NASA's Chandra sees brightest supernova ever
The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes. view more (2007-05-08)
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)
Massive Black Hole Smashes Record
Using two NASA satellites, astronomers have discovered the heftiest known black hole to orbit a star. The new black hole, with a mass 24 to 33 times that of our Sun, is more massive than scientists expected for a black hole that formed from a dying star. view more (2007-10-31)
Solvents in Retreat
A new catalyst for selective solvent-free hydrogenation at low temperatures A number of cyclic hydrocarbons with multiple double bonds are readily accessible intermediates in chemical industry. In the course of further processing it is often necessary to saturate some of the double bonds with hydrogen to form single bonds. This type of reaction,... view more... (2001-03-27)
Scientists find 'pinwheels' in Quintuplet cluster
Discovery of pinwheel-shaped dust spirals around two of the mysterious cocoon stars in the Quintuplet cluster tells scientists for the first time that they contain a duo of stars instead of just one. view more (2006-08-21)
Hubble sees magnetic monster in erupting galaxy
The Hubble Space Telescope has found the answer to a long-standing puzzle by resolving giant but delicate filaments shaped by a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275. It is the most striking example of the influence of these immense tentacles of extragalactic magnetic fields, say researchers. view more (2008-08-21)
Radio telescopes extend astronomy's best 'yardstick'
Radio astronomers have directly measured the distance to a faraway galaxy, providing a valuable "yardstick" for calibrating large astronomical distances and demonstrating a vital method that could help determine the elusive nature of the mysterious Dark Energy that pervades the Universe. view more (2009-06-09)
Probably wireless
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) used to detect and report events including hurricanes, earthquakes, and forest fires and for military surveillance and antiterrorist activities are prone to subterfuge. view more (2008-09-04)
A Portrait of One Hundred Thousand and One Galaxies
Rich and Inspiring Experience with NGC 300 Images from the ESO Science Data Archive A series of wide-field images centred on the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 300, obtained with the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory, have been combined into a magnificent colour photo. These images have been used by... view more... (2002-08-07)
A New 3-D Animated Map Of Our Cosmic Hometown
For the first time, we now have a three-dimensional map of our closest cosmic neighbourhood which shows not only how our nearest neighbour stars are distributed today - it also shows precisely how fast each of them moves, and in which direction. Astronomers have measured the velocities of many thousands of stars and computed both where they were... view more... (2004-04-06)
Scientists elucidate the origin of the darkest galaxies in the universe
Ghostly galaxies composed almost entirely of dark matter speckle the universe. Unlike normal galaxies, these extreme systems contain very few stars and are almost devoid of gas. view more (2007-02-15)
Infections link with diabetes, suggests biggest study yet
A major study has added weight to the theory that environmental factors such as common infections may be a trigger for diabetes in children and young adults. view more (2006-07-05)
Mapping the Milky Way
A new map of the centre of our own galaxy, The Milky Way, is the biggest, most detailed, and most sensitive yet made. The map shows giant streamers and huge clouds of interstellar gas where stars are being born 26,000 light years from Earth - shedding new light on the exotic structures in this unusual region of our own galaxy. An international... view more... (2000-12-19)
Gamma-ray bursts: are we safe?
For a few seconds every day, Earth is bombarded by gamma rays created by cataclysmic explosions in distant galaxies. Such explosions, similar to supernovae, are known as 'gamma-ray bursts' or GRBs. Astronomers using ESA's X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, are trying to understand the cause of these extraordinary explosions from the X-rays given out... view more... (2003-09-17)
Potential treatments from cryptic genes
Big pharma gave up on soil bacteria as a source of antibiotics too soon, according to research published in the June issue of Microbiology. Scientists have been mining microbial genomes for new natural products that may have applications in the treatment of MRSA and cancer and have made some exciting discoveries. view more (2008-06-02)
ESA finds a black-hole flywheel in the Milky Way
Far away among the stars, in the Ara constellation of the southern sky, a small black hole is whirling space around it. If you tried to stay still in its vicinity, you couldn`t. You`d be dragged around at high speed as if you were riding on a giant flywheel. In reality, gas falling into the black hole is whirled in that way. It radiates energy,... view more... (2002-04-26)
Violent galaxy seen in 3-D
Astronomers at the Gemini telescope in Hawaii have obtained a complete, multi-dimensional picture, of the dynamic flow of gas and stars at the core of an active galaxy [NGC 1068] located 70 million light years away. The image was achieved in a single snapshot and is the first time such a picture has been obtained by one of the new generation of... view more... (2002-03-21)
Herschel Space Telescope's SPIRE instrument package makes first-light observations
A scientific instrument package developed in part by the University of Colorado at Boulder for the $2.2 billion orbiting Herschel Space Observatory that was launched in May by the European Space Agency has made its first successful observations, targeting two star-forming galaxies near the Milky Way. view more (2009-07-13)
Old Galaxies in the Young Universe
Very Large Telescope Unravels New Population of Very Old Massive Galaxies [1] Current theories of the formation of galaxies are based on the hierarchical merging of smaller entities into larger and larger structures, starting from about the size of a stellar globular cluster and ending with clusters of galaxies. According to this scenario, it is... view more... (2004-07-06)
The universe just became a little simpler
Using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have concluded that two of the most common types of galaxies in the universe are in reality different versions of the same thing. In spite of their similar-sounding names, astronomers had long considered "dwarf elliptical" and "giant elliptical" galaxies... view more... (2003-06-18)
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