Astronomy news

Ticking stellar time bomb identified

Ticking stellar time bomb identified (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 17, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (11) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- "One of the major problems in modern astrophysics is the fact that we still do not know exactly what kinds of stellar system explode as a Type Ia supernova," says Patrick Woudt, from the University ...


Close-up movie shows hidden details in the birth of super-suns

Close-up movie shows hidden details in the birth of super-suns (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 16, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (10) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- The constellation of Orion is a hotbed of massive star formation, most prominently in the Great Nebula that sits in Orion's sword. The glowing gas of the Nebula is powered by a group of young ...


2 Earth-sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres found -- but they're stars not planets

Two Earth-sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres found -- but they're stars not planets

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 12, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (21) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astrophysicists at the University of Warwick and Kiel University have discovered two earth sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres - however there is a bit of a disappointing snag for anyone ...


A faraway planet intrigues: Exoplanet with extremely tilted orbit raises new interest in stellar astronomy

A faraway planet intrigues: Exoplanet with extremely tilted orbit raises new interest in stellar astronomy

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 12, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (12) | comments 6

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two teams of astronomers have found a planet outside the solar system that might be orbiting backwards compared to its star's rotation, a discovery that could shed light on how unique the ...


Exoplanets Clue to Sun's Curious Chemistry

Exoplanets Clue to Sun's Curious Chemistry

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 11, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (21) | comments 15

(PhysOrg.com) -- A ground-breaking census of 500 stars, 70 of which are known to host planets, has successfully linked the long-standing "lithium mystery" observed in the Sun to the presence of planetary systems. ...


Rapid supernova could be new class of exploding star

Rapid supernova could be new class of exploding star

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 05, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (18) | comments 6

(PhysOrg.com) -- An unusual supernova rediscovered in seven-year-old data may be the first example of a new type of exploding star, possibly from a binary star system where helium flows from one white dwarf ...


Carbon atmosphere discovered on neutron star

Carbon Atmosphere Discovered on Neutron Star

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 04, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (19) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year ...


High-precision measurements confirm cosmologists' standard view of the universe

Precise picture of early Universe supports 'dark matter' theory

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 02, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (17) | comments 9

A detailed picture of the seeds of structures in the universe has been unveiled by an international team co-led by a Cardiff University scientist.


Dark Matter in a Galaxy

Dark Matter in a Galaxy

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 30, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (20) | comments 19

(PhysOrg.com) -- Stars, the most familiar objects in the night sky, make up only a tiny percentage of the total amount of matter in the universe -- about 2%.


Astronomers explore 'last blank space' on map of the Universe

Astronomers explore 'last blank space' on map of the Universe

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 28, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (30) | comments 71

(PhysOrg.com) -- The most distant object ever discovered is described in this week's edition of the science journal Nature. Two international teams of astronomers report their observations of a gamma-ray burst ...


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 ...


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 (28) | 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 ...


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, ...


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 (22) | 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. ...