VLT clears up dusty mystery

A group of astronomers has been able to follow stardust being made in real time—during the aftermath of a supernova explosion. For the first time they show that these cosmic dust factories make their grains in a two-stage ...

Magnetar formation mystery solved?

Magnetars are the super-dense remnants of supernova explosions. They are the strongest magnets known in the Universe—millions of times more powerful than the strongest magnets on Earth. A team of astronomers using ESO's ...

Paleontologists discover new fossil organism

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have discovered a fossil of a newly discovered organism from the "Ediacara Biota"—a group of organisms that occurred in the Ediacaran period of geologic time.

A 3-D model of stellar core collapse

(Phys.org) —What happens when massive stars collapse? One potential result is a core-collapse supernova. Astronomers can make observations of such events that tell us what is happening on the surface of a star when it explodes ...

Ancient sea creatures filtered food like modern whales

The animals lived 520 million years ago during the Early Cambrian, a period known as the 'Cambrian Explosion' in which all the major animal groups and complex ecosystems suddenly appeared. Tamisiocaris belongs to a group ...

NuSTAR telescope takes first peek into core of supernova

(Phys.org) —Astronomers have peered for the first time into the heart of an exploding star in the final minutes of its existence. The feat by the high-energy X-ray satellite NuSTAR provides details of the physics of the ...

Nearest supernova in 27 years explodes in M82 galaxy

(Phys.org) —A supernova has been spotted in the constellation Ursa Major (between the Big and Little Dipper in the night sky) in the M82 galaxy (affectionately known as the cigar galaxy) by a team of students at University ...

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