So, Akatsuki failed at orbiting Venus, which, for a Venus probe, is pretty bad, yes, we know… (Please, do not mention Nozomi, thanks).

  The main engine being damaged, a secondary engine (retroaction control system) was ignited yesterday during 10 minutes to correct the trajectory of the probe, a first step in a project that may conduct to an orbit insertion in 2015.

  A second ignition is scheduled on the 10th after the analysis of the data received after this first try. A third one will occur on the 21st. There is still hope !

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  One shall never write articles about things one does not completely understand. But hey : isn’t this what 80% of bloggers do everyday ?

  I apologize for any misconception that may occur in this article. I am not even sure I would have understood everything would have the source been in French either…

  An international team of researchers including members from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and from Tokyo University published yesterday the discovery of a starbust galaxy (Monster Ginga in Japanese) that seems at least ten times bigger than usual starbust galaxies, earning the title of “Super Starbust Galaxy” (Cho Monster Ginga).The discovery has been published in the English magazine “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society”, so why isn’t there any report of it on English language websites, pretty please ? (In fact, it seems the discovery has been announced since last July)

  The project, using the ASTE telescope to scan a deep-space area called Subaru/XMM Newton, already observed and registered about one thousand starbust galaxies. Starbust galaxies are really common at the begining of the Universe, between 9 and 12 billions years ago. They produced about 1000 stars a year (our Milky Way produces 2 or 3 stars a year). There is a possibility those starbust galaxies are the ancestors of more recents giant galaxies, the ones including a blackhole.

  They also discovered Orochi (named after Yamata no Orochi, the eight headed and eight tailed serpent of Japanese mythology) a galaxy located 11,8 billions light-years from Earth, and whose luminosity suggests it’s ten times more active than a classic starbust galaxy, with 10.000 stars (or more) produced each year.

  It seems that there is a giant galaxy between us and Orochi (9 billions light-years from us) and we can only see Orochi by gravitational lens effect. This effect could be the cause of the intensification of Orochi’s luminosity, and its real luminosity has stil to be calculated before we can be sure it really is a super-giant-monster-galaxy-of-doom.

  Source has detailed explanations about the researches led by each team in the research project + a bunch of illustrations.

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  MAXI, the X-ray observation equipement installed in Kibou, the Japanese experiments laboratory module of the ISS managed to capture for the first time a black hole swallowing a neighbouring star !

  To be honest, the American satellite SWIFT detected the same thing at the same moment, but yay for Japan anyway.

  MAXI detected a really strong X-ray emission during about 10 minutes, coming from a zone where there used to be no emission at all. The phenomenon has been observed several times by MAXI and SWIFT.

  The analysis led the scientists to think that this corresponds to the swallowing of a star by the black hole. When the matter is absorbed, a swirl occurs and a strong vertical jet of gas is emitted. They managed to detect it only because it is emitted in the Earth’s direction.

Do you want a film ? Yes you want one. Here on the left.

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