Space

Saturn's Mysterious Radio Emissions Mapped In 3-D

Observations from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have been used to build, for the first time, a 3-D picture of the sources of intense radio emissions in Saturn’s magnetic field, known as the Saturn Kilometric Radiation (SKR). Saturn Kilometric Radiation is the ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 23 2008 - 10:50am

BD +20 307 Gives An Idea What Would Happen If Earth And Venus Collided

Two terrestrial planets in orbit around a sun-like star, BD +20 307, recently suffered a violent collision, astronomers at University of California Los Angeles, Tennessee State University, and California Institute of Technology will report in a December is ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 23 2008 - 3:54pm

Kinematic SZ Effect Shows 'Dark Flow' In The Veins Of The Universe

Using data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), scientists have identified an unexpected motion in distant galaxy clusters. The cause, they suggest, is the gravitational attraction of matter that lies beyond the observable univers ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 24 2008 - 1:41am

Terrestrial Planets Collide 300 Light Years Away

I'm obsessed with the apocalypse. No joke. I always carry a mini-emergency kit stuffed in an Altoids tin, and I know that if the apocalypse comes, my husband and I are supposed to meet at our apartment, grab our pre-packed bags, maybe the cat, and he ...

Article - Jen Palmares Meadows - Sep 25 2008 - 4:27pm

SN 1996cr- Super Bright Supernova In Circinus Spiral Halaxy Gets Identified

Over a decade after it exploded, one of the nearest supernovae in the last 25 years has been identified. This result was made possible by combining data from the vast online archives from many of the world’s premier telescopes. The supernova, called SN 199 ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 25 2008 - 10:25am

Lunar Peak Of Eternal Light Gets 3-D Pictures

Plenty of sun and some ice for water sounds like a lovely place for a moon base, doesn't it? Three-dimensional views of the mountainous terrain surrounding a “peak of eternal light” near the Moon’s south pole have been released by the European Space A ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 25 2008 - 11:21pm

Uncertain Science- Calculating The 'Birth Rate' Of Stars

The “birth rate” for stars is certainly not easy to determine. Distances in the universe are far too great for astronomers to be able to count all the newly formed celestial bodies with the aid of a telescope so it is fortunate that emerging stars give the ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 1 2008 - 10:33am

Equal Opportunity Galaxies Are All About Diversity

The detailed study, called the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (ANGST) program, explored a region called the Local Volume, where galaxy distances range from 6.5 million light-years to 13 million light-years from Earth. A typical galaxy contains billions ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 30 2008 - 3:55pm

9 Billion Years After The Big Bang, A 'Little Bang' Formed Our Solar System- Theory

For several decades, scientists have thought that the Solar System formed as a result of a shock wave from an exploding star — a supernova — that triggered the collapse of a dense, dusty gas cloud that contracted to form the Sun and the planets. Models of ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2008 - 3:21pm

COROT-Exo-3b: Is It A Planet Or A Failed Star?

COROT has discovered a massive planet-sized object orbiting its parent star closely, unlike anything ever spotted before. It is so exotic, that scientists are unsure as to whether this oddity is actually a planet or a failed star. The object, named COROT-e ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 6 2008 - 9:52am