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Monday, April 22, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Tsarnaev Brothers: For Bombing Suspects, Question May Be Who Led Whom
BOSTON -- Tamerlan Tsarnaev ranted at a neighbor about Islam and the United States. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, relished debating people on religion, "then crushing their beliefs with facts."
The older brother sought individual glory in the boxing ring, while the younger excelled as part of a team. Tamerlan "swaggered" through the family home like a "man-of-the-house type," one visitor recalls, while Dzhokhar seemed "very respectful and very obedient" to his mother.
The brothers, now forever linked in the Boston Marathon bombing tragedy, in some ways seemed as different as siblings could be. But whatever drove them to allegedly set off two pressure-cooker bombs, their uncle is certain Dzhokhar was not the one pulling the strings.
"He's not been understanding anything. He's a 19-year-old boy," Ruslan Tsarni said of his brother's youngest child, who is clinging to life in a Boston hospital after a gunbattle with police. "He's been absolutely wasted by his older brother. I mean, he used him. He used him for whatever he's done. For what we see they've done. OK?"
Criminologist James Alan Fox says the uncle's intuition is justified. In cases like this, he says, it is highly unusual for the younger participant ? in this case, a sibling ? to be the leader.
"I would be surprised," says Fox, a professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Boston's Northeastern University. "Very surprised."
Whatever their fraternal pecking order, when the bullets began flying in Watertown on Thursday night and 26-year-old Tamerlan went down, his younger brother ran him over ? dragging him for about 30 feet ? before ditching the car and fleeing on foot. After a 24-hour manhunt that shut down most of the Boston metropolitan area, police cornered the gravely wounded Dzhokhar hiding in a boat in a backyard, only blocks from where his brother bled out.
Officials said Dzhokhar was in serious condition Saturday, unable to communicate. So, at least for now, investigators and the public are left with only enigma.
The ethnic Chechen family came to this country in 2002, after fleeing troubles in Kyrgyzstan and then Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus. They settled in a working-class part of Cambridge, where the father, Anzor Tsarnaev, opened an auto shop.
He returned to Dagestan about a year ago.
Luis Vasquez went to high school with Tamerlan and later helped coach Dzhokhar's soccer team at Cambridge Rindge and Latin. With the father gone, Vasquez said, the older brother assumed a kind of paternal role, at least where the girls in the family were concerned.
"He was very protective of his (younger) sister, Bella," Vasquez said. "He would keep an eye out, making sure she's good, making sure she's not having a hard time."
Vasquez chalked it up to "his culture" and "what his family expected out of him."
David Mijares, who trained in boxing with Tamerlan in high school and later coached the younger brother in soccer, agreed that his friend felt pressure to take his father's place.
"He had to be a man at a very early age," says Mijares. "That would be, in my opinion, a huge reason for who he was, all serious and no nonsense."
John Pinto said the pair were frequent patrons at his Midwest Grill, just a couple of blocks from their house. When they walked in, he said, Tamerlan was always in the lead.
"I think the big brother is more the command guy, boss," Pinto said, puffing out his chest for emphasis.
That said, Dzhokhar was very much his own man. While he would tag along to Tamerlan's boxing practices, the younger brother was into wrestling.
In one of his tweets, he complained that his mother was trying to arrange a marriage for him, as she'd done for his sisters.
"she needs to (hash)chillout," he tweeted on July 12. "i'll find my own honey."
Tamerlan preceded his brother at the prestigious Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, which counts celebrities Matt Damon and Ben Affleck among its alumni. But he does not appear to have been a standout student and athlete whose reputation Dzhokhar would have felt pressure to live up to.
"To be perfectly honest, I did not know he HAD an older brother from the start," said classmate Alexandros Stefanakis, who played pickup basketball games and hung out with Dzhokhar outside school.
Anne Kilzer of Belmont would go to the Tsarnaev home for regular facials from the boys' mother, Zubeidat. She said the older brother was a "macho guy," whereas Dzhokhar seemed more cerebral.
The few times that Tamerlan was there, he would wave his mother off when she tried to introduce him. "He sort of swaggered through," she said. "Sort of a man-of-the-house type."
In a blog entry, Kilzer's daughter, Alyssa, suggested that the mother became increasingly religious as their acquaintance progressed. For instance, she began wearing a hijab, the traditional Muslim headscarf.
