Finito

[nasa]

The Sun is not silent. The low, pulsing hum of our star’s heartbeat allows scientists to peer inside, revealing huge rivers of solar material flowing around before their eyes — er, ears.

Data from ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), sonified by the Stanford Experimental Physics Lab, captures the Sun’s natural vibrations and reveals what can’t be seen with the naked eye.

In this audiogram, our heliophysicist Alex Young explains how this simple sound connects us with the Sun and all the other stars in the universe.

This piece features low frequency sounds of the Sun. For the best listening experience, listen to this story with headphones. 🎧 

Read more: https://go.nasa.gov/2LMW42o

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[nasa]

Blooms in the Baltic

Every summer, phytoplankton – microscopic plant-like organisms – spread across the North Atlantic, with blooms spanning hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles. Nutrient-rich, cooler waters tend to promote more growth among marine plants and phytoplankton than is found in tropical waters. Blooms this summer off Scandinavia seem to be particularly intense.

On July 18, 2018, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired a natural-color image of a swirling green phytoplankton bloom in the Gulf of Finland, a section of the Baltic Sea. Note how the phytoplankton trace the edges of a vortex; it is possible that this ocean eddy is pumping up nutrients from the depths.

Though it is impossible to know the phytoplankton type without sampling the water, three decades of satellite observations suggest that these green blooms are likely to be cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), an ancient type of marine bacteria that capture and store solar energy through photosynthesis (like plants).

In recent years, the proliferation of algae blooms in the Baltic Sea has led to the regular appearance of “dead zones” in the basin. Phytoplankton and cyanobacteria consume the abundant nutrients in the Baltic ¬and deplete the oxygen. According to researchers from Finland’s University of Turku, the dead zone this year is estimated to span about 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles).

Read more: https://go.nasa.gov/2uLK4aZ

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

[neurosciencestuff]

Body Movements Just Need a “Puff” of Dopamine to Get Started

From morning til night, we never stop executing movements at the right time and speed. But patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease lose this natural control over their voluntary movements.

Parkinson’s is caused by the death of the neurons that make a neurotransmitter, dopamine, in a region of the brain called the substantia nigra. Now a new study, published by scientists from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (Portugal) and Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute in the journal Nature, represents an important step towards better understanding the precise normal function of these neurons.

Experts have long worked to understand why the absence of these so-called dopaminergic neurons (and therefore, the lack of dopamine) leads to the motor dysfunctions that are the hallmarks Parkinson’s, such as stiffness, slow movements and tremors. The more widely accepted explanation has been that, in order to move normally, our brain constantly needs a certain level of dopamine – something that Parkinson’s patients progressively lose.

However, as psychiatrist and neuroscientist Joaquim Alves da Silva, first author of the new study, explains, people with Parkinson’s disease actually “do not have a global motor problem.” As incredible as it may seem, they can even ride a bicycle — a rather complex motor task — if pushed at the right time.

The motor problems that Parkinson’s patients experience are more specific, and this was the observation that motivated the new study. “The patients’ problem is in the difficulty to initiate movement and in the slowness of movement,” adds Alves da Silva.

In fact, as these authors now showed in mice not afflicted by Parkinson’s disease, for a movement to unfold correctly it only takes a “puff” of dopamine — or more precisely, a peak of dopaminergic cell activity — right before the movements starts. In other words, dopamine (or, in this case, the activity of the cells that produce it) is just a “trigger” for voluntary movements.

“Our most important result is that we showed, for the first time, that the change in neural activity is necessary to promote movement,” says Alves da Silva. “And also for the first time, we showed that the dopamine peak that precedes movement initiation does not only regulate initiation, but also regulates movement vigor.”

Previous results already pointed in this direction. “Our laboratory and others had shown that, in normal conditions, there is a transient increase in the activity of dopamine-producing neurons, and that this increase seems to precede movement initiation,” says Alves da Silva. “But we still had to determine whether that neural activity was mostly important to initiate movement or if it was also important during movement execution,” he adds.

The scientists performed their experiments by using optogenetics, a technique that allowed them to turn neurons on and off very quickly with laser light.

