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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All Posts filed under »ASTRONOMY«
The most powerful particles in the Universe
a cosmic smash Wolfgang Bietenholz This year we are celebrating 101 years since the discovery of cosmic rays. They are whizzing all around the Universe, and they occur at very different energies, including the highest particle energies that exist. However, theory predicts an abrupt suppression (a “cutoff”) above a specific huge energy. This is difficult […]
Bright explosion on the Moon
May 17, 2013
For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. “Lunar meteor showers” have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring every year. They’ve just seen the biggest explosion in the history of the […]
Hubble Tells a Tale of Galactic Collisions
May 13, 2013
When we look into the distant cosmos, the great majority of the objects we see are galaxies: immense gatherings of stars, planets, gas, dust, and dark matter, showing up in all kind of shapes. This Hubble picture registers several, but the galaxy catalogued as 2MASX J05210136-2521450 stands out at a glance due to its interesting […]
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Finds Dead Stars …
May 10, 2013
… ‘Polluted with Planet Debris NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found the building blocks for Earth-sized planets in an unlikely place– the atmospheres of a pair of burned-out stars called white dwarfs. These dead stars are located 150 light-years from Earth in a relatively young star cluster, Hyades, in the constellation Taurus. The star cluster […]
Herschel Completes Its ‘Cool’ Journey in Space
April 29, 2013
The Herschel observatory, a European space telescope for which NASA helped build instruments and process data, has stopped making observations after running out of liquid coolant as expected. The European Space Agency (ESA) mission, launched almost four years ago, revealed the universe’s “coolest” secrets by observing the frigid side of planet, star and galaxy formation. […]
Sir Martin Rees: Six ways to infinity… and beyond
April 29, 2013
1. Spotting distant planets that may sustain life will require a telescope larger than anything currently available. When it starts operation in the early 2020s, the European “Extremely Large Telescope”, with a mosaic mirror more than 39m across, will target for observation planets of similar size to Earth that are orbiting stars much like our […]
Einstein’s gravity theory passes toughest test yet
April 25, 2013
Record-breaking pulsar takes tests of general relativity into new territory Astronomers have used ESO’s Very Large Telescope, along with radio telescopes around the world, to find and study a bizarre stellar pair consisting of the most massive neutron star confirmed so far, orbited by a white dwarf star. This strange new binary allows tests of […]
Herschel Links Water Around Jupiter to Comet Impact
April 24, 2013
Astronomers have finally found direct proof that almost all water present in Jupiter’s stratosphere, an intermediate atmospheric layer, was delivered by comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which famously struck the planet in 1994. The findings, based on new data from the Herschel space observatory, reveal more water in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere, where the impacts occurred, than in […]
Let’s Measure the Diameter of the Sun!
April 19, 2013
You can measure the diameter of the sun from your own backyard! You’ll just need a few simple tools and a little clever math. A really long tape measure is NOT required! As always, NEVER look directly at the sun!!! As an added challenge, can you prove that the formula used to determine the diameter […]
NASA’s Kepler Discovers its Smallest ‘Habitable Zone’ Planets to Date
April 18, 2013
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the “habitable zone,” the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. The Kepler-62 system has five planets; 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. The Kepler-69 system has […]
Hawc gamma-ray telescope captures its first image
April 15, 2013
By Jason Palmer A new set of “eyes” to capture the Universe’s highest-energy particles and light has snapped its first image. The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory or Hawc, high on a Mexican plain, now holds the record for the highest-energy light it can capture. The image – of the shadow cast by the Moon as […]
Twist in dark matter tale hints at shadow Milky Way
April 11, 2013
THE HUNT for some of the most wanted stuff in the universe took a new twist this week with the first results from a high-profile, space-based dark matter detector. The results are inconclusive, but, if combined with recent theory, they hint at something exciting. Could the universe have a dark side, complete with its own […]
Hubble Sees Light and Dust in a Nearby Starburst Galaxy
April 6, 2013
Visible as a small, sparkling hook in the dark sky, this beautiful object is known as J082354.96+280621.6, or J082354.96 for short. It is a starburst galaxy, so named because of the incredibly (and unusually) high rate of star formation occurring within it. One way in which astronomers probe the nature and structure of galaxies like […]
Scientists to Io: Your Volcanoes Are in the Wrong Place
April 5, 2013
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains up to 250 miles high. However, concentrations of volcanic activity are significantly displaced from where they are expected to be based on models that predict how the moon’s interior is heated, according to NASA […]
First result from the AMS experiment
April 3, 2013
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) Collaboration announces the publication of its first physics result in Physical Review Letters. The AMS Experiment is the most powerful and sensitive particle physics spectrometer ever deployed in space. As seen in Figure 1, AMS is located on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS) and since its installation […]
How Big Are Galaxies?
