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Searching for planets around other stars is a tricky business. They're so small and faint that it's hard to spot them. But a possible planet in a nearby stellar system may be betraying its presence in a unique way: by a shadow that is sweeping across the face of a vast pancake-shaped gas-and-dust disk surrounding a young star.
Jan 10th, 2017
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Two of the most powerful phenomena in the Universe - a supermassive black hole and the collision of giant galaxy clusters - have combined to create a stupendous cosmic particle accelerator.
Jan 6th, 2017
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New research by cosmologists confirms the accuracy of Type Ia supernovae in measuring the pace at which the universe expands. The findings support a widely held theory that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and such acceleration is attributable to a mysterious force known as dark energy.
Jan 4th, 2017
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Astronomers pinpoint radio flashes originating in a far away galaxy.
Jan 4th, 2017
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VISTA survey gives most detailed view of Orion A molecular cloud in the near-infrared.
Jan 4th, 2017
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Approximately 359 million light-years away from Earth, there is a galaxy with an innocuous name (PGC 1000714) that doesn't look quite like anything astronomers have observed before. New research provides a first description of a well-defined elliptical-like core surrounded by two circular rings - a galaxy that appears to belong to a class of rarely observed, Hoag-type galaxies.
Jan 4th, 2017
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Searching a sea of 'noise' to find exoplanets - using only data as a guide.
Dec 20th, 2016
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Scientists working at CERN have made a landmark finding, taking them one step closer to answering the question of why matter exists and illuminating the mysteries of the Big Bang and the birth of the Universe.
Dec 20th, 2016
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Smaller, faster, cheaper - miniaturised space technology opens the door to future University-based space exploration.
Dec 19th, 2016
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A new statistical study of planets found by a technique called gravitational microlensing suggests that Neptune-mass worlds are likely the most common type of planet to form in the icy outer realms of planetary systems.
Dec 15th, 2016
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An international team of scientists has made the rare discovery of a planetary system with a host star similar to Earth's sun. Especially intriguing is the star's unusual composition, which indicates it ingested some of its planets.
Dec 15th, 2016
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Researchers have developed a method that will detect roughly 10 black holes per year, doubling the number currently known within two years, and it will likely unlock the history of black holes in a little more than a decade.
Dec 15th, 2016
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The brightest flash of light in the cosmos could be a rare event involving a star and a supermassive black hole.
Dec 15th, 2016
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Device modulates polarization across wide range of microwave frequencies to map radiation from shortly after the Big Bang.
Dec 13th, 2016
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Thanks to scientists on the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the solar system just got another member.
Dec 12th, 2016
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What have scientists learned in five years of studying cosmic rays with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment?
Dec 12th, 2016
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A recently discovered galaxy is undergoing an extraordinary boom of stellar construction, revealed by a group of astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
Dec 8th, 2016
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What will happen to Earth when, in a few billion years' time, the Sun is a hundred times bigger than it is today? Using the most powerful radio telescope in the world, an international team of astronomers has set out to look for answers in the star L2 Puppis. Five billion years ago, this star was very similar to the Sun as it is today.
Dec 8th, 2016
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