remnants may be the galaxy's best candidate sites for this process.

{image caption}:
The gamma-ray emission from Tycho's supernova remnant can be explained by pion production. A proton traveling close to the speed of light strikes a slower-moving proton. Their interaction creates an unstable particle -- a pion -- with only 14 percent of the proton's mass. In 10 millionths of a billionth of a second, the pion decays into a pair of gamma rays.

When a star explodes, it is transformed into a supernova remnant, a rapidly expanding shell of hot gas bounded by the blast's shockwave. Scientists expect that magnetic fields on either side of the shock front can trap particles between them in what amounts to a subatomic pingpong game.

"A supernova remnant's magnetic fields are very weak relative to Earth's, but they extend across a vast region, ultimately spanning thousands of light-years. They have a major influence on the course of charged particles," said co-author Melitta Naumann-Godo at Paris Diderot University and the Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay, France, who led the study with Giordano.

full article here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/tycho-star.html

----

another article that catches the eye, this time about a "cloud" of material that is vectored towards the black hole in the center of the galaxy, is this one:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21288-cloud-suicide-will-wake-black-hole-sleeping-giant.html

full text of the article below with portions highlighted which stood out to me;

The sleeping giant at the centre of the Milky Way is about to wake up. A suicidal gas cloud is heading towards the galaxy's supermassive black hole, which will probably swallow the cloud, generating enormous flares of radiation that could help explain why the black hole is normally so placid.

The doomed cloud was a surprise to astronomers. "We have been looking at the galactic centre for 20 years, but mainly to observe the motion of stars," says Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany.

Genzel's colleague Stefan Gillessen spotted the cloud in images from the Very Large Telescope array in Chile, taken in March this year. It is an unusually dense cloud, not much bigger than our solar system and carrying about three times the mass of Earth.

Shredded cloud

The team realised that the cloud also appears in earlier images, giving them a sequence that reveals its path. It is moving at almost 2500 kilometres per second towards our galaxy's black hole, Sagittarius A*.

At present Sagittarius A* is strangely quiet, unlike quasars, the hyperactive black holes that emit huge amounts of radiation, fuelled by inflowing gas. Our black hole gets much less gas, and for some reason this starvation state makes it much less efficient than a quasar, producing only a thousandth as much radiation per kilogram of fuel.

While a star would just sail past our black hole unscathed, the loose mass of gas heading towards it is more vulnerable. It is already being stretched out by the black hole's gravity, and when it gets closer in 2013 it will plough into the halo of hot gas around the hole.

Unlucky timing

That should send shockwaves through the cloud to heat it to several million degrees, and according to the group's simulations the gaseous collision will shred the cloud into filaments. This turmoil may mean that much of the cloud ends up swirling right down into the black hole.

"By dumping more material in there, the cloud could drive the system into a higher efficiency regime," says Ginzel. There may be one huge flare of radiation or several over the coming decades.

There's no danger of the active black hole harming Earth. And though sadly not visible to the naked eye, this radiation will give astronomers clues as to why our black hole is normally so different from quasars.

"There is evidence that the galactic centre was more luminous within the last few thousand years, and we are unlucky in living at a time when it appears to be unusually dormant," says astrophysicist Martin Rees at the University of Cambridge, who was not part of the study.

it seems that everyday scientists are discovering more and more unusual events that seem to be taking place in our near future.

 

[Laura]

Good finds. And yes, this Universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine!

 

[Ðekel]

Good finds. And yes, this Universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine!

for sure !

i also find it interesting that while this solar-system is interacting with the galactic center, the galactic center is observed to simultaneously be interacting with strange forces.

this "cloud" that is carrying three times the mass of earth is quite an unusual force indeed. unusual at least from the perspective of current-day, observed phenomena.

observations such as this, paint a very "interactive" picture of our cosmic environment.

 

[Eva]

At present Sagittarius A* is strangely quiet, unlike quasars, the hyperactive black holes that emit huge amounts of radiation, fuelled by inflowing gas. Our black hole gets much less gas, and for some reason this starvation state makes it much less efficient than a quasar, producing only a thousandth as much radiation per kilogram of fuel
...
"There is evidence that the galactic centre was more luminous within the last few thousand years, and we are unlucky in living at a time when it appears to be unusually dormant," says astrophysicist Martin Rees at the University of Cambridge, who was not part of the study.

That brought to mind this bit from the Wave

Q: (L) Okay, at the time this “Mark of Cain” came about, were there other humans on the planet that did not have this configuration?

