http://www.physorg.com/space-news/astronomy/ en-us PhysOrg Team PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on astronomy, space, earth science and space exploration. (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory have peered far into a young planetary system, giving an unprecedented view of dust and gas that might eventually form planets similar to Jupiter, Venus, or even Earth. The researchers used the Keck Interferometer, which combines the light-gathering power of both 10-meter Keck telescopes to act as an 85-meter telescopemuch larger than any existing or planned telescope. http://www.physorg.com/news180806114.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-23T16:30:02-07:00 Stars in globular clusters are generally extremely old, with ages of 12-13 billion years. However, a small fraction of them appear to be significantly younger than the average population and, because they seem to have been left behind by the stars that followed the normal path of stellar evolution and became red giants, have been dubbed blue stragglers. http://www.physorg.com/news180783454.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-23T13:00:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Exeter, UK, research has added to a growing evidence that several giant planets have orbits so tilted that their orbits can be perpendicular or even backwards relative to their parent star`s rotation. http://www.physorg.com/news180724809.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-22T17:20:34-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Two brown dwarf-sized objects orbiting a giant old star show that planets may assemble around stars more quickly and efficiently than anyone thought possible, according to an international team of astronomers. http://www.physorg.com/news180627887.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-21T14:49:05-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The star Chi Cygni is located about 550 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation of Cygnus the Swan. It is a notable star because, unlike the sun which still burns hydrogen and is in its mature phase of life, Chi Cygni has aged and begun to expire. http://www.physorg.com/news180627595.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-21T14:27:23-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The European Space Agency has released a preview of the first science results from the Herschel Space Observatory, including the UK-led SPIRE instrument. The new data which include images of previously invisible stardust - the stuff that all life is made from - will give us valuable new information about how stars and galaxies are made and reveal the life cycle of the cosmos. http://www.physorg.com/news180369536.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-18T15:00:02-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- In a study that helps to explain the origins of water on Earth, University of Michigan astronomers have found that water vapor can form spontaneously in habitable zones of solar systems, and that it develops into a protective layer that shields other water and organic molecules from harmful stellar radiation. http://www.physorg.com/news180297449.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-17T18:38:05-07:00 In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact. If we find them nearby, a new paper by Smithsonian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger shows that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to study their atmospheres and detect key gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapor. http://www.physorg.com/news180288713.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-17T16:50:03-07:00 At a very early age, children learn how to classify objects according to their shape. Now, new research suggests studying the shape of the aftermath of supernovas may allow astronomers to do the same. http://www.physorg.com/news180269012.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-17T10:44:41-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using first observations with the PACS Instrument on board ESA`s Herschel Space Telescope, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and other institutions have for the first time resolved more than half of this radiation into its constituting sources. Observations with Herschel open the road towards understanding the properties of these galaxies, and trace the dusty side of galaxy evolution. http://www.physorg.com/news180196797.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-16T14:41:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a "super-Earth" orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. They found the distant planet with a small fleet of ground-based telescopes no larger than those many amateur astronomers have in their backyards. Although the super-Earth is too hot to sustain life, the discovery shows that current, ground-based technologies are capable of finding almost-Earth-sized planets in warm, life-friendly orbits. http://www.physorg.com/news180193829.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-16T13:51:11-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Chinese astronomers have discovered a giant planet close to the exotic binary star system QS Virginis. Although dormant now, in the future the two stars will one day erupt in a violent nova outburst. Professor Shengbang Qian of Yunnan Observatory leads the team of scientists who report their work in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. http://www.physorg.com/news180173732.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-16T10:20:07-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Herschel has peered inside an unseen stellar nursery and revealed surprising amounts of activity. Some 700 newly-forming stars are estimated to be crowded into filaments of dust stretching through the image. The image is the first new release of 'OSHI', ESA's Online Showcase of Herschel Images. http://www.physorg.com/news180180910.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-16T10:15:57-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Within a decade scientists could be able to detect the merger of tens of pairs of black holes every year, according to a team of astronomers at the University of Bonn`s Argelander-Institut fuer Astronomie, who publish their findings in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. By modelling the behaviour of stars in clusters, the Bonn team find that they are ideal environments for black holes to coalesce. These merger events produce ripples in time and space (gravitational waves) that could be detected by instruments from as early as 2015. http://www.physorg.com/news180173220.