http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A supermassive black hole may be responsible for the glowing appearance of galaxy 3C 305, located about 600 million light years away in the constellation Draco. Composite data from NASA`s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes suggests that the black hole may be interacting with interstellar gas and emitting X-rays. Or, bright radiation from regions near the black hole may infuse energy into the gas that makes it glow. http://www.physorg.com/news161533193.html Space & Earth Thu, 14 May 2009 15:20:45 EST news161533193 Away from sunlight it can get very cold in space, but not cold enough for the Herschel and Planck missions, which ESA and European industry have equipped with state-of-the-art refrigeration systems to make the detectors of the two spacecraft among the coldest objects in the cosmos for the duration of their missions. http://www.physorg.com/news161269905.html Space & Earth Mon, 11 May 2009 14:12:26 EST news161269905 NASA's final mission to the 17-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, which begins May 11, will deliver a new instrument partly built by University of California, Berkeley, physicists to map the structure of the universe. http://www.physorg.com/news160925519.html Space & Earth Thu, 07 May 2009 14:32:47 EST news160925519 Whatever dark energy is, explanations for it have less wiggle room following a Hubble Space Telescope observation that has refined the measurement of the universe's present expansion rate to a precision where the error is smaller than 5 percent. The new value for the expansion rate, known as the Hubble constant, or Ho (after Edwin Hubble who first measured the expansion of the universe nearly a century ago), is 74.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec (error margin of ± 3.6). The results agree closely with an earlier measurement gleaned from Hubble of 72 ± 8 km/sec/megaparsec, but are now more than twice as precise. http://www.physorg.com/news160923906.html Physics Thu, 07 May 2009 14:05:55 EST news160923906 The world's astronomers are about to get a trio of powerful new eyes on the sky that can see better and farther than existing space telescopes. http://www.physorg.com/news160907171.html Space & Earth Thu, 07 May 2009 09:26:41 EST news160907171 Two missions to study the cosmos, Herschel and Planck, are scheduled to blast into space May 14 aboard the same Ariane 5 rocket from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. The European Space Agency, or ESA, leads both missions, with significant participation from NASA. http://www.physorg.com/news160762123.html Space & Earth Tue, 05 May 2009 17:11:00 EST news160762123 As modern cosmologists rely more and more on the ominous `dark matter` to explain otherwise inexplicable observations, much effort has gone into the detection of this mysterious substance in the last two decades, yet no direct proof could be found that it actually exists. Even if it does exist, dark matter would be unable to reconcile all the current discrepancies between actual measurements and predictions based on theoretical models. Hence the number of physicists questioning the existence of dark matter has been increasing for some time now. http://www.physorg.com/news160726282.html Physics Tue, 05 May 2009 07:11:48 EST news160726282 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered streams of young stars flowing from their natal cocoons in distant galaxies. These distant rivers of stars provide an answer to one of astronomy's most fundamental puzzles: how do young stars that form clustered together in dense clouds of dust and gas disperse to form the large, smooth distribution seen in the disks of spiral galaxies like the Milky Way? http://www.physorg.com/news160410037.html Space & Earth Fri, 01 May 2009 15:20:59 EST news160410037 (PhysOrg.com) -- The combination of Hubble's powerful suite of instruments and its position far above the effects of Earth's atmosphere has consistently produced outstanding scientific results for nineteen years. This success is due to both the robust initial design of the spacecraft and the remarkable series of servicing missions that have kept the complex operating platform functioning and up to date. http://www.physorg.com/news160389189.html Space & Earth Fri, 01 May 2009 09:33:41 EST news160389189 (PhysOrg.com) -- Bursts of star making in a galaxy have been compared to a Fourth of July fireworks display: They occur at a fast and furious pace, lighting up a region for a short time before winking out. http://www.physorg.com/news160318098.html Space & Earth Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:48:50 EST news160318098 An extremely deep Chandra X-ray Observatory image of a region near the center of our Galaxy has resolved a long-standing mystery about an X-ray glow along the plane of the Galaxy. The glow in the region covered by the Chandra image was discovered to be caused by hundreds of point-like X-ray sources, implying that the glow along the plane of the Galaxy is due to millions of such sources. http://www.physorg.com/news160231864.html Space & Earth Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:51:39 EST news160231864 The gamma-ray sky comes alive in a movie made from data acquired by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope during its first three months of operations. Gamma rays from sources near and far turn the sky into a hypnotic froth. The sun arcs serenely across the northern sky as active galaxies called blazars flare up and fade out. http://www.physorg.com/news159812078.html Space & Earth Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:15:44 EST news159812078 An international team of astronomers has used the world's biggest radio telescope to look deep into the brightest galaxies that NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope can see. The study solidifies the link between an active galaxy's gamma-ray emissions and its powerful radio-emitting jets. http://www.physorg.com/news159639919.html Space & Earth Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:25:56 EST news159639919 (PhysOrg.com) -- A survey by the Chandra X-ray observatory has revealed in detail, for the first time, the effects of a shock wave blasted through a galaxy by powerful jets of plasma emanating from a supermassive black hole at the galactic core. The observations of Centaurus A, the nearest galaxy that contains these jets, have enabled astronomers to revise dramatically their picture of how jets affect the galaxies in which they live. The results will be presented on Wednesday 22nd April at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science in Hatfield by Dr Judith Croston of the University of Hertfordshire. http://www.physorg.com/news159636527.html Space & Earth Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:29:53 EST news159636527 Over the past 19 years Hubble has taken dozens of exotic pictures of galaxies going "bump in the night" as they collide with each other and have a variety