http://www.physorg.com/space-news/astronomy/ en-us PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on astronomy, space, earth science and space exploration. (PhysOrg.com) -- Two brown dwarf-sized objects orbiting a giant old star show that planets may assemble around stars more quickly and efficiently than anyone thought possible, according to an international team of astronomers. http://www.physorg.com/news180627887.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:49:05 EST news180627887 (PhysOrg.com) -- The star Chi Cygni is located about 550 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation of Cygnus the Swan. It is a notable star because, unlike the sun which still burns hydrogen and is in its mature phase of life, Chi Cygni has aged and begun to expire. http://www.physorg.com/news180627595.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:27:23 EST news180627595 (PhysOrg.com) -- The European Space Agency has released a preview of the first science results from the Herschel Space Observatory, including the UK-led SPIRE instrument. The new data which include images of previously invisible stardust - the stuff that all life is made from - will give us valuable new information about how stars and galaxies are made and reveal the life cycle of the cosmos. http://www.physorg.com/news180369536.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:00:02 EST news180369536 (PhysOrg.com) -- In a study that helps to explain the origins of water on Earth, University of Michigan astronomers have found that water vapor can form spontaneously in habitable zones of solar systems, and that it develops into a protective layer that shields other water and organic molecules from harmful stellar radiation. http://www.physorg.com/news180297449.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:38:05 EST news180297449 In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact. If we find them nearby, a new paper by Smithsonian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger shows that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to study their atmospheres and detect key gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapor. http://www.physorg.com/news180288713.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:50:03 EST news180288713 At a very early age, children learn how to classify objects according to their shape. Now, new research suggests studying the shape of the aftermath of supernovas may allow astronomers to do the same. http://www.physorg.com/news180269012.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:44:41 EST news180269012 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using first observations with the PACS Instrument on board ESA`s Herschel Space Telescope, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and other institutions have for the first time resolved more than half of this radiation into its constituting sources. Observations with Herschel open the road towards understanding the properties of these galaxies, and trace the dusty side of galaxy evolution. http://www.physorg.com/news180196797.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:41:01 EST news180196797 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a "super-Earth" orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. They found the distant planet with a small fleet of ground-based telescopes no larger than those many amateur astronomers have in their backyards. Although the super-Earth is too hot to sustain life, the discovery shows that current, ground-based technologies are capable of finding almost-Earth-sized planets in warm, life-friendly orbits. http://www.physorg.com/news180193829.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:51:11 EST news180193829 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Chinese astronomers have discovered a giant planet close to the exotic binary star system QS Virginis. Although dormant now, in the future the two stars will one day erupt in a violent nova outburst. Professor Shengbang Qian of Yunnan Observatory leads the team of scientists who report their work in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. http://www.physorg.com/news180173732.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:20:07 EST news180173732 (PhysOrg.com) -- Herschel has peered inside an unseen stellar nursery and revealed surprising amounts of activity. Some 700 newly-forming stars are estimated to be crowded into filaments of dust stretching through the image. The image is the first new release of 'OSHI', ESA's Online Showcase of Herschel Images. http://www.physorg.com/news180180910.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:15:57 EST news180180910 (PhysOrg.com) -- Within a decade scientists could be able to detect the merger of tens of pairs of black holes every year, according to a team of astronomers at the University of Bonn`s Argelander-Institut fuer Astronomie, who publish their findings in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. By modelling the behaviour of stars in clusters, the Bonn team find that they are ideal environments for black holes to coalesce. These merger events produce ripples in time and space (gravitational waves) that could be detected by instruments from as early as 2015. http://www.physorg.com/news180173220.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:08:01 EST news180173220 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists once thought that life could originate only within a solar system's "habitable zone," where a planet would be neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on its surface. But according to planetary scientist Francis Nimmo, evidence from recent NASA missions suggests that conditions necessary for life may exist on the icy satellites of Saturn and Jupiter. http://www.physorg.com/news180112635.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:55:19 EST news180112635 (PhysOrg.com) -- Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. http://www.physorg.com/news180118620.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:10:02 EST news180118620 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers from The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and other universities have captured the first direct image of a young binary star system. Using the Coronagraphic Imager with Adaptive Optics (CIAO) mounted on the Subaru Telescope, the team observed the young binary star SR24, which is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, 520 light years away. http://www.physorg.com/news180107005.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:44:28 EST news180107005 (PhysOrg.com) -- About 550 light-years from Earth, a star like our Sun is writhing in its death throes. Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that it would swallow every planet out to Mars in our solar system. Moreover, it has begun to pulse dramatically in and out, beating like a giant heart. New close-up photos of the surface of this distant star show its throbbing motions in unprecedented detail. http://www.physorg.com/news180098305.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:10:01 EST news180098305 (PhysOrg.com) -- A collection of 30 never-before-released images of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula are the highlight of the longest single Hubble Space Telescope project ever dedicated to the topic of star and planet formation. Also known as proplyds, or protoplanetary discs, these modest blobs surrounding baby stars are shedding light on the mechanism behind planet formation. Only the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with its high resolution and sensitivity, can take such detailed pictures of circumstellar discs at optical wavelengths. http://www.physorg.com/news180018260.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:05:25 EST news180018260 (PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two "super-Earths" with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth. The researchers, led by Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said the two "super-Earths" are the first ones found around Sun-like stars. http://www.physorg.com/news180016985.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:43:48 EST news180016985 (PhysOrg.com) -- The corona is the hot outer region of the sun's atmosphere. The corona is threaded by magnetic fields that loop and twist upwards from the sun's surface, driven by motions of its dense atmosphere. http://www.physorg.com/news179758481.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:59:52 EST news179758481 VISTA is the latest telescope to be added to ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed on the peak adjacent to the one hosting the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) and shares the same exceptional observing conditions. VISTA's main mirror is 4.1 metres across and is the most highly curved mirror of this size and quality ever made -- its deviations from a perfect surface are less than a few thousandths of the thickness of a human hair -- and its construction and polishing presented formidable challenges. http://www.physorg.com/news179739402.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:10:02 EST news179739402 An international team of scientists has observed four super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies, which may provide new information on how these central black hole systems operate. Their findings are published in December's first issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. http://www.physorg.com/news179690529.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:40:01 EST news179690529 (PhysOrg.com) -- This composite image of data from three different telescopes shows an ongoing collision between two galaxies, NGC 6872 and IC 4970. http://www.physorg.com/news179682939.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:56:28 EST news179682939 (PhysOrg.com) -- Studies of one of the galaxy's most active black-hole binaries reveal a dramatic change that will help scientists better understand how these systems expel fast-moving particle jets. http://www.physorg.com/news179665092.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:29 EST news179665092 Next time you spy the Big Dipper, keep in mind that there is another star, invisible to the unaided eye, contributing to this constellation. http://www.physorg.com/news179651081.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:07:05 EST news179651081 (PhysOrg.com) -- A galaxy located billions of light-years away is commanding the attention of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and astronomers around the globe. Thanks to a series of flares that began September 15, the galaxy is now the brightest source in the gamma-ray sky -- more than ten times brighter than it was in the summer. http://www.physorg.com/news179593672.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:40:01 EST news179593672 (PhysOrg.com) -- A specialized camera on a telescope operated by U.K. astronomers from Liverpool has made the first measurement of magnetic fields in the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst (GRB). The result is reported in the Dec.10 issue of Nature magazine by the team of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) astronomers who built and operate the telescope and its unique scientific camera, named RINGO. http://www.physorg.com/news179593825.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:11:24 EST news179593825 Understanding the evolution of galaxies is one of the biggest questions confronting astronomers today. Looking at distant astronomical objects gives scientists important clues to the origins of the Milky Way Galaxy and other galaxies in the local universe. http://www.physorg.com/news179512073.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:28:26 EST news179512073 (PhysOrg.com) -- Australian astronomers have released the first set of data from the first project to look at the effects of "dark energy" halfway back in the Universe's lifetime. http://www.physorg.com/news179508040.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:21:06 EST news179508040 (PhysOrg.com) -- In 2004, Hubble created the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), the deepest visible-light image of the Universe, and now, with its brand-new camera, Hubble is seeing even farther. This image was taken in the same region as the visible HUDF, but is taken at longer wavelengths. http://www.physorg.com/news179489629.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:14:38 EST news179489629 (PhysOrg.com) -- A thin rain of charged particles continually bombards our atmosphere from outer space. The mysterious particles were first detected 100 years ago but until 10 years ago when a new type of telescope began to come online physicists weren't sure where the "cosmic rays" came from or how they were generated. They suspected the particles were accelerated by supernova shockwaves, but suspicions aren't proof. http://www.physorg.com/news179427195.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:30:01 EST news179427195 (PhysOrg.com) -- An extensive study made with ESO's Very Large Telescope deepens a long-standing mystery in the study of stars similar to the Sun. Unusual year-long variations in the brightness of about one third of all Sun-like stars during the latter stages of their lives still remain unexplained. Over the past few decades, astronomers have offered many possible explanations, but the new, painstaking observations contradict them all and only deepen the mystery. The search for a suitable interpretation is on. http://www.physorg.com/news179403810.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:26:07 EST news179403810