News – Page 72 – Astronomy Now

NASA again delays launch of James Webb Space Telescope

28 June 2018 Astronomy Now

An independent review board has recommended, with NASA concurrence, a 10-month delay for launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, to March 2021, to allow time to address a host of technical and managerial issues.

‘Oumuamua, first known interstellar visitor, is a comet after all

28 June 2018 Astronomy Now

The cigar-shaped ‘Oumuamua, now sailing out of the Solar System after crossing the gulfs of interstellar space and looping past the Sun, has gained speed slightly, indicating it is a comet, not an asteroid as originally believed.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s jaw-dropping Messier catalogue

28 June 2018 William Harwood

Amateur astronomers the world over routinely use the Messier catalog as a guide to deep space targets visible in relatively small telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope provides an altogether different experience.

Supercomputer simulation reverse engineers star cluster formation

27 June 2018 Astronomy Now

Supercomputer simulations show star clusters, regardless of size, form in the same way, starting with a dense cloud of interstellar gas and shaped over several million years by gravity, turbulence and radiation pressure

Ruling out false positives – and negatives – in search for life on other worlds

26 June 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers and astrobiologists are working to understand what lines of evidence will be needed to confirm the presence of life on an exoplanet, how to collect that evidence and how to avoid being misled.

Kepler finds nearly 80 more exoplanet candidates in recent search

25 June 2018 Astronomy Now

In a dress-rehearsal of sorts for NASA’s next planet-hunting satellite, researchers sifting through recent observations by NASA’s ageing Kepler space telescope have identified nearly 80 new candidate exoplanets.

Supermassive black holes squelch star formation in ancient galaxies

23 June 2018 Astronomy Now

Observations by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of two five-billion-solar-mass black holes at the cores of two ancient ‘red nugget’ galaxies show they squelched star formation early on while consuming surrounding gas.

Relativity passes another test, this one beyond the Milky Way

22 June 2018 Astronomy Now

Putting general relativity to the test, astronomers compared the known gravity of a galaxy with the bending of spacetime needed to produce a spectacular ‘Einstein ring’ and found, once again, that Einstein was correct.

ESA releases complete Rosetta archive, including a final surprise

21 June 2018 Astronomy Now

The European Space Agency has released a complete archive of high-resolution imagery from the Rosetta spacecraft charting the probe’s historic exploration of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, including a final unexpected frame.

Explosive volcanoes on Mars explain mysterious rock formation

20 June 2018 Astronomy Now

A huge deposit of porous rock straddling the Martian equator likely formed as a result of explosive volcanoes erupting three billion years ago that were powered by climate-changing volatile gases trapped in the red planet’s interior