Astronomy news

Warped debris disks around stars are blowin' in the wind

Warped debris disks around stars are blowin' in the wind (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 28, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- The dust-filled disks where new planets may be forming around other stars occasionally take on some difficult-to-understand shapes. Now, a team led by John Debes at NASA's Goddard Space Flight ...


Large Area Telescope First Year Data Released

Large Area Telescope First Year Data Released

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 27, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ever since the Large Area Telescope launched aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in June 2008, the LAT team has been analyzing data, searching for answers to some of the most pressing ...


Mirror cast for Mexican 6.5-meter infrared telescope

Mirror cast for Mexican 6.5-meter infrared telescope

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 27, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- With the casting today of a 6.5-meter mirror in Arizona, Mexican and American astronomers have taken the first step toward creation of a major new telescope that will survey infrared objects ...


Trifid triple threat

Trifid triple threat

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 26, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 8

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 ...


Transiting exoplanet

Found: The planet that shouldn't exist (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 26, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (19) | comments 21

(PhysOrg.com) -- The 'most unlikely' discovery of a new planet which could spiral into its star within the next 500,000 years, has been made by Scottish astronomers.


Star-birth myth 'busted'

Star-birth myth 'busted' (w/ Podcast)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 25, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (12) | comments 11

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of researchers has debunked one of astronomy's long held beliefs about how stars are formed, using a set of galaxies found with CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope.


Making Jupiters

Making Jupiters

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 21, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 3

IC348 is a glowing nebula of young stars, hot gas, and cold dust seen in the direction of the constellation of Perseus. It is the nearest rich cluster of young stars to earth, being only about one thousand ...


A large galaxy in Andromeda is seen in this file photo

Australia and NZealand join in super telescope bid

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 21, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 6

Australia and New Zealand announced a joint bid Friday for a giant radio telescope project which will reach for the earliest traces of the universe in a search for intelligent life.


Chandra Turns Ten

Chandra X-Ray Observatory Turns Ten

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 20, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 4

"We and the cosmos are one. The cosmos is a vast body, of which we are still parts. …It is a vital power rippling exquisitely through us all the time." D.H. Lawrence*


Galaxies Demand a Stellar Recount

Galaxies Demand a Stellar Recount

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 19, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (16) | comments 17

(PhysOrg.com) -- For decades, astronomers have gone about their business of studying the cosmos with the assumption that stars of certain sizes form in certain quantities. Like grocery stores selling melons ...


A look into the hellish cradles of suns and solar systems

A Look into the Hellish Cradles of Suns and Solar Systems

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 19, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 1

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 ...


Scientists make first discovery using revolutionary long wavelength demonstrator array

Scientists make first discovery using revolutionary long wavelength demonstrator array

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 18, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (9) | comments 0

Scientists from NRL's Space Science and Remote Sensing Divisions, in collaboration with researchers from the University of New Mexico and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory located in Socorro, N.M., ...


The Edge of a Black Hole

The Edge of a Black Hole

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 18, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (27) | comments 14

The existence of black holes is one of the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity. Despite his original misgivings about their reality, massive black hole holes are today believed ...


The public's "right to starlight" is being eroded by urban illumination that is the bane of astronomers everywhere

We have a 'right to starlight,' astronomers say

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 15, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (31) | comments 38

The public's "right to starlight" is steadily being eroded by urban illumination that is the bane of astronomers everywhere, the International Astronomical Union said on Friday.


Tiny flares responsible for outsized heat of sun's atmosphere

Tiny Flares Responsible for Outsized Heat of Sun's Atmosphere

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 14, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- Solar physicists at NASA have confirmed that small, sudden bursts of heat and energy, called nanoflares, cause temperatures in the thin, translucent gas of the sun's atmosphere to reach millions ...