The Cosmic Distance Scale

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1908, Harvard astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered that a class of stars called Cepheids have brightnesses that vary regularly with periods that are directly related to their intrinsic luminosities.

Astronomers measure wind speed on a brown dwarf

Astronomers have used the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to make the first measurement of wind speed on a brown dwarf—an object intermediate in mass ...

Astronomers to put James Webb Space Telescope through its paces

NASA's latest and snazziest mission, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched on Christmas Day, deployed its 21-foot-wide mirror a mere two weeks ago and reached its orbital destination earlier this week. With a flashy ...

James Webb telescope going through cooling process

Cooling things down in space is trickier than it might sound. But that is exactly the process the James Webb telescope is going through right now. Getting down to cryogenic temperature is imperative for its infrared imaging ...

Hubble pinpoints furthest protocluster of galaxies ever seen

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of development, making it the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early Universe.

Herschel finds a hole in space

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA's Herschel infrared space telescope has made an unexpected discovery: a hole in space. The hole has provided astronomers with a surprising glimpse into the end of the star-forming process.

Coldest brown dwarfs blur lines between stars and planets

(Phys.org) —Astronomers are constantly on the hunt for ever-colder star-like bodies, and two years ago a new class of such objects was discovered by researchers using NASA's WISE space telescope. However, until now no one ...

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