Galactic Views (32)

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SPACE WATCH

Spider Web of Stars
NASA – Looking like a spider’s web swirled into a spiral, Galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Seen in infrared light, faint starlight gives way to the glowing bright patterns of dust found throughout the galaxy’s disk.

At a distance of about 10 million light-years, IC 342 is relatively close by galactic standards, however our vantage point places it directly behind the disk of our own Milky Way. The intervening dust makes it difficult to see in visible light, but infrared light penetrates this veil easily. IC 342 belongs to the same group as its even more obscured galactic neighbor, Maffei 2.

IC 342 is nearly face-on to our view, giving a clear, top-down view of the structure of its disk. It has a low surface brightness compared to other spirals, indicating a lower density of stars (seen here as a blue haze). Its dust structures show up much more vividly (red). Blue dots are stars closer to us, in our own Milky Way.

New stars are forming in the disk at a healthy rate. The very center glows especially brightly in the infrared, highlighting an enormous burst of star formation occurring in this tiny region. To either side of the center, a small bar of dust and gas is helping to fuel this central star formation.

Data from Spitzer’s infrared array camera are shown in blue (3.6 microns), green (4.5 microns) and red (5.8 and 8.0 microns). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Supreme Court faces an unprecedented frenzy during health reform arguments

United States Supreme Court building in Washington D.C., USA. Front facade. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Sam Baker – The frenzy generated by the Supreme Court’s arguments on the healthcare reform law next week is likely to dwarf anything the court has ever seen.

Lawmakers and interest groups plan to stage protests and events outside the court nearly nonstop, creating a circus-like atmosphere for a case that could redefine the limits of federal power.

Many legal experts say the ruling on the healthcare law could be one of the most consequential in the court’s history. The oral arguments in the case are the longest in 45 years, and the legal and political stakes are enormous. The court is expected to deliver its ruling in June, just months before the presidential election. more> http://tinyurl.com/76yrl75

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Europeans choose sides over financial crisis

By Harold Meyerson – The founding document of a genuinely pan-European politics isn’t one that unites the continent. To the contrary, the fiscal compact that German Chancellor Angela Merkel persuaded her European Union colleagues to embrace — with an assist from French President Nicolas Sarkozy — has given rise to bitter dissents both within and among European nations. The pact, which codifies fiscal constraints that will inflict years of economic stagnation, if not accelerated decline, on such debtor nations as Spain and Greece, has divided Europe into rival camps — the Keynesian leftists against the austerity rightists.

All politics in Europe isn’t local any more. Roll over, Bismarck, and give Clemenceau the news: The German chancellor wants to campaign for the French president. Mein Gott! Mon Dieu! OMG! more> http://tinyurl.com/7rl5pun

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Dismantling IPad Reveals Parts, Costs

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Bloomberg – Bloomberg’s Cory Johnson reports on what’s inside Apple Inc.‘s new iPad as IHS iSuppli breaks apart the tablet which set a record with debut sales of more than 3 million. Emily Chang also speaks on Bloomberg Television‘s “Bloomberg West.” [VIDEO 3:09] more> http://tinyurl.com/6wf6gjc

Bernanke Returns to Academic Roots to Defend Fed’s Existence

By Rich Miller and Joshua Zumbrun – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke returned to his roots as a university professor today, seeking to explain and justify the existence of the central bank ahead of the 100th anniversary of its founding next year.

In anticipation of the centennial next year of the 1913 legislation founding the central bank, the Fed has set up an advisory council to discuss ways to mark the occasion with “public education and outreach,” said Lisa Oliva, vice president of corporate communications at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The panel is headed by former Fed chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan and includes representatives of academia, business, labor and the public. more> http://tinyurl.com/7cqrnnk

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