“In this way, we were certain that we were only recording the activity of the animals’ dopaminergic cells” in the substantia nigra, explains Alves da Silva.

The mice were placed in an “arena” where they could roam freely. By using motion sensors, the authors then measured whether the animals were moving or not at any given moment. They recorded identified dopamine neurons and were able to observe a transient peak of activity in many of these cells before the movements.

In the next phase, the scientists activated or inhibited the dopamine cells with a laser. And they could then see that when the mice were not moving, “activating the neurons for half a second was enough to promote movement — and with more vigor — than without these neurons’ activity,” says Alves da Silva.

However, if the neurons were activated when the mice were already moving, the animals “just went on doing whatever they were doing” in terms of movement and movement vigor, as measured by acceleration. Moreover, inhibiting the neurons’ activity during an ongoing movement did not have any effect on its normal execution.

“These results show that the activity of dopamine neurons can act as a gate to permit or not the initiation of movements,” says Rui Costa, DVM, PhD, associate director of Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute who led the study. “They explain why dopamine is so important in motivation, and also why lack of dopamine in Parkinson’s disease leads to the symptoms that it does.”

The authors say the new study could pave the way for the development of treatments for Parkinson’s disease with fewer side-effects.

Currently, Parkinson’s is usually treated with the drug levodopa, which works by boosting dopamine in the body and alleviating symptoms. “But levodopa elevates dopamine all the time, not just when we want to move” says Costa, who is also professor of neuroscience and neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. And indeed, the long-term use of levodopa often causes other motor disorders — mainly, erratic and involuntary body movements known as dyskinesia. “Our study suggests that strategies that would boost dopamine when there is a desire to move would work better,” adds Costa.

When patients do not respond to or cannot take the drug, there is an alternative treatment, called “deep brain stimulation” (DBS). For this, patients are implanted with a high-frequency pacemaker that blocks the abnormal electric signals generated in the brain areas that control movement and make it difficult for the patients to initiate movement.

It is known that DBS substantially improves parkinsonian symptoms — but it can also have adverse effects. This study suggests that it may be better to stimulate the brain only when patients want to initiate movement, promoting not only initiation but also controlling the vigor of the movement. If this possibility were to be confirmed, it could render DBS more physiological, more natural, so decreasing unwanted side-effects.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Relax, just break it

The properties of a solid depend on the arrangement of its atoms, which form a periodic crystal structure. At the nanoscale, arrangements that break this periodic structure can drastically alter the behavior of the material, but this is difficult to measure. Recent advances by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are starting to unravel this mystery.

[…]

Using state-of-the art neutron and synchrotron X-ray scattering, Argonne scientists and their collaborators are helping to answer long-held questions about a technologically important class of materials called relaxor ferroelectrics, which are often lead-based. These materials have mechanical and electrical properties that are useful in applications such as sonar and ultrasound. The more scientists understand about the internal structure of relaxor ferroelectrics, the better materials we can develop for these and other applications.

The dielectric constants of relaxor ferroelectrics, which express their ability to store energy when in an electric field, have an unusual dependence on the frequency of the field. Its origin has long been a mystery to scientists. Relaxor ferroelectrics can also have exceedingly high piezoelectric properties, which means that when mechanically strained they develop an internal electric field, or, conversely, they expand or contract in the presence of an external electric field. These properties make relaxor ferroelectrics useful in technologies where energy must be converted between mechanical and electrical.

Read more.

[deuxiemefoix]

Johann Daniel Meyer - Angenehmer und nützlicher Zeit-Vertreib mit Betrachtung curioser Vorstellungen - c. 1748-1756 - via e-rara

[neurosciencestuff]

Brain’s insular cortex mediates approach and avoidance responses to others in distress

The brain’s insular cortex, which processes senses and emotions, controls reactions like approach to or avoidance of others through the action of the hormone oxytocin, a team of Boston College researchers reports in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Searching for clues to complex human social behaviors, the team developed a procedure in which laboratory rats - much like humans - prefer to approach distressed juveniles but avoid distressed adults - responses known as social affective behaviors, according to the article titled “Insular cortex mediates approach and avoidance responses to others in distress.”

