http://phys.org/space-news/astronomy/ en-us Phys.Org provides the latest news on astronomy, space, earth science and space exploration. Johnny Cash may have preferred this galaxy's burning ring of fire to the one he sang about falling into in his popular song. The "starburst ring" seen at center in red and yellow hues is not the product of love, as in the song, but is instead a frenetic region of star formation. http://phys.org/news288096834.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:01 EST news288096834 (Phys.org) —An international team of astronomers have reported the first scientific results from the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7) in South Africa, the pathfinder radio telescope for the $3 billion global Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project. http://phys.org/news287920526.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 16 May 2013 10:55:41 EST news287920526 (Phys.org) —A team of researchers from the U.S. and Israel has deduced that the winds that blow on Uranus and Neptune are confined to relatively thin atmospheric layers. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they used data from Voyager 2, ground based satellites and models to work out the thickness of the weather systems on the two ice giants. http://phys.org/news287912783.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 16 May 2013 09:00:03 EST news287912783 NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope is broken, potentially jeopardizing the search for other worlds where life could exist outside our solar system. http://phys.org/news287854576.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 15 May 2013 16:38:28 EST news287854576 (Phys.org) —This composite image of a galaxy illustrates how the intense gravity of a supermassive black hole can be tapped to generate immense power. The image contains X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), optical light obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (gold) and radio waves from the NSF's Very Large Array (pink). http://phys.org/news287850971.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 15 May 2013 15:36:34 EST news287850971 (Phys.org) —Bright arcs are smeared around the heart of galaxy cluster Abell S1077 in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble space telescope. The arcs are stretched images of distant galaxies distorted by the cluster's enormous gravitational field. http://phys.org/news287822870.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 15 May 2013 07:48:02 EST news287822870 (Phys.org) —This dramatic new image of cosmic clouds in the constellation of Orion reveals what seems to be a fiery ribbon in the sky. This orange glow represents faint light coming from grains of cold interstellar dust, at wavelengths too long for human eyes to see. It was observed by the ESO-operated Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) in Chile. http://phys.org/news287812762.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 15 May 2013 06:00:01 EST news287812762 (Phys.org) —Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., now have the capability to systematically investigate the molecular evolution of cosmic carbon. For the first time, these scientists are able to automatically interpret previously unknown infrared emissions from space that come from surprisingly complex organic molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are abundant and important across the universe. http://phys.org/news287764446.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 14 May 2013 15:34:13 EST news287764446 (Phys.org) —Detecting alien worlds presents a significant challenge since they are small, faint, and close to their stars. The two most prolific techniques for finding exoplanets are radial velocity (looking for wobbling stars) and transits (looking for dimming stars). A team at Tel Aviv University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has just discovered an exoplanet using a new method that relies on Einstein's special theory of relativity. http://phys.org/news287652362.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 13 May 2013 08:50:01 EST news287652362 Scientific studies done with the "PAPER" array, one of the world-class scientific instruments in South Africa's Karoo Radio Astronomy Reserve, is producing ground-breaking science and spectacular cosmic images, resulting in several important articles in top astronomy journals. http://phys.org/news287648942.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 13 May 2013 07:29:15 EST news287648942 (Phys.org) —When we look into the distant cosmos, the great majority of the objects we see are galaxies: immense gatherings of stars, planets, gas, dust, and dark matter, showing up in all kind of shapes. This Hubble picture registers several, but the galaxy catalogued as 2MASX J05210136-2521450 stands out at a glance due to its interesting shape. http://phys.org/news287642777.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 13 May 2013 05:47:39 EST news287642777 (Phys.org) —Gone are the days of being able to count the number of known planets on your fingers. Today, there are more than 800 confirmed exoplanets—planets that orbit stars beyond our sun—and more than 2,700 other candidates. What are these exotic planets made of? Unfortunately, you cannot stack them in a jar like marbles and take a closer look. Instead, researchers are coming up with advanced techniques for probing the planets' makeup. http://phys.org/news287333579.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 09 May 2013 15:53:11 EST news287333579 (Phys.org) —The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found signs of Earth-like planets in an unlikely place: the atmospheres of a pair of burnt-out stars in a nearby star cluster. The white dwarf stars are being polluted by debris from asteroid-like objects falling onto them. This discovery suggests that rocky planet assembly is common in clusters, say researchers. http://phys.org/news287315317.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 09 May 2013 10:48:52 EST news287315317 It is obvious from the data of the KASCADE-Grande experiment at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) that the so-called "knee" of the cosmic rays, a bend in the energy spectrum at high energies, is located at different energies for light and heavy particles. As regards light particles, the scientists have now found that the energy spectrum flattens again beyond the knee and forms a type of "ankle". This structure indicates that cosmic radiation particles with energies beyond the knee are accelerated in galaxies other than the Milky Way. http://phys.org/news287297469.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 09 May 2013 05:52:56 EST news287297469 (Phys.org) —Astronomers are asking volunteers to help them search for "space warps." More commonly known as "gravitational lenses," these are rare systems with very massive galaxies or clusters of galaxies that bend light around them so that they act rather like giant lenses in space, creating beautiful mirages. http://phys.org/news287245556.