Latest Astronomy Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers wrote in The Astrophysical Journal that they have made the best measurement of all the light in the universe since the Big Bang yet. Measuring the number and energy of each particle of light or photon since the Big Bang could provide secrets about the nature and evolution of the Universe, such as how similar or different ancient galaxies were compared to the galaxies today. The researchers made the most accurate...
[ Watch the Video: ScienceCasts: Sunset Triangle ] John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Fans of stargazing are in for a treat this weekend. Over the next several days the planets, Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury will approach each other in the fading sunlight to form a triple conjunction – where three bodies appear to converge in the sky. The events will culminate on the evening of the 26th, and will appear to form a triangle just above the horizon. The best...
John P. Millis, PhD for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online In 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope measured the distance to a nearby star system known as SS Cygni. Composed of a low-mass main sequence star and a compact object known as a white dwarf – a stellar remnant about the mass of our Sun, but compressed to the size of the Earth. The distance measured by Hubble puzzled scientists, as the measured brightness of the system was considerably higher than expected. If correct, it would...
[WATCH VIDEOS: Flying Around The Ring Nebula | Secrets Of The Ring Nebula] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The Hubble Space Telescope has provided one of the most detailed images of the Ring Nebula so far, allowing scientists to construct a model of the nebula in 3D. The Ring Nebula, or Messier 57, is an archetypal planetary nebula relatively close to Earth at 2,000 light-years away. NASA said Messier 57 is the glowing remains of a Sun-like star. The fairly...
WASHINGTON, May 23, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Ring Nebula's distinctive shape makes it a popular illustration for astronomy books. But new observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the glowing gas shroud around an old, dying, sun-like star reveal a new twist. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "The nebula is not like a bagel, but rather, it's like a jelly doughnut, because it's filled with material in the middle," said C. Robert O'Dell of...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Since the 18th Century, scientists have been aware that the Sun oscillates between periods of high and low solar activity in an 11-year cycle. So far, though, they have been unable to fully explain how this cycle is generated. Understanding the Sun’s magnetic activity has become increasingly important as we rely more on our electronic devices. Changes in the magnetic field are responsible for “space weather” phenomena,...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As the peak year of the solar maximum picks up in intensity, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observed yet another solar flare and two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) mid-week. On Wednesday May 22 the sun emitted an M7 solar flare, which peaked at about 9:38 a.m. EDT. While it was not immediately clear if the M-class flare also produced a CME, NASA confirmed later that the flare was associated with a CME. While this CME was...
[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is celebrating 15 years of success for its Very Large Telescope (VLT). ESO released an image taken by astronomers using VLT of a pink gas cloud known as IC 2944. The image resembles drops of ink floating in a strawberry cocktail, showing one of the interstellar clouds of dust and gas softly glowing pink. VLT's image is the sharpest view of the cosmic object ever...
Watch the Video: Mega Galaxy Merger ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Around 11 billion years ago, two hungry young galaxies collided and they are now forming a massive galaxy approximately 10 times the size of the Milky Way. The new mega-galaxy, HXMM01, was discovered as part of a UC-Irvine led project conducted with the W.M. Keck Observatory, the Herschel space observatory, and other research facilities around the world. It is extremely rare to capture the...
New astronomy research from author, PJ Tomlin, addresses hot button issues. SALISBURY, U.K. (PRWEB) May 23, 2013 Money spent on research to create and harness energy from hydrogen fusion is a waste, according to astronomy researcher and author, P.J. Tomlin, who says this is an unattainable feat. In his new book, 99 New Discoveries in Astronomy, Tomlin reveals his research findings, many of which fly in the face of popular belief. The findings challenge topics such as the role time plays...
Latest Astronomy Reference Libraries
The prominent feature that allows for the existence of life on Earth is the Sun. Radiation from our closest star provides heat and energy to our planet, driving biological processes and providing the necessary conditions for liquid water to naturally exist. But our Sun is only but one star in this vast Universe. And as it turns out, most stars are quite different than the one that illuminates our day. For this reason, scientists have, for hundreds of years, attempted to study the other...
Image Caption: Artistic concept of a planetary system. Credit: Wikipedia/NASA/JPL-Caltech The term Astronomy encompasses a broad range of topics, including the study of stars, galaxies, and planets. In order to focus on the different areas of study, many subfields of astronomy emerge. One such area is the study of planets known, appropriately, as Planetary Astronomy. Observational Planetary Astronomy Even within the field of Planetary Astronomy, there are several divisions to...
Image Caption: The Hubble Extreme Deep Field (XDF) was completed in September 2012 and shows the farthest galaxies ever photographed by humans. Each speck of light in the photo is an individual galaxy, some of them as old as 13.2 billion years; the observable universe is estimated to contain more than 200 billion galaxies. Credit: NASA/Wikipedia What is Cosmology? I once commented to an acquaintance that I was fascinated by the field of Cosmology, and mused that if I had more time, I...
Image Caption: NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 56,000 light-years in diameter and approximately 60 million light-years distant. Credit: NASA/ESA/Wikipedia What is Astrophysics? For much of the modern age the term Astrophysics has been used synonymously with Astronomy. This interchange is so common that many textbooks even offer the two as having the same meaning. However, from a strictly historical perspective there are differences...
The Tropic of Capricorn, alternately called the Southern Tropic, is a marker of the most southerly latitude on the Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs at the December solstice, when the southern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun at its maximum degree. It is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. It presently lies 23 degrees 26’ 16’’ south of the Equator. Currently, the Tropic of Capricorn is drifting towards the north at...
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