Space

M86 And NGC4438: High-Speed Collisions In Galaxies Prevent New Star Formation

Astronomers studying new images of a nearby galaxy cluster have found evidence that high-speed collisions between large elliptical galaxies may prevent new stars from forming, according to a paper in the November 2008 Astrophysical Journal Letters. Led by ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 7 2008 - 11:32am

How inappropriate!

Juno Spacecraft to Study Jupiter, we are informed by space.com. Don't people think before they give names, or choose songs? They select for weddings "I will always love you" by Whitney Houston, which is a song of irreversible parting, and I ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Oct 22 2008 - 10:06pm

Emissions Lines From Herbig Ae/Be Stars Get Some Insight

This week, Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing new observations with AMBER/VLTI of the gas component in the vicinity of young stars. An international team of astronomers led by E. Tatulli (Grenoble, France) and S. Kraus (Bonn, Germany) [1] used the ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 10 2008 - 9:41am

Dust Ring Simulations May Point To Habitable Exo-Planets

Supercomputer simulations of dusty disks around sunlike stars show that planets even as small as Mars can create patterns that future telescopes might detect. Much of the dust in our solar system forms inward of Jupiter's orbit, as comets crumble near ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 10 2008 - 1:22pm

Distant Earth Observation

Venus Express looking back on Earth Credits: ESA/VIRTIS/INAF-IASF/Obs. de Paris-LESIA (Earth views: Solar System Simulator JPL-NASA) This image composite shows the signatures of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3) and nitrous oxide (N2O), mino ...

Blog Post - Bente Lilja Bye - Oct 22 2008 - 10:03pm

SCUBA-2 Will Look At Origins Of The Universe

Astronomers using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii are making new discoveries about the origins of the planets, stars and galaxies with the start of a new survey to map the Universe. The JCMT Legacy Survey, made up of 7 projects, makes us ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 14 2008 - 10:01am

NASA Prepares For Space Mining, Tests New Scarab Probe In Hawaii

Sitting atop the Big Island of Hawaii is majestic Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s largest volcano and also the site of the latest test site for NASA’s new moon probe, Scarab. Its mission: lunar prospecting. Although the inactive volcano may not seem to resemble the mo ...

Article - Erin Richards - Apr 20 2009 - 11:52am

A Clue To Finding Earth-Like Planets: Young Ones Stay Hotter Longer

Hot, young planets may be easier to spot because they stay that way longer than astronomers have thought, according to new work by MIT planetary scientist Linda Elkins-Tanton. For a few million years after their initial formation, planets like Earth may ma ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 15 2008 - 11:11am

Abell 521- A Ghostly Galaxy Cluster Just In Time For Halloween

Scientists have detected long wavelength radio emissions from a colliding, massive galaxy cluster which, surprisingly, is not detected at the shorter wavelengths typically seen in these objects. The discovery implies that existing radio telescopes have mis ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 16 2008 - 12:44am

4C60.07 Black Hole Shows They Weren't Uncommon Even 12 Billion Years Ago

Astronomers think that many- perhaps all- galaxies in the universe contain massive black holes at their centers. New observations with the Submillimeter Array now suggest that such colossal black holes were common even 12 billion years ago, when the unive ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 19 2008 - 12:26am