Integral ready for launch
ESA's Integral has been given the green light and is all set for launch from Baikonur in Kazakhstan in the early hours of tomorrow morning. More than 34 simulations for a total of 300 hours have been carried out at ESOC, ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. ESOC is responsible for Integral Mission Control and it is from... view more... (2002-10-16)
Galaxy Cluster Takes It to the Extreme
Evidence for an awesome upheaval in a massive galaxy cluster was discovered in an image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The origin of a bright arc of ferociously hot gas extending over two million light years requires one of the most energetic events ever detected. view more (2007-05-31)
Quantum goes massive
An astrophysics experiment in America has demonstrated how fundamental research in one subject area can have a profound effect on work in another as the instruments used for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) pave the way for quantum experiments on a macroscopic scale. view more (2009-07-16)
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)
NASA's Fermi Finds Gamma-ray Galaxy Surprises
Back in June 1991, just before the launch of NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, astronomers knew of gamma rays from exactly one galaxy beyond our own. view more (2009-07-15)
Seeing the Cosmos Through
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has taken its first shots of the cosmos since warming up and starting its second career. The infrared telescope ran out of coolant on May 15, 2009, more than five-and-half-years after launch, and has since warmed to a still-frosty 30 Kelvin (about minus 406 Fahrenheit). view more (2009-08-06)
Bringing astronomy into sharper focus
Scientists from the University of Cambridge's Astrophysics Group have today (21 June 2002) announced a collaboration with teams based in New Mexico, Puerto Rico and at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC to design, install and operate a novel type of astronomical telescope for ultra-high angular resolution observations of stars,... view more... (2002-06-21)
Discovery of the chemically oldest star in the Milky Way
During the last 30 years researchers have tried to find stars that still carry vestiges of the very origin of the Milky Way Galaxy, when it formed from a gigantic collection of gas soon after the Big Bang. The gas of our galaxy, which was presumably composed of hydrogen and helium at the beginning, is continuously polluted by exploding stars that... view more... (2002-10-31)
Monitoring Yellowstone earthquake swarms
The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is an international scientific society devoted to the advancement of seismology and its applications in understanding and mitigating earthquake hazards and in imaging the structure of the earth. view more (2009-04-10)
The high mountain station in the Pamirs was destroyed by bandits
More than thirty years ago V.K.Nosdruhin, the expedition chief of the Central Asia Hydrometeorological Institute, proposed to organize a stationary base to observe glaciers. The base was placed on the Abramov glacier in the Pamirs. This place, in the Alaisky ridge, is a most beautiful one. The observatory with three subdivisions was constructed by... view more... (1999-11-04)
Astronomers detect matter torn apart by black hole
Astronomers have used two different telescopes simultaneously to study the violent flares from the supermassive black hole in the centre of the Milky Way. They have detected outbursts from this region, known as Sagittarius A*, which reveal material being stretched out as it orbits in the intense gravity close to the central black hole. view more (2008-11-19)
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)
Integral expands our view of the gamma-ray sky
Integral's latest survey of the gamma-ray universe continues to change the way astronomers think of the high-energy cosmos. With over seventy percent of the sky now observed by Integral, astronomers have been able to construct the largest catalogue yet of individual gamma-ray-emitting celestial objects. view more (2007-02-21)
Is the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy a debris of the Large Magellanic Cloud?
The Sagittarius dwarf galaxy is our nearest neighbor. Yet it has been discovered only recently, in 1994, being hidden by the stars and dust in our own Galaxy, the Milky Way. It is however possible today to better know this companion galaxy, thanks to variable stars, the RR Lyrae, in which Sgr-dw is particularly rich. In a recent paper, Patrick... view more... (2002-02-25)
'Cosmic telescopes' may have found infant galaxies
Using massive clusters of galaxies as "cosmic telescopes," a research team led by a Johns Hopkins University astronomer has found what may be infant galaxies born in the first billion years after the beginning of the universe. view more (2006-06-06)
Hubble shows 'baby' galaxy is not so young after all
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found out the true nature of a dwarf galaxy that astronomers had for a long time identified as one of the youngest galaxies in the Universe. Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have made observations of the galaxy I Zwicky 18 which seem to indicate that it is in fact much older and much... view more... (2007-10-17)
1843 stellar eruption may be new type of star explosion
Eta Carinae, the galaxy's biggest, brightest and perhaps most studied star after the sun, has been keeping a secret: Its giant outbursts appear to be driven by an entirely new type of stellar explosion that is fainter than a typical supernova and does not destroy the star. view more (2008-09-11)
Space X-ray telescope arrives for tests at RAL
An X-ray telescope weighing half a tonne, due for launch on a Russian spacecraft in 1998, arrived at CLRC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory today for thermal tests. With conditions in space so different from those on Earth (space is an icy-cold vacuum), it is vital to test any instrument before launch to make sure that it can work in a vacuum at... view more... (1996-12-10)
Precise Radio-Telescope Measurements Advance Frontier Gravitational Physics
Scientists using a continent-wide array of radio telescopes have made an extremely precise measurement of the curvature of space caused by the Sun's gravity, and their technique promises a major contribution to a frontier area of basic physics. view more (2009-09-02)
Pulsar find boosts hope for gravity-wave hunters
Neutron star pairs may merge and give off a burst of gravity waves about six times more often than previously thought, scientists report in today's issue of the journal Nature [4 December]. If so, the current generation of gravity-wave detectors might be able to register such an event every year or two, rather than about once a decade - the most... view more... (2003-12-02)
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