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Astronomers have created the most detailed computer simulation to date of our Milky Way galaxy's formation, from its inception billions of years ago as a loose assemblage of matter to its present-day state as a massive, spiral disk of stars.
Sep 9th, 2016
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From November 12 to 15, the Technical University of Munich will host the 'European Space Elevator Challenge' for the third time, an international competition for developing space elevator prototypes. Seven teams from Germany, India and Japan will be competing with their concepts - in the hope of laying the foundation for a revolution in astronautics.
Sep 8th, 2016
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The comet lander Philae has been found. The OSIRIS camera on board the Rosetta orbiter took the revealing images of the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. They show the landing craft lying sideways in a crevasse.
Sep 7th, 2016
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Using colors to identify the approximate ages of more than 130,000 stars in the Milky Way's halo, Notre Dame astronomers have produced the clearest picture yet of how the galaxy formed more than 13.5 billion years ago.
Sep 6th, 2016
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If two galaxies collide, the merging of their central black holes triggers gravitational waves, which ripple throughout space. An international research team has now calculated that this occurs around 10 million years after the two galaxies merge - much faster than previously assumed.
Sep 5th, 2016
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A mysterious X-ray signal most likely originates from sulfur ions which capture electrons.
Sep 2nd, 2016
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A new essay deals with the question if life can be brought to celestial bodies outside our solar system which are not permanently inhabitable?
Aug 31st, 2016
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An international team of astronomers has charted the rise and fall of galaxies over 90 percent of cosmic history. Their work includes some of the most sensitive astronomical measurements made to date.
Aug 30th, 2016
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The solar system could be thrown into disaster when the sun dies if the mysterious 'Planet Nine' exists, according to new research.
Aug 30th, 2016
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The center of the Milky Way galaxy is currently a quiet place where a supermassive black hole slumbers, only occasionally slurping small sips of hydrogen gas. But it wasn't always this way. A new study shows that 6 million years ago, when the first human ancestors known as hominins walked the Earth, our galaxy's core blazed forth furiously.
Aug 30th, 2016
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Located more than 12,000 light-years from Earth, the object first stood out as peculiar when it was observed at particular radio frequencies. Several teams of astronomers studied it using ground-based telescopes and concluded that it is an oxygen-rich star about 10 times as massive as the sun. The question was: What kind of star?
Aug 29th, 2016
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Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) surveyed dozens of young stars and discovered that the larger variety have surprisingly rich reservoirs of carbon monoxide gas in their debris disks. In contrast, the lower-mass, Sun-like stars have debris disks that are virtually gas-free.
Aug 25th, 2016
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Astronomers discover a celestial body in the habitable zone around our nearest fixed star.
Aug 24th, 2016
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Speculating about what aliens look like has kept children, film producers and scientists amused for decades. If they exist, will extra terrestrials turn out to look similar to us, or might they take a form beyond our wildest imaginings? The answer to this question really depends on how we think evolution works at the deepest level.
Aug 19th, 2016
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We have yet to identify many materials that can only be created in a microgravity environment but have serious uses elsewhere. There certainly are possibilities.
Aug 19th, 2016
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The distant planet GJ 1132b intrigued astronomers when it was discovered last year. Located just 39 light-years from Earth, it might have an atmosphere despite being baked to a temperature of around 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Aug 18th, 2016
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