Powerful New Technique to Measure Asteroids' Sizes and Shapes

A team of French and Italian astronomers have devised a new method for measuring the size and shape of asteroids that are too small or too far away for traditional techniques, increasing the number of asteroids that can be ...

Frantic activity revealed in dusty stellar factories

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (Spain) used NACO, a sharp-eyed adaptive optics instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), to study the fine detail in NGC 253, one of ...

Writing the history of the 'Cosmic Dark Ages'

For millions of years after the Big Bang, there were no stars, or even galaxies to contain stars. During these "Cosmic Dark Ages," neutral hydrogen gas dominated the universe. When clouds of primordial hydrogen gas started ...

4C+29.30: Black hole powered jets plow into galaxy

(Phys.org) —This composite image of a galaxy illustrates how the intense gravity of a supermassive black hole can be tapped to generate immense power. The image contains X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory ...

A microquasar makes a giant Manatee Nebula

(Phys.org)—A new view of a 20,000-year old supernova remnant demonstrates the upgraded imaging power of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and provides more clues to the history ...

A multi-wavelength view of radio galaxy Hercules A

(Phys.org)—Spectacular jets powered by the gravitational energy of a super massive black hole in the core of the elliptical galaxy Hercules A illustrate the combined imaging power of two of astronomy's cutting-edge tools, ...

VISTA: Pioneering new survey telescope starts work

VISTA is the latest telescope to be added to ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed on the peak adjacent to the one hosting the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) and shares the same exceptional ...

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