A dead star lives on in the form of the Crab nebula 952 years after its explosive demise. The Crab nebula sits about 6,000 light-years from Earth towards the constellation Taurus [image]. One light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about six trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). This view of the nebula is actually the result of several space-based platforms, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope.
Turbulence Detected in Space
The highly ionized solar wind blows around our planet, disrupting satellites and endangering unprotected astronauts. A flotilla of four satellites have recently measured random variations in the solar wind's propagation, providing the first definitive detection of turbulence in space.
The observation could improve space weather forecasts, as well as help improve models of turbulent flow in ionized gas, called plasma.
Turbulence is quite common on Earth, as any frequent airplane passenger can attest. But even physicists get a little queasy when trying to explain the nature of this choppy, swirling flow.
"One cannot predict future behaviors with satisfactory accuracy," says Yasuhito Narita of the Institute of Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics in Braunschweig, Germany. "Even a small deviation or uncertainty in the initial state will end up with a completely different state."
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