Space

Frigid geysers spewing material up through cracks in the crust of Pluto’s companion Charon and recoating parts of its surface in ice crystals could be making this distant world into the equivalent of an outer solar system ice machine. Evidence for these ic ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 18 2007 - 4:50pm

Astronomers Find Lopsided Debris Disk Around HD 15115

Astronomers have found a debris disk around HD 15115. As seen from Earth, the edge-on disk resembles a needle sticking out from the star. Astronomers think the disk's odd imbalanced look is caused by dust following a highly elliptical orbit about the ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 19 2007 - 1:41pm

'Piranha' Black Holes

Supermassive black holes have been discovered to grow more rapidly in young galaxy clusters, according to new results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. These "fast-track" supermassive black holes can have a big influence on the galaxies ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 24 2007 - 1:05pm

What's Waiting In The Martian Ice?

In just over a week's time NASA's Phoenix Lander is due to launch for Mars where it will probe the arctic landscape searching for conditions favourable for past or present life. UK scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Bri ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 26 2007 - 12:27am

Killer Electrons In Space- Now With Less Mystery!

‘Killer’ electrons are highly energetic, negatively charged particles found in near-Earth space. They can critically, and even permanently, damage satellites in orbit, including telecommunication satellites, and pose a hazard to astronauts. Several theorie ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 7 2010 - 9:35pm

Super-Massive Black Hole Powers Gas-Shrouded Active Galaxy

You’d think that astronomers would have found all the different classes of active galaxy nuclieu (AGN)- after all, AGN such as quasars, blazars, and Seyfert galaxies are among the most luminous objects in our Universe, pouring out the energy of billions of ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2007 - 2:18pm

Uncovering The Veil Nebula

Stars don’t shine forever. How long a star lives depends on how big and heavy it is. The bigger the star, the shorter its life. When a star significantly heavier than our sun runs out of fuel, it collapses and blows itself apart in a catastrophic supernova ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 31 2007 - 11:22pm

Did Man Evolve Because Of Galactic Oscillations?

Every 62 million years there is a mass extinction on Earth. No one is sure why but, since the solar motion through the Milky Way has been computed for the past 600 million years, we know it is too long a cycle for it to be a product of our solar system. A ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Aug 2 2007 - 11:07pm

The Planet, The Galaxy And The Laser

On the night of 21 July, ESO astronomer Yuri Beletsky took images of the night sky above Paranal, the 2600m high mountain in the Chilean Atacama Desert home to ESO's Very Large Telescope. The amazing images bear witness to the unique quality of the sk ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 3 2007 - 10:32am

Discovery: TrES-4, A New Extrasolar Planet In The Constellation Of Hercules

The new planet was identified by astronomers looking for transiting planets – that is, planets that pass in front of their home star – using a network of small automated telescopes in Arizona, California, and the Canary Islands. TrES-4 was discovered less ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 9 2007 - 4:38pm