On May 12, 2013, the sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 10 p.m. EDT. This flare is classified as an X1.7, making it the first X-class flare of 2013. The flare was also associated with another solar phenomenon, called a coronal mass ejection (CME) that can send solar material out into space. This CME was not Earth-directed.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing – the radio blackout associated with this flare has since subsided.

via NASA – First X-Class Solar Flares of 2013.

Giant spiral galaxies such as Andromeda and the Milky Way outshine and outweigh most of their galactic peers. They grew so large both by swallowing lesser galaxies and by grabbing gas from the space around them. New observations of exotic “tadpole” galaxies are shedding light on how the Milky Way assembled its most luminous component: the starry disk that is home to the sun and Earth.

First spotted in the 1990s, tadpole galaxies sport bright heads, which spawn brilliant new stars, and long, faint tails. Most tadpoles are billions of light-years distant, meaning they were more common when the universe was young. From such great distances, though, studying the odd galaxies is difficult.

Thus, Jorge Sánchez Almeida of the Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Islands and his colleagues scrutinized seven rare tadpoles that happen to lie much closer, within 600 million light-years of Earth. Analyzing light from telescopes on the island of La Palma, the astronomers determined the speeds of different parts of each galaxy, demonstrating that most of the tadpoles rotate, just as the disks of spiral galaxies do.

via “Tadpole” Galaxies Offer Snapshots of the Milky Way’s Youth: Scientific American.

NASA’s Curiosity rover reaches out in ‘handshake’ like gesture to welcome the end of solar conjunction and resumption of contact with Earth. This mosaic of images was snapped by Curiosity on Sol 262 (May 2, 2013) and shows her flexing the robotic arm with dramatic scenery of Mount Sharp in the background. Two drill holes are visible on the surface bedrock below the robotic arm’s turret where she discovered a habitable site.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer-(kenkremer.com)/Marco Di Lorenzo

NASA’s Curiosity rover has reached out in a Martian ‘handshake’ like gesture welcoming the end of solar conjunction that marks the resumption of contact with her handlers back on Earth – evidenced in a new photo mosaic of images captured as the robot and her human handlers contemplate a short traverse to a 2nd drilling target in the next few days.

“We’ll move a small bit and then drill another hole,” said John Grotzinger to Universe Today. Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., leads NASA’s Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory mission.

The rover science team and Grotzinger have selected that 2nd drill location and are itching to send the rover on her way to the bumpy spot called “Cumberland.”

via Universe Today — Space and astronomy news.