April 3, 2013
Read more http://www.universetoday.com/101185/how-big-are-galaxies/#more-101185
Saturn is Like an Antiques Shop, Cassini Suggests
March 27, 2013
A new analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft suggests that Saturn’s moons and rings are gently worn vintage goods from around the time of our solar system’s birth. Though they are tinted on the surface from recent “pollution,” these bodies date back more than 4 billion years. They are from around the time that […]
Gravity-less toy black hole solves cosmic puzzles
March 26, 2013
With a pull so strong not even light escapes, a black hole is defined by its gravity. But now a model that ignores gravity is proving surprisingly useful for pinning down how these cosmic giants work. Black holes are where big ideas in cosmology, such as gravity and quantum mechanics, collide. That makes them great […]
Martin Rees: From Mars to the Multiverse
March 24, 2013
A lecture given by the 2012 winner of the Isaac Newton medal, Professor Martin Rees, University of Cambridge Institute of Astronomy, and chaired by Michael Rowan-Robinson, Imperial College.
Dinosaur-killing space rock ‘was a comet’
March 23, 2013
The space rock that hit Earth 65m years ago and is widely implicated in the end of the dinosaurs was probably a speeding comet, US scientists say. Researchers in New Hampshire suggest the 180km-wide Chicxulub crater in Mexico was carved out by a smaller object than previously thought. Many scientists consider a large and relatively […]
Revealing the Cosmic Microwave Background with Planck
March 22, 2013
This animation illustrates the painstaking work performed by cosmologists in the Planck Collaboration to extract the Cosmic Microwave Background from the data collected by Planck. The first image in the sequence shows the sources of emission detected on the whole sky at the microwave and sub-millimetre wavelengths probed by Planck, which range from 11.1 mm […]
How Much Is a Supernova Worth?
March 22, 2013
If I had a nickel for every nickel you could make from the nickel in supernova SN1999em, I’d be very, very, VERY rich. If I were you, dear BABloggee, I’d be thinking, “What the what?” So let me explain. Well, let me explain in a minute. First, I want to introduce you to the gorgeous […]
How the transit of Venus changed cinematography
March 8, 2013
What better place to view a film about the transit of Venus than an 18th-century observatory? A once-in-a-lifetime experience, the opportunity for us to watch the planet traverse the face of the sun in June last year was the last this century and will not recur until 2117. To mark the occasion, Modern Art Oxford […]
The Moon’s Permanently Shadowed Regions
March 8, 2013
As you watch the Moon over the course of a month, you’ll notice that different features are illuminated by the Sun at different times. However, there are some parts of the Moon that never see sunlight. These areas are called permanently shadowed regions, and they appear dark because unlike on the Earth, the axis of […]
Hubble Finds Birth Certificate of Oldest Known Star
March 7, 2013
A team of astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken an important step closer to finding the birth certificate of a star that’s been around for a very long time. “We have found that this is the oldest known star with a well-determined age,” said Howard Bond of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, […]
Discoveries Suggest Icy Cosmic Start for Amino Acids …
March 1, 2013
… and DNA Ingredients Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars. The scientists used […]
Greek Observatory Probes Ancient Star
February 28, 2013
Continuing a tradition stretching back more than 25 centuries, astronomers have used the new 2.3-m ‘Aristarchos’ telescope, sited at Helmos Observatory (2340m high) in the Pelοponnese Mountains in Greece, to determine the distance to and history of an enigmatic stellar system, discovering it to likely be a binary star cocooned within an exotic nebula. The […]
How Big is the Universe?
