Astronomy News
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Washington -
The discovery of another bright light on the dwarf planet Ceres has NASA scientists perplexed as the US Dawn probe prepares to enter the orbit of the largest object in the asteroid belt and possibly resolve the mystery.
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Tucson -
An international team of astronomers recently found an ultraluminous quasar, the brightest in the early universe, powered by the most massive black hole yet discovered.
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Los Angeles -
Physicists at UCLA have a new slant on the origin of matter in the universe. That stars and planets are made of stuff we call matter is self-evident, but where did that stuff come from?
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London -
A team of UK scientists and engineers announced Friday a new mission to examine exoplanets — planets that orbit stars other than our Sun.
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Canberra -
Think of supernovae and cosmological events millions of light-years away spring to mind. But a team of scientists contends clues to gaining a better understanding of supernovae lie right beneath our feet, or more precisely, beneath Earth’s oceans.
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Greenbelt -
After a stuttering start before repairs to an out-of-focus lens enabled astronomers to realise the Hubble Space Telescope’s full potential, Hubble has returned a multitude of spectacular images, allowing us to see the Universe as never before seen.
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A minuscule dwarf galaxy, named KKs3, has been found in the Milky Way's backyard, about 7 million light years away from us.
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Paris -
Mankind's first-ever probe of a comet found traces of organic molecules and a surface much harder than imagined, scientists said Tuesday of initial sample data from robot lab Philae.
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Paris -
The European Space Agency (ESA)on Sunday unveiled images of the probe Philae after it bounced while making its historic landing on a comet last Wednesday.
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Paris -
Europe's science probe Philae sent home a treasure trove of data from a comet heading towards the Sun before falling silent as its power ran out, mission control said Saturday.
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Paris -
Europe's comet probe Philae uploaded a slew of science data to Earth Friday, ending a nailbiting wait by mission controllers who feared it would run out of power before making final contact.
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Paris -
Europe's deep-space robot lab Philae worked against the clock Friday, attempting to drill into a comet 510 million kilometres (320 million miles) from Earth to crown a historic exploration before its battery runs out.
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Paris -
Europe's comet probe Philae was "working well" despite a rough-and-tumble touchdown that left it partly shadowed from battery-boosting sunlight, ground controllers said Thursday.
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Darmstadt -
European scientists were hoping for a stream of data Thursday after a robot lab made the first-ever landing on a comet, a key step in a marathon mission to probe the mysteries of space.
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Darmstadt -
The European probe Philae has made the first-ever landing on a comet, a crowning phase in a quest to explore the origins of the Solar System, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Wednesday.
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Darmstadt -
The European Space Agency (ESA) ordered a probe to attempt Wednesday the first landing on a comet and investigate one of the great mysteries of the Solar System.
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Paris -
Europe's mission to land the first-ever probe on a comet was on track Wednesday with one final "go" pending for the robot lab to eject from its mothership and start a nail-biting seven-hour descent.
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Paris -
One of the biggest gambles in space history comes to a climax on Wednesday when Europe attempts to make the first-ever landing on a comet.
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Pasadena -
NASA television will provide live coverage of the European Space Agency’s comet lander mission scheduled to touchdown on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Wednesday, Nov.12.
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Baltimore -
Massive black holes at the centre of older galaxies operate as a brake on the formation of new stars, a study has found.
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Paris -
Such has been the huge advances in the field of space telescopes in recent years that astronomers are now turning their attention to comets in orbit around stars other than our Sun.
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Ithaca -
Saturn’s moon Mimas is already an oddity, being the most cratered object in the Solar System and likened to the Death Star of Star Wars fame. But new research this week points to Mimas being even weirder than previously thought.
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Moscow -
Planetary geologists report evidence that Jupiter’s moon Europa shows signs of plate tectonics, shaping and moulding the moon’s surface similar to geological activity on Earth.
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Paris -
The European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday said it had drawn up a shortlist of five possible sites for carrying out the first-ever landing on a comet.
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Arlington -
Hardly a week passes these days without scientists and astronomers reporting on the discovery of a new exoplanet — a planet outwith our solar system.
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Sydney -
A NASA spacecraft called Stardust brought back particles from space which are now believed to be the first particles to be identified as originating from outside the solar system.
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Yi So-yeon quit her job as an astronaut to focus on interactions between science and business. As South Korea's first and only astronaut this ends the program for the country at this time.
