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Hubble traces the migration of white dwarfs
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, collected a census of young white dwarf stars beginning their migration from the crowded centre of an ancient star cluster to its less populated outskirts. The new results challenge our ideas about how and when a star loses its mass near the end of its life.
Posted: May 14th, 2015
Read moreResearchers hone technique for finding signs of life on the Red Planet
Researchers want to improve the way unmanned Mars probes detect condensed aromatic carbon, thought to be a chemical signature of astrobiology.
Posted: May 14th, 2015
Read moreCause of galactic death: Strangulation
As murder mysteries go, it's a big one: how do galaxies die and what kills them? A new study has found that the primary cause of galactic death is strangulation, which occurs after galaxies are cut off from the raw materials needed to make new stars.
Posted: May 14th, 2015
Read moreWater was plentiful in the early universe
Researchers discover water vapor may have formed in universe earlier than previously believed.
Posted: May 14th, 2015
Read moreThe dark side of star clusters
Observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile have discovered a new class of 'dark' globular star clusters around the giant galaxy Centaurus A. These mysterious objects look similar to normal clusters, but contain much more mass and may either harbor unexpected amounts of dark matter, or contain massive black holes - neither of which was expected nor is understood.
Posted: May 13th, 2015
Read moreSoft robot to swim through Europa's oceans
An amphibious robot that can swim through the oceans of distant moons and planets could be the next iteration of self-sustaining, robotic space exploration.
Posted: May 13th, 2015
Read moreEuropa's mystery dark material could be sea salt
NASA laboratory experiments suggest the dark material coating some geological features of Jupiter's moon Europa is likely sea salt from a subsurface ocean, discolored by exposure to radiation. The presence of sea salt on Europa's surface suggests the ocean is interacting with its rocky seafloor - an important consideration in determining whether the icy moon could support life.
Posted: May 12th, 2015
Read moreAstrophysicists prepare weather forecasts for planets beyond our solar system
New study uses Kepler data to find evidence of daily weather cycles on exoplanets.
Posted: May 12th, 2015
Read moreProbing the secrets of the universe inside a metal box
Record-smashing new shield creates a large volume with a magnetic field even smaller than that found in the depths of outer space, making certain types of searches for physics beyond the Standard Model possible for the first time.
Posted: May 12th, 2015
Read moreThe weakest magnetic field in the solar system
Magnetic fields easily penetrate matter. Creating a space practically devoid of magnetic fields thus presents a great challenge. An international team of physicists has now developed a shielding that dampens low frequency magnetic fields more than a million-fold. Using this mechanism, they have created a space that boasts the weakest magnetic field of our solar system.
Posted: May 12th, 2015
Read moreNASA unveils latest Technology Roadmaps for future agency needs
NASA has released the agency's 2015 technology roadmaps laying out the promising new technologies that will help NASA achieve its aeronautics, science and human exploration missions for the next 20 years, including the agency's journey to Mars.
Posted: May 11th, 2015
Read moreSpace lab to elucidate how liquid cocktails mix
Zero-gravity experiments can tell us a great deal about the effects of temperature change on the concentrations of three different liquids that are mixed together.
Posted: May 11th, 2015
Read moreNuSTAR provides explosive evidence for supernova asymmetry
New results from the NASA NuSTAR telescope show that a supernova close to our galaxy experienced a single-sided explosion.
Posted: May 9th, 2015
Read moreMESSENGER reveals Mercury's magnetic field secrets
New data from MESSENGER, the spacecraft that orbited Mercury for four years before crashing into the planet a week ago, reveals Mercury's magnetic field is almost four billion years old. The discovery helps scientists piece together the history of Mercury, the closest planet to the sun and one about which we knew very little before MESSENGER.
Posted: May 7th, 2015
Read moreHubble finds giant halo around the Andromeda galaxy
Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the immense halo of gas enveloping the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest massive galactic neighbor, is about six times larger and 1,000 times more massive than previously measured. The dark, nearly invisible halo stretches about a million light-years from its host galaxy, halfway to our own Milky Way galaxy.
Posted: May 7th, 2015
Read moreAstronomers discover proto super star cluster - a cosmic 'dinosaur egg' about to hatch
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered what may be the first known example of a globular cluster about to be born: an incredibly massive, extremely dense, yet star-free cloud of molecular gas.
Posted: May 7th, 2015
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