The experiments demonstrate how the brain’s insular cortex region is required for proper reactions to others in distress. Further, the release of oxytocin results in changes in insular cortex excitability and likely accounts for the social affective behaviors, according to the team, led by Boston College Gianinno Family Sesquicentennial Assistant Professor of Psychology John P. Christianson.

The team’s experiments provide a new model to investigate brain function during emotion recognition and empathy tasks. The model expands the research toolkit for investigations of social behaviors and psychiatric diseases like autism and schizophrenia. The findings point specifically to the insular cortex and oxytocin reception as key to social responses.

The overarching goal of the research initiative is to uncover the neural circuitry that allows animals to recognize the emotional states of other animals and generate appropriate reactions, Christianson said.

“We were surprised that insular cortex activity was correlated with both social approach and social avoidance behaviors,” said Christianson. “This suggests that the insular cortex works together with a distributed network to integrate features like the age and stress of other individuals.”

Understanding the wiring of the social brain is relevant to many social settings, Christianson said. As an example, he said, when an individual encounters someone else in distress, there are a number of possible reactions - to help the other, to flee, to seek help or warn others of potential danger.

“What an individual chooses to do in such a situation depends on a number of factors including the relationship between interactants, their ages, safety in the environment, and intrinsic empathic capacities,” said Christianson. “The social cognition underlying these decisions is critical for cooperation, trust, helping and intimacy.”

Christianson said his team uses neuroscience techniques “to investigate the biological basis for social cognition with the hope that we can better understand and treat people with conditions marked by aberrant social cognition such as autism or schizophrenia.”

[nasa]

What’s a Blood Moon? And Other Lunar Eclipse Questions.

Tonight, Australians, Africans, Europeans, Asians and South Americans will have the opportunity to see the longest lunar eclipse of the century. Sorry North America. 

Lunar eclipses occur about 2-4 times per year, when the Moon passes into the Earth’s shadow. In order to see a lunar eclipse, you must be on the night side of the Earth, facing the Moon, when the Earth passes in between the Moon and the Sun. Need help visualizing this? Here you go:

What’s the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse?

An easy way to remember the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse is that the word ‘eclipse’ refers to the object that is being obscured. During a solar eclipse, the Moon blocks the Sun from view. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth’s shadow obscures the Moon.

Why does the Moon turn red?  

You may have heard the term ‘Blood Moon’ for a lunar eclipse. When the Moon passes into the Earth’s shadow, it turns red. This happens for the exact same reason that our sunrises and sunsets here on Earth are brilliant shades of pinks and oranges. During a lunar eclipse, the only light reaching the Moon passes through the Earth’s atmosphere. The bluer, shorter wavelength light scatters and the longer wavelength red light passes through and makes it to the Moon.

What science can we learn from a lunar eclipse?

“During a lunar eclipse, the temperature swing is so dramatic that it’s as if the surface of the Moon goes from being in an oven to being in a freezer in just a few hours,” said Noah Petro, project scientist for our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, at our Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Diviner team from LRO measures temperature changes on the Moon through their instrument on the spacecraft as well as through a thermal camera on Earth. How quickly or slowly the lunar surface loses heat helps scientists determine characteristics of lunar material, including its composition and physical properties.

When is the next lunar eclipse?

North Americans, don’t worry. If skies are clear, you can see the next lunar eclipse on January 21, 2019. The eclipse will be visible to North Americans, South Americans, and most of Africa and Europe.

To keep an eye on the Moon with us check out nasa.gov/moon or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

[neurosciencestuff]

Neurons Get the Beat and Keep It Going in Drumrolls

A neuron firing deep in the brain might sound a little like: Drumroll…cymbal crash! Drumroll…cymbal crash! Repeat. With emphasis on “repeat,” according to a new study.

What used to look like fleeting cacophonies of electrical impulses in the brain is looking to neuroscience researchers more and more like a sustained matrix of electronic percussion. For years, they have been analyzing patterns hidden in neurons’ electrical buzzes, and now, they have revealed in neurons continued stretches of orderly drumroll-like rumblings speckled with thrashing impulses, or spikes, that stimulate neighboring neurons.