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Washington -
NASA’s successor to the Mars Curiosity rover will head to the red planet in 2020 carrying a payload of scientific instruments that will explore Mars as never before.
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Most of our readers probably think of the moon as a circle, or perhaps as a "big pizza pie" as one song puts it. Researchers have now found that it is actually shaped like a lemon.
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Anchorage -
Jupiter's icy moon Europa is the next target for some NASA scientists. Scientists are testing a robot equipped with a drill powered by laser energy carried through a fiber-optic wire.
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Astronomy Image
Artist's conception of HIP-11952 and its two orbiting exoplanets. Timotheos Samartzidis
Diagramatic showing location of Horsehead Nebula in relation to surrounding objects ESA / Herschel
NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy has completed the second segment of flight tests with its telescope door open to prepare the observatory for first mission. Carla Thomas- NASA
This rendering shows the size of GJ 1214b and another, larger exoplanet compared to Earth and Neptune. Researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope to reveal cloudy weather on the alien world of GJ 1214b. NASA & ESA
Elliptical galaxy NGC 1132, as seen by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory; the blue/purple in the image is the X-ray glow from hot, diffuse gas that is not forming into stars. NASA, ESA, M. West (ESO, Chile), and CXC/Penn State University/G. Garmire, et al.
Diagram illustrating the closest star systems to the Sun with dates discovered.
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, found two of the four closest systems: the binary brown dwarf WISE 1049-5319 and the brown dwarf WISE J085510.83-071442.5. NASA/Penn State University
Surface map of Luhman 16B recreated from VLT observations. ESO's Very Large Telescope has been used to create the first ever map of the weather on the surface of the nearest brown dwarf to Earth. The figure shows the object at six equally spaced times as it rotates once on its axis ESO / I. Crossfield
Valles Marineris on Mars ESA DLR Mars Express
There were several breaks throughout the day, giving attendees time to network meaningfully. Joe Crimmings Photography
Cassiopeia A (Cas A for short), the youngest known supernova remnant in the Milky Way. NASA/CXC/MIT/UMass Amherst/M.D. Stage et al.
Bridging Cities of Galaxies: Planck has discovered a bridge of hot gas connecting galaxy clusters Abell 399 (lower center) & Abell 401 (top left). The galaxy pair is located about a billion light-years from Earth. The gas bridge extends approximately 10 million light-years between them. The image shows the two galaxy clusters as seen at optical wavelengths with ground-based telescopes & through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (in orange) with the Planck satellite. NASA/JPL
The Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Pillars of Creation, revealing a sharper and wider view of the structures in this visible-light image. Astronomers combined several Hubble exposures to assemble the wider view. The towering pillars are about 5 light-years tall. The dark, finger-like feature at bottom right may be a smaller version of the giant pillars. The pillars are bathed in the blistering ultraviolet light from a grouping of young, massive stars located off the top of the i NASA/ESA
Artist's impression of the ESA's Euclid space telescope scheduled for a 2020 launch European Space Agency - ESA Press
Bridging Cities of Galaxies: Planck has discovered a bridge of hot gas that connects galaxy clusters Abell 399 (lower center) & Abell 401 (top left). The galaxy pair is located about a billion light-years from Earth. The gas bridge extends approximately 10 million light-years between them. The image shows the 2 galaxy clusters as seen at optical wavelengths with ground-based telescopes & through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (in orange) with the Planck satellite. NSA/JPL Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect: ESA Planck Collaboration; optical image: STScI Digitized Sky
A schematic of a plasma torus around an exoplanet, which is created by the ions injected from an exomoon's ionosphere into the planet's magnetosphere. University of Texas at Arlington
This artist’s impression shows exocomets orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. Astronomers analysing observations of nearly 500 individual comets made with the HARPS instrument at ESO’s La Silla Observatory have discovered two families of exocomets around this nearby young star. The first consists of old exocomets that have made multiple passages near the star. The second family, shown in this illustration, consists of younger exocomets on the same orbit, which probably came from the recent break ESO/L. Calçada
Michael C. Hall entertains the guests in between speakers Joe Crimmings Photography
A comparison of features of the so-called Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula between 1995 and 2014 Hubblesite
An artist's impression of a quasar with a supermassive black hole in the distant universe. Zhaoyu Li/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Misti Mountain Observatory
Picture of the oldest known star. Space Telescope Science Institute
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