The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 helps astronomers learn more about our celestial home.
Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:24:24 EST
Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters of about 20 kilometers, but at the same time roughly the mass of our sun. A sugar-cube sized piece of its ultra-compact matter on Earth would weigh hundreds of millions of tons. A sub-class of them, known as millisecond pulsars, spin up to several hundred times per second around their own axes. Previous studies reached the paradoxical conclusion that some millisecond pulsars are older than the universe itself. Now this paradox may be solved by computer simulations, new research shows.
Publ.Date : Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:14:14 EST
Astronomers aimed Hubble at one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. Hubble's view of the distant background galaxy, which lies nearly 10 billion light-years away, is significantly more detailed than could ever be achieved without the help of the gravitational lens.
Publ.Date : Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:08:08 EST
The center of just about every galaxy is thought to host a black hole, some with masses of thousands of millions of Suns and consequently strong gravitational pulls that disrupt material around them. They had been thought to hinder the birth of stars, but now astronomers studying the nearby galaxy Centaurus A have found quite the opposite: a black hole that seems to be helping stars to form.
Publ.Date : Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:43:43 EST
A new view shows a stellar nursery called NGC 3324. It was taken using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The intense ultraviolet radiation from several of NGC 3324's hot young stars causes the gas cloud to glow with rich colors and has carved out a cavity in the surrounding gas and dust.
Publ.Date : Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:43:43 EST
Space scientists have described the first detailed analyses of captured interstellar neutral atoms -- raw material for the formation of new stars, planets and even human beings.
Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:08:08 EST
A great magnetic bubble surrounds the solar system as it cruises through the galaxy. The sun pumps the inside of the bubble full of solar particles that stream out to the edge until they collide with the material that fills the rest of the galaxy, at a complex boundary called the heliosheath. On the other side of the boundary, electrically charged particles from the galactic wind blow by, but rebound off the heliosheath, never to enter the solar system. Neutral particles, on the other hand, are a different story. They saunter across the boundary as if it weren't there, continuing on another 7.5 billion miles for 30 years until they get caught by the sun's gravity, and sling shot around the star.
Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:01:01 EST
Using data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft, an international team of researchers has measured neutral "alien" particles entering our solar system from interstellar space. A suite of studies provides a first look at the constituents of the interstellar medium, the matter between star systems, and how they interact with our heliosphere.
Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:57:57 EST
Hydrogen molecules may act as a kind of energy sink that strengthens the magnetic grip that causes sunspots, according to scientists using a new infrared instrument on an old telescope.
Publ.Date : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:31:31 EST
Scientists have recently discovered that vast clouds of hot gas are "sloshing" in Abell 2052, a galaxy cluster located about 480 million light years from Earth.
Publ.Date : Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:24:24 EST
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.
Publ.Date : Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:59:59 EST
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Jan. 24, 2012, to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:04:04 EST
Researchers working at the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used the world's most powerful X-ray laser to create and probe a 2-million-degree piece of matter in a controlled way for the first time. This feat takes scientists a significant step forward in understanding the most extreme matter found in the hearts of stars and giant planets, and could help experiments aimed at recreating the nuclear fusion process that powers the sun.
Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:26:26 EST
Solar flares are giant explosions on the sun that send energy, light and high speed particles into space. These flares are often associated with solar magnetic storms known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). While these are the most common solar events, the sun can also emit streams of very fast protons -- known as solar energetic particle (SEP) events -- and disturbances in the solar wind known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs). All of these can produce a variety of "storms" on Earth that can -- if strong enough -- interfere with short wave radio communications, GPS signals, and Earth's power grid, among other things.
Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:38:38 EST
Astronomers have found the strongest link so far between the most powerful bursts of star formation in the early Universe, and the most massive galaxies found today. The galaxies, flowering with dramatic starbursts in the early Universe, saw the birth of new stars abruptly cut short, leaving them as massive — but passive — galaxies of aging stars in the present day. The astronomers also have a likely culprit for the sudden end to the starbursts: the emergence of supermassive black holes.
Publ.Date : Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:11:11 EST
Astronomers have captured a striking new image of the Helix Nebula. A new picture, taken in infrared light, reveals strands of cold nebular gas that are invisible in images taken in visible light, as well as bringing to light a rich background of stars and galaxies. The Helix Nebula is one of the closest and most remarkable examples of a planetary nebula.
Publ.Date : Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:15:15 EST
The High Frequency Instrument aboard the Planck space telescope has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe. The sensor ran out of coolant on Jan. 14, as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy.
Publ.Date : Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:12:12 EST
Scientists have long struggled to detect the dim dwarf galaxies that orbit our own galaxy. So it came as a surprise on Jan. 18 when a team of astronomers using Keck II telescope's adaptive optics has announced the discovery of a dwarf galaxy halfway across the universe.
Publ.Date : Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:51:51 EST
Scientists have discovered a novel chemical route to form polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- complex organic molecules such as naphthalene carrying fused benzene rings -- in ultra-cold regions of interstellar space.
Publ.Date : Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:20:20 EST
Astronomers have released the largest data set ever collected that documents the brightening and dimming of stars and other celestial objects -- two hundred million in total.
Publ.Date : Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:26:26 EST
Astronomers have discovered two new circumbinary planet systems -- planets that orbit two stars, like Tatooine in the movie Star Wars. Their find, which brings the number of known circumbinary planets to three, shows that planets with two suns must be common, with many millions existing in our galaxy.
Publ.Date : Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:40:40 EST
Astronomers have used visual data from nearly a million luminous galaxies for the most accurate calculation yet of how matter clumps together in the universe. By deriving cosmic rulers from an immense volume of sky, from a time when the universe was half its present age until now, the study establishes how much dark matter, dark energy, and even hard-to-detect neutrinos it contains.
Publ.Date : Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:40:40 EST
Astronomers have discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system. The three planets, which all orbit a single star, are smaller than Earth and appear to be rocky. Their existence suggests that the galaxy could be teeming with similarly rocky planets—and that there's a good chance that many are in the so-called habitable zone, where liquid water and possibly life could exist.
Publ.Date : Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:40:40 EST
A better understanding of the universe will be the outgrowth of the discovery of the Higgs boson, according to a team of researchers. The team predicts the discovery will lead to supersymmetry or SUSY -- an extension of the standard model of particle physics. SUSY predicts new matter states or super partners for each matter particle already accounted for in the standard model. SUSY theory provides an important new step to a better understanding of the universe we live in.
Publ.Date : Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:59:59 EST
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