Space

The Ghost Universe That Mirrors Our Own

The "dark matter" that comprises a still-undetected one-quarter of the universe is not a uniform cosmic fog, says a University of California, Berkeley, astrophysicist, but instead forms dense clumps that move about like dust motes dancing in a sh ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 31 2007 - 11:37am

Cold Spot Equals Big Bang Relic

Scientists from the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) and the University of Cambridge may have discovered an example of a cosmic defect, a remnant from the Big Bang called a texture. If confirmed, their discovery, reported today in Science, will pro ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 26 2007 - 5:12pm

Simulation: Why Large Star Clusters Have A Better Chance Of Survival

Stars always evolve in the universe in large groups, known as clusters. Astronomers distinguish these formations by their age and size. The question of how star clusters are created from interstellar gas clouds and why they then develop in different ways h ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 29 2007 - 12:22pm

Arp 87: The Graceful Dance Of Interacting Galaxies

A pair of galaxies, known collectively as Arp 87, is one of hundreds of interacting and merging galaxies known in our nearby Universe. Arp 87 was originally discovered and catalogued by astronomer Halton Arp in the 1970s. Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies i ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2007 - 5:43pm

Celestial Mandrill Is A Cosmic Ghost

Two of ESO's telescopes captured various stages in the life of a star in a single image- a cosmic ghost. ESO PR Photo 42a/05 shows the area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis ("The Stern" ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 31 2007 - 11:40am

IC 10 X-1 Black Hole Is The New Heavyweight Champion

Fame was fleeting for the 16-solar-mass black hole in the galaxy M33, announced on October 17 as the record holder for the heaviest black hole orbiting a star. A new black hole, with a mass 24 to 33 times that of our Sun, is more massive than scientists ha ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2007 - 2:16pm

By Xeus, We'll Find The Origins Of The Universe

XEUS, which stands for X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy, aims to study the fundamental laws of the Universe. With unprecedented sensitivity to the hot, million-degree universe, XEUS will explore key areas of contemporary astrophysics: growth of superma ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 31 2007 - 11:05am

PG 1700+518 Study Confirms Supermassive Black Holes Produce Galaxy-Shaping Winds

Supermassive black holes can produce powerful winds that shape a galaxy and determine their own growth, confirms a group of scientists from Rochester Institute of Technology. The RIT team has, for the first time, observed the vertical launch of rotating wi ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 31 2007 - 5:49pm

Colliding White Dwarf Stars Created Supernova 2006gz

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that a supernova discovered last year was caused by two colliding white dwarf stars. The white dwarfs were siblings orbiting each other. They slowly spiraled inward until they ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 2 2007 - 11:01am

Stellar Occultation: Stargazing That's More Than Just Romance

When the stars are shining above the atmosphere, they give off radiation across a wide spread of wavelengths. As Earth rotates, the star appears to sink down. When that happens, the atmosphere acts as a filter, blocking out certain wavelengths of the star’ ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2007 - 2:37pm