News tagged with massive

results timeline


CoRoT discovery challenges the definition of extra-solar planets

CoRoT discovery challenges the definition of extra-solar planets

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 07, 2008 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (31) | comments 7

(PhysOrg.com) -- The CoRoT satellite has discovered a planet-sized object so exotic that astronomers are unsure whether to call it a planet. The object, named CoRoT-Exo-3b, is approximately the same size as ...


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 ...


New class of black holes discovered

New class of black holes discovered

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 01, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (22) | comments 15

A new class of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers.


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 ...


A young pulsar shows its hand

A young pulsar shows its hand

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 03, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (22) | comments 7

A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. At the center of this image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very ...


Milky Way galaxy

Discovery poses challenge to galaxy formation theories

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 10, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (23) | comments 30

A team led by an Indiana University astronomer has found a sample of massive galaxies with properties that suggest that they may have formed relatively recently. This would run counter to the widely-held belief ...


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 ...


COROT discovery stirs exoplanet classification rethink

COROT discovery stirs exoplanet classification rethink

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 07, 2008 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (21) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- COROT has discovered a massive planet-sized object orbiting its parent star closely, unlike anything ever spotted before. It is so exotic, that scientists are unsure as to whether this oddity ...


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 ...


The origin of supernovae confirmed

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 19, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (17) | comments 2

Where do supernovae come from? Astronomers have long believed they were exploding stars, but by analysing a series of images, researchers from the Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen ...


Caltech astronomers describe the bar scene at the beginning of the universe

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 29, 2008 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (16) | comments 1

Bars abound in spiral galaxies today, but this was not always the case. A group of 16 astronomers, led by Kartik Sheth of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, has found that bars tripled ...


Spitzer Reveals Stellar "Family Tree"

Spitzer Reveals Stellar "Family Tree"

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 22, 2008 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (17) | comments 1

A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells a tale of life and death, and reveals a rich family history. The striking infrared picture shows a colorful cosmic cloud, called W5, studded with multiple ...


Astrophysicists 'weigh' galaxy's most massive star

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 19, 2008 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 1

Theoretical models of stellar formation propose the existence of very massive stars that can attain up to 150 times the mass of our Sun.


Mysterious X-rays from a Nearby Galaxy

Mysterious X-rays from a Nearby Galaxy

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 13, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 8

(PhysOrg.com) -- The nucleus of an active galaxy, an AGN, contains a massive black hole that is vigorously accreting material. In the process it typically ejects jets of particles and radiates brightly at ...


Merging Galaxies in Groups

How Do Galaxies Grow?

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 26, 2008 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (14) | comments 2

How do galaxies form? The most widely accepted answer to this fundamental question is the model of 'hierarchical formation', a step-wise process in which small galaxies merge to build larger ones. One can ...