News tagged with distant stars

Earthly machine recreates star's sizzling-hot surface

Since we can't go to the stars yet, let's bring the stars to us. In a giant X-ray-producing facility, astronomers and plasma physicists have heated a cigar-sized sample of gas to over 17,000 degrees Fahrenheit ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 13, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Hubble breaks new ground with discovery of distant exploding star

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago. The sighting is the first finding of an ambitious ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 11, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Discovery of three smallest exoplanets: The Barnard's star connection

The discovery of the three smallest planets yet orbiting a distant star, which was announced today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, has an unusual connection to Barnard's star, one ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 11, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Spitzer and Hubble telescopes find rare galaxy at dawn of time

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have discovered that one of the most distant galaxies known is churning out stars at a shockingly high rate. The blob-shaped galaxy, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 36 | with audio podcast

Mysterious red galaxies

(PhysOrg.com) -- Perhaps the most astonishing and revolutionary discovery in cosmology was Edwin Hubble's observation that galaxies are moving away from us with velocities that are proportional to their distances. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 12, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (11) | comments 36 | with audio podcast

Researcher peers into universe's ancient past to better know how stars form

(PhysOrg.com) -- It takes light from our closest star, the Sun, about eight minutes to reach Earth. But light that leaves stars in distant galaxies takes a lot more time to reach our planet — billions of years more.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 07, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Swift finds a gamma-ray burst with a dual personality (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- A peculiar cosmic explosion first detected by NASA's Swift observatory on Christmas Day 2010 was caused either by a novel type of supernova located billions of light-years away or an unusual ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 30, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (8) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Research group proposes first system for assessing the odds of life on other worlds

(PhysOrg.com) -- Within the next few years, the number of planets discovered in orbits around distant stars will likely reach several thousand or more. But even as our list of these newly discovered "exoplanets" ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (8) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

A serendipitous gravitational lens

(PhysOrg.com) -- The path traveled by a light beam will bend in the presence of matter. This remarkable prediction, reached by Einstein in his theory of general relativity, was confirmed by observations of ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Hubble confirms: galaxies are ultimate recyclers

(PhysOrg.com) -- New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are expanding astronomers' understanding of the ways in which galaxies continuously recycle immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 17, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 80 | with audio podcast

Assembly stand completed for James Webb Telescope flight optics

(PhysOrg.com) -- The cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. has received a giant structural steel frame that will be used to assemble the mirrors and instruments of the James Webb ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 17, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Magnetic fields set the stage for the birth of new stars

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have, for the first time, measured the alignment of magnetic fields in gigantic clouds of gas and dust in a distant galaxy. Their results ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 16, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Hubble uncovers tiny galaxies bursting with starbirth in early Universe

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using its infrared vision to peer nine billion years back in time, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of tiny, young galaxies that are brimming with ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (7) | comments 44 | with audio podcast

City lights could reveal E.T. civilization

In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, astronomers have hunted for radio signals and ultra-short laser pulses. In a new paper, Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Edwin Turner ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 03, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (28) | comments 54 | with audio podcast

An alien code close to home: Seeking ET beyond the radio silence

Any intelligent extraterrestrial life that exists probably won't announce itself by blowing up the White House, or win over the hearts of children as a lovable alien with a glowing finger. Many scientists ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 28, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (19) | comments 97 | with audio podcast