Enceladus Backlit by Saturn

This moon is shining by the light of its planet. Specifically, a large portion of Enceladus pictured above is illuminated primarily by sunlight first reflected from the planet Saturn. The result is that the normally snow-white moon appears in the gold color of Saturn's cloud tops. As most of the illumination comes from the image left, a labyrinth of ridges throws notable shadows just to the right of the image center, while the kilometer-deep canyon Labtayt Sulci is visible just below. The bright thin crescent on the far right is the only part of Enceladus directly lit by the Sun. The above image was taken last year by the robotic Cassini spacecraft during a close pass by by the enigmatic moon. Inspection of the lower part of this digitally sharpened image reveals plumes of ice crystals thought to originate in a below-surface sea.

At the Core of NGC 6752

Hubble Space Telescope view looks deep into NGC 6752. Some 13,000 light-years away toward the southern constellation Pavo, the globular star cluster roams the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Over 10 billion years old, NGC 6752 holds over 100 thousand stars in a sphere about 100 light-years in diameter, but the Hubble image frame spans the central 10 or so light-years and resolves stars near the dense cluster core. In fact the frame includes some of the cluster's blue straggler stars, stars which appear to be too young and massive to exist in a cluster whose stars are all expected to be at least twice as old as the Sun. Explorations of the NGC 6752 have also indicated that a remarkable fraction of the stars near the cluster's core, are multiple star systems, supporting arguments that star mergers and collisions in the dense stellar environment can create the cluster's blue straggler stars.

Inside the Eagle Nebula

In 1995, a now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This remarkable false-color composite image revisits the nearby stellar nursery with image data from the orbiting Herschel Space Observatory and XMM-Newton telescopes. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly, including the famous pillars and other structures near the center of the scene. Toward the other extreme of the electromagnetic spectrum, XMM-Newton's X-ray vision reveals the massive, hot stars of the nebula's embedded star cluster. Hidden from Hubble's view at optical wavelengths, the massive stars have a profound effect, sculpting and transforming the natal gas and dust structures with their energetic winds and radiation. In fact, the massive stars are short lived and astronomers have found evidence in the image data pointing to the remnant of a supernova explosion with an apparent age of 6,000 years. If true, the expanding shock waves would have destroyed the visible structures, including the famous pillars. But because the Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, their destruction won't be witnessed for hundreds of years.

Dust of the Orion Nebula

What surrounds a hotbed of star formation? In the case of the Orion Nebula -- dust. The entire Orion field, located about 1600 light years away, is inundated with intricate and picturesque filaments of dust. Opaque to visible light, dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by a strong outer wind of particles. The Trapezium and other forming star clusters are embedded in the nebula. The intricate filaments of dust surrounding M42 and M43 appear brown in the above image, while central glowing gas is highlighted in red. Over the next few million years much of Orion's dust will be slowly destroyed by the very stars now being formed, or dispersed into the Galaxy.

99942 Apophis  previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a small probability (up to 2.7%) that it would strike the Earth in 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However, a possibility remained that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole, a precise region in space no more than about a half-mile wide, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036. This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006, when the probability that Apophis will pass through the keyhole was determined to be very small. Apophis broke the record for the highest level on the Torino Scale, being, for only a short time, a level 4, before it was lowered. Its diameter is approximately (885 ft).As of October 7, 2009 (2009 -10-07), the probability of an April 13, 2036 impact is considered to be 1 in 250,000. Of objects not recently observed, there are 7 asteroids with a more notable Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale than Apophis.
In 2008, The Planetary Society, a California-based space advocacy group, organized a $50,000 competition to design an unmanned space probe that would 'shadow' Apophis for almost a year, taking measurements that would "determine whether it will impact Earth, thus helping governments decide whether to mount a deflection mission to alter its orbit." The society received 37 entries from 20 countries on 6 continents.
The commercial competition was won by a design called 'Foresight' created by SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. SpaceWorks proposed a simple orbiter with only two instruments and a radio beacon at a cost of ~140 million USD, launched aboard a Minotaur IV between 2012 and 2014, to arrive at Apophis five to ten months later. It would then rendezvous with, observe, and track the asteroid. Foresight would orbit the asteroid to gather data with a multi-spectral imager for one month. It would then leave orbit and fly in formation with Apophis around the Sun at a range of two kilometers (1.2 miles). The spacecraft would use laser ranging to the asteroid and radio tracking from Earth for ten months to accurately determine the asteroid's orbit and how it might change.
Pharos, the winning student entry, would be an orbiter with four science instruments (a multi-spectral imager, near-infrared spectrometer, laser rangefinder, and magnetometer) that would rendezvous with and track Apophis. Earth-based tracking of the spacecraft would then allow precise tracking of the asteroid. The Pharos spacecraft would also carry four instrumented probes that it would launch individually over the course of two weeks. Accelerometers and temperature sensors on the probes would measure the seismic effects of successive probe impacts, a creative way to explore the interior structure and dynamics of the asteroid.
Second place, for $10,000, went to a European team led by Deimos Space S.L. of Madrid, Spain, in cooperation with EADS Astrium, Friedrichshafen, Germany; University of Stuttgart  Germany; and Università di Pisa, Italy. Juan L. Cano was Principal Investigator.
Another European team took home $5,000 for third place. Their team lead was EADS Astrium Ltd, United Kingdom, in conjunction with EADS Astrium SAS, France; IASF-Roma, INAF, Rome, Italy; Open University, UK; Rheinisches Institut für Umweltforschung, Germany; Royal Observatory of Belgium; and Telespazio, Italy. The Principal Investigator was Paolo D'Arrigo.
Two teams tied for second place in the Student Category: Monash University, Clayton Campus, Australia, with Dilani Kahawala as Principal Investigator; and University of Michigan, with Jeremy Hollander as Principal Investigator. Each second place team won $2,000. A team from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology under the leadership of Peter Weiss, received an honorable mention and $1,000 for the most innovative student proposal.
Apophis( his name in Greek)  is also a old God in Egyptian mythology!