“These signaling patterns last a lot longer than we thought,” said Annabelle Singer, an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Singer led the in vivo study on mice together with Ed Boyden, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Persistent neurons

“We used to think that neurons would fire spikes to neighboring neurons for a few milliseconds, and that was all it would take to make the next neuron spike,” Singer said. “Now we’re seeing that you get these repeating patterns of rumblings and spikes sustained over hundreds of milliseconds, even close to a full second.”

That’s about how long it takes a human heart to complete one full beat.

The rumblings are jumbly fluctuations of electrical potential within a neuron before it fires a spike. The spikes are big electrical signals that communicate with neighboring neurons.

Taken together, the sum of the spikes in the brain make its circuitry compute so that we can walk, talk, and live life.

The researchers published their study on the newly discovered patterns in the Journal of Neuroscience. Official publication date is February 14, 2018, but the study is already available online without embargo. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Friends of the McGovern Institute, the New York Stem Cell Foundation, the MIT Intelligence Initiative, and the Lane Family.

Questions and answers

The combination of observing the patterns’ percussion-like characteristics as well as their sustained lengths in the brains of awake mice make this a novel finding, Singer said. Some similar previous studies have been performed on mice that were anesthetized, which strongly altered brain activity when compared to awake brains.

Here are some questions and answers about the observed patterns and their significance.

What do these sustained patterns look like?

The researchers recorded the activities of individual neurons in the hippocampus, which is located in the lower center of the brain, with a robotic device called a patch clamp. It’s a hollow glass needle one micron in diameter that latches onto a single neuron via suction and measures its electrical activity.

The researchers observed electrical rumblings, symbolized here by a drumroll. And they observed spikes, symbolized here by a cymbal crash.

Though the pattern of rumblings wasn’t uniform, it rose and fell like a drumroll undulating between softer and louder volumes. Spikes occurred much more rarely than drumbeats, but with notable timing.

“The spikes repeated in the same spots with high precision, so they weren’t just random,” Singer said. “They came around the peaks of rumblings, not always right on top of a peak but within a hair of it.”

It would be like a cymbal crash hitting not every time, but every few times the undulating drumroll topped a volume peak. And the drumroll-cymbal-crash patterns sustained themselves for surprisingly long periods.

“The time periods of activity that was structured like this were much longer than we expected,” Singer said. “People have shown sustained periods of signaling like this for 100 to 300 milliseconds before, but this appears to be the first time it’s been seen for 900 milliseconds (nearly a full second), and it may go on even longer.”

What are neurons doing with these rumblings and spikes?

When one neuron fires a spike, that electronic impulse hits neighboring neurons and influences the receiving neurons’ rumblings until they fire spikes, too.

“A neuron receives these fast inputs. There are many different drumbeat patterns coming from many different neurons around it,” Singer said. “The patterns we observed in one neuron were being driven by other neurons firing into it like a whole drum section with short little bursts.”

At first sight, that may appear to be a cacophony, but if the jumbly patterns repeat, a consistent percussion of rumblings in the neuron may result.

How may this influence the way we picture neurons at work?

“I think people have thought about neuron firings as random then suddenly organized in a concerted kind of way,” Singer said.

That could be pictured as many neurons behaving spastically until it was time to get to work, then abruptly firing as a group in near unison. This does appear to happen under the right circumstances, but as a prevailing picture of neuron firing,  it may be lacking something.

“We’re starting to see more structure, very complex structure in what was thought to be randomness,” Singer said. “There is a lot of activity that is ongoing that is organized and that we need to understand, as well.”

The researchers examined cells important for memory, but further research will be required to know what role the observed firing patterns may have in its function. The researchers are also working together with engineers at Georgia Tech to develop new robotic patch clamping devices that listen simultaneously to the firings of neurons connected to one another.

[galaxythreads1]

Hubble Takes Portrait of Opulent Ring World via NASA https://ift.tt/2v8RBQA

[cosmicvastness]

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day 2017 February 24 

NGC 3621: Far Beyond the Local Group 

Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra, the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous island universe are loaded with luminous blue star clusters, pinkish starforming regions, and dark dust lanes. Still, for astronomers NGC 3621 has not been just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe. This beautiful image of NGC 3621, is a composite of space- and ground-based telescope data. It traces the loose spiral arms far from the galaxy’s brighter central regions for some 100,000 light-years. Spiky foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy and even more distant background galaxies are scattered across the colorful skyscape.

