Crash Test-Iconic Rings and Flares of Galaxies Created by Violent, Intergalactic Collisions, Research by Pitt and Partners Finds
The bright pinwheels and broad star sweeps iconic of disk galaxies such as the Milky Way might all be the shrapnel from massive, violent collisions with other galaxies and galaxy-size chunks of dark matter, according to a multi-institutional project involving the University of Pittsburgh. view more (2008-11-24)
Astronomers catch binary star explosion inside nebula
The explosion of a binary star inside a planetary nebula has been captured by a team led by UCL (University College London) researchers - an event that has not been witnessed for more than 100 years. view more (2008-11-20)
APEX reveals glowing stellar nurseries
Illustrating the power of submillimetre-wavelength astronomy, an APEX image reveals how an expanding bubble of ionised gas about ten light-years across is causing the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps that are the birthplaces of new stars. Submillimetre light is the key to revealing some of the coldest material in the Universe,... view more... (2008-11-12)
Just Scratching the Surface: New Technique Maps Nanomaterials as They Grow
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a measurement technique that will help scientists and companies map nanomaterials as they grow. view more (2008-11-05)
Serendipitous observations reveal rare event in life of distant quasar
A bit of serendipity has given astronomers a surprise view of a never-before-observed event in the birth of a galaxy. view more (2008-10-22)
Cosmic Lens Reveals Distant Galactic Violence
By cleverly unraveling the workings of a natural cosmic lens, astronomers have gained a rare glimpse of the violent assembly of a young galaxy in the early Universe. Their new picture suggests that the galaxy has collided with another, feeding a supermassive black hole and triggering a tremendous burst of star formation. view more (2008-10-21)
Stars stop forming when big galaxies collide
Astronomers studying new images of a nearby galaxy cluster have found evidence that high-speed collisions between large elliptical galaxies may prevent new stars from forming, according to a paper to be published in a November 2008 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. view more (2008-10-08)
More star births than astronomers have calculated
The "birth rate" for stars is certainly not easy to determine. Distances in the universe are far too great for astronomers to be able to count all the newly formed celestial bodies with the aid of a telescope. view more (2008-10-02)
First detection of magnetic field in distant galaxy produces a surprise
Using a powerful radio telescope to peer into the early universe, a team of California astronomers has obtained the first direct measurement of a nascent galaxy's magnetic field as it appeared 6.5 billion years ago. view more (2008-10-02)
A 'wild cousin' emerges from family tree of exploding stars
Astronomers may have discovered the relative of a freakishly behaving exploding star once thought to be the only one of its kind. view more (2008-09-26)
Brightest stellar explosion heralds new type of long-distance astronomy
A flash of light that blinded even small telescopes six months ago was the brightest astronomical explosion ever observed - visible to the naked eye despite originating halfway across the universe. view more (2008-09-11)
Iowa State scientists, students contribute to world's biggest science experiment
The first beam of protons will begin racing around the world's biggest science experiment on Wednesday, Sept. 10, and Iowa State University physicists will be part of the research team taking notes. view more (2008-09-09)
Astronomers discover missing link for origin of comets
An international team of scientists that includes University of British Columbia astronomer Brett Gladman has found an unusual object whose backward and tilted orbit around the Sun may clarify the origins of certain comets. view more (2008-09-05)
UCI scientists discover minimum mass for galaxies
By analyzing light from small, faint galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, UC Irvine scientists believe they have discovered the minimum mass for galaxies in the universe - 10 million times the mass of the sun. view more (2008-08-28)
Stellar still births
The systematics of celestial bodies apparently needs to be revised. Researchers at the Argelander Institute of Astronomy of the University of Bonn have discovered that brown dwarfs need to be treated as a separate class in addition to stars and planets. view more (2008-08-25)
Universally Speaking, Earthlings Share a Nice Neighborhood
We don't have spacecraft to take us outside our solar system--not yet, at least. Still, astronomers thought they had a pretty good understanding of how our solar system formed and in turn, how others formed. view more (2008-08-11)
'Cosmic ghost' discovered by volunteer astronomer
When Yale astrophysicist Kevin Schawinski and his colleagues at Oxford University enlisted public support in cataloguing galaxies, they never envisioned the strange object Hanny van Arkel found in archived images of the night sky. view more (2008-08-06)
A new method to weigh giant black holes
How do you weigh the biggest black holes in the universe? One answer now comes from a new and independent technique that UC Irvine scientists and other astronomers have developed using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. view more (2008-07-17)
Discovery of the source of the most common meteorites
When observing with the GEMINI telescopes, two astronomers from Brazil and the United States discovered for the first time asteroids that are similar to "ordinary chondrites", the most common meteorites found on Earth. Until now, astronomers have failed to identify their asteroidal sources because of the various geologic processes that... view more... (2008-07-11)
Radio Telescopes Reveal Unseen Galactic Cannibalism
Radio-telescope images have revealed previously-unseen galactic cannibalism -- a triggering event that leads to feeding frenzies by gigantic black holes at the cores of galaxies. Astronomers have long suspected that the extra-bright cores of spiral galaxies called Seyfert galaxies are powered by supermassive black holes consuming material.... view more... (2008-06-24)
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