"She started to refuse to see boys that had gone through puberty, as she had consulted a religious figure and he had told her it was sacrilegious," Alyssa Kilzer wrote. "She was often fasting. She told me that she had cried for days when her oldest son, Tamerlan, told her that he wanted to move out, going against her culture's tradition of the son staying in the house with the mother until marriage."
She said the mother also expressed some rather strident views about the U.S. government. But it was difficult to know who was influencing whom in the household.
"During this facial session she started quoting a conspiracy theory, telling me that she thought 9-11 was purposefully created by the American government to make America hate Muslims," Alyssa Kilzer wrote. "`It's real,' she said. `My son knows all about it. You can read on the internet.'"
Kilzer didn't say to which son the mother was referring. Kilzer, who is studying in Scotland, could not immediately be reached.
Tsarni told The Associated Press from his home in Maryland that a deep rift opened between him and his sister-in-law, but that he tried to maintain a relationship with the boys. However, that effort began to fall apart several years ago, he said, when Tamerlan "started carrying all this nonsense associated with religion, with Islamic religion."
When he asked his older nephew why he wasn't in school, he said Tamerlan gave an enigmatic answer. "Oh, I'm in God's business," the young man replied.
Tamerlan would throw out foreign words like "jihad" and "Inshallah" ? Arabic for "God willing" ? without really understanding their meaning, he said. Though Tsarni is himself Muslim, he said he does not worship at a mosque.
The uncle was surprised when he learned that Tamerlan had gotten married to an American woman ? a "good Christian family girl," who his nephew said was about to convert to Islam.
In February, Alexander Podobryaev, who lives a couple of houses from the Tsarnaevs, exchanged pleasantries with Tamerlan as they shoveled snow. He says the man pointed to a woman in a black Muslim headscarf and identified her as his wife.
Others began noticing signs of Tamerlan's increasing agitation.
One of the brothers' neighbors, Albrecht Ammon, said he had a bizarre encounter with Tamerlan in a pizza shop about three months ago. The older brother argued with him about U.S. foreign policy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and religion.
He said Tamerlan referred to the Bible as a "cheap copy" of the Quran, and that many of this country's wars "are based upon the Bible ? how it's an excuse to invade other countries."
"He had nothing against the American people," Ammon said. "He had something against the American government."
Dzhokhar, on the other hand, was "real cool," Ammon said. "A chill guy."
An elder at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the largest mosque in New England, said Tamerlan occasionally attended Friday prayer services at the mosque in the past year and a half.
About three months ago, around Martin Luther King Day, Tamerlan stood up and interrupted the imam during the sermon, said Anwar Kazmi, a board member of the Islamic Society. The imam compared the slain civil rights leads to the Prophet Muhammed, drawing objections from Tamerlan, Kazmi said.
Mosque leaders later sat down with Tamerlan and discussed his rant, said Kazmi, who said Tamerlan returned to future services and had no further outbursts.
While his older brother was railing about religion and world politics, Dzhokhar seemed more interested in the HBO series "Game of Thrones" and other television shows.
"Breaking Bad taught me how to dispose of a corpse," he tweeted on Jan. 16, referring to the popular AMC series about a dying chemistry teacher who turns to cooking methamphetamine to leave a nest egg for his family.
He did tweet about religion, but they were hardly the words of a hard-core zealot.
"This night deserves Hennessy a bad b---- and an o of weed," he wrote on Nov. 17. "the holy trinity"
On Nov. 29, he wrote: "I kind of like religious debates, just hearing what other people believe is interesting and then crushing their beliefs with facts is fun." And on Jan. 15: "I don't argue with fools who say Islam is terrorism it's not worth a thing, let an idiot remain an idiot."
However, he acknowledged in another message around Christmas that the "Brothers at the mosque either think I'm a convert or that I'm from Algeria or Syria."
Fox said it's not unheard of for the younger person in a crime team to be the dominant personality. But he said it's rare.
"In this case, the older brother is the one that seems to have become religious and drawn to Islam," Fox said. "The older brother dropped out of school ... whereas the younger brother, it was all positives."
But, he said, "the age factor is critical here."
Tamerlan was a fairly gifted boxer, but he preened about fighting prowess that often fell far short. His younger brother seemed content to be part of a team.
Marvin Salazar was two years older than Dzhokhar when they attended Community Charter Schools of Cambridge, where they played intramural soccer together. He was impressed by the younger boy's smarts and drive, but noted that while Dzhokhar was very fast, he wasn't the kind of kid who needed to showboat and score goals.
