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Watching a cannibal galaxy dine

This image of the central parts of Centaurus A reveals the parallelogram-shaped remains of a smaller galaxy that was gulped down about 200 to 700 million years ago. The image is based on data collected with the SOFI instrument on ESO's New Technology Telescope at La Silla. The original image, obtained by observing in the near-infrared through three different filters (J, H and K) was specially processed to look through the dust, providing a clear view of the center. The field of view is about 4 x 4 arcminutes.

Baffling boxy bulge

Still an astrophysical mystery, the evolution of the bulges in spiral galaxies led astronomers to the edge-on galaxy NGC 4710. When staring directly at the centre of the galaxy, one can detect a faint, ethereal "X"-shaped structure. Such a feature, which astronomers call a "boxy" or "peanut-shaped" bulge, is due to the vertical motions of the stars in the galaxy's bar and is only evident when the galaxy is seen edge-on. This curiously shaped puff is often observed in spiral galaxies with small bulges and open arms, but is less common in spirals with arms tightly wrapped around a more prominent bulge, such as NGC 4710.When targeting spiral galaxy bulges, astronomers often seek edge-on galaxies, as their bulges are more easily distinguishable from the disc. This exceptionally detailed edge-on view of NGC 4710 taken by...

Close-up movie shows hidden details in the birth of super-suns

This is an artist's conception of the "boiling disk" surrounding the massive young stellar object known as Orion Source I. A disk of hot, ionized gas surrounds the central star, blocking our view. A cool wind of gas is driven from the upper and lower surfaces of the disk (as indicated by the colored arrows) and is sculpted into an hourglass shape by tangled magnetic field lines (shown as thin blue lines). This outflow is lit up by emission from silicon monoxide molecules -- emission that has been imaged and tracked by radio astronomers month-to-month. The entire disk and wind are rotating, leading to observable Doppler shifts of the material entrained in the wind; redder colors represent material with a component of motion away from the observer (into the plane of the sky), while bluer colors represent material moving toward the observer (out of the plane of the sky).The constellation of Orion is a hotbed of massive star formation, most prominently in the Great Nebula that sits in Orion's sword. The glowing gas of the Nebula is powered...

Goddard team develops new carriers for space station

In a partnership that exemplifies One NASA, engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. teamed up with engineers at NASA's Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to design,...

2 Earth-sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres found -- but they're stars not planets

Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopy of this inconspicuous blue object -- SDSS1102+2054 -- reveals it to be an extremely rare stellar remnant: a white dwarf with an oxygen-rich atmosphereAstrophysicists at the University of Warwick and Kiel University have discovered two earth sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres – however there is a bit of a disappointing snag for...

A lightning strike in Africa helps take the pulse of the sun

Sunspots, which rotate around the sun's surface, tell us a great deal about our own planet. Scientists rely on them, for instance, to measure the sun's rotation or to prepare...

Rapid star formation spotted in 'stellar nurseries' of infant galaxies

This is a Hubble Space Telescope observation showing the red 'arc' of the rapid star forming galaxy MS1358arc -- seen as it was 12.5 billion years ago. The galaxy is magnified by a factor of 10 by the younger foreground galaxies.The Universe's infant galaxies enjoyed rapid growth spurts forming stars like our sun at a rate of up to 50 stars a year, according to scientists at Durham University.

NASA's GOES Project offers real-time hurricane alley movies

NASA GOES Project now offers real-time HDTV movies of the east- and west-coast "hurricane alley" regions. This is a short movie of GOES satellite imagery showing Hurricane Bill from August 2009.People love to get the big picture of hurricane alleys, and thanks to the GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., they can now get real-time...

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,...

SMOS satellite instrument comes alive

The MIRAS instrument on ESA's SMOS satellite, launched earlier this month, has been switched on and is operating normally. MIRAS will map soil moisture and ocean salinity to improve our understanding of the role these two key variables play in...

