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Astronomy News and Research - November 2009 Archives
 | A new Web site developed by researchers at George Mason University and Oxford University will give everyone the chance to contribute to science by playing a "cosmic slot machine" and comparing images of colliding galaxies with millions of simulated images of galactic pile-ups. ...> Full Article |
 | Peering through the thick dust clouds of our galaxy's "bulge" (the myriads of stars surrounding its center), a team of astronomers has unveiled an unusual mix of stars in the stellar grouping known as Terzan 5. Never observed anywhere in the bulge before, this peculiar "cocktail" of stars suggests that Terzan 5 is in fact one of the bulge's primordial building blocks, most likely the relic of a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way during its very early days. ...> Full Article |
 | In a newly published study, scientists used an innovative computer program to produce a more detailed global map of Mars' valley networks. It shows the networks are much more extensive than had been previously depicted. Regions that are most densely dissected by the valley networks roughly form a belt around the planet, consistent with a past climate scenario that included precipitation and the presence of an ocean covering a large portion of Mars' northern hemisphere. ...> Full Article |
 | The first large black holes in the universe likely formed and grew deep inside gigantic, starlike cocoons that smothered their powerful X-ray radiation and prevented surrounding gases from being blown away, says a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
...> Full Article |
 | Information field theory enables astronomers, medical practitioners and geologists to look into places where their measuring instruments are blind. ...> Full Article |
 | A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO's 3.58-meter New Technology Telescope, allows astronomers to see through the opaque dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A, unveiling its "last meal" in unprecedented detail -- a smaller spiral galaxy, currently twisted and warped. This amazing image also shows thousands of star clusters, strewn like glittering gems, churning inside Centaurus A. ...> Full Article |
 | Thirty-five radio telescopes on seven continents, a new record, will work together to strengthen the basic measuring grid for celestial positions. The improved reference frame will benefit both astronomy and geophysics. ...> Full Article |
Solar coronal seismology based on magnetic field-line stretching model of "EIT waves" is proposed, which is demonstrated to be potentially able to probe the mysterious magnetic field in the solar corona. The study is reported in Issue 52 of Science in China (G) because of its significant research value.
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 | Using ESO's Very Large Telescope and its ability to obtain images as sharp as if taken from space, astronomers have made the first time-lapse movie of a rather unusual shell ejected by a "vampire star." This enabled astronomers to determine the distance and intrinsic brightness of the outbursting object. It appears that this double star system is a prime candidate to be one of the long-sought progenitors of the exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae, critical for studies of dark energy. ...> Full Article |
In a partnership that exemplifies One NASA, engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., teamed up with engineers at NASA's Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to design, build, and test five new ExPRESS Logistics Carriers, or ELCs, which will be delivered to the International Space Station. "ExPRESS" stands for Expedite the Processing of Experiments to the Space Station.
...> Full Article
 | Just as many people are surprised to find themselves packing on unexplained weight around the middle, astronomers find the evolution of bulges in the centers of spiral galaxies puzzling. A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 4710 is part of a survey that astronomers have conducted to learn more about the formation of bulges, which are a substantial component of most spiral galaxies. ...> Full Article |
 | A new high-resolution time-lapse movie reveals the process of massive star formation with radio images a thousand times sharper and more detailed than any previously obtained. The movie shows that massive stars form like their smaller siblings, with disk accretion and magnetic fields playing crucial roles. ...> Full Article |
 | While astronomers have studied lightweight and heavyweight black holes for decades, the evidence for black holes with intermediate masses has been much harder to come by. Now, astronomers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., find that an X-ray source in galaxy NGC 5408 represents one of the best cases for a middleweight black hole to date. ...> Full Article |
When Europe's comet chaser Rosetta swings by Earth tomorrow for a critical gravity assist, tracking data will be collected to precisely measure the satellite's change in orbital energy. The results could help unravel a cosmic mystery that has stumped scientists for two decades.
...> Full Article
 | Tel Aviv University's Professor Colin Price has developed a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun's rotation when sunspots aren't visible -- and even when they are -- based on observations of common lightning strikes on earth. ...> Full Article |
 | A ground-breaking census of 500 stars, 70 of which are known to host planets, has successfully linked the long-standing "lithium mystery" observed in the Sun to the presence of planetary systems. Using ESO's successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that sun-like stars that host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than "planet-free" stars. ...> Full Article |
 | The SUNRISE telescope delivers spectacular pictures of the sun's surface. ...> Full Article |
 | The Universe's infant galaxies enjoyed rapid growth spurts forming stars like our sun at a rate of up to 50 stars a year, according to scientists at Durham University.
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Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms, and Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, has been awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather.
...> Full Article
 | Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionization epoch likely began. ...> Full Article |
 | A new class of supernova was discovered by scientists at Berkeley and may be the first example of a new type of exploding star. A team of astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara had predicted this kind of explosion in their theoretical work. ...> Full Article |
 | Dust samples collected from the stratosphere have yielded an unexpectedly rich trove of relicts from the ancient cosmos, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution. The dust includes presolar grains and material from interstellar molecular clouds. This "ultra-primitive" material likely wafted into the atmosphere after the Earth passed through the trail of an Earth-crossing comet in 2003, giving scientists a rare opportunity to study cometary dust in the laboratory. ...> Full Article |
 | Nearly 100 years ago, scientists detected the first signs of cosmic rays -- subatomic particles that zip through space at nearly the speed of light. The most energetic cosmic rays hit with the punch of a 98-mph fastball, even though they are smaller than an atom. Astronomers questioned what force could accelerate particles to such a speed. New evidence from the VERITAS telescopes shows that cosmic rays likely are powered by exploding stars and stellar "winds." ...> Full Article |
 | Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called "starburst" galaxies, plus a satellite of our own Milky Way galaxy, represent a new category of gamma-ray-emitting objects detected both by Fermi and ground-based observatories. ...> Full Article |
 | Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object. ...> Full Article |
 | Iowa State University researchers have contributed to the discovery of high-energy gamma rays coming from a galaxy that's quickly creating new stars. The discovery has just been published in the journal Nature. A key to the research is the VERITAS telescope system that Iowa State researchers helped build. ...> Full Article |
 | The University of Utah will celebrate the initial observations or "first light" of its new $860,000 research telescope in southwest Utah during a Wednesday, Nov. 11 symposium and reception on the Salt Lake City campus. The new Willard L. Eccles Observatory's 32-inch reflecting telescope took its first pictures the night of Oct. 15 from the 9,600-foot level on Frisco Peak in southern Utah. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers have tracked down a gigantic, previously unknown assembly of galaxies located almost seven billion light-years away from us. The discovery, made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world, is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant Universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed. ...> Full Article |
 | Solar wind generated by the sun is probably driven by a process involving powerful magnetic fields, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers based on the latest observations from the Hinode satellite. ...> Full Article |
 | A detailed picture of the seeds of structures in the universe has been unveiled by an international team co-led by Sarah Church of KIPAC, jointly located SLAC and Stanford University, and by Walter Gear, of Cardiff University. These measurements put limits on proposed alternatives to the standard model of cosmology and provide further support for the standard cosmological model, confirming that dark matter and dark energy make up 95 percent of everything in existence. ...> Full Article |
 | The combination of images taken by three exceptional telescopes, the ESO Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal, the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at ESO's La Silla observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, has allowed the stunning Jewel Box star cluster to be seen in a whole new light. ...> Full Article |
 | Cobbling together 3,000 individual photographs, a physicist has made a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky, with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. ...> Full Article |
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