Astronomy News and Research Archives Page 23

Dealing with threatening space rocks (9/24/2007)

Every now and then a space rock hits the world's media - sometimes almost literally. Threatening asteroids that zoom past the Earth, fireballs in the sky seen by hundreds of people and mysterious craters which may have been caused by impacting meteorites; all make ESA's studies on the Don Quijote mission look increasingly timely. ...> Full Article

Observations give precise estimate of Mars surface ice (9/22/2007)

Planetary scientists have found that the southern pole of Mars contains the largest deposit of frozen water in the inner solar system, outside of Earth. ...> Full Article

Newborn stars discovered in dramatic galaxy tail (9/22/2007)

A team of astronomers has discovered a number of stars forming in a section of our universe that is not normally conducive to the birth of stars. ...> Full Article

Galaxy 'Hunting' Made Easy (9/22/2007)

Galaxies found under the Glare of Cosmic Flashlights ...> Full Article

Astronomers Pinpoint Origin of Nature's Most Powerful Magnetic Bursts (9/21/2007)

Astronomers have pinpointed the origin of powerful bursts from nature's most magnetic objects. ...> Full Article

Is there life on Mars? (9/20/2007)

Key components of a new approach to discover life on planet Mars were successfully launched into space today as part of a twelve-day low Earth orbit experiment to assess their survivability when exposed to the space radiation environment - a prelude to future journeys to Mars. ...> Full Article

Google Sponsors Lunar X PRIZE To Create A Space Race For A New Generation (9/19/2007)

The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. announced on September 13 the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a $30 million prize purse. ...> Full Article

A Warm South Pole? Yes, on Neptune! (9/19/2007)

Summer season on Neptune creates escape route for methane ...> Full Article

The Magellanic Clouds Are First-Time Visitors (9/18/2007)

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are two of the Milky Way's closest neighboring galaxies. A stunning sight in the southern hemisphere, they were named after Ferdinand Magellan, who explored those waters in the 16th century. For hundreds of years, these galaxies were considered satellites of the Milky Way, gravitationally bound to our home galaxy. New research by Gurtina Besla (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and her colleagues shows that the Magellanic Clouds are recent arrivals on their first visit to the Milky Way's neighborhood. ...> Full Article

'Missing Dwarf Galaxy' Problem May Be Solved (9/18/2007)

Scientists may have solved a discrepancy between the number of extremely small, faint galaxies predicted to exist near the Milky Way and the number actually observed. ...> Full Article

Rock and antibody blast into space (9/17/2007)

Samples blasted into space to test theories on life being seeded through space on meteorites. ...> Full Article

Russian rocket carries experiment to analyze healthy space travel (9/17/2007)

An experiment that's aimed at healthy space travel and involves Montana State University scientists and students is now orbiting the earth on a Russian space capsule. ...> Full Article

Hubble Captures Stars Going Out In Style (9/17/2007)

The colorful, intricate shapes in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveal how the glowing gas ejected by dying Sun-like stars evolves dramatically over time. ...> Full Article

Large Binocular Telescope Shows That Hercules is Odd, Flat Dwarf Galaxy (9/16/2007)

An international team of astronomers using the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona has discovered that the Hercules Dwarf Galaxy is shaped like a cigar. That makes it an oddball among millions of its peers. ...> Full Article

Saturn's moon Iapetus is the Yin-Yang of the Solar System (9/16/2007)

Cassini scientists are poring through hundreds of images returned from the 10 September fly-by of Saturn's two-toned moon Iapetus. ...> Full Article

Oldest Stars May Shed Light on Dark Matter (9/15/2007)

The universe's earliest stars may hold clues to the nature of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up most of the universe's matter but doesn't interact with light, cosmologists report in the 14 September issue of the journal Science. ...> Full Article

The mysterious ridges at the mouth of Tiu Valles (9/15/2007)

These images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board Mars Express show the mouth of the Tiu Valles channel system on the red planet. ...> Full Article

Stars caught in bizarre death-dance (9/15/2007)

Astronomers played a key role in discovering one of the most bizarre objects in space: a star "skeleton" of very low mass that is orbiting and being slowly consumed by a pulsar, or remains of a second massive star, that is itself spinning faster than a kitchen blender. ...> Full Article

Cassini Flies By Saturn's Walnut-Shaped Moon Iapetus (9/14/2007)

Cassini completed its closest flyby of the odd moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007. The spacecraft flew about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Iapetus' surface and is returning amazing views of the bizarre moon. ...> Full Article

Opportunity Takes A Dip Into Victoria Crater (9/14/2007)

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity entered Victoria Crater for the first time September 11, 2007. It radioed home information via a relay by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, reporting its activities for the day. ...> Full Article

Cluster And Double Star Uncover More On Bright Aurorae (9/14/2007)

Cluster data has helped provide scientists with a new view of magnetospheric processes, challenging existing theories about magnetic substorms that cause aurorae and perturbations in GPS signals. ...> Full Article

New planet discovery announced by astronomers (9/13/2007)

A large team of astronomers, including scientists from the University of Delaware and Mt. Cuba Observatory, has announced that at least one planet in the universe has survived the violent events that accompany the late stages of a star's life cycle. ...> Full Article

Astronomers Will Trace Planet Formation With Neon (9/13/2007)

Astronomers have observed neon in disks of dust and gas swirling around sunlike stars for the first time. ...> Full Article

Centre Creates Largest Ever Catalogue of X-Ray Sources (9/11/2007)

Work aids understanding of violent universe ...> Full Article

Astrophysicists predict most dangerous explosions (9/11/2007)

A team of astrophysicists at The University of Western Australia today announced results from a new computer program that predicts when potentially dangerous bursts of gamma radiation may hit our planet. ...> Full Article

Astronomers eager to add to Sky in Google Earth (9/8/2007)

Since Sky in Google Earth debuted two weeks ago to let the public explore the heavens from their computers, two University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have jumped in to populate Google's sky with the most recently discovered heavenly objects. ...> Full Article

Joint Dark Energy Mission a Top Priority for NASA (9/8/2007)

The National Research Council's Beyond Einstein Program Assessment Committee has recommended that the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), jointly supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy, be the first of NASA's Beyond Einstein cosmology missions to be developed and launched. ...> Full Article

Phoenix Mars Lander Status Report: Radar, Other Gear Pass Checkouts (9/7/2007)

Two crucial tools for a successful landing of America's latest mission to Mars, the radar and UHF radio on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, have passed in-flight checkouts. ...> Full Article

Mice Stressed In Simulated Weightlessness Show Organ Atrophy (9/7/2007)

A ground-based, experimental model used to simulate astronaut weightlessness in space has provided Rutgers scientists an opportunity to study the effects of stress on immune organs. ...> Full Article

New research reveals a large asteroid breakup to be the likely source of the impactor that caused a mass extinction event on Earth 65 million years ago (9/6/2007)

The impactor believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and other life forms on Earth some 65 million years ago has been traced back to a breakup event in the main asteroid belt. A joint U.S.-Czech team from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Charles University in Prague suggests that the parent object of asteroid (298) Baptistina disrupted when it was hit by another large asteroid, creating numerous large fragments that would later create the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the prominent Tycho crater found on the Moon. ...> Full Article