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Astronomy News and Research - February 2008 Archives
Interstellar space may be strewn with tiny whiskers of carbon, dimming the light of far-away objects. This discovery by scientists at the Carnegie Institution may have implications for the "dark energy" hypothesis, proposed a decade ago in part to explain the unexpected dimness of certain stellar explosions called Type1a supernovae.
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 | A trio of NASA and ESA spacecraft orbiting Mars are preparing for the 25 May arrival of NASA's Phoenix lander. ESA's Mars Express has already started adjusting its orbit to provide critical back-up monitoring of Phoenix. ...> Full Article |
 | An international team of astrophysicists has, for the first time, discovered a star other than the Sun flipping its north and south magnetic poles. ...> Full Article |
 | Seeking an out-of-this-world travel destination? Outer space will rocket into reality as "the" getaway of this century, according to researchers at the University of Delaware and the University of Rome La Sapienza. In fact, the "final frontier" could begin showing up in travel guides by 2010, they predict. ...> Full Article |
 | U.S. experiment retakes the lead in competitive race ...> Full Article |
An enormous plume of dust and water spurts violently into space from the south pole of Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon. This raging eruption has intrigued scientists ever since the Cassini spacecraft provided dramatic images of the phenomenon.
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 | December 25 2003 was meant to be a triumphant climax to the British Mars mission: the date when Beagle 2 was scheduled to touch down on the red planet. In the event, the mission ended in frustration and disappointment when all contact with the craft was lost. ...> Full Article |
 | A mega-collision between two large embryonic planets could have created Venus as we know it, according to a new paper by a Cardiff University scientist. ...> Full Article |
 | ESA's Integral has made the first unambiguous discovery of high-energy X-rays coming from a rare massive star at our cosmic doorstep, Eta Carinae. It is one of the most violent places in the galaxy, producing vast winds of electrically-charged particles colliding at speeds of thousands of kilometres per second. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers from the United States and the Netherlands report that several formations on Mars indicate incidents of rapid release of water from the planet's interior. Mars has many basins that contain formations that look like fans. A few of these fans, only about 10, have steps down into the basin. Since scientists first reported this feature three years ago, there has been no clear consensus on how they formed. ...> Full Article |
New calculations by astronomers predict that the Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun in about 7.6 billion years unless the Earth's orbit can be altered.
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 | It took just a couple of hours using data available on the internet for scientists to discover that the Milky Way is twice as wide as previously thought. ...> Full Article |
 | Venus Express has revealed a planet of extraordinarily changeable and extremely large-scale weather. Bright hazes appear in a matter of days, reaching from the south pole to the low southern latitudes and disappearing just as quickly. Such 'global weather', unlike anything on Earth, has given scientists a new mystery to solve. ...> Full Article |
People in at least four states and a Canadian province saw a bright fireball streaking across the Pacific Northwest sky in the early hours Tuesday but, contrary to some reports, there was no collision with the ground, University of Washington scientists said.
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 | The Royal Observatory Edinburgh has shipped its biggest and most complex ever instrument. The giant camera known as SCUBA-2 will be transported to the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on top of a 14,000 foot mountain in Hawaii where it is expected to make major discoveries related to the origins of galaxies, stars and planets. ...> Full Article |
A University of British Columbia astronomer with an international team has discovered the largest structures of dark matter ever seen. Measuring 270 million light-years across, these dark matter structures criss-cross the night sky, each spanning an area that is eight times larger than the full moon.
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 | In the thin, dry air of northern Chile's Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 16,500 feet, an amazing new telescope system is taking shape, on schedule to provide the world's astronomers with unprecedented views of the origins of stars, galaxies, and planets. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will open an entirely new "window" on the Universe, allowing scientists to unravel longstanding and important astronomical mysteries. ...> Full Article |
 | One of Saturn's rings does housecleaning, soaking up material gushing from the fountains on Saturn's tiny ice moon Enceladus, according to new observations from the Cassini spacecraft. ...> Full Article |
 | Despite the incredible diversity of Saturn's icy moons, theirs is a story of great interaction. Some are pock-marked, some seemingly dirty, others pristine, one spongy, one two-faced, some still spewing with activity and some seeming to be captured from the far reaches of the solar system. Yet many of them have a common thread - black 'stuff' coating their surfaces. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers have discovered that rocky, terrestrial planets might orbit many, if not most, of the nearby sun-like stars in the disk of our galaxy. These new results suggest that worlds with potential for life are more common that we thought. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers discover first near-Earth triple asteroid just 7 million miles away ...> Full Article |
 | NASA has selected a proposal by an MIT-led team to develop plans for an array of radio telescopes on the far side of the moon that would probe the earliest formation of the basic structures of the universe. The agency announced the selection and 18 others related to future observatories on Friday, Feb.15. ...> Full Article |
 | Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have reported the possible detection of a binary star system that was later destroyed in a supernova explosion. The new method they used provides great future promise for finding the detailed origin of these important cosmic events. ...> Full Article |
University of Virginia research scientist Greg Black, working with astronomers at NASA and other institutions, has captured images of a small asteroid that passed relatively close to Earth on Jan. 29. Astronomers are busily refining their techniques for locating and observing asteroids that could potentially be a threat to our planet.
