Space

Planet Formation Gets A New Guess- Stellar Turbulence

A new paper in The Astrophysical Journal suggests that turbulence plays a critical role in creating ripe conditions for the birth of planets, a challenge to the prevailing theory of planet formation, gravitational instability.  Using three-dimensional simu ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 12 2008 - 10:44am

KPD 0005+5106- That's One Hot Dwarf

Astronomy&Astrophysics is publishing spectroscopic observations with NASA's space-based Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) of the white dwarf KPD 0005+5106. The team of German and American astronomers who present these observations sho ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 13 2008 - 10:22am

Black Holes? More Like Donut Holes In The Cosmos

Black holes?  Maybe we should think of them as donut holes. The shape of material around black holes has been seen for the first time: an analysis of over 200 active galactic nuclei—cores of galaxies powered by disks of hot material feeding a super-massive ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 16 2008 - 12:31pm

More Severe Storms During Upcoming Solar Cycle Predicted

Earth's magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outward from the Sun, often develops two holes that allow the largest leaks, according to researchers sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation.  "The discovery ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 16 2008 - 6:16pm

Redneck Astrophysicists Tackle Dark Energy

The astronomy/physics sector of the internets is all abuzz about Dark Energy. It was originally thought that gravity would slow the expansion of the universe as huge astronomical bodies become attracted to each other and pull together like Sumo wrestlers t ...

Blog Post - Justin Gerke - Dec 17 2008 - 9:51pm

NGC 2264- The Cosmic Christmas Tree Star Cluster Gets A New Image

The festive season has arrived for astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the form of this dramatic new image. It shows the swirling gas around the region known as NGC 2264 — an area of sky that includes the sparkling blue baubles of the ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 18 2008 - 9:14am

CoRoTExo-2a: Young Active Star Resembling The Young Sun

The CoRoT satellite, a space mission led by the French Space Agency CNES with the participation of Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Spain and the European Space Agency, ESA (RSSD and Science programme, that includes an Italian contribution), has recently ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 22 2008 - 9:38pm

International Space Archives- The World's Largest Space Image Repository

Image Fortress today announced that it has launched the International Space Archives, an online digital library, organizing the vast collections of still and video imagery produced by the manned and unmanned space programs of the world. Over the past fifty ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 30 2008 - 12:01am

Gravity Makes A Comeback In Astrophysics- And A 3D 'Dendrogram' PDF Is Showing How

New computer visualization technology developed by the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing has helped astrophysicists understand that gravity plays a larger role than previously thought in deep space's vast, star-forming molecular clouds. The i ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 2 2009 - 3:29am

Keeping Track of Time

Keeping track of time is hard. Not only in terms of remembering meetings and be on time at the train station. Actually measuring time is a scientific art. Most of us find it logical to use the Earth rotation as a reference and define time scale and units f ...

Blog Post - Bente Lilja Bye - Jan 7 2009 - 12:52pm