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Astronomy News and Research - May 2008 Archives
AT LAST we are seeing big rewards in the hunt for "super-Earths" - rocky alien worlds a few times more massive than our own.
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 | Scientists will gather more data about an area that was exposed when soil was blown away during landing to determine whether it's rock or ice. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers resolve torus around star in another galaxy ...> Full Article |
 | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a bizarre ring of material around the magnetic remains of a star that blasted to smithereens. ...> Full Article |
 | NASA Scientists have sent commands to Phoenix to unstow its robotic arm and take more images of its landing site early today. ...> Full Article |
 | A British amateur astronomer has discovered the fastest rotating natural object known in our Solar System. ...> Full Article |
An Asteroid Deflection Research Center has been established on the Iowa State campus to bring researchers from around the world to develop asteroid deflection technologies
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 | On April 9, the Sun erupted and blasted a bubble of hot, ionized gas into the solar system. The eruption was observed in unprecedented detail by a fleet of spacecraft, revealing new features that are predicted by computer models but difficult to see in practice. ...> Full Article |
 | A NASA spacecraft has sent pictures showing itself in good condition after making the first successful landing in a polar region of Mars. ...> Full Article |
 | Two new exoplanets and an unknown celestial object are the latest findings of the COROT mission. These discoveries mean that the mission has now found a total of four new exoplanets. ...> Full Article |
The winner of a prestigious international science fellowship has chosen the University of Portsmouth as her host to study dark matter
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 | Using data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft and two telescopes at Earth, an international team of scientists has found that one of the solar system's largest and newest storms - Jupiter's Little Red Spot - has some of the highest wind speeds ever detected on any planet. ...> Full Article |
 | Deposits of nearly pure silica discovered by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in Gusev Crater formed when volcanic steam or hot water (or maybe both) percolated through the ground. Such deposits are found around hydrothermal vents like those in Yellowstone National Park ...> Full Article |
After completing a worldwide survey unprecedented in rigor and detail of astronomical sites for the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), the TMT Observatory Corporation board of directors has selected two outstanding sites, one in each hemisphere, for further consideration
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On May 25, 2008, approaching 5 p.m. PDT, NASA scientists will be wondering: Just how green is their valley?
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Astronomers have found there is nothing special about the Sun after conducting the most comprehensive comparison of it with other stars - adding weight to the idea that life could be common in the universe.
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 | Astronomers have used the Swift satellite to observe the first moments of a supernova explosion as it happens. ...> Full Article |
 | Although the universe contains billions of galaxies, only a small amount of its matter is locked up in these behemoths. Most of the universe's matter that was cooked up during and just after the Big Bang must be found elsewhere. ...> Full Article |
 | Red dwarf unleashes the brightest flare ever detected from a normal star outside our solar system ...> Full Article |
 | Venus Express has detected the molecule hydroxyl on another planet for the first time ...> Full Article |
 | An ongoing sky survey using the Cornell-managed Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has turned up a massive, fast-spinning binary pulsar with a mysterious elongated orbit ...> Full Article |
Effort could extend NASA science capabilities for planetary applications
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 | Astrophysicist to detect radioactive emissions across the vast sweep of our galaxy ...> Full Article |
 | The Universe is actually twice as bright than was previously thought ...> Full Article |
 | NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is receiving finishing touches at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, near the beaches of eastern central Florida for its launch ...> Full Article |
 | Physicists have provided a mechanism by which information can be recovered from black holes, those regions of space where gravity is so strong that, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, not even light can escape. The team's findings pave the way toward ending a decades-long debate sparked by renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. ...> Full Article |
 | Lunar dust could be more than a housekeeping issue for astronauts who visit the moon. Their good health may depend on the amount of exposure they have to the tiny particles. ...> Full Article |
 | NASA's Phoenix Lander is due to land on Mars this month (May) where it will probe the arctic landscape searching for conditions favourable for past or present life ...> Full Article |
Curved features on Jupiter's moon Europa may indicate that its poles have wandered by almost 90°
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 | First accurate measurement of the temperature of the cosmic background at an early epoch ...> Full Article |
International scientists have used flowing water to simulate a black hole, testing Stephen Hawking's theory that black holes are not black after all.
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 | Spacecraft to go closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone - and what it finds could revolutionize what we know about our star and the solar wind that influences everything in our solar system. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers too start a massive search for new planets by observing about 11,000 nearby stars over 6 years ...> Full Article |
 | New research on the Antennae Galaxies using the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows that this benchmark pair of interacting galaxies is in fact much closer than previously thought ...> Full Article |
 | New scientific evidence suggests that deep inside the planet Mercury, iron "snow" forms and falls toward the center of the planet, much like snowflakes form in Earth's atmosphere and fall to the ground. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists to work on one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, simulating an event that takes less than five seconds. ...> Full Article |
 | Researcher receives $2 million in funding
for Urey instrument's flight planning and design ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers detect a part of long-searched baryonic matter in a filament connecting two clusters of galaxies ...> Full Article |
A new space mission, due to launch this month, is going to shed light on some of the most extreme astrophysical processes in nature - including pulsars, remnants of supernovae, and supermassive black holes. It could even help us comprehend the origin and distribution of dark matter
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 | Laser used as a frequency comb-an ultraprecise technique for measuring different colors of light-could boost the sensitivity of astronomical tools searching for other Earthlike planets as much as 100 fold ...> Full Article |
The sun's movement through the Milky Way regularly sends comets hurtling into the inner solar system - coinciding with mass life extinctions on earth
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 | The fate of stars that venture too close to massive black holes could be even more violent than previously believed ...> Full Article |
 | Stunning images, obtained by ESO staff at Paranal, of the green and blue flashes, as well as of the so-called 'Gegenschein', are real cases in point. ...> Full Article |
 | Using observations from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), an international team of astronomers has discovered a timing mechanism that allows them to predict exactly when a superdense star will unleash incredibly powerful explosions. ...> Full Article |
 | Discovery helps solve riddle of where the carbon white dwarfs come from, and what happens to their hydrogen and helium ...> Full Article |
 | Chondritic meteorites have a similar chemical composition to the sun and are therefore reliable witnesses as to what the solar nebula, from which the planets formed, was composed of ...> Full Article |
 | A team of astronomers looking at the universe's distant past found nine young, unusually compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists appear to have solved a long-standing mystery about the cause of anomalies in Jupiter's gossamer rings. ...> Full Article |
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Ancient DNA from rare fossil reveals that polar bears evolved recently and adapted quickly
'Anaconda' meets 'Jurassic Park': Study shows ancient snakes ate dinosaur babies
Scientists locate apparent hydrothermal vents off Antarctica
Artificial bee silk a big step closer to reality
Predicting the fate of stem cells
Artificial foot recycles energy for easier walking
New fiber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing
What drives our genes? Researchers map the first complete human epigenome
Juggling enhances connections in the brain
Tracking down the human 'odorprint'
Fill 'er up - with algae
Scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos
Researchers help identify cows that gain more while eating less
Most extreme white dwarf binary system found with orbit of just 5 minutes
Lava likely made river-like channel on Mars
Biggest, deepest crater exposes hidden, ancient moon
Phobos flyby success
The cosmic bat
First signal received by future telescope
NASA's Fermi probes 'dragons' of the gamma-ray sky
Astronomically large lenses measure the age and size of the universe
First of missing primitive stars discovered
Mars Express heading for closest flyby of Phobos
First measurement of the age of cometary material
Light, wind and fire