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 | NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, with a boost from a natural "zoom lens," have uncovered what may be one of the youngest and brightest galaxies ever seen in the middle of the cosmic "dark ages," just 700 million years after the beginning of our universe. ...> Full Article |
 | An international team of astronomers has discovered two planets that resemble smaller versions of Jupiter and Saturn in a solar system nearly 5,000 light years away. ...> Full Article |
 | The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with a boost from a natural "zoom lens", has found the strongest evidence so far for a galaxy with a redshift significantly above 7. It is likely to be one of the youngest and brightest galaxies ever seen right after the cosmic "dark ages", just 700 million years after the beginning of our Universe (redshift ~7.6). ...> Full Article |
 | Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the Universe ...> Full Article |
 | Orbital behaviors also drive climate changes, ice ages ...> Full Article |
New results from the Stardust space probe, which collected dust from the tail of a comet and returned it to Earth, show material similar to that found close to the sun rather than pristine material left over from the formation of the solar system.
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 | People across the western hemisphere may be surprised to see a rust-coloured Moon in the sky on 21 February. Early that morning (the evening of the 20 February for observers in North and South America) will be this year's first and only total eclipse of the Moon. ...> Full Article |
 | Newborn stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust in this dynamic image of the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists hope that a new supercomputer being built by Syracuse University's Department of Physics may help them identify the sound of a celestial black hole. The supercomputer, dubbed SUGAR (SU Gravitational and Relativity Cluster), will soon receive massive amounts of data from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) that was collected over a two-year period at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). ...> Full Article |
 | A team of scientists representing six international institutions, including Texas A&M University, has succeeded in reaching the summit of Antarctica -- also a monumental achievement for ground-based astronomy -- to establish a new astronomical observatory at Dome Argus on the highest point of the Antarctic Plateau. ...> Full Article |
 | The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the galaxy NGC 1132 which is, most likely, a cosmic fossil - the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far outshining typical galaxies. ...> Full Article |
 | Like a fork piercing a fried egg, a giant finger of hydrogen gas is poking through our Milky Way Galaxy from outside, astronomers using CSIRO radio telescopes at Parkes and Narrabri have found. ...> Full Article |
 | Mars is about to come into 3D focus as never before, thanks to the data from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). A new high-resolution Digital Terrain Model data set that is about to be released onto the Internet, will allow researchers to obtain new information about the Red Planet in 3D. ...> Full Article |
 | University of Arkansas researchers are receiving a grant to examine material from a comet sample brought back to Earth from outer space. They will try to determine its composition and age. This work will provide new insights into the formation and history of comets. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers at the University of St Andrews believe they can 'simplify the dark side of the universe' by shedding new light on two of its mysterious constituents. ...> Full Article |
 | A team of astronomers has discovered a neutron star emitting an extended stream of powerful X rays, marking the first time such an extended X-ray jet has been detected originating from any class of object other than black holes. "This discovery shows that the unusual properties of black holes, such as the lack of an actual surface,- may not be required to form powerful X-ray jets, as was previously thought," said Niel Brandt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, and one of the scientists on the team that made the discovery with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. ...> Full Article |
 | University of Nottingham astronomers will be studying icy cosmic dust millions of light years away - using the biggest space telescope ever built. ...> Full Article |
 | First results from a new NASA-funded scientific instrument at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii are helping scientists overturn long-standing assumptions about powerful explosions called novae and have produced the first unified model for a nearby nova called RS Ophiuchi. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers at the University of St Andrews believe they can "simplify the dark side of the universe" by shedding new light on two of its mysterious constituents. ...> Full Article |
 | The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express has returned striking scenes of the Terby crater on Mars. The region is of great scientific interest as it holds information on the role of water in the history of the planet. ...> Full Article |
 | VLT decodes the innermost surroundings of a star in the maturing ...> Full Article |
The planet Mercury's magnetic field appears to be strong enough to fend off the harsh solar wind from most of its surface, according to data gathered in part by a University of Michigan instrument onboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft.
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 | Astronomers have used ESO's Very Large Telescope to measure the distribution and motions of thousands of galaxies in the distant Universe. This opens fascinating perspectives to better understand what drives the acceleration of the cosmic expansion and sheds new light on the mysterious dark energy that is thought to permeate the Universe. ...> Full Article |
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