One great mystery about our galaxy right now has to do with a cloud of antimatter near the center of the galaxy. No one knows exactly how or why this antimatter is being generated. However, data being looked at from the last four years, from the European Space Agency, may have had a bit of a break through.

Antimatter is the antiparticles to matter; where normal matter is made up of particles, antimatter is made of antiparticles. Each antiparticle has the same mass as its matter counterpart but is opposite in electric charge and magnetic properties, for example the antimatter partner to an electron is a positron. When matter and antimatter collide they annihilate releasing a large amount of energy.

This cloud of antimatter was discovered in the 1970’s. It is about 10,000 light years across and generates the energy of 10,000 suns. The cloud shines brightly with gamma rays; this is because of the antimatter colliding and annihilating with normal matter. Their interaction releases high-energy gamma rays, which allows for us to detect the antimatter’s presence. For years scientists have theorized the antimatter coming from radioactive elements produced in supernovae, or that the positrons are coming colliding stellar winds or other types of novae. But there was in evidence to really support any of these theories.

Now with data from the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, or INTEGRAL, astronomers have noticed something new. The cloud extends further on the western side of the galactic center than on the eastern side. This location matches of very well with the distribution of a population of hard low-mass x-ray binary star systems. These star systems consist of a low mass star orbiting with either a neutron star or a black hole. X-rays are given off when gas from the low mass stars falls in on the neutron star or black hole. Because the positions of the binaries and antimatter line up so well astronomers believe that the binary systems are producing half or all of positrons seen in the cloud.

We now may have a good idea of where the antimatters coming from, however we still have no idea how/why exactly the binary systems are producing these positrons. Astronomers believe it has something to do with the jets of relativistic material and areas of strong magnetic fields that can be common with these types of systems. With the GLAST space telescope having been launched and starting to collect data, we could potentially gain a lot more insight into what exactly is going on very soon.

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In a planetary system only 10 light years away, Spitzer has discovered that there is much more to Epsilon Eridani besides a great setting for an Asimov novel. Epsilon Eridani is the star at the center of the planetary system closest to home. This Star is relatively young, perhaps less than a billion years old, and has a mass which is about .85 times the mass of the sun. As far as atomic creation goes, this sun is relatively inactive, producing not much more than Helium.

This system has been a source of great discovery; in the past it has been found to host two planets, an asteroid belt which orbits the star at a similar distance to which our asteroid belt orbits the Sun, and distant ring of dust and ice which is very similar to our Kuiper Belt. Recently, Spitzer observed that there is not just one, but two asteroid belts orbiting the not so distant star. What makes this discovery so exciting is the idea that by observing this system, we are basically looking back in history to observe our own creation.

According to the Nebular Hypothesis, solar systems are formed because massive clouds of dust and helium condense to form stars. This condensing occurs because these clouds are gravitationally unstable, so they collapse inwards into smaller clumps which accumulate to form a star, such as our Sun or Epsilon Eridani. As this star forms it sheds a disk of matter which over time begins to accumulate and form protoplanets. Although planetary formation is not well understood, it is thought by some that because of the gravitational pull of the forming star, the dense accumulating rock stays closer to and orbits the star, while the less dense gasses are able to stay further from the star in their orbit. This could be why the terrestrial planets such as Earth are closer to the Sun, while the gas giants such as Jupiter form much further out (of course there have been recent discoveries of gas giants closer to the sun than even Mercury).

Some theorize that the asteroid belts in our solar system are the result of the tidal forces produced by the gravitational pulls of the Sun and the gas giants. These tidal forces keep the rocks in the asteroid belt from coalescing to form protoplanets. The gas giants might also have another roll in solar system formation. It is possible that that the gas giants sweep out asteroids as they rotate the star, protecting the terrestrial planets from catastrophic impacts. However, some scientists also believe that the gas giants could act has a gravitational sling shot which could attract and hurl asteroids into the inner solar system.

One of the planets discovered to orbit Epsilon Eridani is located about 3.5 Au’s from the star, just outside of the range of the newly discovered asteroid belt. This is the first time a planetary system has been discovered to have an arrangement which is comparable to Jupiter and our asteroid belt.

Does this discovery prove that our solar system was formed with agreement to the Nebular Hypotheses? No, but it is defiantly worth observing this relatively young star system to see if its evolution correlates at all with any of our ideas. Who knows, maybe we could even watch as the formation of an Earthlike planet unfolds before our very eyes.

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WFIT’s Court Lewis Interviews Terence Witt: Author of Our Undiscovered Universe

Court Lewis describes his radio show theme as “an anti-theme: Anything but politics!” Listen to Terence Witt interviewed by Court Lewis on WFIT-89.5FM describing his new universe theory. Witt’s new book, Our Undiscovered Universe: Introducing Null Physics, enables the reader to understand the universe with unprecedented scientific depth and clarity.

Lewis invites guests to his program who are “Big Dreamers.” They have an unusual dream or goal and are pursuing it against great odds. Some of his past guests have included explorers such as underwater archaeologists, Shuttle Launch Directors and the Chief Scientist on the Mars Rover project. Lewis has broadcast for four years in the Melbourne, Florida area. WQCS Ft. Pierce airs his program as well. Lewis is from Miami and holds degrees in chemistry and literature.

The program with Terence Witt aired Sunday, October 26 at 7:30 a.m. eastern standard time on WQCS-88.9 FM in Ft. Pierce. It will air on WFIT-89.5 FM in Melbourne on Sunday, November 2 at 7:30 eastern standard time. The program will streamlined online on wfit.org.

Astronomers have discovered a distant galaxy making stars at an amazing rate. It is creating stars at a rate more than a thousand times that of the Milky Way, but the remarkable thing about it is its extreme distance. This galaxy may call into question the current theory of how galaxies form.

The galaxy, nicknamed the baby boom galaxy, is making stars at a rate of about 4000 per year, compared to the Milky Way, which makes only 10 stars per year. This galaxy is also located very far from us, 12.3 billion light years. We have observed other starburst galaxies before, but none this far away, or similarly this old. This galaxy is a very young galaxy, since it is so far, we are looking at it as it was almost 12 billions years ago. That gives this galaxy the record for furthest (or youngest) starburst galaxy ever observed. The furthest before this one was 11.7 billion light years from us.

Now this galaxy calls into question the current most popular model for how galaxies are believed to form, called the hierarchal model. This model states that galaxies form slowly by consuming other smaller galaxies and star clusters, thus the stars in the galaxies should all have different birthdays. However, with this new galaxy all the stars will have very similar birthdays, meaning formation of around the same time. So the question now is whether this case is the norm or the exception. With this kind of star formation we may be witnessing the birth of one of the most massive elliptical galaxies in the universe.

The discovery of this was only possible through combined use of several different telescopes. Measurements in the radio wavelengths were made with the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array in New Mexico. Infrared data was used from both the Spitzer space telescope and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea Hawaii. Visible light images were used from both the Hubble Space Telescope and Japan’s Subaru Telescope also atop Mauna Kea. The identification of this galaxy and its properties would not have been possible without observations in the full range of the light spectrum. So its discovery is a fine example of the combination of different available technologies, from different sponsoring organizations. Now that we know how to find them, i.e. using data from across the electromagnetic spectrum, hopefully we can find out if galaxy baby booms were common in the distant universe, and if not, what is special about this case.

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