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If a star wanders too close to the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the black hole's powerful gravity rips the star apart, sending a long streamer of gas whipping outward. New research shows that not only can the gas gather itself into planet-size objects, but those objects then are flung throughout the galaxy in a game of cosmic 'spitball'.
Jan 11th, 2017
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Scientists have developed a new tool that can look for signs of life with 10,000 times more sensitivity than instruments carried on previous spaceflight missions.
Jan 11th, 2017
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Astronomers have discovered giant halos around early Milky Way type galaxies, made of photons that have struggled to escape them.
Jan 11th, 2017
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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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