Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 100

Courtesy of NASA

Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, officially dubbed IC 1805 and visible in the above right, has a shape in optical light reminiscent of a classical heart symbol. The above image, however, was taken in infrared light by the recently launched WISE telescope. Infrared light penetrates well inside the vast and complex bubbles created by newly formed...

From Robert Fisk in the Independent

In 1948, our politicians – the Americans and the British – staged an airlift into Berlin. A starving population (our enemies only three years before) were surrounded by a brutal army, the Russians, who had erected a fence around the city. The Berlin airlift was one of the great moments in the Cold War. Our soldiers and our airmen risked and gave their lives for these starving Germans.

Incredible, isn't it? In those days, our politicians took decisions; our leaders took decisions to save...

Headline Story in Today's Iceland Review

Sheep Unharmed After 20-Meter Fall into the Ocean

The ewe Dollý, named after the first cloned sheep, swam ashore unharmed after falling from a 20-meter high cliff into the ocean by Stórhöfdi in the Westman Islands yesterday. The ewe was trapped on the beach for approximately half a day before it was noticed.

"I received a phone call from the excursion boat Víkingur, which had taken tourists into the bay by Stórhöfdi. They saw the sheep there on the seashore," farmer Haukur Gudjónsson, Dollý's ...

Courtesy of NASA

The tracks of the Mars rover Opportunity.

I really like this one. That's Mars! Those are the tracks of a machine made on Earth!

Today's Headline in the Iceland Review

"Breaking News: No Volcanic Activity in Iceland."

Courtesy of NASA

Suspended by magnetic fields above a solar active region this dark filament stretches over 40 earth-diameters. The ominous structure appears to be frozen in time near the Sun's edge, but solar filaments are unstable and often erupt. The detailed scene was captured on May 18 in extreme ultraviolet light by cameras on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. While the cooler plasma of the filament looks dark, hotter, brighter plasma below traces magnetic field lines emerging from the active...

Back to the Volcano # 2

The plume from space. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Back to the Volcano

The plume from Eyjafjallajokull above the clouds. Photo courtesy of the Icelandic Meterological Service. I love a country where the weather service reports on earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

News from Iceland

Headlines for top two news stories in today's Iceland Review: (1) Iceland considered safe destination for tourists. (2) Man hit with axe in the head in quiet neighborhood.

A Chaotic Star Birth as Seen by the Spitzer Telescope

From NASA:

Located 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus, a reflection nebula called NGC 1333 epitomizes the beautiful chaos of a dense group of stars being born. Most of the visible light from the young stars in this region is obscured by the dense, dusty cloud in which they formed. With NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists can detect the infrared light from these objects. This allows a look through the dust to gain a more detailed understanding of how stars like...