The JCMT celebrates 25 years on top of the world

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, is celebrating its 25th birthday this week. It first turned its dish to the heavens this week in 1987, and now, a quarter of a century later, the JCMT continues ...

A cluster within a cluster

(Phys.org) -- The star cluster NGC 6604 is shown in this new image taken by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. It is often overlooked in favour of its more ...

Herschel spots comet massacre around nearby star

(Phys.org) -- ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory has studied the dusty belt around the nearby star Fomalhaut. The dust appears to be coming from collisions that destroy up to thousands of icy comets every day.

When stellar metallicity sparks planet formation

New research predicts the criteria needed for Earth-like planets to form around a star that have one-tenth the metallicity of our Sun. If researchers find small, rocky planets orbiting stars with lower metallicity, it may ...

Measuring magnetic fields

(Phys.org) -- Polarized light is a familiar phenomenon, as people who prefer polarized sunglasses can testify. The electric field in a beam of light can vibrate either left-right or up-down, and the scattering or reflection ...

New SCUBA-2 camera reveals wild youth of the universe

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers from the UK, Canada and the Netherlands have commenced a revolutionary new study of cosmic star-formation history, looking back in time to when the universe was still in its lively and ...

Public to get access to spectacular infrared images of galaxies

For the first time, the general public will be able to browse detailed infrared images of more than 200 galaxies. The pictures, originating from data from the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, will be released later this ...

The earliest stages of planet formation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Small dust particles in a disk of gas around a young star, according to current models, gradually coagulate during the first million years until kilometer-sized objects are formed. These in turn coalesce ...

Young stars flicker amidst clouds of gas and dust

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have spotted young stars in the Orion nebula changing right before their eyes, thanks to the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The colorful ...

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