Latest Light echo Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online [ Watch the Video: Light echoes from LRLL 54361 ] A strange beacon of light has been captured, for the third time, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Far away, on a protostar called LRLL 54361, a flashing light takes place every 25.34 days, like fireworks. New images and video released by NASA and taken by the Hubble show the cause of these fireworks can bee seen hidden behind a dense disc and an envelope of dust....
Since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the sky 400 years ago, a myriad of technological advances have allowed astronomers to look at very faint objects, very distant objects, and even light that's invisible to the human eye. Yet, one aspect usually remains out of reach - the benefit of a 3-D perspective.Our telescopes show the Milky Way galaxy only as it appears from one vantage point: our solar system. Now, using a simple but powerful technique, a group of astronomers led by Armin Rest...
Hot spots near the shattered remains of an exploded star are echoing the blast's first moments, say scientists using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.Eli Dwek of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and Richard Arendt of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, say these echoes are powered by radiation from Cassiopeia A supernova shock wave that blew the star apart some 11,000 years ago."We're seeing the supernova's first flash," Dwek said.Previously,...
Astronomers have unearthed secrets from the grave of a star that blasted apart in a supernova explosion long ago. By decoding ghostly echoes of light traveling away from the remains of a supernova called Cassiopeia A, the scientists have pieced together what the star looked like in life, and ultimately how it met its demise. The discovery, made using primarily NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Japan's Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, represents the first time astronomers have been...
NOAO -- In a feat resembling an intergalactic autopsy, astronomers have used the Gemini South telescope in Chile to obtain a detailed spectrum of an echo of light from an ancient supernova that enables them to identify the original star's cause of death. Beyond confirming that the team's basic interpretation of the light echo was correct, the spectrum suggests strongly that the explosion was a Type-Ia supernova that originated with a compact white dwarf star in the Large Magellanic Cloud....
Cambridge, MA -- A team of astronomers has found faint visible echoes of three ancient supernovae by detecting their centuries-old light as it is reflected by clouds of interstellar gas hundreds of light-years removed from the original explosions. Located in a nearby galaxy in the southern skies of Earth, the three exploding stars flashed into short-lived brilliance at least two centuries ago, and probably longer. The oldest one is likely to have occurred more than six hundred years ago. The...
JPL -- An enormous light echo etched in the sky by a fitful dead star was spotted by the infrared eyes of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The surprising finding indicates Cassiopeia A, the remnant of a star that died in a supernova explosion 325 years ago, is not resting peacefully. Instead, this dead star likely shot out at least one burst of energy as recently as 50 years ago. "We had thought the stellar remains inside Cassiopeia A were just fading away," said Dr. Oliver Krause,...
Hubble -- The Hubble Space Telescope's latest image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002.The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a pulse of light three years ago, somewhat...
