Astronomy news

Surprise Collision on Jupiter Captured by Gemini Telescope

Surprise Collision on Jupiter Captured by Gemini Telescope

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 23, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (15) | comments 9

(PhysOrg.com) -- Jupiter is sporting a glowing bruise after getting unexpectedly whacked by a small solar system object, according to astronomers using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai'i. A ...


NASA celebrates Chandra X-Ray Observatory's 10th anniversary

NASA celebrates Chandra X-Ray Observatory's 10th anniversary (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 23, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 1

Ten years ago, on July 23, 1999, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia and deployed into orbit. Chandra has doubled its original five-year mission, ushering in an ...


Integral satellite disproves dark matter origin for mystery radiation

Integral satellite disproves dark matter origin for mystery radiation

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 22, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (10) | comments 15

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers working with data from ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory has disproved theories that some form of dark matter explains mysterious radiation in the Milky Way.


World's largest telescope to be built in Hawaii (AP)

World's largest telescope to be built in Hawaii

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 22, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (20) | comments 17

(AP) -- Hawaii was chosen Tuesday as the site for the world's biggest telescope, a device so powerful that it will allow scientists to see some 13 billion light years away and get a glimpse into the early ...


Scientists discovers 'firework' display in Helix Nebula

Scientists discovers 'firework' display in Helix Nebula

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 20, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 2

(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 ...


New findings on the birth of the solar system

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 20, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (8) | comments 6

A team of international astrophysicists, including Dr Maria Lugaro from Monash University, has discovered a new explanation for the early composition of our solar system.


An eagle of cosmic proportions

An Eagle of Cosmic Proportions

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 16, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 1

(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.


Fermi finds gamma-ray galaxy surprises

Fermi telescope finds gamma-ray galaxy surprises

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 14, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (13) | comments 6

Back in June 1991, just before the launch of NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, astronomers knew of gamma rays from exactly one galaxy beyond our own. To their surprise and delight, the satellite captured ...


Turbulence responsible for black holes' balancing act

Turbulence responsible for black holes' balancing act

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 14, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 15

We live in a hierarchical Universe where small structures join into larger ones. Earth is a planet in our Solar System, the Solar System resides in the Milky Way Galaxy, and galaxies combine into groups and ...


Astronomers, royalty, rock stars to inaugurate world's largest telescope

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 13, 2009 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (10) | comments 1

Four hundred years after Galileo first turned his handmade telescope toward the heavens, the world's largest, most technologically advanced telescope is set to make its formal debut.


Herschel images promise bright future

Herschel first images promise bright future

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 10, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (26) | comments 1

Herschel has carried out the first test observations with all its instruments, with spectacular results. Galaxies, star-forming regions and dying stars comprised the telescope's first targets. The instruments ...


Living fossils hold record of 'supermassive' kick

Living fossils hold record of 'supermassive' kick

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 09, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (15) | comments 9

The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick.


A Galaxy Collision in Action

A Galaxy Collision in Action

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 09, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 2

This beautiful image gives a new look at Stephan's Quintet, a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth. The curved, light blue ridge running ...


Astrophysicists solve mystery in Milky Way galaxy

Astrophysicists solve mystery in Milky Way galaxy

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 09, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (19) | comments 7

A team of astrophysicists has solved a mystery that led some scientists to speculate that the distribution of certain gamma rays in our Milky Way galaxy was evidence of a form of undetectable "dark matter" ...


Galileo's notebooks may reveal secrets of new planet

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 09, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (9) | comments 0

Galileo knew he had discovered a new planet in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date, according to a new theory by a University of Melbourne physicist.