News tagged with light years
Cosmic calculations: Advance will help astrophysicists explore where stars are born
A University of Delaware-led research team reports an advance in the June 1 issue of Science that may help astrophysicists more accurately analyze the vast molecular clouds of gas and dust where stars are bo ...
May 31, 2012 |
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Newfound exoplanet may turn to dust
Researchers at MIT, NASA and elsewhere have detected a possible planet, some 1,500 light years away, that appears to be evaporating under the blistering heat of its parent star. The scientists infer that a ...
May 18, 2012 |
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Do the Milky Way's companions spell trouble for dark matter?
(Phys.org) -- Astronomers from the University of Bonn in Germany have discovered a vast structure of satellite galaxies and clusters of stars surrounding our Galaxy, stretching out across a million light years. ...
Apr 25, 2012 |
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Astronomers identify 12-billion-year-old white dwarf stars
A University of Oklahoma assistant professor and colleagues have identified two white dwarf stars considered the oldest and closest known to man. Astronomers identified these 11- to 12-billion-year-old white dwarf stars only ...
Apr 11, 2012 |
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A cannibalistic galaxy with a powerful heart
Observations by the two of the European Space Agency's space observatories have provided a multi-wavelength view of the mysterious galaxy Centaurus A. The new images, from the Herschel Space Observatory and ...
Apr 04, 2012 |
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e-MERLIN's deep radio survey of the Hubble Deep Field: first results
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers at Jodrell Bank Observatory have begun the deepest ever high-resolution radio imaging of the region around the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), the images originally captured ...
Mar 27, 2012 |
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Watching a star explode
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for March 22 features a snapshot of a supernova - a massive star explosion - discovered only a week ago.
Mar 23, 2012 |
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Gravitational lens reveals details of distant, ancient galaxy
Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, University of Chicago scientists working with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have obtained a uniquely close-up look at the brightest gravitationally ...
Mar 08, 2012 |
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Do black holes help stars form?
(PhysOrg.com) -- The center of just about every galaxy is thought to host a black hole, some with masses of thousands of millions of Suns and consequently strong gravitational pulls that disrupt material around ...
Feb 03, 2012 |
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Gaseous ring around young star raises questions
(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have detected a mysterious ring of carbon monoxide gas around the young star V1052 Cen, which is about 700 light years away in the southern constellation Centaurus. The ring is ...
Jan 19, 2012 |
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Re-thinking an alien world
Forty light years from Earth, a rocky world named "55 Cancri e" circles perilously close to a stellar inferno. Completing one orbit in only 18 hours, the alien planet is 26 times closer to its parent star than Mercury ...
Jan 16, 2012 |
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Discovery of three smallest exoplanets: The Barnard's star connection
The discovery of the three smallest planets yet orbiting a distant star, which was announced today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, has an unusual connection to Barnard's star, one ...
Jan 11, 2012 |
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When galaxy clusters collide
A UC Davis graduate student who is leading a study of the collision of galaxy clusters 5 billion light years away will discuss the team's findings today, Jan. 10, in a press briefing at the annual meeting of the American ...
Jan 10, 2012 |
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In glowing, swirling dust, new stars are born
(PhysOrg.com) -- An image taken by UA astrophotographer Adam Block, chosen by NASA as Astronomy Picture of the Day, brings us the best yet glimpse into a stellar nursery about 450 light years away from Earth.
Dec 09, 2011 |
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Astronomers discover biggest black holes ever (Update)
University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, ...
Dec 05, 2011 |
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Light-year
A light-year or light year (symbol: ly) is a unit of length, equal to just under 1013 kilometres. As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year.
The light-year is often used to measure distances to stars and other distances on a galactic scale, especially in non-specialist and popular science publications. The preferred unit in astrometry is the parsec, because it can be more easily derived from, and compared with, observational data. The parsec is defined as the distance at which an object will appear to move one arcsecond of parallax when the observer moves one astronomical unit perpendicular to the line of sight to the observer, and is equal to approximately 3.26 light-years.
The related unit of the light-month, roughly one-twelfth of a light-year, is also used occasionally for approximate measures.
For more information about Light-year, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