Ticking stellar time bomb identified

Using the NACO adaptive optics instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope and its ability to obtain images as sharp as if taken from space, astronomers have made the first time-lapse movie of a bipolar shell ejected by a "vampire star," which underwent an outburst after gulping down part of its companion's matter. This enabled them to determine the distance and intrinsic brightness of the object. It appears that this system is a prime candidate to be one of the long-sought progenitors of the exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae, critical for the study of dark energy. The images of V445 Puppis cover a time span of two years. The images unambiguously show a bipolar shell, initially with a very narrow waist, with lobes on each side. Two knots are also seen at either extreme end of the shell, which appear to move at about 30 million kilometers per hour. The shell -- unlike any previously observed for a nova -- is itself moving at about 24 million kilometers per hour. A thick disc of dust, which must have been produced during the last outburst, obscures the central couple of stars."One of the major problems in modern astrophysics is the fact that we still do not know exactly what kinds of stellar system explode as a Type Ia supernova," says...

University of Colorado butterfly payload to launch Nov. 16 on space shuttle

A University of Colorado at Boulder educational payload containing butterfly larvae that will be monitored by thousands of elementary and middle school students around the country will launch to the International Space Station aboard NASA's space shuttle Atlantis Nov. 16.When NASA's space shuttle Atlantis launches for the International Space Station on Nov. 16 it will carry a University of Colorado at Boulder butterfly experiment that will be monitored by...

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Rosetta bound for outer Solar System after final Earth swingby

This is an artist's view of the ESA's Rosetta cometary probe. The spacecraft is covered with dark thermal insulation in order to keep its warmth while venturing into the coldness of the outer Solar System, beyond Mars orbit. Selected in November 1993 as a cornerstone mission of ESA's long-term science programme, the Rosetta probe was launched by an Ariane 5 on 2 March 2004, on an 11-year journey to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Built by EADS Astrium, the Rosetta probe consists of a 3,065-kg spacecraft (1,578-kg dry mass) designed to enter orbit around the comet's nucleus in August 2014 after a series of gravity assist manoeuvres to gain enough orbital energy, with three swing-bys at Earth (March 2005, November 2007 and November 2009) and one at Mars (February 2007). En route to the comet, the probe will flyby the asteroids 2867 Steins (September 2008) and 21 Lutetia (July 2010). The spacecraft carries 11 science instruments to probe the comet's nucleus and map its surface in fine detail. It will also land a package of instruments (the Philae Lander) to study some of the most primitive, unprocessed material in the Solar System. The mission will provide clues to the physical and chemical processes at work during the formation of planets, beginning 4.6 billion years ago.Rosetta passed over the ocean, just South of the Indonesian island of Java, at exactly 08:45:40 CET, at a speed of 13.34 km/s with respect to Earth an an altitude...

ESA spacecraft may help unravel cosmic mystery

When Europe's comet chaser Rosetta swings by Earth tomorrow for a critical gravity assist, tracking data will be collected to precisely measure the satellite's change in orbital energy. The results...

Exoplanets clue to sun's curious chemistry

Artist’s impression of a baby star still surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ESO’s very successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars which host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than planet-free stars. This finding does not only shed light on the low levels of this chemical element in the Sun, solving a long-standing mystery, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way to pick out the stars most likely to host planets. It is not clear what causes the lithium to be destroyed. The general idea is that the planets or the presence of the protoplanetary disc disturb the interior of the star, bringing the lithium deeper down into the star than usual, into regions where the temperature is so hot that it is destroyed."For almost 10 years we have tried to find out what distinguishes stars with planetary systems from their barren cousins," says Garik Israelian, lead author of a paper appearing this...

Swift, XMM-Newton satellites tune into a middleweight black hole

This archival image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the location of NGC 5408's unusually luminous X-ray source (circled). The irregular-type galaxy lies 15.8 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus.While astronomers have studied lightweight and heavyweight black holes for decades, the evidence for black holes with intermediate masses has been much harder to come by. Now, astronomers at NASA's...

'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.Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by...

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...

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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...

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...

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