(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the biggest unsolved problems in astrophysics is that galaxies and galaxy clusters rotate faster than expected, given the amount of existing baryonic (normal) matter. The fast orbits ...
Aug 11, 2011
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UCLA astronomers report the discovery of a remarkable star that orbits the enormous black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy in a blistering 11-and-a-half years—the shortest known orbit of any star ...
Oct 04, 2012
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Astronomers using ESO's world-leading exoplanet hunter HARPS have today announced a rich haul of more than 50 new exoplanets, including 16 super-Earths, one of which orbits at the edge of the habitable zone ...
Sep 12, 2011
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(Phys.org) -- The faint, lumpy glow given off by the very first objects in the universe may have been detected with the best precision yet, using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. These faint objects might be ...
Jun 07, 2012
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The hunt is on for Earth-like planets outside of our solar system. Since the 1990s, astronomers have detected more than 450 extrasolar planets -- mostly large Jupiter-sized bodies -- around nearby stars. Advances in technology ...
Jul 22, 2010
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(Phys.org) -- In 2010 scientists discovered four 'monster' sized stars, with the heaviest more than 300 times as massive as our Sun. Despite their incredible luminosity, these exotic objects, located in the ...
Aug 07, 2012
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Researchers from the Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet (CNRS/École Polytechnique) have carried out the first measurement of the intensity of the diffuse extragalactic background light in the nearby Universe, ...
Jan 20, 2013
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Gregory Benford, his brother James and his nephew Dominic decided to combine their knowledge of astrophysics, space, microwaves and economics to look at the search for extraterrestrial life from a money perspective. They ...
Oct 15, 2010
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If one looks only for the shiniest pennies in the fountain, chances are one misses most of the coins because they shimmer less brightly. This, in a nutshell, is the conundrum astronomers face when searching ...
Jun 06, 2013
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have probed into the distant universe and discovered that galaxies display one of two distinct behaviors: they are either awake or asleep, actively forming stars or are not forming ...
Jun 21, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- An otherwise nondescript binary star system in the Whirlpool Galaxy has brought astronomers tantalizingly close to their goal of observing a star just before it goes supernova.
Nov 30, 2011
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Conventional wisdom suggests that, like planets round the Sun, stars follow approximately circular orbits which cross the spiral arms, and that the Sun presently lies in a spur rather than a major spiral arm.
Mar 21, 2012
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(Phys.org)—The further away you look, the further back in time you see. Astronomers use this fact to study the evolution of the Universe by looking at nearby and more distant galaxies and comparing their ...
Feb 06, 2013
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(Phys.org)—The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the spiral galaxy ESO 499-G37, seen here against a backdrop of distant galaxies, scattered with nearby stars.
Nov 26, 2012
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The formation of new stars in galaxies like the Milky Way has declined five-fold in the last three billion years, initial findings of the European Space Agency's Herschel telescope showed Thursday.
May 06, 2010
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