February 25, 2013
Future evidence for extraterrestrial life might come from dying stars
February 25, 2013
Even dying stars could host planets with life—and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. This encouraging result comes from a new theoretical study of Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarf stars. Researchers found that we could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a white dwarf’s planet much […]
World’s smallest space telescope
February 22, 2013
The smallest astronomical satellite ever built will launch shortly after 07:20 a.m. EST on Monday, 25 February 2013 as part of a mission to prove that even a very small telescope can push the boundaries of astronomy. The satellite was designed and assembled at the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) of the University of Toronto Institute […]
Russia Meteor Not Linked to Asteroid Flyby
February 16, 2013
New information provided by a worldwide network of sensors has allowed scientists to refine their estimates for the size of the object that entered that atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, at 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15). The estimated size of the […]
Hubble Catches a Side-on Spiral Streak
February 9, 2013
This thin, glittering streak of stars is the spiral galaxy ESO 121-6, which lies in the southern constellation of Pictor (The Painter’s Easel). Viewed almost exactly side-on, the intricate structure of the swirling arms is hidden, but the full length of the galaxy can be seen — including the intense glow from the central bulge, […]
Curiosity Mars rover hammers into rock
February 4, 2013
The Mars rover Curiosity has used its drill system for the first time… Read more: www.bbc.co.uk
A black-hole mass measurement …
January 31, 2013
… from molecular gas kinematics in NGC4526 Timothy A. Davis, Martin Bureau, Michele Cappellari, Marc Sarzi & Leo Blitz The masses of the supermassive black holes found in galaxy bulges are correlated with a multitude of galaxy properties, leading to suggestions that galaxies and black holes may evolve together. The number of reliably measured black-hole […]
Andromeda’s Colorful Rings
January 29, 2013
The ring-like swirls of dust filling the Andromeda galaxy stand out colorfully in this new image from the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA participation. The glow seen here comes from the longer-wavelength, or far, end of the infrared spectrum, giving astronomers the chance to identify the very coldest dust […]
Binocular disparity as an explanation for the moon illusion
January 17, 2013
Joseph Antonides, Toshiro Kubota We present another explanation for the moon illusion, in which the moon looks larger near the horizon than near the zenith. In our model, the sky is considered a spatially contiguous and geometrically smooth surface. When an object (like the moon) breaks the contiguity of the surface, humans perceive an occlusion […]
Parting Moon Shots from NASA’s GRAIL mission
January 11, 2013
Three days prior to its planned impact on a lunar mountain, mission controllers activated the camera aboard one of NASA’s GRAIL twins to take some final photos from lunar orbit
Video: The wobbly beam of the Vela pulsar
January 9, 2013
At the center of the Vela supernova remnant is a madly spinning neutron star. It spins *11 times per second*, which helps it whip up a magnetic field so fierce it can actually defy the gravity of the star, which is a billion times stronger than Earth’s! All of this help it generate two beams […]
Cassini Suggests Icing on a Lake
January 9, 2013
The icebergs of Titan: Astronomers say hydrocarbon blocks could contain ‘exotic form of life’ Researchers believe the lakes and seas could contain life due to their unique chemistry Believe ice could be colourless, but appear reddish-brown due to Titan’s atmosphere Saturn’s moon Titan is home to lakes of massive hydrocarbon ‘icebergs’ that could form exotic […]
‘Exocomet’ numbers nearly tripled in new study
January 9, 2013
By Jason Palmer A new haul of comets around distant stars has been unveiled, more than doubling the number we know of. The first such “exocomet” was discovered in 1987 but since then only three more had been found. At the 221st American Astronomical Society meetingin the US, astronomer Barry Welsh gave details of seven more. […]
Nearly All Sun-Like Stars Have Planetary Systems
January 7, 2013
The latest analysis of data from the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft reveals that almost all stars have planets, and about 17 percent of stars have an Earth-sized planet in an orbit closer than Mercury. Since the Milky Way has about 100 billion stars, there are at least 17 billion Earth-sized worlds out there, according to Francois […]
Westerlund 2: A Stellar Sight
December 27, 2012
This Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows Westerlund 2, a young star cluster with an estimated age of about one or two million years. Until recently little was known about this cluster because it is heavily obscured by dust and gas. However, using infrared and X-ray observations to overcome this obscuration, Westerlund 2 has become regarded […]
X-Ray Absorption by the Earth’s atmosphere
December 26, 2012
Absorption by the Earth’s atmosphere restricts ground-based observations to radio, near infrared, and visible wavelengths. X-rays are absorbed high above the Earth in the following way: X-ray photons–tiny high-energy packets of electromagnetic radiation–are absorbed by encounters with individual atoms. Even though the atoms in the atmosphere are widely spaced, the total thickness of the atmosphere […]
Cassini captures spectacle in Saturn’s shadow
December 19, 2012
Just in time for the holidays, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn for more than eight years now, has delivered another glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings. On Oct. 17, 2012, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn’s shadow, a perfect location from […]
A Cosmic Holiday Ornament, Hubble-Style
December 18, 2012
This the season for holiday decorating and tree-trimming. Not to be left out, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have photographed a festive-looking nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. The intricate structure of this bright gaseous nebula resembles a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined. Planetary nebulae represent the final brief stage in […]
Mysterious star deaths are really mergers in disguise
December 14, 2012
by Stuart Clark SOAP operas have nothing on supernovae. A charlatan star that appeared to explode earlier this year may have faked its own death to unite with a secret companion. If so, it joins a growing cast of oddball stars suspected to be the products of stellar mergers, which have the potential to change […]
Common physics among black holes
December 13, 2012
A Universal Scaling for the Energetics of Relativistic Jets from Black Hole Systems R. S. Nemmen, M. Georganopoulos, S. Guiriec, E. T. Meyer, N. Gehrels, R. M. Sambruna Black holes generate collimated, relativistic jets, which have been observed in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), microquasars, and at the center of some galaxies [active galactic nuclei (AGN)]. How […]
May 17, 2013
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