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Countdown to ESA's billion-star surveyor
ESA's billion-star surveyor Gaia will be launched from Europe's spaceport in Kourou on 20 November to begin a five-year mission to map the stars with unprecedented precision.
October 21, 2013 Read more
Asteroid expert says surveillance is key to survival; planning is key to defense
For the threat of meteor strikes large or small, early detection is key, and evacuation may be the only defense needed within the next 1,000 years, according to an asteroid impact expert.
October 21, 2013 Read more
Gravitational waves 'know' how black holes grow
Supermassive black holes: every large galaxy's got one. But how did they grow so big?
October 18, 2013 Read more
Astronomers discover misaligned planets in distant system
Using data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system featuring multiple planets orbiting at a severe tilt to their host star.
October 17, 2013 Read more
Astronomers detect gravitational lens at record distance
Astronomers have found the most distant gravitational lens yet - a galaxy that, as predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, deflects and intensifies the light of an even more distant object. The discovery provides a rare opportunity to directly measure the mass of a distant galaxy.
October 17, 2013 Read more
Curiosity confirms origins of Martian meteorites
Earth's most eminent emissary to Mars has just proven that those rare Martian visitors that sometimes drop in on Earth -- a.k.a. Martian meteorites -- really are from the Red Planet. A key new measurement of Mars' atmosphere by NASA's Curiosity rover provides the most definitive evidence yet of the origins of Mars meteorites while at the same time providing a way to rule out Martian origins of other meteorites.
October 16, 2013 Read more
New survey tools unveil 2 celestial explosions
A team of researchers, including two Carnegie scientists, used a novel astronomical survey software system - the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory - to link a new stripped-envelope supernova, named iPTF13bvn, to the star from which it exploded, which is a first for this type of supernova, called Type Ib. The iPTF team also pinpointed the first afterglow of an explosion called a gamma-ray burst that was found by the Fermi satellite.
October 16, 2013 Read more
Alma gives astronomers a unique glimpse of a black hole's eating habits
A team led by astronomers from Chalmers and Onsala Space Observatory have used the powerful telescope Alma to catch an unexpected glimpse of an extreme place in space: the base of a powerful jet close to a distant, hungry black hole.
October 16, 2013 Read more
How the largest star known is tearing itself apart
An international team of astronomers has observed part of the final death throes of the largest known star in the Universe as it throws off its outer layers. The discovery, by a collaboration of scientists from the UK, Chile, Germany and the USA, is a vital step in understanding how massive stars return enriched material to the interstellar medium which is necessary for forming planetary systems.
October 16, 2013 Read more
Astronomers find clues to decades-long coronal heating mystery
Scientists found evidence that magnetic waves in a polar coronal hole contain enough energy to heat the corona and moreover that they also deposit most of their energy at sufficiently low heights for the heat to spread throughout the corona. The observations help to answer a 70-year-old solar physics conundrum about the unexplained extreme temperature of the Sun's corona - known as the coronal heating problem.
October 16, 2013 Read more
Researchers chosen to develop advanced microelectronic circuits for space program
The University of Arkansas is one of 10 institutions selected by NASA to develop technology that will address technical needs and enable future missions of America's space program.
October 15, 2013 Read more
Martian scars
Ripped apart by tectonic forces, Hebes Chasma and its neighbouring network of canyons bear the scars of the Red Planet's early history.
October 11, 2013 Read more
Watery asteroid discovered in dying star points to habitable exoplanets
Astronomers have found the shattered remains of an asteroid that contained huge amounts of water orbiting an exhausted star, or white dwarf. This suggests that the star GD 61 and its planetary system - located about 150 light years away and at the end of its life - had the potential to contain Earth-like exoplanets, they say.
October 10, 2013 Read more
Soft shells and strange star clusters
The beautiful, petal-like shells of galaxy PGC 6240 are captured in intricate detail by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, set against a sky full of distant background galaxies. This cosmic bloom is of great interest to astronomers due to both its uneven structure, and the unusual clusters of stars that orbit around it - two strong indications of a galactic merger in the recent past.
October 10, 2013 Read more
Lonely planets in space
Two newly detected celestial objects without host star help astronomers in their understanding of star formation.
October 10, 2013 Read more
Researcher's closer look at Mars reveals new type of impact crater
Lessons from underground nuclear tests and explosive volcanoes may hold the answer to how a category of unusual impact craters formed on Mars.
October 9, 2013 Read more
Diamond 'super-earth' may not be quite as precious
An alien world reported to be the first known planet to consist largely of diamond appears less likely to be of such precious nature, according to a new analysis.
October 9, 2013 Read more
ESA and NASA stumped by cosmic mystery
A mystery that has stumped scientists for decades might be one step closer to solution after ESA tracking stations carefully record signals from NASA's Juno spacecraft as it swings by Earth today.
October 9, 2013 Read more