Effects of accretion disks around newborn stars

Stars are born in dense, cool clouds of molecular gas and dust. When the local density is high enough, the matter can gravitationally collapse to form a new star, a so-called young stellar object (YSO). In its early phases, ...

Shocks in the Cygnus Loop supernovae remnant

(Phys.org) —Supernova remnants (SNRs) play a vital role in the lifecycle of dust in the interstellar medium. As shockwaves from supernovae sweep up interstellar material, they heat the gas and dust, and destroy a significant ...

SOFIA's target of opportunity: Comet ISON

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) embarked on a "target of opportunity" flight recently that included study of Comet ISON. The lengthy mission was SOFIA's second opportunity to capture data on ...

NASA's Spitzer observes gas emission from comet ISON

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have observed what most likely are strong carbon dioxide emissions from Comet ISON ahead of its anticipated pass through the inner solar system later this year.

Webb's cool instrument enters payload module

(Phys.org) —Inside the cleanrooms of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the international James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is beginning to take shape.

Hubble spots a very bright contortionist

(Phys.org) —The contorted object captured by Hubble in this picture is IRAS 22491-1808, also known as the South America Galaxy. It is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) that emits a huge amount of light at infrared ...

NASA spacecraft sees tornado's destructive swath

(Phys.org) —A new image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft shows the extent of destruction from the deadly Newcastle-Moore tornado that ...

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