"I remember he told me he liked to play midfield," the 21-year-old said. "He's the guy who sets everybody up for the plays. He's one of the most important people."
He was also on his high school wrestling team.
Tamerlan once said he had no American friends. His brother had lots of them, but fellow students at UMass-Dartmouth say he also hung out with some Russian speakers.
On March 14, 2012, Dzhokhar tweeted: "a decade in america already, i want out" That same day, he added, "im trying to grow a beard"
Dzhokhar became naturalized last September, federal officials told the AP. His older brother had a green card but may have been thwarted in his quest for U.S. citizenship by an assault charge, his father told The New York Times.
If Tamerlan recorded his thoughts, they have not yet surfaced ? at least publicly. His brother left a trail on the Internet, although in an Aug. 7, 2012 tweet, he called himself a "heavy sleeper and a great liar"
In March, Dzhokhar tweeted: "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing." A week and a half earlier, he reminded his followers, "Never underestimate the rebel with a cause."
The day of the bombing, he wrote: "There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don't hear them cuz they're the minority"
Tsarni is confident authorities will find that Tamerlan was his younger brother's "mentor."
"Dzhokhar, of course, was looking up at him," he said.
But their body language the day of the bombings seems to suggest at least a partnership of equals.
In one of the now infamous photos the FBI released to the public in hopes of tips, the older brother has his head down, the visor pulled low over his face as if he's trying to hide. Dzhokhar, by contrast, has his white baseball cap turned backward, revealing his entire face, his chin is thrust confidently into the air.
___
Associated Press videojournalist Joseph Frederick contributed to this report.
Related on HuffPost:
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/tsarnaev-brothers_n_3125550.html
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Rescuers struggle to reach China quake zone as toll climbs
By Michael Martina and Maxim Duncan
LUSHAN, China (Reuters) - Rescuers struggled to reach a remote corner of southwestern China on Sunday as the toll of the dead and missing from the country's worst earthquake in three years climbed to 203 with more than 11,000 injured.
The 6.6 magnitude quake struck in Lushan county, near the city of Ya'an in the southwestern province of Sichuan, close to where a devastating 7.9 temblor hit in May 2008 killing some 70,000.
Most of the deaths were concentrated in Lushan, a short drive up the valley from Ya'an, but rescuers' progress was hampered by the narrowness of the road and landslides, as well as government controls restricting access to avoid traffic jams.
"The Lushan county centre is getting back to normal, but the need is still considerable in terms of shelter and materials," said Kevin Xia of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"Supplies have had difficulty getting into the region because of the traffic jams. Most of our supplies are still on the way," Xia said.
In Ya'an, relief workers from across China expressed frustration with gaining access to Lushan.
"We're in a hurry. There are people that need help and we have supplies in the back (of the car)," said one man from the Shandong Province Earthquake Emergency Response Team, who declined to give his name.
In Lushan, doctors and nurses tended to people in the open or under tents in the grounds of the main hospital, surrounded by shattered glass, plaster and concrete that fell during the quake. Water and electricity in the area were cut off by the quake.
"I was scared. I've never seen an earthquake this big before," said farmer Chen Tianxiong, 37, lying on a stretcher between tents, his family looking on.
Nearby, an elderly woman sat dazed mumbling to her son, while nurses wiped blood from another woman's foot as her husband cradled her head.
In another tent, Zhou Lin sat tending to his wife and three-day-old son who were evacuated from a Lushan hospital soon after the quake struck on Saturday.
"I was worried the child or his mother would be hurt. The buildings were all shaking. I was extremely scared. But now I don't feel afraid any more," said Zhou, looking at his child as he slept soundly wrapped in a blanket on a makeshift bed.
Premier Li Keqiang flew into the disaster zone by helicopter to comfort the injured and displaced, chatting to rescuers and clambering over rubble.
"Don't be sad, we will rebuild after this disaster and your new homes will be even better than before," state media quoted him as telling residents.
Xinhua news agency put the number of dead and missing at 203, with almost 11,500 injured, 960 of them seriously.
Chen Yong, the vice director of the Ya'an city government earthquake response office, told reporters that the death toll was unlikely to rise dramatically.
"We understand the situation in most areas. Most of the casualties have been reported. In some remote mountain areas, it is possible that we don't fully understand the situation," he said.
SCHOOLS WITHSTAND QUAKE
But no schools had collapsed, unlike in 2008 when many schools crumpled causing huge public anger, prompting a nationwide campaign of re-building.