of close encounters of the galactic kind. Just when you thought these interactions couldn't look any stranger, this image of a trio of galaxies, called Arp 194, looks as if of the galaxies has sprung a leak. The bright blue streamer is really a stretched spiral arm full of newborn blue stars. This typically happens when two galaxies interact and gravitationally tug at each other gravitationally. http://www.physorg.com/news159546382.html Space & Earth Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:26:52 EST news159546382 A team led by an Indiana University astronomer has found a sample of massive galaxies with properties that suggest that they may have formed relatively recently. This would run counter to the widely-held belief that massive, luminous galaxies (like our own Milky Way Galaxy) began their formation and evolution shortly after the Big Bang, some 13 billion years ago. Further research into the nature of these objects could open new windows into the study of the origin and early evolution of galaxies. http://www.physorg.com/news158585134.html Space & Earth Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:26:04 EST news158585134 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia have helped unveil the birthplaces of ancient stars using a two-tonne telescope carried by a balloon the size of a 33-storey building. http://www.physorg.com/news158416076.html Space & Earth Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:28:31 EST news158416076 A new Hubble image highlights striking swirling dust lanes and glittering globular clusters in oddball galaxy NGC 7049. http://www.physorg.com/news158329219.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:20:46 EST news158329219 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have discovered large galaxies some two thirds of the way back in time to the big bang. This surprising find casts doubt on theories of how the biggest galaxies form. http://www.physorg.com/news157910471.html Space & Earth Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:01:40 EST news157910471 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope offers a rare view of an imminent collision between the cores of two merging galaxies, each powered by a black hole with millions of times the mass of the sun. http://www.physorg.com/news156440810.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:47:43 EST news156440810 The ESO Very Large Telescope has taken the best image ever of a strange and chaotic duo of interwoven galaxies. The images also contain some surprises -- interlopers both far and near. http://www.physorg.com/news156424771.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:20:22 EST news156424771 The launch next month of two large European telescopes designed to probe the formation of galaxies and the "Big Bang" scientists say created the universe has been postponed by several weeks, it was announced here on Friday. http://www.physorg.com/news156163167.html Space & Earth Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:40:07 EST news156163167 Peering into the tumultuous heart of the nearby Perseus galaxy cluster, Hubble discovered a large population of small galaxies that have remained intact while larger galaxies around them are being ripped apart by the gravitational tug of other galaxies. http://www.physorg.com/news156075674.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:21:35 EST news156075674 This composite image of the Medusa galaxy (also known as NGC 4194) shows X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue and optical light from the Hubble Space Telescope in orange. Located above the center of the galaxy and seen in the optical data, the "hair" of the Medusa -- made of snakes in the Greek myth -- is a tidal tail formed by a collision between galaxies. The bright X-ray source found towards the left side of Medusa's hair is a black hole. http://www.physorg.com/news156014933.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:29:45 EST news156014933 For decades, distant galaxies that emitted their light six billion years ago were no more than small specks of light on the sky. With the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in the early 1990s, astronomers were able to scrutinise the structure of distant galaxies in some detail for the first time. Under the superb skies of Paranal, the VLT's FLAMES/GIRAFFE spectrograph - which obtains simultaneous spectra from small areas of extended objects - can now also resolve the motions of the gas in these distant galaxies. http://www.physorg.com/news155940094.html Space & Earth Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:41:56 EST news155940094 An international team of astrophysicists, involving several research groups in Spain, has discovered a source of very high energy gamma rays in the region of the distant galaxies 3C 66A and 3C 66B. This new gamma emission, observed from the MAGIC telescope in La Palma (Canary Islands) is not consistent with what scientists expected to find, and has resulted in them suggesting three hypotheses to explain their origin. http://www.physorg.com/news155567370.html Space & Earth Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:10:14 EST news155567370 About 100 million light-years away, in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish), three galaxies are playing a game of gravitational give-and-take that might ultimately lead to their merger into one enormous entity. http://www.physorg.com/news155309518.html Space & Earth Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:32:45 EST news155309518 (PhysOrg.com) -- The vast expanses of intergalactic space appear to be filled with a haze of tiny, smoke-like "dust" particles that dim the light from distant objects and subtly change their colors, according to a team of astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II), including a researcher from the University of California, Davis. http://www.physorg.com/news154893222.html Space & Earth Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:54:42 EST news154893222 (PhysOrg.com) -- Evidence of star birth within a cloud of primordial gas has given astronomers a glimpse of a previously unknown mode of galaxy formation. The cloud, known as the Leo Ring, appears to lack the dark matter and heavy elements normally found in galaxies today. The unexpected discovery comes thanks to instruments aboard NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) spacecraft which are sensitive to the ultraviolet radiation emitted by newly formed stars. http://www.physorg.com/news154186484.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:35:40 EST news154186484 (PhysOrg.com) -- Today saw the launch of Galaxy Zoo 2, a website that invites members of the public to help create a detailed guide to some of the Universe's most fascinating objects. The online project is led by a team including scientists from Oxford University. http://www.physorg.com/news154108963.html Space & Earth Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:03:02 EST news154108963