An asymmetric distribution of positrons in the Galactic disk revealed by gamma-rays

Gamma-ray line radiation at 511 keV is the signature of electron-positron annihilation. Such radiation has been known for 30 years to come from the general direction of the Galactic Centre, but the origin of the positrons has remained a mystery. Stellar nucleosynthesis, accreting compact objects, and even the annihilation of exotic dark-matter particles have all been suggested. Here we report a distinct asymmetry in the 511-keV line emission coming from the inner Galactic disk ( approximately 10-50 degrees from the Galactic Centre). This asymmetry resembles an asymmetry in the distribution of low mass X-ray binaries with strong emission at photon energies >20 keV ('hard' LMXBs), indicating that they may be the dominant origin of the positrons. Although it had long been suspected that electron-positron pair plasmas may exist in X-ray binaries, it was not evident that many of the positrons could escape to lose energy and ultimately annihilate with electrons in the interstellar medium and thus lead to the emission of a narrow 511-keV line. For these models, our result implies that up to a few times 10(41) positrons escape per second from a typical hard LMXB. Positron production at this level from hard LMXBs in the Galactic bulge would reduce (and possibly eliminate) the need for more exotic explanations, such as those involving dark matter.     

Biosignatures as revealed by spectropolarimetry of Earthshine

Low-resolution intensity spectra of Earth's atmosphere obtained from space reveal strong signatures of life ('biosignatures'), such as molecular oxygen and methane with abundances far from chemical equilibrium, as well as the presence of a 'red edge' (a sharp increase of albedo for wavelengths longer than 700?nm) caused by surface vegetation. Light passing through the atmosphere is strongly linearly polarized by scattering (from air molecules, aerosols and cloud particles) and by reflection (from oceans and land). Spectropolarimetric observations of local patches of Earth's sky light from the ground contain signatures of oxygen, ozone and water, and are used to characterize the properties of clouds and aerosols. When applied to exoplanets, ground-based spectropolarimetry can better constrain properties of atmospheres and surfaces than can standard intensity spectroscopy. Here we report disk-integrated linear polarization spectra of Earthshine, which is sunlight that has been first reflected by Earth and then reflected back to Earth by the Moon. The observations allow us to determine the fractional contribution of clouds and ocean surface, and are sensitive to visible areas of vegetation as small as 10 per cent. They represent a benchmark for the diagnostics of the atmospheric composition, mean cloud height and surfaces of exoplanets.     

A dynamic upper atmosphere of Venus as revealed by VIRTIS on Venus Express

The upper atmosphere of a planet is a transition region in which energy is transferred between the deeper atmosphere and outer space. Molecular emissions from the upper atmosphere (90-120 km altitude) of Venus can be used to investigate the energetics and to trace the circulation of this hitherto little-studied region. Previous spacecraft and ground-based observations of infrared emission from CO2, O2 and NO have established that photochemical and dynamic activity controls the structure of the upper atmosphere of Venus. These data, however, have left unresolved the precise altitude of the emission owing to a lack of data and of an adequate observing geometry. Here we report measurements of day-side CO2 non-local thermodynamic equilibrium emission at 4.3 microm, extending from 90 to 120 km altitude, and of night-side O2 emission extending from 95 to 100 km. The CO2 emission peak occurs at approximately 115 km and varies with solar zenith angle over a range of approximately 10 km. This confirms previous modelling, and permits the beginning of a systematic study of the variability of the emission. The O2 peak emission happens at 96 km +/- 1 km, which is consistent with three-body recombination of oxygen atoms transported from the day side by a global thermospheric sub-solar to anti-solar circulation, as previously predicted.     

一维PSD背景光补偿的研究

分析了PSD的背景光非线性成因,并根据PSD的背景光非线性特点,提出了用神经网络的BP算法对PSD的背景光非线性进行了补偿,从而使PSD的背景光非线性获得了与线性近似的线性度．计算机仿真表明,该方法能有效地消除背景光的影响,在神经网络的输出端得到期望的线性输出．     

一种复杂背景下的手势提取方法

介绍了一种在一般复杂背景条件下将手势与背景分离的新方法.该方法首先在一般背景下对获得的手势图片进行卷积滤波处理,验证了肤色的聚类特性,然后综合利用手势的肤色特征和其特有的几何特征,成功地将手势与背景分离,最后通过不同背景、不同手势提取实验验证了该方法的有效性.将该手势分割方法用于8种于形手势识别实验,静态手势识别率能达到99%.     

