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High-precision map of Milky Way's magnetic fields charted
Scientists have pooled their radio observations into a database, producing the highest precision map to date of the magnetic field within our own Milky Way galaxy.
[Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:15:15 EST]
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Classic portrait of a barred spiral galaxy
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 helps astronomers learn more about our celestial home.
[Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:24:24 EST]
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Surface of Mars an unlikely place for life after 600-million-year drought, say scientists
Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet’s surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analyzing individual particles of Martian soil.
[Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:20:20 EST]
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Millisecond pulsar paradox: Stellar astrophysics helps explain behavior of fast rotating neutron stars in binary systems
Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters of about 20 kilometers, but at the same time roughly the mass of our sun. A sugar-cube sized piece of its ultra-compact matter on Earth would weigh hundreds of millions of tons. A sub-class of them, known as millisecond pulsars, spin up to several hundred times per second around their own axes. Previous studies reached the paradoxical conclusion that some millisecond pulsars are older than the universe itself. Now this paradox may be solved by computer simulations, new research shows.
[Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:14:14 EST]
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New super-Earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby cool star
Sientists have discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. The star is a member of a triple star system and has a different makeup than our Sun, being relatively lacking in metallic elements. This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form in a greater variety of environments than previously believed.
[Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:14:14 EST]
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Hubble zooms in on a magnified galaxy
Astronomers aimed Hubble at one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. Hubble's view of the distant background galaxy, which lies nearly 10 billion light-years away, is significantly more detailed than could ever be achieved without the help of the gravitational lens.
[Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:08:08 EST]
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Do black holes help stars form?
The center of just about every galaxy is thought to host a black hole, some with masses of thousands of millions of Suns and consequently strong gravitational pulls that disrupt material around them. They had been thought to hinder the birth of stars, but now astronomers studying the nearby galaxy Centaurus A have found quite the opposite: a black hole that seems to be helping stars to form.
[Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:43:43 EST]
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NASA mission returns first video from moon's far side
A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study.
[Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:21:21 EST]
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Sun delivered curveball of powerful radiation at Earth
A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred Jan. 17, 2012, just days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection seen in nearly a decade, delivered a powerful radiation punch to Earth's magnetic field despite the fact that it was aimed away from our planet.
[Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:24:24 EST]
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Scientists help define structure of exoplanets
Using models similar to those used in weapons research, scientists may soon know more about exoplanets, those objects beyond the realm of our solar system. Astronomers have come up with new methods for deriving and testing the equation of state of matter in exoplanets and figured out the mass-radius and mass-pressure relations for materials relevant to planetary interiors.
[Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST]
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Stellar nursery: A pocket of star formation
A new view shows a stellar nursery called NGC 3324. It was taken using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The intense ultraviolet radiation from several of NGC 3324's hot young stars causes the gas cloud to glow with rich colors and has carved out a cavity in the surrounding gas and dust.
[Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:43:43 EST]
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IBEX probe glimpses interstellar neighborhood
Space scientists have described the first detailed analyses of captured interstellar neutral atoms -- raw material for the formation of new stars, planets and even human beings.
[Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:08:08 EST]
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NASA's THEMIS satellite sees a great electron escape
When scientists discovered two great swaths of radiation encircling Earth in the 1950s, it spawned over-the-top fears about "killer electrons" and space radiation effects on Earthlings. The fears were soon quieted: the radiation doesn't reach Earth, though it can affect satellites and humans moving through the belts. Nevertheless, many mysteries about the belts -- now known as the Van Allen Radiation belts -- remain to this day.
[Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:37:37 EST]
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Glimpses of the interstellar material beyond our solar system
A great magnetic bubble surrounds the solar system as it cruises through the galaxy. The sun pumps the inside of the bubble full of solar particles that stream out to the edge until they collide with the material that fills the rest of the galaxy, at a complex boundary called the heliosheath. On the other side of the boundary, electrically charged particles from the galactic wind blow by, but rebound off the heliosheath, never to enter the solar system. Neutral particles, on the other hand, are a different story. They saunter across the boundary as if it weren't there, continuing on another 7.5 billion miles for 30 years until they get caught by the sun's gravity, and sling shot around the star.
[Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:01:01 EST]
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IBEX spacecraft measures 'alien' particles from outside solar system
Using data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft, an international team of researchers has measured neutral "alien" particles entering our solar system from interstellar space. A suite of studies provides a first look at the constituents of the interstellar medium, the matter between star systems, and how they interact with our heliosphere.
[Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:57:57 EST]
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'Cool' gas may form and strengthen sunspots
Hydrogen molecules may act as a kind of energy sink that strengthens the magnetic grip that causes sunspots, according to scientists using a new infrared instrument on an old telescope.
[Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:31:31 EST]
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Scientists see 'sloshing' galaxy cluster
Scientists have recently discovered that vast clouds of hot gas are "sloshing" in Abell 2052, a galaxy cluster located about 480 million light years from Earth.
[Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:24:24 EST]
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Sun unleashes an X1.8 class flare on Jan. 27, 2012
The sun unleashed an X1.8 class flare that began at 1:12 PM ET on January 27, 2012 and peaked at 1:37. The flare immediately caused a strong radio blackout at low-latitudes, which was rated an R3 on NOAA's scale from R1-5. The blackout soon subsided to a minor R1 storm. Models from NASA's Goddard Space Weather Center predict that the CME is traveling at over 1500 miles per second. It does not initially appear to be Earth-directed, but Earth may get a glancing blow.
[Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:02:02 EST]
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Astronomers solve mystery of vanishing electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt
Researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft.
[Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:09:09 EST]
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Mars-bound instrument detects solar burst's effects: RAD measures radiation from solar storm
The largest solar particle event since 2005 hit Earth, Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft traveling in-between, allowing the onboard Radiation Assessment Detector to measure the radiation a human astronaut could be exposed to en route to the Red Planet.
[Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:27:27 EST]
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NuSTAR spacecraft arrives in California
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, mission arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Jan. 27 after a cross-country trip by truck from the Orbital Sciences Corporation's manufacturing plant in Dulles, Va. The mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 14.
[Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:23:23 EST]
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NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 planets
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.
[Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:59:59 EST]
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Cosmology in a Petri dish
Scientists have found that micron-size particles which are trapped at fluid interfaces exhibit a collective dynamic that is subject to seemingly unrelated governing laws. These laws show a smooth transitioning from long-ranged cosmological-style gravitational attraction down to short-range attractive and repulsive forces.
[Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:13:13 EST]
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Photo from NASA Mars orbiter shows wind's handiwork
Some images of stark Martian landscapes provide visual appeal beyond their science value, including a recent scene of wind-sculpted features from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:06:06 EST]
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Giant asteroid Vesta likely cold and dark enough for ice
Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions of years, according to the first published models of Vesta's average global temperatures and illumination by the sun.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:05:05 EST]
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NASA's NuSTAR ships to Vandenberg for March 14 launch
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Jan. 24, 2012, to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:04:04 EST]
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World's most powerful X-ray laser creates 2-million-degree matter
Researchers working at the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used the world's most powerful X-ray laser to create and probe a 2-million-degree piece of matter in a controlled way for the first time. This feat takes scientists a significant step forward in understanding the most extreme matter found in the hearts of stars and giant planets, and could help experiments aimed at recreating the nuclear fusion process that powers the sun.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:26:26 EST]
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Classifying solar eruptions
Solar flares are giant explosions on the sun that send energy, light and high speed particles into space. These flares are often associated with solar magnetic storms known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). While these are the most common solar events, the sun can also emit streams of very fast protons -- known as solar energetic particle (SEP) events -- and disturbances in the solar wind known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs). All of these can produce a variety of "storms" on Earth that can -- if strong enough -- interfere with short wave radio communications, GPS signals, and Earth's power grid, among other things.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:38:38 EST]
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Durable NASA rover beginning ninth year of Mars work
Eight years after landing on Mars for what was planned as a three-month mission, NASA's enduring Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is working on what essentially became a new mission five months ago.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:36:36 EST]
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Cassini sees the two faces of Titan's dunes
A new analysis of radar data from NASA's Cassini mission, in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, has revealed regional variations among sand dunes on Saturn's moon Titan. The result gives new clues about the moon's climatic and geological history.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:35:35 EST]
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Jupiter’s 'Trojans' on an atomic scale
The planet Jupiter keeps asteroids on stable orbits -- and in a similar way, electrons can be stabilized in their orbit around the atomic nucleus. Calculations have now been verified in a new experiment.
[Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:10:10 EST]
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Lab mimics Jupiter's Trojan asteroids inside a single atom
Physicists have built an accurate model of part of the solar system inside a single atom. Scientists have shown that they could make an electron orbit the atomic nucleus in the same way that Jupiter's Trojan asteroids orbit the sun. The findings uphold a 1920 prediction by physicist Niels Bohr.
[Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:23:23 EST]
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Catching a comet death on camera
On July 6, 2011, a comet was caught doing something never seen before: die a scorching death as it flew too close to the sun. That the comet met its fate this way was no surprise -- but the chance to watch it first-hand amazed even the most seasoned comet watchers.
[Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:06:06 EST]
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Hearty bacteria help make case for life in the extreme
The bottom of a glacier is not the most hospitable place on Earth, but at least two types of bacteria happily live there, according to researchers.
[Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:33:33 EST]
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Helix Nebula in new colors
Astronomers have captured a striking new image of the Helix Nebula. A new picture, taken in infrared light, reveals strands of cold nebular gas that are invisible in images taken in visible light, as well as bringing to light a rich background of stars and galaxies. The Helix Nebula is one of the closest and most remarkable examples of a planetary nebula.
[Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:15:15 EST]
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Solar Dynamics Observatory helps measure magnetic fields on the sun's surface
A subset of data that helps map out the sun's magnetic fields was recently released from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Observations that measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields on the solar surface -- known as vector magnetograms -- play a crucial role in understanding how those fields change over time and trigger giant eruptions off the surface of the sun such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
[Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:31:31 EST]
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Planck space telescope warms up as planned
The High Frequency Instrument aboard the Planck space telescope has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe. The sensor ran out of coolant on Jan. 14, as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy.
[Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:12:12 EST]
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Montana students pick winning names for moon craft
Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Mont. Their winning entry, "Ebb and Flow," was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011.
[Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:10:10 EST]
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Voyager instrument cooling after heater turned off
In order to reduce power consumption, mission managers have turned off a heater on part of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, dropping the temperature of its ultraviolet spectrometer instrument more than 23 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit). It is now operating at a temperature below minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature that the instrument has ever endured. This heater shut-off is a step in the careful management of the diminishing electrical power so that the Voyager spacecraft can continue to collect and transmit data through 2025.
[Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:08:08 EST]
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Revisiting the 'Pillars of Creation'
In 1995, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took an iconic image of the Eagle nebula, dubbed the "Pillars of Creation," highlighting its finger-like pillars where new stars are thought to be forming. Now, the Herschel Space Observatory has a new, expansive view of the region captured in longer-wavelength infrared light.
[Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:06:06 EST]
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Most distant dwarf galaxy detected
Scientists have long struggled to detect the dim dwarf galaxies that orbit our own galaxy. So it came as a surprise on Jan. 18 when a team of astronomers using Keck II telescope's adaptive optics has announced the discovery of a dwarf galaxy halfway across the universe.
[Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:51:51 EST]
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Moon-walk mineral discovered in Western Australia
The last mineral thought to have been unique to the Moon has been discovered in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia.
[Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:36:36 EST]
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Dark side of the moon revealed: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's LAMP reveals lunar surface features
New maps produced by the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal features at the moon's northern and southern poles in regions that lie in perpetual darkness. LAMP uses a novel method to peer into these so-called permanently shadowed regions, making visible the invisible.
[Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:06:06 EST]
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Novel chemical route to form organic molecules
Scientists have discovered a novel chemical route to form polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- complex organic molecules such as naphthalene carrying fused benzene rings -- in ultra-cold regions of interstellar space.
[Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:20:20 EST]
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Astronomers release unprecedented data set on celestial objects that brighten and dim
Astronomers have released the largest data set ever collected that documents the brightening and dimming of stars and other celestial objects -- two hundred million in total.
[Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:26:26 EST]
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Astronomers find three smallest planets outside solar system
Astronomers have discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system. The three planets, which all orbit a single star, are smaller than Earth and appear to be rocky. Their existence suggests that the galaxy could be teeming with similarly rocky planets—and that there's a good chance that many are in the so-called habitable zone, where liquid water and possibly life could exist.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:40:40 EST]
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Calculating what's in the universe from the biggest color 3-D map
Astronomers have used visual data from nearly a million luminous galaxies for the most accurate calculation yet of how matter clumps together in the universe. By deriving cosmic rulers from an immense volume of sky, from a time when the universe was half its present age until now, the study establishes how much dark matter, dark energy, and even hard-to-detect neutrinos it contains.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:40:40 EST]
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Discovery of the smallest exoplanets: The Barnard's star connection
The smallest exoplanets yet discovered orbit a dwarf star almost identical to Barnard's star, one of the sun's nearest neighbors. The similarity helped the astronomers calculate the size of the distant planets.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:40:40 EST]
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Planets with double suns are common
Astronomers have discovered two new circumbinary planet systems -- planets that orbit two stars, like Tatooine in the movie Star Wars. Their find, which brings the number of known circumbinary planets to three, shows that planets with two suns must be common, with many millions existing in our galaxy.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:40:40 EST]
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Scientists predict the next big thing in particle physics: Supersymmetry
A better understanding of the universe will be the outgrowth of the discovery of the Higgs boson, according to a team of researchers. The team predicts the discovery will lead to supersymmetry or SUSY -- an extension of the standard model of particle physics. SUSY predicts new matter states or super partners for each matter particle already accounted for in the standard model. SUSY theory provides an important new step to a better understanding of the universe we live in.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:59:59 EST]
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How star-forming galaxies evolve into 'red and dead' elliptical galaxies
Astronomers using the partially completed ALMA observatory have found compelling evidence for how star-forming galaxies evolve into 'red and dead' elliptical galaxies, catching a large group of galaxies right in the middle of this change.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:40:40 EST]
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Hubble zooms in on double nucleus in Andromeda galaxy
A new Hubble Space Telescope image centers on the 100-million-solar-mass black hole at the hub of the neighboring spiral galaxy M31, or the Andromeda galaxy, the only galaxy outside the Milky Way visible to the naked eye and the only other giant galaxy in the local group.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:39:39 EST]
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Two new planets discovered orbiting double suns
Astronomers have discovered two new planets orbiting double star systems, something that had never been seen until last September.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:39:39 EST]
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A wealth of habitable planets in the Milky Way
Six years of observations of millions of stars now show how common it is for stars to have planets in orbits around them. Using a method that is sensitive to planets that lie in a habitable zone around the host stars, astronomers have discovered that most of the Milky Way's 100 billion stars have planets that are very similar to the Earth-like planets in our own solar system.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:39:39 EST]
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Planet population is plentiful: Planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception
Astronomers have used the technique of gravitational microlensing to measure how common planets are in the Milky Way. After a six-year search that surveyed millions of stars, the team concludes that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:35:35 EST]
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Astronomers discover origin of thermonuclear supernova
Astronomers recently discovered the solution to a long-standing fundamental problem of astrophysics: what produces thermonuclear, or Type Ia, supernovae, which are tremendous explosions where the light is often brighter than a whole galaxy? Astronomers have now demonstrated that these supernova are caused by a pair of white dwarf stars.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:35:35 EST]
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There may be millions of planets in our galaxy orbiting two stars
Astronomers have discovered two new transiting "circumbinary" planet systems – planets that orbit two stars. This work establishes that such "two sun" planets are not rare exceptions, but are in fact common with many millions existing in our Galaxy.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:35:35 EST]
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NASA's Hubble breaks new ground with distant supernova discovery
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago. The sighting is the first finding of an ambitious survey that will help astronomers place better constraints on the nature of dark energy: the mysterious repulsive force that is causing the universe to fly apart ever faster.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:33:33 EST]
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Mystery of source of supernova in nearby galaxy solved
Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have solved a longstanding mystery of the type of star, or so-called progenitor, that caused a supernova in a nearby galaxy. The finding yields new observational data for pinpointing one of several scenarios that trigger such outbursts.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:33:33 EST]
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Rare ultra-blue stars found in neighboring galaxy's hub
Peering deep inside the hub of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a large, rare population of hot, bright stars.
[Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:37:37 EST]
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