A tiny galaxy has given astronomers a glimpse of a time when the first bright objects in the universe formed, ending the dark ages that followed the birth of the universe.
Astronomers from Sweden, Spain and the Johns Hopkins University used NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite to make the first direct measurement of ionizing radiation leaking from a dwarf galaxy undergoing a burst of star formation. The result, which has ramifications for understandin
A team of astronomers is announcing today that they have discovered a giant Milky Way-sized tunnel filled with high energy particles in a distant galaxy cluster. These new findings are of special interest to astronomers as they may provide the missing evolutionary link necessary to understand the cycle of birth and death, as well as the environmental impact, of radio jets which result from ravenous supermassive black holes within giant galaxies. The report is being presented to the American Ast
Before the end of January particles from a distant comet will be delivered to The Open University and research will begin on what could be keys to the origin of life in the universe.
NASA’s Stardust mission is returning to Earth early January 15th after a three billion-mile (4.6 billion-km) trip to collect interstellar comet dust from Comet Wild 2 (pronounced vilt after the Swiss man who discovered it). During a brief encounter with Comet Wild 2 nearly two years ago, Stardust ca
In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is offering an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star-formation region is one of astronomy’s most dramatic and photogenic celestial objects.
The crisp image reveals a tapestry of star formation, from the dense pillars of gas and dust that may be the homes of fledgling stars to the hot, young, massive stars that have emerged from their gas-and-dust cocoons and are s
The European Space Agency and the Australian National University have successfully tested a new design of spacecraft ion engine that dramatically improves performance over present thrusters and marks a major step forward in space propulsion capability.
Ion engines are a form of electric propulsion and work by accelerating a beam of positively charged particles (or ions) away from the spacecraft using an electric field. ESA is currently using electric propulsion on its Moon mission,
Black and white reproductions of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” lack the beauty and depth of the original oil painting. In a similar fashion, images of stars and galaxies composed of a single wavelength band cannot convey the wealth of information now accessible to astronomers.
In recent years, a number of ground-based optical and radio surveys of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds — Earth’s nearest neighboring galaxies — have become available. New composite
An international team of astronomers today announced the first results from the Radial Velocity Experiment, an ambitious all-sky spectroscopic survey aimed at measuring the speed, temperature, surface gravity and composition of up to a million stars passing near the sun.
Those first results from the project, known for short as RAVE, confirm that dark matter dominates the total mass of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, team members at The Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere sa
Astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a very young star nearly 100 light years away using a relatively small, publicly accessible telescope turbocharged with a new planet-finding instrument.
The feat suggests that astronomers have found a way to dramatically accelerate the pace of the hunt for planets outside our solar system.
“In the last two decades, astronomers have searched about 3,000 stars for new planets,” said Jian Ge, a professor of astronomy at the Uni
This Sunday morning (15th January) at 10.12 am GMT a capsule containing dust from Comet Wild 2 will return to Earth landing in the Utah Desert near Salt Lake City. The landing of the capsule marks the return of NASA’s Stardust mission which has been on a three billion-mile trip to collect pristine cometary material and interstellar dust. After their collection samples will be distributed to a limited number of specialist research teams. Four UK institutions have been invited to be part of the
Algorithms and programs being developed by scientists from the Moscow Physics Engineering Institute and the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics RAS with the support of the International Science and Technology Centre will help oncologists to accurately and rapidly calculate an optimal dose of radiation. Then, they will be able to determine the direction and intensity of radioactive flows so as to have maximum harmful effect on the tumour with minimum irradiation of healthy tissue, and all
One of the most striking predictions of Einstein’s theory of special relativity is probably the best known formula in all science: E = mc2. Today, exactly one hundred years after its first formulation, this equivalence has been verified to be correct at least to an accuracy of 4 parts in 10 000 000 ! These measurements, at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, and the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), represent the most precise verification of the relation between mass and energy ever a
Search for missing galaxies in high-speed galactic gas clouds ’comes up empty,’ Pitt researcher finds
A team of astronomers from the University of Pittsburgh and the Universitäts-Sternwarte München in Munich, Germany, announced today in a paper presented at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C., that their search for dwarf galaxies in fast-moving clouds of gas has yielded no results, leading them to suggest alternative avenues of research
For the past few months, Bob O’Dell has been mapping the winds blowing in the Orion Nebula, the closest stellar nursery similar to the one in which the sun was born.
New data from the Hubble Orion Heritage Program, a major observational effort by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004 and 2005, have given the Vanderbilt astronomer the information he needs to measure the stellar winds with unprecedented detail, and he reported his early results on Jan. 11 at the annual meeting of the American
In the most comprehensive study of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the enigmatic supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, astronomers — using nine ground and space-based telescopes including the Hubble Space Telescope and the XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory — have discovered that Sgr A* produces rapid flares close to the innermost region of the black hole in many different wavelengths and that these emissions go up and down together.
This insight into the frequent bursts of r
Black holes are creating havoc in unsuspected places, according to a new study of images of elliptical galaxies made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The discovery of far-reaching explosive activity, due to giant central black holes in these old galaxies, was a surprise to astronomers.
The Chandra data revealed an unsuspected turmoil in elliptical galaxies that belies their calm appearance in optical light. Astronomers believe massive clouds of hot gas in these galaxies hav
Two new studies show the ’eating habits’ of black holes at the center of young galaxies
An analysis of the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest view of the universe offers compelling evidence that monster black holes in the centers of galaxies were not born big but grew over time through repeated galactic mergers.
“By studying distant galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), we have the first statistical evidence that supermassive black-hole growth i
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