A: It was added to all simultaneously.

Q: (L) How did they physically go about performing this act? What was the mechanism of this event, the nuts and bolts of it?

A: DNA core is as yet undiscovered enzyme relating to carbon. Light waves were used to cancel the first ten factors of DNA by burning them off. At that point, a number of physical changes took place including knot at top of spine. Each of these is equally reflected in the ethereal.

Q: (L) Well, the question I do have is, how many people were there on the planet and did they have to take each one and do this individually? How did they effect this change on all of them?

A: Light wave alteration.

Q: (L) And light waves, actual light waves, affect DNA?

A: Yes.

Q: (T) What was the origin of the light waves?

A: Our center. Our realm. STO. The Reptilian beings used sophisticated technology to interrupt light frequency waves.

Q: (L) Well, what I am getting out of this that you are saying, from what you are not saying, is that it was almost like, well, was there a battle and you guys lost?

A: Yes. Now understand this: It is all part of natural Grand Cycle.

And here's another article about this cloud formation

_http://herschel.cf.ac.uk/results/twisted-ring-galactic-centre

Observations with Herschel have revealed unprecedented views of a ring in the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. The ribbon of gas and dust is more than 600 light years across and appears to be twisted, for reasons which have yet to be explained. The origin of the ring could provide insight into the history of the Milky Way.

Professor Bruce Swinyard of STFC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory said “Herschel’s detectors are ideally suited to see through the dust lying between us and the centre of our Galaxy, and to find the relatively cold material, at only 15 degrees above absolute zero, which we have learned makes up the ring”. The new results are published in a recent issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Warmer gas and dust from the Centre of our Galaxy is shown in blue in the above image, while the colder material appears red. The ring, in yellow, is made of gas and dust at a temperature of just 15 degrees above absolute zero. The bright regions are denser, and include some of the most massive and active sites of star formation in our Galaxy.

“Hints of this feature were seen in previous images of the Galactic Centre made from the ground, but no-one realised what it was.”, explained Dr Mark Thompson of the University of Hertfordshire. “It was not until the launch of Herschel, with its unparalleled wavelength coverage, that we could measure the temperature of the dust clouds and determine its true nature.”

The central region of our Galaxy is dominated by a bar-like structure, which stirs up the material in the outer galaxy as it rotates over millions of years and is thought to be responsible for its spiral structure. The ring seen by Herschel lies right in the middle of this bar, encircling the region which harbours a super-massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Professor Glenn White of The Open University and STFC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory said that “although bars have been seen in other galaxies, this ring of cold material revealed by Herschel, and the way it twists around the Galactic Centre, were completely unexpected, revealing several surprises.”

Firstly, the ring of gas is twisted, so from our vantage point we see two loops which appear to meet in the middle. These are seen in yellow in the image above, tilted slightly such that they run from top-left to bottom-right. Secondly, it seems to be slightly offset from the very centre of our Galaxy, where a super-massive black hole lurks. "This is what is so exciting about launching a new space telescope like Herschel," said Sergio Molinari of the Institute of Space Physics in Rome, Italy, lead author of the new paper. "We have a new and exciting mystery on our hands, right at the centre of our own galaxy."

The reason for the ring’s twist and offset are unknown, but understanding their origin may help explain the origin of the ring itself. Computer simulations indicate that bars and rings such as those we see in the centre of our Galaxy can be formed by gravitational interactions. It is possible that the structures in the heart of the Milky Way were caused by interactions with our largest neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy.

“Like all good science experiments, Herschel is creating as many questions as it answers”, said Professor Matt Griffin, of the University of Cardiff, and Principle Investigator on one of Herschel’s detectors used in this study. “Unravelling the mystery of this ring could help us to explore the processes which have taken place deep in the heart of our Galaxy over billions of years.”

And yet another that focuses more on the shape of the gas cloud

_http://www.universetoday.com/86040/twisted-ring-of-gas-orbits-galactic-center/

...The ring is proposed to oscillate twice about the galactic mid-plane for each orbit it makes of the galactic center – giving it the apparent shape of an infinite symbol when viewed from the side

The research team speculate that the ring may be conforming to the shape of a standing wave – perhaps caused by the spin of the central galactic bulge and the lateral movement of gas across the galaxy’s large central bar. The researchers suggest that the combination of these forces may produce some kind of gravitational ‘sloshing’ effect, which would account for the unusual movement of the ring.