"Our schools are the safest and sturdiest buildings," Chen said. "The Chinese government has put a lot of money into building schools and hospitals. I can guarantee that no schools collapsed."
Xinhua said 6,000 troops were in the area to help with rescue efforts.
Rescuers in Lushan had pulled 91 survivors out of rubble, Xinhua said. In villages closest to the epicenter, almost all low-rise buildings had collapsed, footage on state television showed.
The China Meteorological Association warned of the possibility of landslides in Lushan county, with more than 1,000 aftershocks registered.
Ya'an is a city of 1.5 million people and is considered one of the birthplaces of Chinese tea culture. It is also the home to one of China's main centers for protecting the giant panda.
Sichuan is one of the four major natural gas-producing provinces in China, and its output accounts for about 14 percent of the nation's total.
Sinopec Group, Asia's largest oil refiner, said its huge Puguang gas field was unaffected.
The U.S. Geological Survey initially put the magnitude at 7, but later revised it down.
In 2010, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake killed 2,700 people in Yushu, a largely Tibetan region in northwest China.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-earthquake-toll-rises-164-injuries-6-700-021635904.html
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Friday, April 19, 2013
Manhunt in Boston after bombing suspect is killed
WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) ? SWAT teams in armored vehicles swarmed the tense and locked-down streets of Boston and its suburbs Friday in an all-out hunt for the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect after his older brother died in a desperate getaway attempt. But as evening fell, police had come up empty-handed.
State Police Col. Timothy Alben said at a news conference that he believed 19-year-old college student Dzhokar Tsarnaev was still in Massachusetts because of his ties to the area. But authorities lifted the stay-indoors warning for people in the Boston area, and the transit system started running again by evening.
"We can't continue to lockdown an entire city or an entire state," Alben said. At the same time, he and other authorities warned that Tsarnaev is a killer and that people should be vigilant.
Tsarnaev fled on foot after a furious overnight gun battle that left 200 spent rounds behind and after a wild car chase in which he and his brother hurled explosives at police, authorities said. His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in the shootout, run over by his younger brother in a car as he lay wounded, according to investigators.
During the overnight spasm of violence, the brothers also shot and killed an MIT policeman and severely wounded another officer, authorities said.
Law enforcement officials and family members identified the brothers as ethnic Chechens who came to the U.S. from Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, an uncle said.
Around midday, as the manhunt dragged on, the suspects' uncle Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., pleaded on television: "Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness."
The search by thousands of law enforcement officers all but paralyzed the Boston area for much of the day. Officials shut down all mass transit, including Amtrak trains to New York, advised businesses not to open, and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay inside and unlock their doors only for uniformed police.
"We believe this man to be a terrorist," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people."
Some neighborhoods resembled a military encampment, with officers patrolling with guns drawn and aimed, residents peering nervously from windows and people near surrounded buildings spirited away.
The bloody turn in the case came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of two suspects in the bombing and asked for the public's help in identifying and catching them.
Authorities said the man dubbed Suspect No. 1 ? the one in sunglasses and a dark baseball cap in the surveillance-camera pictures ? was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, while Suspect No. 2, the one in a white baseball cap worn backwards, was his brother.
The bombings on Monday near the Boston Marathon finish line killed three people and wounded more than 180, tearing off limbs in a spray of shrapnel and sparking fears across the nation that another terrorist attack had come to U.S. soil.
Chechnya has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.
But investigators have shed no light on the motive for the Boston Marathon bombing and said it was unclear whether any terrorist organizations had a hand in it.
The FBI was swamped with tips after the release of the photos ? 3,000 every second by one estimate ? but what role those played in the overnight clash was unclear. State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the two men told a carjacking victim during their getaway attempt.
Exactly how the long night of crime began was marked by conflicting reports. But police said the brothers carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston, then released him unharmed at a gas station.
They also shot to death a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, 26-year-old Sean Collier, while he was responding to a report of a disturbance, investigators said.
The search for the Mercedes led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer, 33-year-old Richard Donohue, was shot and critically wounded, authorities said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev somehow slipped away. He ran over his already wounded brother as he fled by car, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died at a Boston hospital after suffering what doctors said were multiple gunshot wounds and a possible blast injury.
