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20/07/2008 |
Fourth dwarf planet named Makemake
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has given the name 'Makemake' to the newest
member of the family of dwarf planets.
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14/07/2008 |
Solar stake-out will improve space
weather forecasts
The Sun is about to undergo some intense scrutiny from a soon-to-be launched NASA
satellite.
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28/06/2008 |
Mars Phoenix lander's first 'wet
science' results roll in
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has performed its first 'wet chemistry' on martian soil,
returning a wealth of data to waiting scientists.
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17/06/2008 |
Astronomers find three new planets
around a distant star!
The hunt for new Earths is hotting up, with the discovery of more planets orbiting other
stars. How long before astronomers hit the jackpot?
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22/05/2008 |
Death star caught in
the act!
In an amazing stroke of luck, scientists were studying a distant galaxy when one of its
stars exploded right in front of their eyes. This is the first time a supernova has ever
been witnessed right from the beginning of its explosion.
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14/05/2008 |
Scientists measure
the temperature of the early universe!
In a scientific first, the background temperature of the early universe has been
measured— it agrees perfectly with predictions from the Big Bang theory.
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25/04/2008 |
Hubble Telescope
sees galaxies gone wild!
The largest collection of Hubble images ever released together show an astonishing array
of colliding galaxies.
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23/04/2008 |
Full Earth rising
A Moon-orbiting Japanese spacecraft has taken one of the most difficult and stunning
pictures ever … the full Earth rising over the lunar horizon.
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10/04/2008 |
Hubble Pinpoints
Record-Breaking Explosion
7.5 billion light-years away (halfway back to the Big Bang, NASA's Space Telescope has
captured the fading optical counterpart of a powerful gamma ray burst that holds
the record for being the intrinsically brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth.
For almost a minute on March 19th, this single star was as bright as 10 million galaxies.
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20/03/2008 |
Hubble Finds First
Organic Molecule on an Exoplanet
HST has made the first detection ever of an organic molecule in the atmosphere of a
Jupiter-sized planet orbiting another star. This breakthrough is an important step in
eventually identifying signs of life on a planet outside our solar system. The molecule
found is methane, which under the right circumstances can play a key role in prebiotic
chemistry the chemical reactions considered necessary to form life as we know it.
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05/03/2008 |
A wealth of previously
unseen structures in planetary nebula NGC 2371. The remnant star visible at the
center of NGC 2371 is the hot core of the former red giant, now stripped of its outer
layers. Its surface temperature is a scorching 240,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Prominent pink
clouds of cool, dense gas lie on opposite sides of the central star. NGC 2371 lies about
4,300 light-years away in the constellation Gemini.
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20/02/2008 |
67 New Gravitationally
Lensed Galaxies in the Distant Universe
Astronomers have compiled a large catalog of gravitational lenses in the distant universe.
The catalog contains 67 new gravitationally lensed galaxy images found around massive
elliptical and lenticular-shaped galaxies. This sample demonstrates the rich diversity of
strong gravitational lenses.
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13/02/2008 |
Astronomers Find One
of the Youngest and Brightest Galaxies in the Early Universe
NASA's HST and Spitzer space telescopes with a boost from a natural "zoom lens,"
have uncovered what is perhaps the youngest and brightest galaxies ever seen in the middle
of the cosmic dark ages, just 700 million years after the beginning of our universe.
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06/02/2008 |
The elliptical galaxy NGC 1132
reveals the final result of what may have been a group of galaxies that merged together in
the recent past.NGC 1132 is located approximately 318 million light-years away in the
constellation Eridanus, the River.
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22/01/2008 |
The HST reveals a
never-before-seen optical alignment in a pair of glowing rings. One is nestled inside the
other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending
of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy,
like three beads on a string. This very rare phenomenon can offer insight into dark
matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies, and even the curvature of the
universe.
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18/01/2008 |
Hubble Finds that
"Blue Blobs" in Space Are Orphaned Clusters of Stars
HST has resolved strange objects nicknamed "blue blobs" being brilliant blue
clusters of stars born in the swirls of a galactic smashup 200 million years ago. Found
along a wispy bridge of gas strung among three colliding galaxies, M81, M82, and NGC 3077
they reside about 12 million light-years away from Earth and weighing tens of thousands of
solar masses they have never been seen in detail before in such sparse locations.
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