Alpha Centauri, our closest neighboring star lies about 4 light years distant; now imagine as many as 10,000 stars crammed into that relatively small space. Astronomers say that’s about the density of the newly discovered ultra-compact dwarf galaxy known as M60-UCD1. “This galaxy is more massive than any ultra-compact dwarfs of comparable size,” said Jay […]
Hoping to eventually identify Earth-like planets in other solar systems, astronomers plan to point the Hubble telescope at the Moon’s Tycho crater (pictured) during the upcoming transit of Venus across the Sun (June 5-6) and analyze the reflected Venusian atmospheric spectra. The Moon-mirror approach is necessary, explain NASA scientists, as Hubble cannot look at the […]
A reservoir of water that is 100,000 times the mass of the sun has been detected by an international team of astronomers in a vapor cloud surrounding a quasar 12 billion light years distant. As well as the huge quantity of water, the quasar – named APM 08279 5255 – also emits formidable amounts of […]
Astronomers from the UK and Germany have detected a spectacular nuclear explosion that created a blast wave traveling at a thousand miles per second. The explosion burst forth from the surface of a star 5,000 light years from Earth and was discovered, as reported in Nature, by a collective of the world’s telescopes arranged into […]
A team of astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory say they have discovered a giant Milky Way-sized tunnel filled with high-energy particles in a distant galaxy cluster. The tunnel may represent the link needed to understand the life cycle of so-called radio jets spawned from voracious super-massive black holes. Since its launch from the space […]
Astrobiologists disagree about whether advanced life is common or rare in our universe. But new research suggests that one thing is pretty certain – if an Earthlike world with significant water is needed for advanced life to evolve, there could be many candidates. In 44 computer simulations of planet formation near a sun, astronomers found […]
