Astronomy news
Astronomers unveil an amazing, interactive, 360-degree panoramic view of the entire night sky
Sep 14, 2009 |
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(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 ...
Magnetic fields play larger role in star formation than previously thought
Sep 09, 2009 |
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The simple picture of star formation calls for giant clouds of gas and dust to collapse inward due to gravity, growing denser and hotter until igniting nuclear fusion. In reality, forces other than gravity also influence ...
Fermi Large Area Telescope reveals pulsing gamma-ray sources
Sep 09, 2009 |
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Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Space Science Division and a team of international researchers have positively identified cosmic sources of gamma-ray emissions through the discovery of 16 ...
Researchers explain the activity of black holes at the centre of galaxy clusters
Sep 04, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers at the University of Bonn have clarified the connection between black holes at the centre of galaxy clusters and surrounding gas, which serves them as "food". The scientists have ...
XMM-Newton uncovers a celestial Rosetta stone
Sep 03, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA's XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope has uncovered a celestial Rosetta stone: the first close-up of a white dwarf star, circling a companion star, that could explode into a particular ...
Will Kepler find habitable moons?
Sep 03, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Since the launch of the NASA Kepler Mission earlier this year, astronomers have been keenly awaiting the first detection of an Earth-like planet around another star. Now, in an echo of science ...
Component of mothballs is present in deep-space clouds
Sep 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Interstellar clouds, drifting through the unimaginable vastness of space, may be the stuff dreams are made of. But it turns out there's an unexpectedly strange component in those clouds, and it's not dreams ...
No strain for Andromeda: Galaxy is cosmic cannibal (w/ Video)
Sep 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A huge galaxy neighbouring our own Milky Way appears to have expanded by "digesting" smaller galaxies nearby, a new study has shown.
NGC 4945: The Milky Way's not-so-distant Cousin
Sep 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- ESO has released a striking new image of a nearby galaxy that many astronomers think closely resembles our own Milky Way. Though the galaxy is seen edge-on, observations of NGC 4945 suggest ...
Giant Galaxy Hosts the Most Distant Supermassive Black Hole
Sep 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Hawaii (UH) astronomer Dr. Tomotsugu Goto and colleagues have discovered a giant galaxy surrounding the most distant supermassive black hole ever found. The galaxy, so distant ...
Is the Milky Way doomed to be destroyed by galactic bombardment? Probably not
Aug 31, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- As scientists attempt to learn more about how galaxies evolve, an open question has been whether collisions with our dwarf galactic neighbors will one day tear apart the disk of the Milky ...
Cygnus X-1: Still a 'Star' After All Those Years
Aug 28, 2009 |
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Since its discovery 45 years ago, Cygnus X-1 has been one of the most intensively studied cosmic X-ray sources. About a decade after its discovery, Cygnus X-1 secured a place in the history of astronomy when ...
Massive Stars Near the Galactic Center
Aug 28, 2009 |
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The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of our galaxy is a giant complex of molecular gas and dust situated in the innermost 700 light-years of the Milky Way. Although the galaxy is over 100,000 light-years in size, ...
Warped debris disks around stars are blowin' in the wind (w/ Video)
Aug 28, 2009 |
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(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
Aug 27, 2009 |
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(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 ...
