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) -- Does a twin Earth exist somewhere in our galaxy? Astronomers are getting closer and closer to finding an Earth-sized planet in an Earth-like orbit. NASA's Kepler spacecraft just launched to find such worlds. Once the search succeeds, the next questions driving research will be: Is that planet habitable? Does it have an Earth-like atmosphere? Answering those questions will not be easy. http://www.physorg.com/news156776825.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:07:45 EST news156776825 An international team of astrophysicists using telescopes on the ground and in space have uncovered surprising changes in radiation emitted by an active galaxy. The picture that emerges from these first-ever simultaneous observations with optical, X-ray and new-generation gamma-ray telescopes is much more complex than scientists expected and challenges current theories of how the radiation is generated. http://www.physorg.com/news156613697.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:49:17 EST news156613697 Talk about a big construction project... http://www.physorg.com/news156525597.html Space & Earth Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:21:13 EST news156525597 (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 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have found evidence suggesting that stars rich in carbon complex molecules may form at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. http://www.physorg.com/news156100255.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:11:27 EST news156100255 Mirrors are a critical part of any space telescope, and the James Webb Space Telescope's mirrors are made of a special element that will enable it to withstand the rigors of space and see farther back in time/distance than any other telescope now in operation. http://www.physorg.com/news156077764.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:56:26 EST news156077764 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new map combining nearly three months of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is giving astronomers an unprecedented look at the high-energy cosmos. To Fermi's eyes, the universe is ablaze with gamma rays from sources ranging from within the solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away. http://www.physorg.com/news155994698.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:52:37 EST news155994698 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) -- UK astronomers, using a telescope aboard the NASA Swift Satellite, have captured information from the early stages of a gamma ray burst - the most violent and luminous explosions occurring in the Universe since the Big Bang. The work was published on Friday 27th February in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. http://www.physorg.com/news155223470.html Space & Earth Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:38:28 EST news155223470 To mark UNESCO's International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), six leading astronomers from the UK, the US, Europe and Asia write in March's Physics World about the biggest challenges and opportunities facing international astronomers over the next couple of decades. http://www.physorg.com/news155188813.html Space & Earth Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:00:38 EST news155188813 Be careful, this sort of thing can cause an accident. On Friday evening, Feb. 27th, the 10% crescent Moon will glide by Venus, forming a gorgeous and mesmerizing pair of lights in the sunset sky. http://www.physorg.com/news154962003.html Space & Earth Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:00:59 EST news154962003 (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) -- 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 Scientists are harnessing the cosmos as a scientific 'instrument' in their quest to determine the makeup of the universe. http://www.physorg.com/news154357589.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:07:11 EST news154357589 Something is about to happen on Saturn that's so pretty, even Hubble will pause to take a look. http://www.physorg.com/news154282058.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:08:06 EST news154282058 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of French astronomers has captured one of the sharpest color images ever made. They observed the star T Leporis, which appears, on the sky, as small as a two-storey house on the Moon. The image was taken with ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), emulating a virtual telescope about 100 metres across and reveals a spherical molecular shell around an aged star. http://www.physorg.com/news154176167.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:43:32 EST news154176167 During the next decade, a delicate measurement of primordial light could reveal convincing evidence for the popular cosmic inflation theory, which proposes that a random, microscopic density fluctuation in the fabric of space and time gave birth to the universe in a hot big bang approximately 13.7 billion years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news154010927.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:49:33 EST news154010927 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using NASA's Swift satellite and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are seeing frequent blasts from a stellar remnant 30,000 light-years away. The high-energy fireworks arise from a rare type of neutron star known as a soft-gamma-ray repeater. Such objects unpredictably send out a series of X-ray and gamma-ray flares. http://www.physorg.com/news153492807.html Space & Earth Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:53:49 EST news153492807 Scientists and engineers who have been working on the James Webb Space Telescope mission for years are getting very excited, because some of the actual pieces that will fly aboard the Webb telescope are now being built. One of the pieces, called the Backplane, is like a "spine" to the telescope. The Backplane is now being assembled by Alliant Techsystems at its Magna, Utah facility. http://www.physorg.com/news153404171.html Space & Earth Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:16:40 EST news153404171 The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) Corporation is pleased to announce that nine astronomical research organizations from three continents have signed the Founders' Agreement to construct and operate the 25-meter Giant Magellan Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in the Andes Mountains of Chile. In the United States the participating institutions are the Carnegie Institution for Science, Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, Texas A& M University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Texas at Austin. The two Australian members of the Founders group are the Australian National University and Astronomy Australia Limited. Most recently, the South Korean government has approved participation in the GMT project, with the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute as the representative of the Korean astronomical community. http://www.physorg.com/news153145070.html Space & Earth Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:19:31 EST news153145070 In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life--a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named "Hale" and "Bopp" had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day. http://www.physorg.com/news153070017.html Space & Earth Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:27:39 EST news153070017 A team of French and Italian astronomers have devised a new method for measuring the size and shape of asteroids that are too small or too far away for traditional techniques, increasing the number of asteroids that can be measured by a factor of several hundred. This method takes advantage of the unique capabilities of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). http://www.physorg.com/news152962650.html Space & Earth Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:42:03 EST news152962650 Nanotechnologist Chris Lodewijk has succeeded in significantly increasing the sensitivity of the new supertelescopes in Chile. He will receive his PhD on this topic at Delft University of Technology on Monday 2 February. http://www.physorg.com/news152806279.html Nanotechnology Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:15:43 EST news152806279 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA is giving everyone the opportunity to use the world's most celebrated telescope to explore the heavens and boldly look where the Hubble Space Telescope has never looked before. http://www.physorg.com/news152379695.html Space & Earth Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:42:30 EST news152379695 Astronomers have observed the intense heating of a distant planet as it swung close to its parent star, providing important clues to the atmospheric properties of the planet. The observations enabled astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to generate realistic images of the planet by feeding the data into computer simulations of the planet's atmosphere. http://www.physorg.com/news152371245.html Space & Earth Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:21:19 EST news152371245 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study unveils NGC 604, the largest region of star formation in the nearby galaxy M33, in its first deep, high-resolution view in X- rays. This composite image from Chandra X-ray Observatory data (colored blue), combined with optical light data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red and green), shows a divided neighborhood where some 200 hot, young, massive stars reside. http://www.physorg.com/news152291894.html Space & Earth Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:19:03 EST news152291894