Messier 84
Messier 84 (also known as "NGC 4374") is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation of Virgo. M84 is in the heavily populated inner core of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
Radio observations and Hubble Space Telescope images of M84 have revealed two jets of matter shooting out from the galaxy's centre, as well as a disk of rapidly rotating gas and stars. This suggests there is a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. Its mass is 1.5 M, that is gravitation amounting to 15 billion solar masses.
Charles Messier discovered Messier 84 in 1781 when he searched for "nebulous objects" in the night sky. The object is the 84th in the Messier Catalogue.
Two supernovae have been observed in M84: SN 1957
and SN 1991bg.
Possibly, a third, SN 1980I is part of M84 or, alternatively, one of its neighboring galaxies, NGC 4387 and M86.
Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Montalbán (Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, November 25, 1920 – January 14, 2009) was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and movie actor. He had a career seven decades long (motion pictures from 1943 to 2006) and many notable roles.
During the mid-1970s, Montalbán was the spokesman in tv automobile advertisements for the Chrysler Cordoba, in which he praised the "soft Corinthian leather" used for its interior. He also advertised the Chrysler New Yorker.
From 1977 to 1984, he was famous as Mr. Roarke the main star in the television series "Fantasy Island". He played Khan Noonien Singh in the 1967 episode "Space Seed" of the first season of the , and the 1982 film "".
He won an Emmy Award in 1978 for his role in the miniseries "How the West Was Won" and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993. Into his 80s, he continued to perform, often providing voices for animated films and commercials, and appearing in several "Spy Kids" films as "Grandfather Valentin".
Montalbán was born in Mexico City, Mexico on November 25, 1920. He grew up in the city of Torreón, the son of Spanish immigrants Ricarda Merino and Jenaro Montalbán, a store manager. He was married to Georgiana Belzer from 1944 until her death in 2007. They had four children.
Montalbán died from heart failure in his Los Angeles, California home on January 14, 2009, aged 88.
Subaru Telescope
The telescope is named after the Pleiades star cluster.
In September 1999, former-Princess Sayako of Japan dedicated the telescope. For the dedication, an eyepiece was constructed so that Princess Sayako could look through it directly.
Kepler-22b
Kepler-22b is an extrasolar planet orbiting (going around) G-type star Kepler-22. It is located about 600 light years away from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It was found by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. It is also the first known planet to orbit within the habitable zone of a Sun-like star.
Kepler-22b's first transit in front of its host sun was observed on Kepler's third day of scientific operations in mid-2009. Kepler-22b's third transit was detected in late 2010. The Spitzer Space Telescope provided more data that confirmed Kepler-22b's transits. On December 5, 2011, the confirmation of the existence of Kepler-22b was announced.
Kepler-22b's radius is roughly 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Its mass and surface composition remain unknown, with only some very rough estimates established: It has less than 124 Earth masses at the 3 sigma confidence limit, and less than 36 Earth masses at 1 sigma confidence.
It is thought that the object has a mass similar to that of Neptune (~35 Earth masses). Another possibility is that Kepler-22b is an "ocean-like" world. It might also be comparable to the water-rich planet GJ 1214 b although Kepler-22b, unlike GJ 1214 b, is in the habitable zone. If it has an Earth-like composition, the compression of material in the interior of the planet would give an overall mass greater than 40 Earth masses. Such a planet would also produce surface gravity greater than 7 times that on Earth. This is ruled out to at least 1-sigma uncertainty by radial velocity measurements of the system, suggesting Kepler-22b does not have Earth-like composition. It is likely to have a more volatile-rich composition with a liquid or gaseous outer shell; this would make it similar to Kepler-11f, the smallest known gas planet.
"If it is mostly ocean with a small rocky core," Natalie Batalha, one of the scientists on the project, speculated "it's not beyond the realm of possibility that life could exist in such an ocean." This possibility of life has spurred SETI to perform research on top candidates for extraterrestrial intelligence. However, if the planet's carbon cycle has ceased due to lack of oceans and plate tectonics, Kepler-22b may turn out to be a searing, sterile super-Venus.
The only parameters of the planet's orbit that are currently available are its period, which is about , and its inclination which is approximately 90°, so that it transits the disk of its star as seen from Earth.
No information is available about the shape of the planet's orbit. Many extrasolar planets are known to move in highly elliptical orbits. We only know that the semi-major axis of its orbit is within its host star's habitable zone. If Kepler-22b has a highly elongated orbit it may well only spend a small fraction of its time within this habitable zone, which would cause extreme temperature differences on the planet and make it inhospitable.
In order to obtain information about the shape of the planet's orbit, other methods of planetary detection, such as the radial velocity method, need to be used. While such methods have been performed on the planet after its discovery, they have not yet detected what the orbital eccentricity of the planet actually is, and have as of March 2012 only set an upper limit on the mass of the planet.
The average distance from Kepler-22b to its host star Kepler-22 is about 15% less than the distance from Earth to the Sun but the luminosity (light output) of Kepler-22 is about 25% less than that of the Sun. This combination of a shorter average distance from the star and a lower stellar luminosity are consistent with a moderate surface temperature at that distance if we assume that the surface is not subject to extreme greenhouse heating.
If the planet is found to move in a highly elliptical orbit, its surface temperature will vary from a higher temperature when close to Kepler-22 to lower when further away. If the orbit is indeed highly elliptical, then the temperature variance range will be extreme.
Scientists can estimate the possible surface conditions as follows:
Western scrub jay
A Western scrub jay ("Aphelocoma californica") is a type of jay bird in Western North America. They live in forests and look for food on the ground. They eat acorns, hairy caterpillars, beetles, wasps, corn, nuts, fruit, lizards, and other things.
Jill Ireland
Jill Dorothy Ireland (April 24, 1936 - May 18, 1990) was an English actress. She was born in London. She was in many movies. She also did some television performances. She was married to the actor Charles Bronson. Ireland died in Malibu, California due to breast cancer.
Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is an American actress, activist and politician. She is most well known role comes from playing Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series "Sex and the City" (1998-2004). She has had other movie and TV starring acts as well. In 2016, she played Nancy Reagan in the television movie "Killing Reagan".
On March 19, 2018, she announced via Twitter that she was running for Governor of New York.
Vostok (rocket)