Latest Space telescopes Stories

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers are reaching out to the public and asking for a little help in a study to find holes in dust clouds that are threaded throughout our galaxy. By looking at images from the Herschel Space Observatory, combined with those from NASA’s Spitzer satellite, members of the public can join the scientists by helping to distinguish between dense clumps of cold dust and possible holes in these dusty clouds. Dust clouds do not...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online It would be a mistake to think of black holes as having a uniformity of size or mass. They range from modest objects formed from the end of an individual stars' life to behemoths billions of times more massive that rule the centers of galaxies. A new study recently published in the journal Science, however, shows that high-speed jets launched from active black holes share fundamental similarities despite the mass, age or...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online For thousands of years, astronomers have used Vega – the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the brightest in the constellation Lyra – as a touchstone to measure the brightness of other stars. Now, a new study from the University of Michigan demonstrates that Vega may be more than 200 million years older than scientists previously believed. Researchers were able to estimate Vega’s age by precisely measuring the star’s...

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, Dec. 12, to discuss the latest findings from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers will report on recent observations of a previously unseen population of primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago. The teleconference panelists are: -- Richard Ellis, astrophysicist, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. -- Abraham Loeb, chair, Astronomy Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, Dec. 12, to discuss the latest findings from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers will report on recent observations of a previously unseen population of primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The teleconference panelists are: -- Richard Ellis, astrophysicist, California...

[Watch Video: Fermi Finds Radio Bursts From Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is new and improved, and ready to start sending back some images of high-energy light mysteriously produced above thunderstorms. The space agency updated the telescope with improved data analysis techniques and a new operating mode to the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard Fermi. This will enable the telescope...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Thanks to improved data analysis techniques and a new operating mode, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is now 10 times better at catching the brief outbursts of high-energy light mysteriously produced above thunderstorms. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The outbursts, known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), last only a few thousandths of a second,...

NASA When the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) launched on Dec. 2, 1995, it provided some of the first high-resolution observations of the sun unobscured by Earth's own atmosphere. A joint ESA/NASA mission, SOHO has helped revolutionize our understanding of the sun's interior and complex atmosphere -- home to a variety of giant explosions, including eruptions of solar material known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Indeed, before SOHO there was disagreement over what a CME headed...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Listen to the podcast “How Planets Form” with redOrbit's Dr. John Millis and planet-hunting expert Dr. Eric Mamajek of the University of Rochester. Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered just how many of the stars you see might have planets orbiting them, and if so, what those planets might be like? Our galaxy alone contains at least 200 billion stars, and researchers have been searching effortlessly to find out...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA is exploring options for innovative and imaginative uses of two large space telescopes recently transferred to the agency. In a request for information (RFI) published Monday, NASA seeks information about system concepts and architectures that would take advantage of these assets to address NASA's goals in astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary sciences, and human spaceflight. (Logo:...