Discovery of very-high-energy gamma-rays from the Galactic Centre ridge

The source of Galactic cosmic rays (with energies up to 10(15) eV) remains unclear, although it is widely believed that they originate in the shock waves of expanding supernova remnants. At present the best way to investigate their acceleration and propagation is by observing the gamma-rays produced when cosmic rays interact with interstellar gas. Here we report observations of an extended region of very-high-energy (> 10(11) eV) gamma-ray emission correlated spatially with a complex of giant molecular clouds in the central 200 parsecs of the Milky Way. The hardness of the gamma-ray spectrum and the conditions in those molecular clouds indicate that the cosmic rays giving rise to the gamma-rays are likely to be protons and nuclei rather than electrons. The energy associated with the cosmic rays could have come from a single supernova explosion around 10(4) years ago.     

A soft solid surface on Titan as revealed by the Huygens Surface Science Package

The surface of Saturn's largest satellite--Titan--is largely obscured by an optically thick atmospheric haze, and so its nature has been the subject of considerable speculation and discussion. The Huygens probe entered Titan's atmosphere on 14 January 2005 and descended to the surface using a parachute system. Here we report measurements made just above and on the surface of Titan by the Huygens Surface Science Package. Acoustic sounding over the last 90 m above the surface reveals a relatively smooth, but not completely flat, surface surrounding the landing site. Penetrometry and accelerometry measurements during the probe impact event reveal that the surface was neither hard (like solid ice) nor very compressible (like a blanket of fluffy aerosol); rather, the Huygens probe landed on a relatively soft solid surface whose properties are analogous to wet clay, lightly packed snow and wet or dry sand. The probe settled gradually by a few millimetres after landing.     

Differentiation of the asteroid Ceres as revealed by its shape

The accretion of bodies in the asteroid belt was halted nearly 4.6 billion years ago by the gravitational influence of the newly formed giant planet Jupiter. The asteroid belt therefore preserves a record of both this earliest epoch of Solar System formation and variation of conditions within the solar nebula. Spectral features in reflected sunlight indicate that some asteroids have experienced sufficient thermal evolution to differentiate into layered structures. The second most massive asteroid--4 Vesta--has differentiated to a crust, mantle and core. 1 Ceres, the largest and most massive asteroid, has in contrast been presumed to be homogeneous, in part because of its low density, low albedo and relatively featureless visible reflectance spectrum, similar to carbonaceous meteorites that have suffered minimal thermal processing. Here we show that Ceres has a shape and smoothness indicative of a gravitationally relaxed object. Its shape is significantly less flattened than that expected for a homogeneous object, but is consistent with a central mass concentration indicative of differentiation. Possible interior configurations include water-ice-rich mantles over a rocky core.     

A mass transfer origin for blue stragglers in NGC 188 as revealed by half-solar-mass companions

In open star clusters, where all members formed at about the same time, blue straggler stars are typically observed to be brighter and bluer than hydrogen-burning main-sequence stars, and therefore should already have evolved into giant stars and stellar remnants. Correlations between blue straggler frequency and cluster binary star fraction, core mass and radial position suggest that mass transfer or mergers in binary stars dominates the production of blue stragglers in open clusters. Analytic models, detailed observations and sophisticated N-body simulations, however, argue in favour of stellar collisions. Here we report that the blue stragglers in long-period binaries in the old (7?×?10(9)-year) open cluster NGC 188 have companions with masses of about half a solar mass, with a surprisingly narrow mass distribution. This conclusively rules out a collisional origin, as the collision hypothesis predicts a companion mass distribution with significantly higher masses. Mergers in hierarchical triple stars are marginally permitted by the data, but the observations do not favour this hypothesis. The data are highly consistent with a mass transfer origin for the long-period blue straggler binaries in NGC 188, in which the companions would be white dwarfs of about half a solar mass.     