[nasa]

A Ring of Fire Eclipse in the Southern Hemisphere

On Feb. 26, a “ring of fire” will be visible in the sky above parts of the Southern Hemisphere, including Chile, Argentina and Angola. This is called an annular eclipse.

Credit: Dale Cruikshank

If you live within the viewing area, even though most of the sun will be obscured by the moon, it’s essential to observe eye safety. This includes using a proper solar filter or an indirect viewing method during ALL phases of this eclipse.

See full graphic

What is an annular eclipse? During any type of solar eclipse, the sun, moon, and Earth line up, allowing the moon to cast its shadow on Earth’s surface in a partial or total solar eclipse.

Download this animation

An annular eclipse is the product of almost the same celestial geometry as a total solar eclipse – that is, from the perspective of some place on Earth, the moon crosses in front of the sun’s center. 

But an annular eclipse is different in one important way – the moon is too far from Earth to obscure the sun completely, leaving the sun’s edges exposed and producing the “ring of fire” effect for which annular eclipses are known. Because the moon’s orbit is slightly oblong, its distance from Earth – and therefore its apparent size compared to the sun’s – is constantly changing.

An annular eclipse seen in extreme ultraviolet light – a type of light invisible to humans – by the Hinode spacecraft on Jan. 4, 2011.

Any time part, or all, of the sun’s surface is exposed – whether during an annular eclipse, a partial eclipse, or just a regular day – it’s essential to use a proper solar filter or an indirect viewing method to view the sun. You can NEVER look directly at the sun, and an annular eclipse is no exception!  

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere or near the equator, check this interactive map for partial eclipse times.

If you live in North America, you’ll have a chance to see an eclipse later this year. On Aug. 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will cross the US – the first total solar eclipse in the contiguous US in nearly 40 years! The path of totality for the August eclipse runs from coast to coast.

Within this narrow path of totality, the moon will completely obscure the sun – unlike an annular eclipse – revealing the sun’s outer atmosphere. People in other parts of North America will see a partial solar eclipse, weather permitting. Find out what you can see during the Aug. 21, 2017, eclipse in your area with our maps, and explore the rest of eclipse2017.nasa.gov for more information.

For more eclipse science, visit www.nasa.gov/eclipse.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[neurosciencestuff]

What Does It Take to Make a Memory? Study Says New Proteins

While the romantic poets’ idea of memories being akin to spirits may have poetic merit, the scientists’ perspective is that memories are concrete, physical entities that can be visualized within various regions of the brain.

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have now for the first time identified a sub-region in the brain that works to form a particular kind of memory: fear-associated with a specific environmental cue or “contextual fear memory.”

The study, recently published in the journal Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, was led by TSRI Associate Professor Sathyanarayanan V. Puthanveettil.

“Much is still unknown about the identities of proteins synthesized to produce long-term memory,” Puthanveettil said. “The most striking observation from the new study is that the medial prefrontal cortex is the site of this early protein synthesis. We have also identified what proteins are newly synthesized in the medial prefrontal cortex.”

In particular, the study showed new protein synthesis in a specific sub-region of the prefrontal cortex known in rodents as the prelimbic. In humans, this area corresponds to the anterior cortex, which has been linked to processing emotional responses.

Initially, Puthanveettil and his colleagues ignored the medial prefrontal cortex because no one believed that it had anything to do with early encoding of long term memories.

However, when they closely examined the effects on the brain of conditioning rodents with a mild foot shock, the scientists found several messenger RNAs recruited to polyribosomes in the medial prefrontal cortex—a clear indication of new protein synthesis there.

Puthanveettil and his colleagues also discovered that if they inhibited new protein synthesis in the prelimbic region right after fear conditioning took place, those memories did not form. But if the researchers waited just a few hours, inhibiting protein synthesis in prelimbic cortex had no impact and the memories took hold. There is temporal and spatial regulation of new protein synthesis in the medial prefrontal cortex.