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 08 May 2013 15:26:20 EST news287245556 (Phys.org) —In a dark, starless patch of intergalactic space, astronomers have discovered a never-before-seen cluster of hydrogen clouds strewn between two nearby galaxies, Andromeda (M31) and Triangulum (M33). The researchers speculate that these rarefied blobs of gas—each about as massive as a dwarf galaxy—condensed out of a vast and as-yet undetected reservoir of hot, ionized gas, which could have accompanied an otherwise invisible band of dark matter. http://phys.org/news287236352.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 08 May 2013 13:00:09 EST news287236352 (Phys.org) —ESA's Herschel space observatory has made detailed observations of surprisingly hot molecular gas that may be orbiting or falling towards the supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. http://phys.org/news287137545.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 07 May 2013 09:26:04 EST news287137545 (Phys.org) —Our galaxy is teeming with a wild variety of planets. In addition to our solar system's eight near-and-dear planets, there are more than 800 so-called exoplanets known to circle stars beyond our sun. One of the first "species" of exoplanets to be discovered is the hot Jupiters, also known as roasters. These are gas giants like Jupiters, but they orbit closely to their stars, blistering under the heat. http://phys.org/news287077834.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 06 May 2013 16:50:58 EST news287077834 (Phys.org) —When a massive star exhausts its fuel, it collapses under its own gravity and produces a black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravitational grip. According to a new analysis by an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), just before the black hole forms, the dying star may generate a distinct burst of light that will allow astronomers to witness the birth of a new black hole for the first time. http://phys.org/news286821344.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 03 May 2013 17:35:56 EST news286821344 (Phys.org) —These delicate wisps of gas make up an object known as SNR B0519-69.0, or SNR 0519 for short. The thin, blood-red shells are actually the remnants from when an unstable progenitor star exploded violently as a supernova around 600 years ago. There are several types of supernovae, but for SNR 0519 the star that exploded is known to have been a white dwarf star—a Sun-like star in the final stages of its life. http://phys.org/news286812372.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 03 May 2013 15:06:23 EST news286812372 A record-setting blast of gamma rays from a dying star in a distant galaxy has wowed astronomers around the world. The eruption, which is classified as a gamma-ray burst, or GRB, and designated GRB 130427A, produced the highest-energy light ever detected from such an event. http://phys.org/news286808511.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 03 May 2013 14:03:22 EST news286808511 Alien worlds resembling giant eyeballs might exist around red dwarf stars, and researchers are now proposing experiments to simulate these distant planets and see how capable they are of supporting life. http://phys.org/news286787441.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 03 May 2013 09:00:01 EST news286787441 At this early stage in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system and beyond, the emphasis is on liquid water. Where it can exist on a planet's or moon's surface, so the thinking goes, life as we know it has a chance. Much of the observational and theoretical work in astrobiology therefore concerns the "habitable zone," the orbital band around stars where a rocky world's water neither freezes away nor boils off. http://phys.org/news286782360.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 03 May 2013 07:10:01 EST news286782360 (Phys.org) —Physicists analysing observations from the Herschel Space Observatory have shown that galaxies in the early Universe were cooler than those we see around us today. http://phys.org/news286782249.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Fri, 03 May 2013 06:44:17 EST news286782249 (Phys.org) —The Danish 1.54-meter telescope located at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud. http://phys.org/news286705435.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Thu, 02 May 2013 09:24:01 EST news286705435 (Phys.org) —Astronomers at the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research (SOAR) and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) have demonstrated the significant difference that sharp stellar images can make in our understanding of the properties of stars. They have observed the globular cluster NGC 6496 using a new instrument dubbed SAM, for SOAR Adaptive Module, which creates an artificial laser guide star. SAM, built by CTIO/NOAO-S, is mounted on the SOAR 4.1 meter telescope. http://phys.org/news286624726.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Wed, 01 May 2013 10:58:52 EST news286624726 (Phys.org) —Scientists have used Chandra to make a detailed study of an enormous cloud of hot gas enveloping two large, colliding galaxies. This unusually large reservoir of gas contains as much mass as 10 billion Suns, spans about 300,000 light years, and radiates at a temperature of more than 7 million degrees. http://phys.org/news286564637.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:17:51 EST news286564637 (Phys.org) —Staring at a small patch of sky for more than 50 hours with the ultra-sensitive Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers have for the first time identified discrete sources that account for nearly all the radio waves coming from distant galaxies. They found that about 63 percent of the background radio emission comes from galaxies with gorging black holes at their cores and the remaining 37 percent comes from galaxies that are rapidly forming stars. http://phys.org/news286543949.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:32:37 EST news286543949 An international team of astronomers, including Alexandre Santerne of the EXOEarths team at CAUP, identified and characterized two new exoplanets, thanks to combined observations from the Kepler space telescope, plus SOPHIE and HARPS-N spectrographs. http://phys.org/news286523346.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:49:37 EST news286523346 Europe's deep-space Herschel telescope has given up the ghost—running out of coolant after a successful mission to observe the birth of stars and galaxies, the European Space Agency said Monday. http://phys.org/news286461954.html Space & Earth - Astronomy Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:46:09 EST news286461954