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All Articles Tagged As: constellations
 | The constellation Cygnus, now visible in the western sky as twilight deepens after sunset, hosts one of our galaxy's richest-known stellar construction zones. Astronomers viewing the region at visible wavelengths see only hints of this spectacular activity thanks to a veil of nearby dust clouds forming the Great Rift, a dark lane that splits the Milky Way, a faint band of light marking our galaxy's central plane. ...> Full Article |
 | A team of European astronomers has used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to track down a star in the Milky Way that many thought was impossible. They discovered that this star is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, placing it in the "forbidden zone" of a widely accepted theory of star formation, meaning that it should never have come into existence. The results will appear in the Sept. 1, 2011, issue of the journal Nature. ...> Full Article |
 | The Cat's Paw Nebula, NGC 6334, is a huge stellar nursery, the birthplace of hundreds of massive stars. In a magnificent new ESO image taken with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, the glowing gas and dust clouds obscuring the view are penetrated by infrared light and some of the Cat's hidden young stars are revealed. ...> Full Article |
 | Herschel has peered inside an unseen stellar nursery and revealed surprising amounts of activity. Some 700 newly-forming stars are estimated to be crowded into filaments of dust stretching through the image. The image is the first new release of "OSHI," ESA's Online Showcase of Herschel Images. ...> Full Article |
 | New observations of Alcor, one of the stars that makes the constellation known as the Big Dipper's, have uncovered a smaller companion star named Alcor B. Project 1640 was able to show that the two stars moved together using "common parallactic motion." ...> 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 |
 | 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 |
 | Today ESO has released a new and stunning image of the sky around the Eagle Nebula, a stellar nursery where infant star clusters carve out monster columns of dust and gas. ...> Full Article |
When it comes to the theory of how massive stars form, the devil is in the details. We know the basics: a cloud of cosmic gas draws itself together, growing denser and hotter until nuclear fusion ignites. But how does massive star formation begin? What determines how many stars form from a single cloud? New data from the Submillimeter Array, a joint project of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is helping to answer these questions.
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 | The festive season has arrived for astronomers at the European Southern Observatory in the form of this dramatic new image. It shows the swirling gas around the region known as NGC 2264 -- an area of sky that includes the sparkling blue baubles of the Christmas Tree star cluster. ...> Full Article |
Scientists have discovered a possible terrestrial-type planet orbiting a star in the constellation of Leo
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 | Probing a glowing bubble of gas and dust encircling a dying star, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a wealth of previously unseen structures. ...> Full Article |
 | Hundreds of millions - or even billions - of years after planets would have initially formed around two unusual stars, a second wave of planetesimal and planet formation appears to be taking place, UCLA astronomers and colleagues believe. ...> Full Article |
 | Astronomers have found the best evidence yet of matter spiraling outward from a young, still-forming star in fountain-like jets. Due to the spiral motion, the jets help the star to grow by drawing angular momentum from the surrounding accretion disk. ...> Full Article |
 | All five of the planets visible with the unaided eye will be on display during November nights, but the special attraction will be Mars. The red planet is approaching Earth in its orbit, and it won't appear as large again for another nine years. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers' equations suggest gravitational lensing could lead astronomers to 'naked singularities,' if such entities exist despite being banned by 'cosmic censorship' ...> Full Article |
 | As the summer sun recedes, it makes way for the autumn stars sweeping in. Many belong to water constellations like Pisces, Capricornus, and Aquarius, which are now chasing the Milky Way westward. Late evenings are graced by a furiously brightening Mars, and approaching morning sees Venus soar to a lofty throne, there to preside until the break of day. ...> Full Article |
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