A camera aboard NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever. Researchers and the public can access the map via several websites and explore and survey the entire surface of the Red Planet. The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, [...]
Archive for the ‘Astronomy’ Category
New Technique for Studying Dark Energy
July 22nd, 2010 Pioneering observations with the National Science Foundation’s giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have given astronomers a new tool for mapping large cosmic structures. The new tool promises to provide valuable clues about the nature of the mysterious “dark energy” believed to constitute nearly three-fourths of the mass and energy of the Universe. [...]
Origin of Key Cosmic Explosions Still a Mystery
July 16th, 2010 When a star explodes as a supernova, it shines so brightly that it can be seen from millions of light-years away. One particular supernova variety — Type Ia — brightens and dims so predictably that astronomers use them to measure the universe’s expansion. The resulting discovery of dark energy and the accelerating universe rewrote our [...]
Unravelling the Mystery of Massive Star Birth: All Stars Are Born the Same Way
July 15th, 2010 “Our observations show a disc surrounding an embryonic young, massive star, which is now fully formed,” says Stefan Kraus, who led the study. “One can say that the baby is about to hatch!” The team of astronomers looked at an object known by the cryptic name of IRAS 13481-6124. About twenty times the mass of [...]
Watch While an Asteroid Eats a Star
July 6th, 2010 In a rare event on July 8, 2010, skywatchers will be able to see an asteroid briefly block out the light from a star as it passes in front. It may be the only asteroid ‘occultation’ this century observable with the naked eye. Everybody is familiar with a solar eclipse, when our Moon passes in [...]
Planck Unveils the Universe – Now and Then
July 3rd, 2010 ESA’s Planck mission has delivered its first all-sky image. It not only provides new insight into the way stars and galaxies form but also tells us how the Universe itself came to life after the Big Bang. “This is the moment that Planck was conceived for,” says ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David [...]
Coolest Stars Come out of the Dark: Spitzer Spies Frigid Brown Dwarfs
July 2nd, 2010 Astronomers have uncovered what appear to be 14 of the coldest stars known in our universe. These failed stars, called brown dwarfs, are so cold and faint that they’d be impossible to see with current visible-light telescopes. Spitzer’s infrared vision was able to pick out their feeble glow, much as a firefighter uses infrared goggles [...]
Investigating the Dark Side of the Universe: In Pursuit of Primordial Gravitational Waves
May 20th, 2010 Advancing into the next frontier in astrophysics and cosmology depends on our ability to detect the presence of a particular type of wave in space, a primordial gravitational wave. Much like ripples moving across a pond, these waves stretch the fabric of space itself as they pass by. If detected, these weak and elusive waves [...]
Posted in Astronomy 
Tags: dark side of universe, Primordial Gravitational Waves, universe 
Comments OffFirst Results Study on Impact of Large Celestial Body on Jupiter
May 19th, 2010 The Planetary Sciences Group at the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country with its headquarters at the Faculty of Engineering in Bilbao and led by Professor Agustín Sánchez Lavega, has published the first results of research into the impact of a large-sized celestial body on the planet Jupiter last July. The work includes researchers from the [...]
Possible New Class of Supernovae Puts Calcium in Your Bones
May 18th, 2010 In the past decade, robotic telescopes have turned astronomers’ attention to scads of strange exploding stars, one-offs that may or may not point to new and unusual physics. But supernova (SN) 2005E, discovered five years ago by the University of California, Berkeley’s Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), is one of eight known “calcium-rich supernovae” that [...]