Astronomy news
Scientists gear up to take a picture of a black hole
On Wednesday, Jan. 18, astronomers, physicists and scientists from related fields will convene in Tucson, Ariz. from across the world to discuss an endeavor that only a few years ago would have been regarded as nothing less ...
Jan 14, 2012 |
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Astrophysicists find evidence of black holes' destruction of stars
Astrophysicists have found evidence of black holes destroying stars, a long-sought phenomenon that provides a new window into general relativity. The research, reported in the latest issue of the Astrophysical Jo ...
Oct 11, 2011 |
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Spitzer detects comet storm in nearby solar system
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected signs of icy bodies raining down in an alien solar system. The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period ...
Oct 20, 2011 |
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Giant planet ejected from the solar system
(PhysOrg.com) -- Just as an expert chess player sacrifices a piece to protect the queen, the solar system may have given up a giant planet and spared the Earth, according to an article recently published in ...
Nov 10, 2011 |
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How supermassive black holes came into existence shortly after the Big Bang
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Bruce and Astrid McWilliams Center for Cosmology have discovered what caused the rapid growth of early supermassive black holes — a steady ...
Dec 12, 2011 |
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Earliest-yet observation of August SN2011fe supernova nails it: Destroyed star was white dwarf
Last year's discovery of the nearest Type Ia supernova in decades – captured only 11 hours after it exploded – allowed astronomers to finally cinch the identity of the stars behind these explosions, which have become ...
Jan 11, 2012 |
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Kepler confirms its first planet in habitable zone of sun-like star
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 ...
Dec 05, 2011 |
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Scientists find potentially habitable planet near Earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of planet hunters led by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet (three ...
Sep 29, 2010 |
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Alien world is blacker than coal
(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have discovered the darkest known exoplanet - a distant, Jupiter-sized gas giant known as TrES-2b. Their measurements show that TrES-2b reflects less than one percent of the sunlight ...
Aug 11, 2011 |
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Astronomers find ice and possibly methane on Snow White, a distant dwarf planet
Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered that the dwarf planet 2007 OR10—nicknamed Snow White—is an icy world, with about half its surface covered in water ...
Aug 22, 2011 |
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The universe may have been born spinning, according to new findings on the symmetry of the cosmos
(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists and astronomers have long believed that the universe has mirror symmetry, like a basketball. But recent findings from the University of Michigan suggest that the shape of the Big ...
Jul 08, 2011 |
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Dark matter packs a punch: Milky Way's spiral arms formed by intergalactic collision
The signature spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy were likely formed by an epic collision between the Milky Way and the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy, according to a University of Pittsburgh researcher and his ...
Sep 14, 2011 |
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As cool as the human body: Wise mission discovers coolest class of stars
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered the coldest class of star-like bodies, with temperatures as cool as the human body.
Aug 24, 2011 |
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Habitable planets and white dwarfs
(PhysOrg.com) -- The search for habitable planets similar to Earth has routinely focused around active nuclear burning stars. However, in a recently published paper by Eric Agol from the University of Washington, ...
Mar 22, 2011 |
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Hubble data used to look 10,000 years into the future (w/ Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The globular star cluster Omega Centauri has caught the attention of sky watchers ever since the ancient astronomer Ptolemy first catalogued it 2,000 years ago. Ptolemy, however, thought Omega ...
Oct 26, 2010 |
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