News

Ground-based detection of super-Earth transit

1 December 2014 Astronomy Now

A team of astronomers has measured the passing of a super-Earth in front of a bright, nearby Sun-like star using a ground-based telescope for the first time. Exoplanet 55 Cancri e, some 40 light-years away, is about twice as big and eight times as massive as the Earth.

Japanese “ATERUI” becomes world’s fastest astronomical supercomputer

1 December 2014 Astronomy Now

Capable of performing one thousand trillion calculations per second, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan’s upgraded “ATERUI” Cray XC30 supercomputer now offers the world’s best performance for astronomical simulations.

Earth’s ‘plasmaspheric hiss’ protects against a harmful radiation belt

27 November 2014 Astronomy Now

Researchers at MIT, the University of Colorado and elsewhere have found that very low-frequency electromagnetic waves in the Earth’s upper atmosphere form a shield, protecting the planet’s surface from the Van Allen belt’s high-energy radiation.

‘Eye of Sauron’ provides new way of measuring distances to galaxies

26 November 2014 Astronomy Now

A team led by Dr. Sebastian Hoenig from the University of Southampton has developed a new way of measuring precise distances to galaxies tens of millions of light-years away, refining the distance to NGC 4151 and providing a way for accurately determining black hole masses.

Dawn spacecraft’s geological maps of asteroid Vesta

25 November 2014 Astronomy Now

Launched in 2007, Nasa’s Dawn spacecraft orbited and surveyed large asteroid Vesta between July 2011 and September 2012. This detailed map is the culmination of a two-and-a-half-year geological mapping campaign.

UK team announces plan to crowd-source moon mission

20 November 2014 Stephen Clark

Scientists hope private backers will kick-start a mission to land a robotic probe on the South Pole of the moon within the next 10 years, drill deep into lunar bedrock and analyze primordial core samples to study the origins of the solar system.

Gravity saved the universe after the Big Bang?

19 November 2014 Astronomy Now

Recent theories suggest that the production of Higgs particles in the inflationary phase of the early universe should have led to instability and collapse. Now a European team offers an explanation why this didn’t happen, answering fundamental questions about how we are all here.