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. (PhysOrg.com) -- A star's spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. http://www.physorg.com/news178220365.html Space & Earth Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:40:06 EST news178220365 (PhysOrg.com) -- Just as many people are surprised to find themselves packing on unexplained weight around the middle, astronomers find the evolution of bulges in the centres of spiral galaxies puzzling. A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 4710 is part of a survey that astronomers have conducted to learn more about the formation of bulges, which are a substantial component of most spiral galaxies. http://www.physorg.com/news177764242.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:58:27 EST news177764242 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have gained new insight into the makeup of ancient meteorites called Carbonaceous Chondrites, in research published in the October edition of the journal Earth Science and Planetary Letters. http://www.physorg.com/news177264804.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:14:14 EST news177264804 The diversity of colours, shapes, and sizes of planetary nebulae make them fascinating objects. In this photo release Calar Alto presents a rather unique view combining both optical and near-infrared data of the Ring Nebula (M57). http://www.physorg.com/news176374973.html Space & Earth Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:20:01 EST news176374973 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Orion Nebula is one of the most beautiful sights of the winter night sky, its gas and dust glowing from the intense ultraviolet radiation of a cluster of massive young stars. http://www.physorg.com/news175507575.html Space & Earth Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:07:12 EST news175507575 In the new ESO image, Barnard's Galaxy glows beneath a sea of foreground stars in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). At the relatively close distance of about 1.6 million light-years, Barnard's Galaxy is a member of the Local Group, the archipelago of galaxies that includes our home, the Milky Way. The nickname of NGC 6822 comes from its discoverer, the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard, who first spied this visually elusive cosmic islet using a 125-millimetre aperture refractor in 1884. http://www.physorg.com/news174718249.html Space & Earth Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:52:04 EST news174718249 The newly released image extends across a field of view of more than one and a half square degree - an area eight times larger than that of the full Moon - and was obtained with the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. This 67-million-pixel camera has already created several of ESO's iconic pictures. http://www.physorg.com/news173359343.html Space & Earth Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:23:39 EST news173359343 (PhysOrg.com) -- The first of three images of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project - a new magnificent 800-million-pixel panorama of the entire sky as seen from ESO's observing sites in Chile - has just been released online. The project allows stargazers to explore and experience the Universe as it is seen with the unaided eye from the darkest and best viewing locations in the world. http://www.physorg.com/news172144911.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:02:20 EST news172144911 Smouldering several thousand light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the Trifid Nebula presents a compelling portrait of the early stages of a star's life, from gestation to first light. The heat and "winds" of newly ignited, volatile stars stir the Trifid's gas and dust-filled cauldron; in time, the dark tendrils of matter strewn throughout the area will themselves collapse and form new stars. http://www.physorg.com/news170518236.html Space & Earth Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:00:05 EST news170518236 The dense star cluster RCW 38 glistens about 5500 light years away in the direction of the constellation Vela (the Sails). Like the Orion Nebula Cluster, RCW 38 is an "embedded cluster", in that the nascent cloud of dust and gas still envelops its stars. Astronomers have determined that most stars, including the low mass, reddish ones that outnumber all others in the Universe, originate in these matter-rich locations. Accordingly, embedded clusters provide scientists with a living laboratory in which to explore the mechanisms of star and planetary formation. http://www.physorg.com/news169894333.html Space & Earth Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:52:41 EST news169894333 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists in Australia and the United States, led by Associate Professor Miroslav Filipović from the University of Western Sydney, have discovered a new class of object which they call `Super Planetary Nebulae.` They report their work in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. http://www.physorg.com/news169477900.html Space & Earth Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:13:22 EST news169477900 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has taken its first shots of the cosmos since warming up and starting its second career. The infrared telescope ran out of coolant on May 15, 2009, more than five-and-half-years after launch, and has since warmed to a still-frosty 30 Kelvin (about minus 406 Fahrenheit). http://www.physorg.com/news168698098.html Space & Earth Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:20:01 EST news168698098 (PhysOrg.com) -- The new image, showing a very rich field of stars towards the Carina arm of the Milky Way, is centred on the star HD 87643, a member of the exotic class of B[e] stars [1]. It is part of a set of observations that provide astronomers with the best ever picture of a B[e] star. http://www.physorg.com/news168689716.html Space & Earth Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:15:44 EST news168689716 An exciting new astrophysics mission led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide a revolutionary window into the universe. Named the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS), the satellite will be the first to systematically measure the polarization of cosmic X-ray sources. http://www.physorg.com/news168623210.html Space & Earth Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:47:27 EST news168623210 (PhysOrg.com) -- A star does not die without getting noticed and may even leave the universe with "fireworks." At the end of its life cycle, a star begins to collapse in the middle and throws new material into space. The new material eventually becomes incorporated into new planets and