The brothers had built an arsenal of pipe bombs, grenades and improvised explosive devices and used some of the weapons in trying to make their getaway, said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
Another uncle, Alvi Tsarnaev, who also lives in Montgomery Village, Md., told news organizations that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had called him Thursday night ? hours before his firefight with police ? and the two spoke for the first time in two or three years. He said the young man asked for forgiveness for the rift in the family.
"He said, 'I love you and forgive me,'" the uncle said.
Watertown resident Kayla Dipaolo said she was woken up overnight by gunfire and a large explosion that sounded "like it was right next to my head ... and shook the whole house." She said she was looking at the front door when a bullet came through the side paneling. SWAT team officers were running all over her yard, she said.
"It was very scary," she said. "There are two bullet holes in the side of my house, and by the front door there is another."
Christine Yajko said she heard two loud explosions and gunfire. She said a police officer later knocked on her door and told her there was an undetonated improvised explosive device in the street and warned her to stay away from the windows.
"It was on the street, right near our kitchen window," she said.
Tsarni, the men's uncle, said the brothers traveled here together from Russia. He called his nephews "losers" and said they had struggled to settle in the U.S. and ended up "thereby just hating everyone."
U.S. government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk about an investigation in progress, said Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Russia last year and returned to the U.S. six months later.
His last known address was in Cambridge, Mass. He had studied accounting as a part-time student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston for three semesters from 2006 to 2008, the school said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was registered as a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Students said he lived in a dorm there and was on campus this week after the Boston Marathon bombing. The campus closed down Friday along with colleges around the Boston area.
The city of Cambridge announced two years ago that it had awarded a $2,500 scholarship to him. At the time, he was a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing.
The men's father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in a telephone interview with AP from the Russian city of Makhachkala that his younger son, Dzhokhar, is "a true angel." He said his son was studying medicine.
"He is such an intelligent boy," the father said. "We expected him to come on holidays here."
According to the FBI, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two explosions at the marathon finish line.
Insurgents from Chechnya and neighboring restive provinces in the Caucasus have long been involved in terrorist attacks in Moscow and other places in Russia.
In 2002, Chechen militants took 800 people hostage in Moscow and held them for two days before special forces stormed the building, killing all 41 captors. Also killed were 129 hostages, mostly from the effects of the gas Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.
Chechen insurgents also launched a 2004 raid in the southern Russian town of Beslan and took hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later, with more than 330 people, about half of them children, killed.
___
Sullivan and Associated Press writer Stephen Braun reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Pat Eaton-Robb in Boston and Jeff Donn in Cambridge, Mass., contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/manhunt-boston-bombing-suspect-killed-152037138.html
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Officials: Suicide attack kills 26 in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) ? A suicide bomber detonated explosives at a Baghdad cafe crowded with young people late Thursday, killing at least 26 and wounding dozens ahead of provincial elections scheduled for the weekend.
The rare evening attack, which came at the start of the local weekend, brought to 30 the number of people killed across the country Thursday.
The cafe bomber struck about 9:30 p.m. Police said that two children and a woman who were passing by at the time of the blast were among the dead. More than 50 people were wounded.
The packed cafe is on the third floor of a building in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amiriyah. Police said the cafe was packed with young people enjoying water pipes and playing pool.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb struck an army convoy in Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, killing three soldiers and wounding five others. Hours later, one policeman was killed and three others were wounded when gunmen attacked a security checkpoint in western Baghdad, police said.
Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Violence has been on the rise ahead of provincial elections to be held on Saturday. The vote is for local officials in several provinces across the country, including the capital, Baghdad. Authorities have been vowing to bolster security ahead of the elections.
Also on Thursday, Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region announced that new parliamentary and presidential elections will be held on Sept. 21.
A Kurdish government statement said that Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish region, approved the date for the elections and called for a fair election.
Following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the Kurdish area was recognized as an autonomous region that is in many ways politically independent from Baghdad. Since then, the two main Kurdish parties ? the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan ? have joined forces to rule the oil-rich region.
Baghdad and the Kurds have been at loggerheads for years over several issues, including oil and control over disputed areas claimed by both sides. The vote for a new 111-seat National Assembly would be the third election in the three-province Kurdish region since 2005.
___
AP writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-suicide-attack-kills-26-iraq-204937995.html
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NASA's Hubble sees a Horsehead of a different color
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Public release date: 19-Apr-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Ray Villard
villard@stsci.edu
410-338-4514
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery more than a century ago. The nebula is a favorite target for amateur and professional astronomers. It is shadowy in optical light. It appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that easily are visible in infrared light.
Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades. During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from space shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that took the new portrait of the Horsehead.
The nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud, located about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Orion. The cloud also contains other well-known objects such as the Great Orion Nebula (M42), the Flame Nebula, and Barnard's Loop. It is one of the nearest and most easily photographed regions in which massive stars are being formed.
In the Hubble image, the backlit wisps along the Horsehead's upper ridge are being illuminated by Sigma Orionis, a young five-star system just out of view. Along the nebula's top ridge, two fledgling stars peek out from their now-exposed nurseries.
Scientists know a harsh ultraviolet glare from one of these bright stars is slowly evaporating the nebula. Gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead already have dissipated, but the tip of the jutting pillar contains a slightly higher density of hydrogen and helium, laced with dust. This casts a shadow that protects material behind it from being stripped away by intense stellar radiation evaporating the hydrogen cloud, and a pillar structure forms.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., in Washington.
###
For images and more information about the Horsehead Nebula, visit:
Hubblesite.org: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/12
Space Telescope site: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1307/
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 19-Apr-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Ray Villard
villard@stsci.edu
410-338-4514
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery more than a century ago. The nebula is a favorite target for amateur and professional astronomers. It is shadowy in optical light. It appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that easily are visible in infrared light.
Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades. During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from space shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that took the new portrait of the Horsehead.
The nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud, located about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Orion. The cloud also contains other well-known objects such as the Great Orion Nebula (M42), the Flame Nebula, and Barnard's Loop. It is one of the nearest and most easily photographed regions in which massive stars are being formed.
In the Hubble image, the backlit wisps along the Horsehead's upper ridge are being illuminated by Sigma Orionis, a young five-star system just out of view. Along the nebula's top ridge, two fledgling stars peek out from their now-exposed nurseries.
Scientists know a harsh ultraviolet glare from one of these bright stars is slowly evaporating the nebula. Gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead already have dissipated, but the tip of the jutting pillar contains a slightly higher density of hydrogen and helium, laced with dust. This casts a shadow that protects material behind it from being stripped away by intense stellar radiation evaporating the hydrogen cloud, and a pillar structure forms.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., in Washington.
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For images and more information about the Horsehead Nebula, visit:
Hubblesite.org: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/12
Space Telescope site: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1307/
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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/nsfc-nhs041913.php
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Lionfish Attacking Atlantic Ocean Like A Living Oil Spill
Lionfish, like this one spotted in the Bahamas, are a nonnative predatory fish that can decimate native fish populations.
Cammy Clark/MCT/LandovA gluttonous predator is power-eating its way through reefs from New York to Venezuela. It's the lionfish.
And although researchers are coming up with new ways to protect some reefs from the flamboyant maroon-striped fish, they have no hope of stopping its unparalleled invasion.
Lad Akins has scuba dived in the vibrant reefs of the Bahamas for many years. But when he returned a couple years ago, he saw almost no fish smaller than his hand.
"Seeing the lack of small reef fish that used to inhabit those sites was very startling to me," says Akins, the director of special projects at Reef Environmental Education Foundation, a conservation group for scuba divers.
The lionfish are native to the coral reefs of the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.
They were first spotted off Florida in 1985. But it wasn't until the past decade that large numbers were spotted in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The fish may have been transported by the aquarium trade.
A recent study found that in just two years, reefs in the Bahamas lost on average 65 percent of their small prey fish. Larger fish, like red snapper and grouper, decreased by more than 40 percent.
Researchers warn that similar devastation could be expected throughout the region.
Why are lionfish such phenomenal invaders?
They reproduce every few days and eat anything that fits into their mouths. And nothing eats them because they're covered with venomous spines.
Akins now spends most of his time studying lionfish, organizing groups of volunteer divers to capture or kill them, and trying to come up with other ways to get rid of them. His group published a cookbook full of lionfish recipes and tries to encourage restaurants and the fishing industry to see them as food.
This map, from the U.S. Geological Survey and NOAA, shows where lionfish populations have been between 1985 and 2013.
Scientists hope that removing lionfish one by one may help preserve native fish populations in some reefs that are important for tourism, conservation or fishing. But it can't stop the lionfish's explosive foray into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
"We know that we cannot control them in the entire ocean," says James Morris, an ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "It's just too big."
Morris says invasive species are biological pollution. "It's like an oil spill that keeps reproducing and will keep reproducing forever," he says.
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