News: August 2009
Debris discs warped by interstellar wind
The curious shapes of some potentially planet harbouring dust-filled discs around stars could be explained by interactions with the local interstellar gas.
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Trifid Nebula's triple treat
A stunning new image of the Trifid Nebula from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals the furious star-forming furnace set inside a rare combination of three nebula types.
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Cygnus X-1 puts astronomers in a spin
New research from the Chandra and XMM-Newton spacecraft show that Cygnus X-1 is spinning much slower than other black holes.
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The planet that shouldn't exist
A planet ten times the mass of Jupiter found orbiting its star in less than one Earth day could provide a rare glimpse into the final moments of a planet's life.
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Neptune twenty years later
The greatest voyage of space exploration ever undertaken experienced its final highlight two decades ago, on 25 August 1989, when the intrepid spacecraft Voyager 2 flew within 4,950 kilometres of the beautiful blue ice giant Neptune.
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Citizens to help solve stellar mystery
This autumn a bright star will begin to fade in a curious transformation that occurs every 27 years, and this time the help of citizens will be called upon.
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Catalina Sky Survey spawns Real-Time Transient Survey
Primarily built for tracking down Near Earth Objects, the Catalina Sky Survey is set to expand into the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey, the first and only fully public synoptic sky survey.
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Galaxies demand a stellar recount
New data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer have turned the idea that stars of certain sizes form in certain quantities on its head.
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Stellar messenger from the early Universe
New observations by the Subaru Telescope of an old, bright star has shed new light on how the Universe's early stars may have developed.
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ESO peers deep into the hellish birthplaces of stars
New images released today by ESO delve deep into the star-forming furnace of RCW 38, a dense cluster located 5,500 light years away towards the constellation Vela.
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Gravitational wave observatory listens for echoes of Universe's birth
A team of scientists using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo Collaboration have put new constraints on how the Universe looked in its earliest moments.
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New insight into evolution of life
Humans have the fusing of two microscopic single-celled organisms more than 2.5 billion years ago to thank for their existence, new NASA-funded research has found.
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Tiny flares heat Sun's atmosphere
The mystery of why temperatures in the Sun's atmosphere exceed those nearer its surface has finally been explained by tiny bursts of heat and energy called nanoflares.
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Building blocks of life found in comet
A fundamental building block of life, glycine, has been identified in the samples returned from comet Wild 2 by NASA's Stardust mission.
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Super planetary nebula
A team of astronomers from Australia and the United States have discovered a new class of object which they have nicknamed 'Super Planetary Nebula'.
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Variability in type Ia supernovae
Newly discovered sources of variability in type Ia supernovae could cause problems in their use for calculating cosmic distances and the expansion of the Universe.
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Storms in the tropics of Titan
Ground-based observations of Saturn's giant moon Titan have revealed tantalizing evidence that its parched desert-like surface can support large-scale storm clouds that rain liquid methane.
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Trigger-happy star formation
Star formation has often been blamed on gas clouds cooling sufficiently for gravity to overcome them and cause them to collapse, or perhaps on the shock waves of supernovae smashing into interstellar gas and forcing it to condense and collapse.
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Giant new planet's backward orbit
The seventeenth planet discovered by the SuperWASP team is not only the largest discovered to date, but it also orbits its host star the wrong way, casting new light on how planetary systems form and evolve.
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Opportunity's meteorite yields clues on Mars history
New analysis conducted by Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on a large meteorite that it discovered last month reveals more details on the red planet's environmental history.
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Black holes got off to a false start
It took a generation of starved black holes to spur into action the formation of the giant supermassive black holes that we observe in the centres of galaxies today.
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The nights of the Perseids
The meteor season will explode into full swing over the next few days as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak over the nights of 11-12 and 12-13 August.
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Martian methane created at prodigious rates
The puzzle of methane on Mars has deepened, and it is not looking good for the prospect of finding life. New measurements show that, whatever the source of the methane is, it is producing it 600 times faster than had been assumed.
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The Sun's excessive youth
In its youth our Sun span ten times faster, with a much more powerful magnetic field and enormous sunspots covering it like vast continents on a planet.
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Spitzer sees planetary pile-up
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found evidence of a high-speed collision between a Mercury-sized planet and a Moon-sized body within the last few thousand years.
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Structures leap from Saturn's rings
A new moonlet and strange vertical structures are among the treasure trove of goodies revealed by the Cassini spacecraft as Saturn nears equinox.
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Spitzer's first 'warm' images
From star-forming pods to stellar graveyards, Spitzer opens its eyes to a new era of 'warm' observations.
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Kepler sees changing phases of giant planet
NASA's exoplanet seeking spacecraft, Kepler, has been confirmed to be up and running, and in doing so has captured the light of a gas giant orbiting a star over a thousand light years away.
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Volcanoes and lakes in new images of Titan
New ultra-high resolution radar images of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan showing the effects of icy cryovolcanoes are being presented this week at the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro.
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Venus spot continues to puzzle
Over two weeks ago a bright white spot appeared in the atmosphere of Venus, but where did it come from? A new report from the Venus Express team sheds some light on the matter.
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Hyperactive galaxies roam early Universe
Astronomers have measured the motions of stars for the first time in a very distant galaxy, speeding around its host at twice the speed of our Sun through the Milky Way.
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Double trouble for a dusty star
Dramatic new pictures taken by ESO telescopes reveal a special type of giant, dust-emitting star to not be just one object, but two.
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Opportunity rock is iron meteorite
A large boulder spied by the Mars Exploration Rover in July has been confirmed as the largest iron meteorite found on Mars to date.
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Opportunity stumbles on possible meteorite
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has spied a rock that could be a meteorite.
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Comets not likely cause of mass extinctions
New research conducted by scientists at the University of Washington concludes that it is unlikely comets caused any more than one minor extinction event.
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