Close-up view of galaxies prompts re-think on star formation
Astronomers have identified for the first time one of the key components of many stars, a study suggests.
Astronomy
Nov 10, 2015
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News tagged with molecular gas
Peeking into our galaxy's stellar nursery
Astronomers have long turned their telescopes, be they on satellites in space or observatories on Earth, to the wide swaths of interstellar medium to get a look at the formation and birth of stars. However, the images produced ...
Astronomy
Oct 5, 2015
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Highest resolution image ever obtained for the planetary nebula NGC 2346
NOAO scientists, using the Gemini Observatory 8-meter telescope in Chile, have obtained the highest resolution image ever obtained for the planetary nebula NGC 2346. Shaped like a butterfly, or an hourglass, but known scientifically ...
Astronomy
Jul 10, 2015
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ALMA weighs supermassive black hole at center of distant spiral galaxy
Supermassive black holes lurk at the center of every large galaxy. These cosmic behemoths can be millions to billions of times more massive than the Sun. Determining just how massive, however, has been daunting, especially ...
Astronomy
Jun 18, 2015
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Water was plentiful in the early universe
Astronomers have long held that water—two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom—was a relative latecomer to the universe. They believed that any element heavier than helium had to have been formed in the cores of stars and ...
Astronomy
May 13, 2015
4
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An improved model for star formation
Star formation, once thought to consist essentially of just the simple coalescence of material by gravity, actually occurs in a complex series of stages. As the gas and dust in giant molecular clouds come together into stars, ...
Astronomy
May 8, 2015
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ALMA discovers proto super star cluster—a cosmic 'dinosaur egg' about to hatch
Globular clusters—dazzling agglomerations of up to a million ancient stars—are among the oldest objects in the universe. Though plentiful in and around many galaxies, newborn examples are vanishingly rare and the conditions ...
Astronomy
May 7, 2015
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Water could have been abundant in the first billion years
How soon after the Big Bang could water have existed? Not right away, because water molecules contain oxygen and oxygen had to be formed in the first stars. Then that oxygen had to disperse and unite with hydrogen in significant ...
Astronomy
Apr 28, 2015
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Comet probe Rosetta detects the 'most wanted molecule'
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has made the first measurement of molecular nitrogen at a comet, providing clues about the temperature environment in which Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko formed.
Space Exploration
Mar 20, 2015
4
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Caging of molecules allows investigation of equilibrium thermodynamics
High performance materials for gas storage, thermal insulators or nanomachines need a thorough understanding of the behavior of the material down to the molecular level. Thermodynamics, which have been developed two hundred ...
Nanophysics
Feb 26, 2015
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