News
New quasar is the oldest yet
The discovery of a small quasar 13 billion light years away gives insights into the condition of the universe soon after the big bang
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Closing in on the gamma-ray sky
Over the last century our window on the universe has been widened by a staggering amount. From observations in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, which spans one octave, astronomers have extended their view in two different directions. We are now able to study the cosmos in the long-wavelength radio and microwave regions right up to the ultrashort wavelengths of X-rays and gamma radiation – an increase of over 70 octaves.
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Milky Way Black Hole May Be A Colossal 'Particle Accelerator'
The black hole at the center of our Milky Way could be working like a cosmic particle accelerator, revving up protons that smash at incredible speeds into lower energy protons and creating high-energy gamma rays, University of Arizona astrophysicists say.
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Cosmic Lighthouses: Astrophysicists Explain Differences In Brightness Of Supernova Explosions
Supernovae stand out in the sky like cosmic lighthouses. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and at the National Astronomical Institute of Italy have now found a way to use these cosmic beacons to measure distances in space more accurately. The researchers have been able to show that all supernovae of a certain type explode with the same mass and the same energy - the brightness depends only on how much nickel the supernova contains. This knowledge has allowed the researchers to calibrate the brightness of supernovae with greater precision.
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Universe Offers 'Eternal Feast,' Cosmologist Says
There is no such thing as a free lunch, some say, but they would be wrong. In fact, the entirety of the universe defies them. According to Stanford physics Professor Andrei Linde, one of the architects of the inflationary theory, our universe (and all the matter in it) was born out of a vacuum.
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Origin Of Darkest Galaxies In The Universe Elucidated
Stelios Kazantzidis, a researcher at Stanford University's Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), and collaborators have developed an elegant explanation for how galaxies come to be dominated by dark matter. They report their findings in the Feb. 15 issue of Nature.
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Scientists Find High Energy Systems Hidden In 'Gas Cocoon'
Astronomers have found a new class of objects in space: a neutron star orbiting inside a cocoon of cold gas and/or dust that hides a bloated supergiant star. In a strange twist of fate, these objects may be tremendously luminous, but the enshrouding cocoon absorbs almost all their emission, making them nearly invisible to telescopes on Earth until now.
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Astronomer Finds Closest Gravitational Lensing Galaxy
A giant elliptical galaxy seen in an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is the closest gravitational lens yet known, according to information released by the Hubble Heritage Project Feb. 6.
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First negatively charged molecule found in space
The discovery suggests relatively large molecules may be able to capture extra electrons, but the exact mechanism is still unclear
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Binary star pulsates with high-energy gamma rays
The first astronomical source of very high-energy gamma-ray pulses has been discovered by an international team of researchers. The gamma rays, which have energies greater than 100 giga electron volts (GeV), are at least 100 000 times more energetic than other known periodic signals. (Astronomy & Astrophysics in press). The pulses are produced in binary star system called LS 5039, which is a well-known source of x-rays.
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Active galactic nuclei
New X-ray observations are expanding our view of the black holes that exist at the centreof many galaxies, as Andrew Fabiandescribes You may not realize it, but the sky is littered with black holes – regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. In the Milky Way, for instance, black holes a few times more massive than the Sun grow by accreting gas from companion stars within binary systems.
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Gamma ray 'clock' found creating antimatter
The star system, so far unique to science, also provides the first clear sign of light being converted into matter and antimatter outside of the lab
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Astronomers Find First Ever Gamma Ray Clock
Astronomers using the H.E.S.S. telescopes have discovered the first ever modulated signal from space in Very High Energy Gamma Rays -- the most energetic such signal ever observed. Regular signals from space have been known since the 1960s, when the first radio pulsar (nicknamed Little Green Men-1 for its regular nature) was discovered. This is the first time a signal has been seen at such high energies -- 100,000 times higher than previously known.
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How Many Black Holes Are There In The Universe?
Astronomers using ESA's orbiting gamma-ray observatory, Integral, have taken an important step towards estimating how many black holes there are in the Universe.
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Big Bang's Afterglow Fails Intergalactic 'Shadow' Test
The apparent absence of shadows where
shadows were expected to be is raising new questions about the faint glow of
microwave radiation once hailed as proof that the universe was created by a
"Big Bang." In a finding sure to cause controversy, scientists at The University of
Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) found a lack of evidence of shadows from
"nearby" clusters of galaxies using new, highly accurate measurements of the
cosmic microwave background.
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Almost certain escape from a black hole
Recent theoretical results have overturned the long-held notion that information cannot escape from
a black hole, explains Seth Lloyd You wake up in a hospital bed feeling a little groggy but otherwise okay. All your bits and pieces seem to be present, but you have no idea why you are there. The last thing you remember was waking up in the morning in your own bed at home and looking out of your window to find nothing but a black void.
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Gravity lens reveals dark matter
US astronomers claim to have observed dark matter – the elusive substance that is believed to be five times as common as normal matter, accounting for nearly a quarter of the universe. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and the Magellan optical telescopes were used to observe the violent collision between two large galaxy clusters 3 billion light years away.
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Astronomers Discover Rapidly Forming, Large Proto-disc Galaxies 3 Billion Years After Big Bang
Astronomers have discovered large disc galaxies akin to our Milky Way that must have formed on a rapid time scale, only 3 billion years after the Big Bang. In one of these systems, the combination of adaptive optics techniques with the new SINFONI spectrograph on ESO's Very Large Telescope resulted in a record-breaking resolution of a mere 0.15 arcsecond, giving an unprecedented detailed view of the anatomy of such a distant proto-disc galaxy.
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Surprising Telescope Observations Shake Up Galactic Formation Theories
A heavy form of hydrogen created just moments after the Big Bang has been found to exist in larger quantities than expected in the Milky Way, a finding that could radically alter theories about star and galaxy formation, says a new international study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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Galaxy survey fails to add up
Astronomers are struggling to explain new data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and various ground-based telescopes that reveal there are four times more galaxies in the direction of gamma-ray bursts than there are in the direction of quasars. This unexpected finding was made by Jason Prochaska and Gabriel Prochter of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who insist it is not a stastical fluke.
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About this image
Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA. Image has been modified.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System. An uninterrupted view of the Sun is achieved by operating SOHO from a permanent vantage point 1.5 million kilometers sunward of the Earth. SOHO was designed to observe the Sun continuously for at least two years.
- New quasar is the oldest yet
- Closing in on the gamma-ray sky
- Milky Way Black Hole May Be A Colossal 'Particle Accelerator'
- Cosmic Lighthouses: Astrophysicists Explain Differences In Brightness Of Supernova Explosions
- Universe Offers 'Eternal Feast,' Cosmologist Says
- Origin Of Darkest Galaxies In The Universe Elucidated
- Scientists Find High Energy Systems Hidden In 'Gas Cocoon'
- Astronomer Finds Closest Gravitational Lensing Galaxy
- First negatively charged molecule found in space
- Binary star pulsates with high-energy gamma rays
- Active galactic nuclei
- Gamma ray 'clock' found creating antimatter
- Astronomers Find First Ever Gamma Ray Clock
- How Many Black Holes Are There In The Universe?
- Big Bang's Afterglow Fails Intergalactic 'Shadow' Test