life. Now, a University of Missouri professor identified new features in the material that is being ejected from the dying star Helix Nebula. http://www.physorg.com/news167317412.html Space & Earth Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:50:08 EST news167317412 (PhysOrg.com) -- Today ESO has released a new and stunning image of the sky around the Eagle Nebula, a stellar nursery where infant star clusters carve out monster columns of dust and gas. http://www.physorg.com/news166960881.html Space & Earth Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:01:41 EST news166960881 The Omega Nebula, sometimes called the Swan Nebula, is a dazzling stellar nursery located about 5500 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). An active star-forming region of gas and dust about 15 light-years across, the nebula has recently spawned a cluster of massive, hot stars. The intense light and strong winds from these hulking infants have carved remarkable filigree structures in the gas and dust. http://www.physorg.com/news166184192.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:10:01 EST news166184192 Two University of Hawai'i at Mānoa astronomers have found a binary star-disk system in which each star is surrounded by the kind of dust disk that is frequently the precursor of a planetary system. Doctoral student Rita Mann and Dr. Jonathan Williams used the Submillimeter Array on Mauna Kea, Hawaii to make the observations. http://www.physorg.com/news165668313.html Space & Earth Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:59:25 EST news165668313 The new observations reveal that Messier 87's halo of stars has been cut short, with a diameter of about a million light-years, significantly smaller than expected, despite being about three times the extent of the halo surrounding our Milky Way [1]. Beyond this zone only few intergalactic stars are seen. http://www.physorg.com/news162041045.html Space & Earth Wed, 20 May 2009 12:24:44 EST news162041045 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Hubble community bids farewell to the soon-to-be decommissioned Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In tribute to Hubble's longest-running optical camera, which was developed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a planetary nebula has been imaged as the camera's final "pretty picture." http://www.physorg.com/news161276661.html Space & Earth Mon, 11 May 2009 16:04:51 EST news161276661 Research by astronomers at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies suggests that shadows hold the key to how giant star-forming structures like the famous "Pillars of Creation" take shape. http://www.physorg.com/news159686915.html Space & Earth Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:29:06 EST news159686915 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, the IRAM Millimetre-wave Telescope in Spain, and the Spitzer Space Telescope in orbit above the Earth, have completed the most wide-ranging census ever produced of dynamical star formation in and around the well-known Great Nebula of Orion. http://www.physorg.com/news159460527.html Space & Earth Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:35:59 EST news159460527 A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. At the center of this image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic hand. http://www.physorg.com/news157996137.html Space & Earth Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:49:37 EST news157996137 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, lies about 700 light-years away in the constellation of Aquarius (the Water Bearer). It is one of the closest and most spectacular examples of a planetary nebula. http://www.physorg.com/news154782744.html Space & Earth Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:13:46 EST news154782744 (PhysOrg.com) -- On long, dark winter nights, the constellation of Orion the Hunter dominates the sky. Within the Hunter's sword, the Orion Nebula swaddles a cluster of newborn stars called the Trapezium. These stars are young but powerful, each one shining with the brilliance of 100,000 Suns. They are also massive, containing 15 to 30 times as much material as the Sun. http://www.physorg.com/news154631619.html Space & Earth Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:15:02 EST news154631619 The large and beautiful image displays the full variety of this impressive skyscape, spattered with clusters of young stars, large nebulae of dust and gas, dust pillars, globules, and adorned by one of the Universe's most impressive binary stars. It was produced by combining exposures through six different filters from the Wide Field Imager (WFI), attached to the 2.2 m ESO/MPG telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory, in Chile. http://www.physorg.com/news153673752.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:09:49 EST news153673752 The explosion of a binary star inside a planetary nebula has been captured by a team led by UCL (University College London) researchers - an event that has not been witnessed for more than 100 years. The study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, predicts that the combined mass of the two stars in the system may be high enough for the stars to eventually spiral into each other, triggering a much bigger supernova explosion. http://www.physorg.com/news146314696.html Space & Earth Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:58:16 EST news146314696 (PhysOrg.com) -- This image gives the first clear view of the faint boundary of the Crab Nebula's X-ray-emitting pulsar wind nebula. The nebula is powered by a rapidly-rotating, highly-magnetized neutron star, or "pulsar" (white dot near the center). http://www.physorg.com/news145202582.html Space & Earth Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:03:02 EST news145202582 (PhysOrg.com) -- The landmark 10th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's Hubble Heritage Project is being celebrated with a "landscape" image from the cosmos. Cutting across a nearby star-forming region are the "hills and valleys" of gas and dust displayed in intricate detail. Set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light are wispy tendrils of gas as well as dark trunks of dust that are light-years in height. http://www.physorg.com/news142182145.html Space & Earth Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:02:25 EST news142182145 (PhysOrg.com) -- Thanks to data from ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory, scientists have been able to locate where particles in the vicinity of the rotating neutron-star in the Crab Nebula are accelerated to immense energies. http://www.physorg.com/news139233709.html Space & Earth Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:01:49 EST news139233709