http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. It is now known that most, if not all, of the stars in our Galaxy were born in star clusters. These spherical groupings contain anywhere from a few tens to several million members all milling about under the influence of gravity. But their fate is sealed. All star clusters slowly dissolve over time. "The net effect of this is that their stars eventually become redistributed throughout the Galaxy," said Nathan Leigh, a PhD student at McMaster University and lead author for a study being presented this week at the CASCA 2011 meeting in Ontario, Canada. "This is how we think most of the stars in the Milky Way came to be found in their currently observed locations." http://phys.org/news226171203.html Space & Earth Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:40:01 EST news226171203 (PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny crystals of a green mineral called olivine are falling down like rain on a burgeoning star, according to observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. http://phys.org/news225712314.html Space & Earth Fri, 27 May 2011 10:52:24 EST news225712314 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Great Nebula in the constellation of Carina is a massive star-forming complex located about 7.5 thousand light-years away. The main star in the complex, Eta Carinae, shines brightly in the southern sky. Its ensemble of stellar clusters are young and hot, with ages that range from less than about one million years to about six million years. Altogether, the region contains one of the richest concentrations of massive young stars in the galaxy. In addition, the region is rich in non-stellar material including filaments, pillars, cavities, arcs, and other features indicative of a turbulent and complex history. http://phys.org/news224760416.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 May 2011 10:27:18 EST news224760416 (PhysOrg.com) -- Multiple stars - binaries, triplets, or perhaps more stars, that orbit each other - are unique laboratories into the interactions between stars and their early environments. http://phys.org/news222331637.html Space & Earth Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:47:44 EST news222331637 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have come up with a new way of identifying close, faint stars with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite. The technique should help in the hunt for planets that lie beyond our solar system, because nearby, hard-to-see stars could very well be home to the easiest-to-see alien planets. http://phys.org/news221479849.html Space & Earth Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:00:04 EST news221479849 The vivid red cloud in this new image from ESO's Very Large Telescope is a region of glowing hydrogen surrounding the star cluster NGC 371. This stellar nursery lies in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud. http://phys.org/news220686730.html Space & Earth Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:53:01 EST news220686730 (PhysOrg.com) -- This swirling landscape of stars is known as the North America Nebula. In visible light, the region resembles North America, but in this new infrared view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the continent disappears. http://phys.org/news220091533.html Space & Earth Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:34:08 EST news220091533 (PhysOrg.com) -- The region around the center of our Milky Way galaxy glows colorfully in this new version of an image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. http://phys.org/news219921917.html Space & Earth Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:25:36 EST news219921917 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new image from ESO's Very Large Telescope gives a close-up view of the dramatic effects newborn stars have on the gas and dust from which they formed. Although the stars themselves are not visible, material they have ejected is colliding with the surrounding gas and dust clouds and creating a surreal landscape of glowing arcs, blobs and streaks. http://phys.org/news219485691.html Space & Earth Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:15:21 EST news219485691 (PhysOrg.com) -- The wispy arms of the Tarantula Nebula were originally thought to resemble spindly spider legs, giving the nebula its unusual name. The part of the nebula visible in this image from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys is criss-crossed with tendrils of dust and gas churned up by recent supernovae. These supernova remnants include NGC 2060, visible above and to the left of the centre of this image, which contains the brightest known pulsar. http://phys.org/news219387335.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:55:59 EST news219387335 (PhysOrg.com) -- Cardiff University astronomers believe that a young star's long "napping" could trigger the formation of a second generation of smaller stars and planets orbiting around it. http://phys.org/news218890848.html Space & Earth Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:01:33 EST news218890848 (PhysOrg.com) -- Arp 220 is the closest galaxy to the Milly Way with an extreme luminosity, defined as being more than about 300 times that of our own galaxy. Some dramatic galaxies have values of luminosity ten times brighter still. Astronomers are still piecing together the reasons for these huge energy outputs, while sorting out why our own galaxy is so modest. http://phys.org/news217516826.html Space & Earth Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:20:51 EST news217516826 (PhysOrg.com) -- Planets form in disks of dust and gas that surround young stars. A look at the birth places means a journey into the past of the earth and its siblings. Now, astronomers have been able to obtain detailed images of the protoplanetary disks of two stars using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. This is the first time that disk structures comparable in size to our own solar system have been resolved this clearly, revealing features such as rings and gaps that are associated with the formation of giant planets. The observations are part of a systematic survey to search for planets and disks around young stars using a state-of-the-art high-contrast camera designed specifically for this purpose. http://phys.org/news217182366.