Latest Perseus constellation Stories

[Watch Video 1] [Watch Video 2] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A European team of astronomers have reconstructed a powerful explosion of a nova, or what was left of the star after it exploded in 1901. The Spanish and Estonian team used 3D modeling to reconstruct the explosion in the star GK Persei, and published their results in the Astrophysical Journal. Star GK Persei, or Nova Persei 1901, sits just 1,300 light years away from Earth, and the star first gave...

[ Watch the Video: ScienceCasts: 2012 Perseid Meteor Shower ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Every year in August, the Perseid Meteor shower is visible to the naked eye and is a favorite for professional and amateur astronomers alike. The Perseid shower has it all. It offers a consistently high rate of meteors, it produces more bright, visible meteors than any other shower, it happens in August when many people are on vacation, and it happens at a time when...

The study of the 'demon star,' Algol, made by a research group of the University of Helsinki, Finland, has received both scientific and public attention The study of the "Demon star", Algol, made by a research group of the University of Helsinki, Finland, has received both scientific and public attention. The period of the brightness variation of this eclipsing binary star has been connected to good prognoses three millennia ago. This result has raised a lot of discussion and the news has...

The annual Perseid meteor shower is a sky watching ritual with star gazers and photographers out in abundance every year for the light show. There have been uncountable photographs of this event over the years, but a fresh take on this is now available. NASA astronaut Ron Garan found himself in a unique position for this annual show, above the meteor and looking down from the International Space Station (ISS) as the space rocks turned to flame and fell through the atmosphere. Garan makes good...

The Perseid meteor shower is peaking around August 12 through the 13th, but this year it will have to pierce through the sky against a full Moon.The Perseid meteor shower has been observed for about 2000 years and is associated with the comet Switf-Tuttle.The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the peak in activity being between August 9 and 14, depending on the particular location of the stream. The rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour during the peak hours, and they can...

X-ray observations made by the Suzaku observatory provide the clearest picture to date of the size, mass and chemical content of a nearby cluster of galaxies. The study also provides the first direct evidence that million-degree gas clouds are tightly gathered in the cluster's outskirts.Suzaku is sponsored by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with contributions from NASA and participation by the international scientific community. The findings will appear in the March 25 issue of...

Splat! There goes another bug on the windshield.Anyone who's ever driven down a country lane has seen it happen. A fast moving car, a cloud of multiplying insects, and a big disgusting mess.The next time that happens to you, instead of grossing out, try thinking of the experience as an astronomy lesson. Your car is Earth. The bugs are tiny flakes of comet dust. The carnage on your windshield ... it's a meteor shower!Earth, like a speeding car, races around the Sun sweeping up everything in...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found an answer to a long-standing puzzle by resolving giant but delicate filaments shaped by a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275. It is the most striking example of the influence of the immense tentacles of extragalactic magnetic fields, say researchers.One of the closest giant elliptical galaxies, NGC 1275 hosts a supermassive black hole. Energetic activity of gas swirling near the black hole blows bubbles of material into the...

The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes. This discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own galaxy. "This was a truly monstrous explosion, a hundred times more energetic than a typical supernova," said...

NASA -- Scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered evidence of energetic plumes - particles that extend 300,000 light years into a massive cluster of galaxies. The plumes are due to explosive venting from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole, and they provide dramatic new evidence of the influence a black hole can have over intergalactic distances. "In relative terms, it is as if a heat source the size of a fingernail affects the behavior of a region the size...