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-16T08:08:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists once thought that life could originate only within a solar system's "habitable zone," where a planet would be neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on its surface. But according to planetary scientist Francis Nimmo, evidence from recent NASA missions suggests that conditions necessary for life may exist on the icy satellites of Saturn and Jupiter. http://www.physorg.com/news180112635.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-15T18:55:19-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. http://www.physorg.com/news180118620.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-15T17:10:02-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers from The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and other universities have captured the first direct image of a young binary star system. Using the Coronagraphic Imager with Adaptive Optics (CIAO) mounted on the Subaru Telescope, the team observed the young binary star SR24, which is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, 520 light years away. http://www.physorg.com/news180107005.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-15T13:44:28-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- About 550 light-years from Earth, a star like our Sun is writhing in its death throes. Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that it would swallow every planet out to Mars in our solar system. Moreover, it has begun to pulse dramatically in and out, beating like a giant heart. New close-up photos of the surface of this distant star show its throbbing motions in unprecedented detail. http://www.physorg.com/news180098305.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-15T12:10:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A collection of 30 never-before-released images of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula are the highlight of the longest single Hubble Space Telescope project ever dedicated to the topic of star and planet formation. Also known as proplyds, or protoplanetary discs, these modest blobs surrounding baby stars are shedding light on the mechanism behind planet formation. Only the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with its high resolution and sensitivity, can take such detailed pictures of circumstellar discs at optical wavelengths. http://www.physorg.com/news180018260.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-14T13:05:25-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two "super-Earths" with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth. The researchers, led by Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said the two "super-Earths" are the first ones found around Sun-like stars. http://www.physorg.com/news180016985.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-14T12:43:48-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The corona is the hot outer region of the sun's atmosphere. The corona is threaded by magnetic fields that loop and twist upwards from the sun's surface, driven by motions of its dense atmosphere. http://www.physorg.com/news179758481.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-11T12:59:52-07:00 VISTA is the latest telescope to be added to ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed on the peak adjacent to the one hosting the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) and shares the same exceptional observing conditions. VISTA's main mirror is 4.1 metres across and is the most highly curved mirror of this size and quality ever made -- its deviations from a perfect surface are less than a few thousandths of the thickness of a human hair -- and its construction and polishing presented formidable challenges. http://www.physorg.com/news179739402.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-11T08:10:02-07:00 An international team of scientists has observed four super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies, which may provide new information on how these central black hole systems operate. Their findings are published in December's first issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. http://www.physorg.com/news179690529.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-10T18:40:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- This composite image of data from three different telescopes shows an ongoing collision between two galaxies, NGC 6872 and IC 4970. http://www.physorg.com/news179682939.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-10T15:56:28-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Studies of one of the galaxy's most active black-hole binaries reveal a dramatic change that will help scientists better understand how these systems expel fast-moving particle jets. http://www.physorg.com/news179665092.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-10T10:59:29-07:00 Next time you spy the Big Dipper, keep in mind that there is another star, invisible to the unaided eye, contributing to this constellation. http://www.physorg.com/news179651081.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-10T07:07:05-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A galaxy located billions of light-years away is commanding the attention of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and astronomers around the globe. Thanks to a series of flares that began September 15, the galaxy is now the brightest source in the gamma-ray sky -- more than ten times brighter than it was in the summer. http://www.physorg.com/news179593672.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-09T16:40:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A specialized camera on a telescope operated by U.K. astronomers from Liverpool has made the first measurement of magnetic fields in the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst (GRB). The result is reported in the Dec.10 issue of Nature magazine by the team of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) astronomers who built and operate the telescope and its unique scientific camera, named RINGO. http://www.physorg.com/news179593825.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-09T15:11:24-07:00 Understanding the evolution of galaxies is one of the biggest questions confronting astronomers today. Looking at distant astronomical objects gives scientists important clues to the origins of the Milky Way Galaxy and other galaxies in the local universe. http://www.physorg.com/news179512073.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-08T16:28:26-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Australian astronomers have released the first set of data from the first project to look at the effects of "dark energy" halfway back in the Universe's lifetime. http://www.physorg.com/news179508040.html Space & Earth - Astronomy 2009-12-08T15:21:06-07:00