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:26:34 EST news217182366 (PhysOrg.com) -- Stars at all stages of development, from dusty little tots to young adults, are on display in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. http://phys.org/news216654908.html Space & Earth Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:55:33 EST news216654908 (PhysOrg.com) -- A deep survey of more than 200,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy has unveiled the sometimes petulant behavior of tiny red dwarf stars. These stars, which are smaller than the Sun, can unleash powerful eruptions called flares that may release the energy of more than 100 million atomic bombs. http://phys.org/news213907222.html Space & Earth Mon, 10 Jan 2011 18:40:49 EST news213907222 (PhysOrg.com) -- This mosaic image is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of the starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). The galaxy is remarkable for its bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions. http://phys.org/news212342120.html Space & Earth Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:00:12 EST news212342120 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have found the first evidence of a magnetic field in a jet of material ejected from a young star, a discovery that points toward future breakthroughs in understanding the nature of all types of cosmic jets and of the role of magnetic fields in star formation. http://phys.org/news209917330.html Space & Earth Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:23:03 EST news209917330 (PhysOrg.com) -- Elliptical galaxies were once thought to be aging star cities whose star-making heyday was billions of years ago. http://phys.org/news209315718.html Space & Earth Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:15:34 EST news209315718 For young stars, stellar outflows are the rule. T Tauri stars and other young stars eject matter in generally collimated jets. However, a region in Orion‘s giant molecular cloud known as the Becklin-Neugebauer/Kleinmann-Low (BN/KL) region, appears to have a clumpy, scattered set of outflows with “finger-like” projections in numerous directions. A new study, led by Luis Zapata at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, explores this odd region. http://phys.org/news209210829.html Space & Earth Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:07:25 EST news209210829 This artist's impression shows how the Arches star cluster appears from deep inside the hub of our Milky Way Galaxy. http://phys.org/news207320702.html Space & Earth Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:05:13 EST news207320702 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Sculptor galaxy is shown in different infrared hues, in this new mosaic from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The main picture is a composite of infrared light captured with all four of the space telescope's infrared detectors. http://phys.org/news206258634.html Space & Earth Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:40:07 EST news206258634 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have discovered a new, cosmic phenomenon, termed "coreshine," which is revealing new information about how stars and planets come to be. http://phys.org/news204477167.html Space & Earth Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:13:08 EST news204477167 Evidence that a star has recently engulfed a companion star or a giant planet has been found using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The likely existence of such a "cannibal" star provides new insight into how stars and the planets around them may interact as they age. http://phys.org/news203684797.html Space & Earth Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:06:53 EST news203684797 Massive stars -- those with more than about eight times the mass of the sun -- are arguably the most important actors in the universe. Much hotter and more luminous than the sun, they live only hundreds of millions of years before exploding in supernovae, but during their lives their nuclear furnaces produce a wide range of chemical elements (the universe was created with primarily hydrogen and helium). http://phys.org/news203337875.html Space & Earth Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:45:24 EST news203337875 (PhysOrg.com) -- This composite image shows the Rosette star formation region, located about 5,000 light years from Earth. http://phys.org/news203182471.html Space & Earth Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:10:04 EST news203182471 (PhysOrg.com) -- How were millions of young stars able to form at the center of our Milky Way galaxy in the presence of an enormous black hole with a mass 4 million times that of the sun? This and other important questions may be answered by the NASA mission SOFIA, which is scheduled to make its first scientific measurements in the next few months. http://phys.org/news202030757.html Space & Earth Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:39:46 EST news202030757 (PhysOrg.com) -- A colourful star-forming region is featured in this stunning new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 2467. Looking like a roiling cauldron of some exotic cosmic brew, huge clouds of gas and dust are sprinkled with bright blue hot young stars. http://phys.org/news198226645.html Space & Earth Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:57:41 EST news198226645 The star R Coronae Australis lies in one of the nearest and most spectacular star-forming regions. This portrait was taken by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The image is a combination of twelve separate pictures taken through red, green and blue filters. http://phys.org/news197111708.html Space & Earth Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:15:33 EST news197111708 (PhysOrg.com) -- Only 12 million years old, or less than three-thousandths of the age of the Sun, Beta Pictoris is 75% more massive than our parent star. It is located about 60 light-years away towards the constellation of Pictor (the Painter) and is one of the best-known examples of a star surrounded by a dusty debris disc [1]. http://phys.org/news195395123.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:00:01 EST news195395123 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new infrared image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, showcases the Tadpole nebula, a star-forming hub in the Auriga constellation about 12,000 light-years from Earth. As WISE scanned the sky, capturing this mosaic of stitched-together frames, it happened to catch an asteroid in our solar system passing by. The asteroid, called 1719 Jens, left tracks across the image, seen as a line of yellow-green dots in the boxes near center. A second asteroid was also observed cruising by, as highlighted in the boxes near the upper left (the larger boxes are blown-up versions of the smaller ones). http://phys.org/news192984667.html Space & Earth Thu, 13 May 2010 15:51:26 EST news192984667