“It may be that the first wave of protein synthesis is critical for encoding contextual fear memory, while second wave in other sub-regions is important for memory storage,” he said.

It remains to be determined if other sub-regions of the cortex are also be involved in the synthesis of memory proteins.

“The medial prefrontal cortex has many sub-regions,” said TSRI Senior Research Associate Bindu L. Raveendra, co-first author of the study with Valerio Rizzo, Khalid Touzani and Supriya Swarnkar, all of TSRI at the time of the study. “But the specific roles of these sub-regions in encoding, expression and retrieval, as well as their underlying molecular mechanisms, remain to be unraveled.”

[neurosciencestuff]

Pain is not just a matter of nerves

The sensation of pain occurs when neural pathways conduct excitation generated by tissue damage to the spinal cord, where the nociceptive information is extensively pre-processed. From there, the information is transmitted to the human brain, where the sensation of “pain” is finally created. This is the general belief. However, researchers from the Division of Neurophysiology at MedUni Vienna’s Center for Brain Research have now discovered that pain is not just a matter of nerves but that non-neuronal cells, the glial cells, are also involved in clinically relevant pain models and their activation is sufficient to amplify pain. The study has now been published in the leading journal “Science”.

Glial cells are the commonest type of cells in the human brain and spinal cord. They surround neurons but are distinct from them and play an important supporting role – for example, in material transport and metabolism or the fluid balance in the brain and spinal cord.

Novel explanation for puzzling pain phenomena At the same time, however, when they are activated – by pain processes, for example – glial cells are themselves able to release messenger substances, such as inflammatory cytokines. Glial cells therefore have two modes: a protective and a pro-inflammatory mode. “The activation of glial cells results in a pain-amplifying effect, as well as spreading the pain to previously unaffected parts of the body. For the very first time, our study provides a biological explanation for this and for other hitherto unexplained pain phenomena in medicine,” says Jürgen Sandkühler, Head of the Division of Neurophysiology at MedUni Vienna’s Center for Brain Research.

Over-activation of glial cells in the spinal cord can, for example, be caused by strong pain stimuli from a wound or surgical intervention, or even by opiates. Sandkühler: “This could also explain why opiates are initially very good at relieving pain but then often cease to be effective. Another example is the phenomenon of "withdrawal” in drug addicts, where activated glial cells cause severe pain throughout the body.“

A healthy lifestyle can beneficially impact the glial cell system According to Sandkühler, neuroinflammatory diseases of the brain, environmental factors and even the person’s own lifestyle can lead to activation of glial cells. Examples from the current literature are: depression, anxiety disorders and chronic stress, multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer’s and diabetes, as well as lack of exercise and poor diet. Sandkühler: "Glial cells are an important factor in ensuring the equilibrium of a person’s neuroinflammatory system.” The study results give grounds for speculation that improvements in a person’s lifestyle could have a beneficial impact upon this system and ensure that they generally suffer less pain or “minor niggles”, says Sandkühler: “It is therefore in our own hands: thirty minutes of moderate exercise three or four times a week, a healthy diet and avoiding putting on excess weight can make a huge difference.”

[r2--d2]

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[r2--d2]

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[cosmicvastness]

An Active Night over the Magellan Telescopes 

The night sky is always changing. Featured here are changes that occurred over a six hour period in late 2014 June behind the dual 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The initial red glow on the horizon is airglow, a slight cooling of high air by the emission of specific colors of light. Bands of airglow are also visible throughout the time-lapse video. Early in the night, car headlights flash on the far left. Satellites quickly shoot past as they circle the Earth and reflect sunlight. A long and thin cloud passes slowly overhead. The Small Magellanic Cloud rises on the left, while the expansive central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arches and pivots as the Earth rotates. As the night progresses, the Magellan telescopes swivel and stare as they explore pre-determined patches of the night sky. Every night, every sky changes differently, even though the phenomena at play are usually the same.

Credit: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN)

[discoverynews]

A Hidden Continent Dubbed 'Zealandia' May Lie Beneath New Zealand

Scientists argue that the geologic entity, which is mostly submerged beneath the South Pacific, should be recognized as the world's eighth continent.