Astronomy news

Physicist makes new high-res panorama of Milky Way

Physicist makes new high-res panorama of Milky Way

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 28, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (14) | comments 3

Cobbling together 3000 individual photographs, a physicist has made a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky, with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. Axel Mellinger, a professor at ...


Rapid star formation spotted in 'stellar nurseries' of infant galaxies

Rapid star formation spotted in 'stellar nurseries' of infant galaxies

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 11, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 1

The Universe's infant galaxies enjoyed rapid growth spurts forming stars like our sun at a rate of up to 50 stars a year, according to scientists at Durham University.


Swift, XMM-Newton satellites tune into a middleweight black hole

Swift, XMM-Newton satellites tune into a middleweight black hole

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- While astronomers have studied lightweight and heavyweight black holes for decades, the evidence for black holes with intermediate masses has been much harder to come by. Now, astronomers ...


Hubble Image Showcases Star Birth in M83, the Southern Pinwheel

Hubble Image Showcases Star Birth in M83, the Southern Pinwheel

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 05, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- The spectacular new camera installed on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of ...


Starring Intelligent Aliens

Starring Intelligent Aliens

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 05, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 7

The most probable place to find intelligent life in the galaxy is around stars very similar to our sun, a new study has found.


'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies

'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 06, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (13) | comments 15

Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature ...


Galaxy cluster smashes distance record

Galaxy cluster smashes distance record

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 22, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (10) | comments 2

The most distant galaxy cluster yet has been discovered by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical and infrared telescopes. The cluster is located about 10.2 billion light years away, ...


The system Gliese 667 (Artist’s impression)

32 New Exoplanets Found (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 19, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (27) | comments 6

(PhysOrg.com) -- Today, at an international ESO/CAUP exoplanet conference in Porto, the team who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for ESO's 3.6-metre ...


Fermi telescope detects gamma-ray from 'star factories' in other galaxies

Fermi Telescope Detects Gamma-Ray From 'Star Factories' in Other Galaxies

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 02, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called "starburst" galaxies, plus a satellite ...


Unsettled Youth: Spitzer Observes a Chaotic Planetary System

Unsettled Youth: Spitzer Observes a Chaotic Planetary System

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 04, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (7) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Before our planets found their way to the stable orbits they circle in today, they wiggled and jostled about like unsettled children. Now, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a young ...


NJIT receives funding to improve Big Bear Telescope, study solar energy

NJIT receives funding to improve Big Bear Telescope, study solar energy

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 20, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 1

NJIT researchers are at work on many scientific and technological frontiers. The National Science Foundation has recently provided support that totals nearly $4.3 million for the diverse efforts of the following ...


Shedding light on the cosmic skeleton

Shedding Light on the Cosmic Skeleton

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 03, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (22) | comments 7

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have tracked down a gigantic, previously unknown assembly of galaxies located almost seven billion light-years away from us. The discovery, made possible by combining two of the ...


Invisible hand in invisible matter

Invisible hand in invisible matter

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 06, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (50) | comments 38

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious 'dark matter' and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionise our current understanding ...


Study of first high-resolution images of Pallas confirms asteroid is actually a protoplanet

Study of first high-resolution images of Pallas confirms asteroid is actually a protoplanet

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 12, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (21) | comments 7

(PhysOrg.com) -- Britney E. Schmidt, a UCLA doctoral student in the department of Earth and space sciences, wasn't sure what she'd glean from images of the asteroid Pallas taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. ...


The Milky Way's tiny but tough galactic neighbor

The Milky Way's tiny but tough galactic neighbor

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 14, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (13) | comments 1

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, ...