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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. The study, published in...

Astronomers detect matter torn apart by black hole

This is a color composite image of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy, about 26 000 light years from Earth. Giant clouds of gas and dust are shown in blue, as detected by the LABOCA instrument on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope at submillimeter wavelengths (870 micron). The image also contains near-infrared data from the 2MASS project at K-band (in red), H-band (in green), and J-band (in blue). The image shows a region approximately 100 light-years wide.The team of European and US astronomers used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope, both in Chile, to study light from Sagittarius A* at...

Sonography in space

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (November 14, 2008) Astronauts on extended space missions can get injured or develop diseases, necessitating immediate diagnosis and treatment. Research conducted...

NSF/NASA 'Firefly' cubesat to study link between lightning and terrestrial gamma ray flashes

Massive energy releases occur every day in the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere. Lightning may give rise to these bursts of radiation. However, unlike the well-known flashes of light and...

CU-Boulder to launch butterfly, spider K-12 experiments Nov. 14 on space shuttle

A University of Colorado at Boulder K-12 educational payload toting butterflies and spiders is slated to launch to the International Space Station aboard NASA's space shuttle Endeavour on Nov. 14.A NASA space shuttle mission carrying a University of Colorado at Boulder payload of web-spinning spiders and wannabe butterflies will be closely monitored by hundreds of K-12 students from Colorado's...

Planetary "first family" discovered by astronomers using Gemini and Keck Observatories

Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain in the Hawaiian chain, have obtained the first-ever direct images identifying a multi-planet...

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To widen path to outer space, UF engineers build small satellite

It's not much bigger than a softball and weighs just 2 pounds.

Space researchers developing tool to help disoriented pilots

Not knowing which way is up can have deadly consequences for pilots. This confusion of the senses, called spatial disorientation, is responsible for up to 10 percent of general aviation...

APEX reveals glowing stellar nurseries

Color composite image of RCW120. It reveals how an expanding bubble of ionized gas about ten light-years across is causing the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps where new stars are then formed. The submillimeter-wavelength data were taken with the LABOCA camera on the 12-m Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope. Here, the submillimeter emission is shown as the blue clouds surrounding the reddish glow of the ionized gas (shown with data from the SuperCosmos H-alpha survey). The image also contains data from the Second Generation Digitized Sky Survey (I-band shown in blue, R-band shown in red).The region, called RCW120, is about 4200 light years from Earth, towards the constellation of Scorpius. A hot, massive star in its centre is emitting huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation,...

A pool of distant galaxies -- the deepest ultraviolet image of the universe yet

The Chandra Deep Field South, observed in the U-, B-, and R-bands with ESO's VIMOS and WFI instruments. The U-band VIMOS observations were made over a period of 40 hours and constitute the deepest image ever taken from the ground in the U-band. The image covers a region of 14.1 x 21.6 arcmin on the sky and shows galaxies that are 1 billion times fainter than can be seen by the unaided eye. The VIMOS R-band image was assembled by the ESO/GOODS team from archival data, while the WFI B-band image was produced by the GABODS team.This uniquely beautiful patchwork image, with its myriad of brightly coloured galaxies, shows the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), arguably the most observed and best studied region in the entire...

The overall channels of the lightning discharges

The VHF radio interferometer system was designed by ZHANG GuangShu, et al of Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. By using this system,...

Black holes are the rhythm at the heart of galaxies

This composite image shows M84, a massive elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, about 55 million light years from Earth.

Space waste: Handling garbage when your dumpster is 100 million miles away?

In space, no one takes out the trash. Garbage can pile up, spoil and become a health hazard for astronauts in the cramped living quarters of a space station.

Comet particles provide glimpse of solar system's birth spasms

A transmission electron microscope image (magnified 5,000 times) of a slice of the Inti particle, which NASA’s Stardust spacecraft collected in 2004 and returned to Earth two years later. Preparation of the sample caused some breakage. Scale bar is one micron, or one millionth of a meter.Scientists are tracking the violent convulsions in the giant cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system 4.5 billion years ago via a few tiny particles...

Complex systems and Mars missions help understand how life began

Understanding how life started remains a major challenge for science. At a European Science Foundation (ESF) and COST 'Frontiers of Science' conference in Sicily in October, scientists discussed two new...

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Scientists discover new planet orbiting dangerously close to giant star

Alexander WolszczanA team of astronomers from Penn State and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland has discovered a new planet that is closely orbiting a red-giant star, HD 102272, which is much...

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Iowa State physicists part of research team testing Nobel-winning theory

Soeren Prell, an Iowa State University associate professor of physics and astronomy, is helping to analyze the data coming from the BaBar particle detector in California.Soeren Prell and a team of Iowa State University researchers are part of an international research team testing a theory that led to a share of the 2008 Nobel Prize...

NRL's SHIMMER successfully observes Earth's highest clouds

Number of PMCs observed by SHIMMER between 50-58°N versus local time. The red line (2007) shows a clear semidiurnal behavior, whereas the black line (2008) illustrates that in 2008 diurnal behavior is observed. How this difference in cloud occurrence is related to other meteorological data, such as winds and temperatures, is subject to ongoing and proposed work.The Naval Research Laboratory's Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals (SHIMMER) has successfully observed a second northern season of Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs), which are the Earth's highest clouds. This...

Super-tough sunshield to fly on the James Webb Space Telescope

This photograph shows the James Webb Space Telescope's Sunshield outstretched.Imagine sunglasses that can withstand the severe cold and heat of space, a barrage of radiation and high-speed impacts from small space debris. They don't exist, but Northrop Grumman engineers...

Chandrayaan-1 now in lunar orbit

1, the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) lunar orbiter, was captured into orbit around the Moon on 8 November. One day later, the spacecraft performed a manoeuvre that lowered the...

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Giant simulation could solve mystery of 'dark matter'

The search for a mysterious substance which makes up most of the Universe could soon be at an end, according to new research.

New spaceship force field makes Mars trip possible

According to the international space agencies, "Space Weather" is the single greatest obstacle to deep space travel. Radiation from the sun and cosmic rays pose a deadly threat to...

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