New images from ESA's Planck space observatory reveal the forces driving star formation and give astronomers a way to understand the complex physics that shape the dust and gas in our Galaxy.
Astronomy
Apr 26, 2010
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The Cat's Paw Nebula, NGC 6334, is a huge stellar nursery, the birthplace of hundreds of massive stars. In a magnificent new ESO image taken with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) ...
Astronomy
Apr 21, 2010
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the sky 400 years ago, a myriad of technological advances have allowed astronomers to look at very faint objects, very distant objects, and even light that's invisible ...
Astronomy
Mar 31, 2010
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A new infrared image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars. The stars, called the Berkeley 59 cluster, are the blue dots to the right of ...
Astronomy
Mar 16, 2010
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The first specks of interstellar dust may have been found by NASA's Stardust spacecraft during its seven-year-long voyage. Interstellar dust is believed to form from gas ejected from stars, which condenses ...
On Earth, we tend to find dust nothing more than a nuisance that blankets our furniture and causes us to sneeze. Cosmic dust can also be a hindrance to astronomers because cameras using visible light cannot see through it. ...
Astronomy
Dec 1, 2009
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Ultraluminous infrared galaxies ((ULIRGs) are galaxies whose luminosity exceeds that of a trillion suns; for comparison, the Milky Way galaxy has a typical (and much more modest) luminosity of only about ...
Astronomy
Nov 27, 2009
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No place seems safe from the prying eyes of inquisitive astronomers. They've traced the evolution of the universe back to the "Big Bang," the theoretical birth of the cosmos 13.7 billion years ago, but there's still a long ...
Astronomy
Oct 15, 2009
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Quite a few distant galaxies turn out to be cosmic delivery rooms. Large numbers of massive stars are born in the hearts of these starburst galaxies, and later explode as supernovae. In the remnants they ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2009
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Harry Shipman, Annie Jump Cannon Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware, told the audience for his lecture, “Seeking New Planets,” on Saturday evening, Sept. 26, that one of ...
Astronomy
Sep 28, 2009
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