Rossby waves on the Sun as revealed by solar 'hills'

It is a long-standing puzzle that the Sun's photosphere--its visible surface--rotates differentially, with the equatorial regions rotating faster than the poles. It has been suggested that waves analogous to terrestrial Rossby waves, and known as r-mode oscillations, could explain the Sun's differential rotation: Rossby waves are seen in the oceans as large-scale (hundreds of kilometres) variations of sea-surface height (5-cm-high waves), which propagate slowly either east or west (they could take tens of years to cross the Pacific Ocean). Calculations show that the solar r-mode oscillations have properties that should be strongly constrained by differential rotation. Here we report the detection of 100-m-high 'hills' in the photosphere, spaced uniformly over the Sun's surface with a spacing of (8.7 +/- 0.6) x 10(4) km. If convection under the photosphere is organized by the r-modes, the observed corrugated photosphere is a probable surface manifestation of these solar oscillations.     

现代化视野下的行政区划层级、幅度改革

新中国的行政区划,经过50多年的调整与变动,逐步趋向合理化,然而随着现代科学技术发展与应用,特别是现代交通、通讯与管理发展,对行政区划与管理提出新的挑战。我们必须从宏观上加强行政区划的战略研究,确定科学性、战略性、前瞻性和具有可操作性的行政区划新体制。     

Large changes in Pluto's atmosphere as revealed by recent stellar occultations

Pluto's tenuous nitrogen atmosphere was first detected by the imprint left on the light curve of a star that was occulted by the planet in 1985 (ref. 1), and studied more extensively during a second occultation event in 1988 (refs 2-6). These events are, however, quite rare and Pluto's atmosphere remains poorly understood, as in particular the planet has not yet been visited by a spacecraft. Here we report data from the first occultations by Pluto since 1988. We find that, during the intervening 14 years, there seems to have been a doubling of the atmospheric pressure, a probable seasonal effect on Pluto.     

The formation of cluster elliptical galaxies as revealed by extensive star formation

The most massive galaxies in the present-day Universe are found to lie in the centres of rich clusters. They have old, coeval stellar populations suggesting that the bulk of their stars must have formed at early epochs in spectacular starbursts, which should be luminous phenomena when observed at submillimetre wavelengths. The most popular model of galaxy formation predicts that these galaxies form in proto-clusters at high-density peaks in the early Universe. Such peaks are indicated by massive high-redshift radio galaxies. Here we report deep submillimetre mapping of seven high-redshift radio galaxies and their environments. These data confirm not only the presence of spatially extended regions of massive star-formation activity in the radio galaxies themselves, but also in companion objects previously undetected at any wavelength. The prevalence, orientation, and inferred masses of these submillimetre companion galaxies suggest that we are witnessing the synchronous formation of the most luminous elliptical galaxies found today at the centres of rich clusters of galaxies.     

对红外背景、低信噪比条件下的小目标检测技术研究

低信噪比条件下小目标检测技术的研究是红外信息处理中的关键性问题．灰度形态滤波是一种结合信号形状的非线性运算，基于灰度形态滤波的预处理可有效地抑制图像中的背景干扰和噪声．对于多帧连续运动图像，经过前端的滤波预处理后，图像之间存在着一定的关联性，利用相关性结合神经网络算法可以对运动目标轨迹进行有效的刻画．     

Fast core rotation in red-giant stars as revealed by gravity-dominated mixed modes

When the core hydrogen is exhausted during stellar evolution, the central region of a star contracts and the outer envelope expands and cools, giving rise to a red giant. Convection takes place over much of the star's radius. Conservation of angular momentum requires that the cores of these stars rotate faster than their envelopes; indirect evidence supports this. Information about the angular-momentum distribution is inaccessible to direct observations, but it can be extracted from the effect of rotation on oscillation modes that probe the stellar interior. Here we report an increasing rotation rate from the surface of the star to the stellar core in the interiors of red giants, obtained using the rotational frequency splitting of recently detected 'mixed modes'. By comparison with theoretical stellar models, we conclude that the core must rotate at least ten times faster than the surface. This observational result confirms the theoretical prediction of a steep gradient in the rotation profile towards the deep stellar interior.