Latest Astrophysics Stories
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online NASA has released a pair of new images captured by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) – one depicting a pair of black holes lurking inside a spiral galaxy, and the other featuring a look at the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. The two pictures, which were revealed Monday at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Long Beach, California, “showcase why NuSTAR is giving us an unprecedented look at the...
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In 2011, a months-long blast of energy launched by an enormous black hole almost 11 billion years ago swept past Earth. Using a combination of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), the world's largest radio telescope, astronomers have zeroed in on the source of this ancient outburst. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online In this installment of our new podcast series Your Universe Today, redOrbit’s resident astronomer Dr. John Millis spoke with Dr. Eric Mamajek from the University of Rochester about the search for planets outside of our solar system and the possibility of finding life beyond Earth. This is part two of a three-part series on the topic, so be sure to listen to part 1 of “How Planets Form”. … And stay tuned for the...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online An astronomer wrote in the journal Physical Review Letters about a new mechanism for the magnetization of the early universe. Before stars formed, luminous matter consisted only of fully ionized gas of protons, electrons, helium nuclei and lithium nuclei which were produced during the Big Bang. “All higher metals, for example, magnetic iron could, according to today’s conception, only be formed in the inside of stars," Dr....
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Science teachers in grade school sometimes hand out "mystery boxes," which contain ramps, barriers and a loose marble. Rotating the marble and feeling it hang up or drop, the students begin to deduce the contents of the box. Scientists who are trying to understand why tiny particles rain down from space face a similar dilemma, but on a much grander scale. Their mystery box is a hundred thousand light years across, and the only clues...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Starting in early 2013, redOrbit will be launching a new podcast series called Your Universe Today, where we interview leading scientists about cutting-edge research in everything from space travel to the origins of our Universe. But we’re in the holiday spirit and couldn’t wait until January to unveil our new podcast project, so we’ve decided to give you a sneak peak of what’s to come. In the second...
Watch the video "Simulated Vision of Solar Wind Turbulence" April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists have zoomed in on solar wind to reveal the finest detail yet using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Cluster quartet of satellites as a space plasma microscope. They found tiny turbulent swirls that could play a big role in heating the winds. The fact that these winds stay hotter than they current models predict has been a long-standing puzzle in solar physics...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online According to a study using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, there may be more ultramassive black holes in the Universe than previously thought. A new analysis has looked at the brightest galaxies in a sample of 18 galaxy clusters in order to target the largest black holes. The scientists' work suggests that at least ten of the galaxies contain an ultramassive black hole, weighing between 10 and 40 billion times the mass...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have released a new Hubble Space Telescope image of the planetary nebula NGC 5189. In the essence of the Christmas spirit, ESA describes the cosmic structure of the eruption as a "giant and brightly colored ribbon in space." The structure visible within NGC 5189 is particularly dramatic, and the space agencies said the image is the most detailed yet image of this object. Planetary...
[ Watch the Video: Measuring Space Tubulence ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online We all know that turbulence exists on Earth, but does it really exist in outer space? And if it does, how would you prove it? A research team from University of Iowa (UI) and the University of California, Los Angeles reports that they have directly measured space wind for the first time in a laboratory. “Turbulence is not restricted to environments here on Earth, but also arises...
Latest Astrophysics 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: 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...
Solar cycles: what are they and why should we care about them? Solar cycles are made up of what are known as solar minimums (min) and solar maximums (max). We refer to a solar min at the time when the sun is not active with many sunspots, while a solar max is just the opposite when we see a large increase in sunspot activity. So how long do solar cycles last? Typically they run on what is known as an 11 year cycle from the max to the min and then start over again anew. As of 2012 we...
Physics is a natural science involving the study of matter and its motion through space-time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. On a broader scale, it also involves the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves. Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines, perhaps the oldest through its inclusion of astronomy. Physics was part of natural philosophy until the Scientific Revolution in the 16th century, when the natural...
The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published quarterly by Springer Science Business Media. The editor-in-chief is Thierry Courvoisier. It was first published in April 1989. The journal covers all areas of astronomy and astrophysics, including cosmic ray physics, studies in the solar system, astrobiology, developments in laboratory or particle physics relevant to astronomy, instrumentation, computational or statistical methods with specific...
![NASA\](/media/gallery/fermi-gamma-ray-space-telescope/thumbs/thumbs_751995main_ctb109_large.jpg "NASA\")