A Winter time star map!

What happen in the Walking Dead show

obert Kirkman’s original comic book series “The Walking Dead” first aired on AMC on October 31^st, 2010 to critical acclaim. The series follows protagonist Rick Grimes, who has awakened from a gunshot-induced coma to an apocalyptic reality. Unable to find medical support, he stumbles through and out of the hospital to find everything rotting and decaying away. He meet up with a man and his son, the latter originally hitting him over the head because he was thought to be a “walker.” After being debriefed on the chaos the world has fallen into, Rick departs for Atlanta in hopes of finding some amount of hope in the form of other people or a cure. After being ambushed in the city by a horde of zombies, he meets a group that is scouring the city for supplies to bring back to their home camp just outside the city limits. After a daring escape, Rick joins the group back outside the city and finds his wife and son among the refugees.  The story continually follows the trials and tribulations of the group as they try to deal with supplies, sanity, and each other. The zombies, thankfully Romero-style, antagonize the group at times when they need it most, often where they are at their most disconnected. Amid their struggles with one another, zombies attack the camp and kill nearly a third of all the members their, leading to some truly heart wrenching moments, as viewers are forced to watch a sister let her sibling reanimate from a zombie bite and kill her. Pressured, the group departs for the CDC, Center for Disease Control, in hopes of finding a cure or perhaps a glimmer of hope for the forlorn travelers. There they meet with a scientist, who reluctantly welcomes the group, who tells them that their chance at a cure has been eliminated and that all contact has been lost with the others across the world. Worse yet, the power is failing within the center and will self-destruct when the power is fully drained. Acknowledging this information, the group enjoys their temporary sojourn with food, friendship, and a little bit of alcohol that remind viewers that despite whatever tragedy can occur, we are and will always be human. However, the center eventually saps and a few members of the group remain to face a death far more peaceful than one they could receive from a zombie attack. After the main group leaves, one runs back to save another member, which is later revealed in the second season to be a regretful decision. The group leaves the CDC with the remaining members in hopes of finding a military facility that will hopefully offer conditions similar to the CDC without a self-destruct system. Season two picks up shortly afterwards, with the group running into a highway plagued with abandoned cars that bar their path. While looking for more supplies among the cars, the members are rushed by a horde of zombies that forces them to hide under cars. Members are injured in the process, and one little girl is discovered by the zombies and flees into the forest. She is chased by Rick, who eliminates the two zombies chasing her. Unfortunately, she is lost during the escape, and the rest of the season so far has been spent trying to find her. A search party is sent after the young girl, Sophia, and this leads their search to a church. She is not there, but Rick asks for a sign from God. The party splits again, and Rick finds a deer in the forest that he allows his son, Carl to approach. As he nears the deer, a shot rings out, piercing the deer and Carl by accident. In order to save his life, Carl is carried by his father to the hunter’s residence, where another group of survivors resides. Again, a part of the group finds temporary respite from the dangers of zombies, the ever-present danger. Shane, Rick’s partner throughout the entire series, is dispatched with the hunter to a local high school that will have the medical supplies necessary to save Carl’s life. Shane is forced to make a decision in this quest that will remind viewers of the disturbing steps one may take in order to get what they need. The characters must now prepare to hold their ground to hunt for Sophia, so that they may continue their quest towards the military base. However, the events at the high school where those medical supplies were held indicate that an even more harrowing journey lies ahead for the group.As you must had know by now that Sophia was bitten and was keep in the barn at the farm where they are staying. Shane lost his cool and break the lock off the barn and a whole group of the walkingdead came out and Shane and the other start shooting the dead.Sophia was the last one to came out and the whole group froze and it was up to Rick to take care of Sophia. Rick has to do what the other including Shane wouldn't do.To shoot the now walkingdead Sophia.The comic would have his son Carl to look at his dad in a difference way.

Make sure you guy watch this show.....