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Earlier this week, three planet hunters came together during a live Google Hangout to discuss the discovery boom, consider what state-of-the-art telescopes can - and can't - tell us about exoplanets, as well as ponder the likelihood of finding evidence of life on another planet.
Posted: Jul 11th, 2014
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Meet the seven new dwarf galaxies. Yale University astronomers, using a new type of telescope made by stitching together telephoto lenses, recently discovered seven celestial surprises while probing a nearby spiral galaxy. The previously unseen galaxies may yield important insights into dark matter and galaxy evolution, while possibly signaling the discovery of a new class of objects in space.
Posted: Jul 11th, 2014
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A new technique for measuring the age of a star using its spin - gyrochronology - is coming into its own. Today astronomers are presenting the gyrochronological ages of 22 sun-like stars. Before this, only two sun-like stars had measured spins and ages.
Posted: Jul 10th, 2014
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The European Science Foundation (ESF) has released a new report on 'technological breakthroughs for scientific progress'. While the sector is known to be a key driver of society-benefiting innovation, both ESF and the European Space Agency are banking on part of its future lying in non-space technologies.
Posted: Jul 10th, 2014
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The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed an unusual structure 100,000 light years long, which resembles a corkscrew-shaped string of pearls and winds around the cores of two colliding galaxies.
Posted: Jul 10th, 2014
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The discovery of a split-second burst of radio waves using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico provides important new evidence of mysterious pulses that appear to come from deep in outer space.
Posted: Jul 10th, 2014
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As anybody who has started a campfire by rubbing sticks knows, friction generates heat. Now, computer modeling by NASA scientists shows that friction could be the key to survival for some distant Earth-sized planets traveling in dangerous orbits.
Posted: Jul 10th, 2014
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Technology that can create thermal maps of asteroids, giving us vital information about how their trajectories might change, is about to undergo trials in space.
Posted: Jul 10th, 2014
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Understanding the sun from afar isn't easy. NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft - which orbits Mercury, and so is as close as 28 million miles from the sun versus Earth's 93 million miles - is near enough to the sun to detect solar neutrons that are created in solar flares.
Posted: Jul 9th, 2014
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A group of astronomers has been able to follow stardust being made in real time - during the aftermath of a supernova explosion.
Posted: Jul 9th, 2014
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For the first time, in response to the public's increased interest in being part of discoveries in astronomy, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is organizing a worldwide contest to give popular names to selected exoplanets along with their host stars.
Posted: Jul 9th, 2014
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Researchers engineered a new technology that can detect very long wavelength infrared light.
Posted: Jul 9th, 2014
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In the middle of the 19th century, the massive binary system Eta Carinae underwent an eruption that ejected at least 10 times the sun's mass and made it the second-brightest star in the sky. Now, a team of astronomers has used extensive new observations to create the first high-resolution 3-D model of the expanding cloud produced by this outburst.
Posted: Jul 9th, 2014
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New simulations show that Mercury and other unusually metal-rich objects in the solar system may be relics left behind by hit-and-run collisions in the early solar system.
Posted: Jul 8th, 2014
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Processes that shaped the ridges and troughs on the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Ganymede are likely similar to tectonic processes seen on Earth, according to a team of researchers led by Southwest Research Institute. To arrive at this conclusion, the team subjected physical models made of clay to stretching forces that simulate tectonic action.
Posted: Jul 8th, 2014
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This Methuselah among space explorers, designed to explore celestial bodies in the far reaches of the Solar System, has been circling Saturn for 10 years.
Posted: Jul 8th, 2014
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