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Rapid supernova could be new class of exploding star

An unusual supernova rediscovered in seven-year-old data may be the first example of a new type of exploding star, possibly from a binary star system where helium flows from one white dwarf onto another and detonates in a thermonuclear explosion.

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A new computer simulator allows to design military strategies based on ants' movements

This photo shows ants' movements.This press release is available in French and Spanish.

German high-school students involved in an astronomical research project

This week, Astronomy & Astrophysics publishes a somewhat unusual research article because it is co-authored by German high-school students. Led by astronomer Klaus Beuermann (University of Göttingen, Germany), the team...

Texas A&M prof to predict weather on Mars

Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however,...

Shedding light on the cosmic skeleton

Astronomers have tracked down a gigantic, previously unknown assembly of galaxies located almost seven billion light-years away from us. The discovery, made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world -- ESO's Very Large Telescope and NAOJ’s Subaru Telescope -- is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant Universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed. This 3-D illustration shows the position of the galaxies and reveals the extent of this gigantic structure. The galaxies located in the newly discovered structure are shown in red. Galaxies that are either in front or behind the structure are shown in blue."Matter is not distributed uniformly in the Universe," says Masayuki Tanaka from ESO, who led the new study. "In our cosmic vicinity, stars form in galaxies and galaxies usually form...

NRL sensor provides critical space weather observations

The DMSP F18 Satellite will replace DMSP F16 launched in 2003.Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard an United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle, Oct. 18, 2009, the Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI) developed by NRL's Space...

High-precision measurements confirm cosmologists' standard view of the universe

The QUaD collaboration uses the 2.6-meter telescope shown here to view the temperature and polarization of the cosmic microwave background, a faintly glowing relic of the hot, dense, young universe.A detailed picture of the seeds of structures in the universe has been unveiled by an international team co-led by Sarah Church of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and...

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'Ultra-primitive' particles found in comet dust

Dust samples collected by high-flying aircraft in the upper atmosphere have yielded an unexpectedly rich trove of relicts from the ancient cosmos, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution. The stratospheric...

Solar winds triggered by magnetic fields

Solar wind generated by the sun is probably driven by a process involving powerful magnetic fields, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers based on...

SMOS satellite successfully launched

A rocket carrying the European Space Agency's (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite (2 November) blasted off successfully today at 02:50 Central European Time from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in...

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Opening up a colorful cosmic jewel box

The FORS1 instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO's Paranal Observatory was used to take this exquisitely sharp close up view of the colorful Jewel Box cluster, NGC 4755. The telescope's huge mirror allowed very short exposure times: just 2.6 seconds through a blue filter (B), 1.3 seconds through a yellow/green filter (V) and 1.3 seconds through a red filter (R). The field of view spans about seven arcminutes.Star clusters are among the most visually alluring and astrophysically fascinating objects in the sky. One of the most spectacular nestles deep in the southern skies near the Southern Cross...

'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies

This is a composite of false color images of the galaxies found at the early epoch around 800 million years after the Big Bang. The upper left panel presents the galaxy confirmed in the 787 million year old universe. These galaxies are in the Subaru Deep Field.

Carbon atmosphere discovered on neutron star

New evidence from Chandra suggests that the neutron star at the center of the Cas A supernova remnant has an ultra-thin carbon atmosphere. This uniform carbon atmosphere would explain the lack of X-ray pulsations from this object because the neutron star would be unlikely to display any changes as it rotates. The absence of pulsations has been a mystery since the neutron star was discovered in Chandra's "First Light" image over a decade ago. The carbon atmosphere is thought to be only about four inches thick, with a density similar to diamond and a pressure more than 10 times that found at the center of the Earth.Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves...

Follow Rosetta's final Earth boost

ESA Rosetta Flight Control Team in action during the encounter with asteroid Steins in 2008.ESA's comet chaser Rosetta will swing by Earth for the last time on 13 November to pick up energy and begin the final leg of its 10-year journey to comet...

U of A physicist identifies mysterious core left by exploding star

University of Alberta physics professor Craig Heinke has solved a mystery that lies 11,000 light years beyond Earth. A supernova (or exploding star), 20 times heavier than our sun blasted...

SMOS forms 3-pointed star in the sky

Following the launch of ESA's SMOS satellite on 2 November, the French space agency CNES, which is responsible for operating the satellite, has confirmed that the instrument's three antenna arms...

VERITAS telescopes help solve 100-year-old mystery: The origin of cosmic rays

This representative-color figure shows the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission observed by VERITAS coming from the Cigar Galaxy, also known as Messier 82. The black star is the location of the active starburst region. The emission from M82 is effectively point-like for VERITAS, and the white circle indicates the size of a simulated point source. The entire galaxy would be contained within the circle.Nearly 100 years ago, scientists detected the first signs of cosmic rays - subatomic particles (mostly protons) that zip through space at nearly the speed of light. The most energetic...

NASA's Fermi telescope detects gamma-ray from 'star factories' in other galaxies

M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, lies 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Fermi’s LAT and the ground-based VERITAS observatory have detected diffuse gamma rays from the galaxy’s core, which produces stars at a rate ten times faster than our entire galaxy.Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called "starburst" galaxies, plus a satellite...

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Rare space experiment gives clues about the fundamental structure of the universe

In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect, eliminating some approaches to a new theory of gravity.A physics experiment using a super-fast explosion in a galaxy 7.3 billion light-years away has given scientists rare experimental evidence about the fundamental structure of space and time. The...

A special issue on the International Workshop of the 2008 Solar Total Eclipse

On August 1, 2008 a total solar eclipse was visible within a narrow corridor that traversed from North America to China. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow started from...

New celestial map gives directions for GPS

This is an artist's concept of a quasar (bright area with rays) embedded in the center of a galaxy.Many of us have been rescued from unfamiliar territory by directions from a Global Positioning System (GPS) navigator. GPS satellites send signals to a receiver in your GPS navigator, which...

Physicist makes new high-res panorama of Milky Way

This is a full sky panorama of the Milky Way.Cobbling together 3000 individual photographs, a physicist has made a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky, with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. Axel Mellinger, a...

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