Mysterious bursts of radio waves detected on Earth may be coming from magnetars, say the scientists who first detected them. The international team of astronomers behind the discovery, writing in the journal Science, explain that the characteristics of the bursts indicate they come from sources billions of light years distant. “A single burst of radio […]
‘ An intriguing new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe. Data from NASA’s Kepler Mission previously suggested there is approximately one Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of each red dwarf. The […]
Astronomers have announced that the star Gliese 667C in the constellation of Scorpius is likely orbited by between five and seven planets and three of those may be habitable. The planets are in the so-called “Goldilocks” zone around the star, where liquid water could exist. Only 22 light years distant, Gliese 667C is about one […]
xperiments carried out aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) indicate that light plastic materials may provide sufficient radiation shielding for astronauts on future missions into deep space. Aluminum has traditionally been the primary material used in spacecraft construction, but it provides relatively little protection against high-energy cosmic rays and can add so much mass to […]
Life on Earth could have its origins in space, say Lawrence Livermore scientist Nir Goldman and University of Ontario Institute of Technology colleague Isaac Tamblyn. The pair have been simulating comet impact events and found that the extreme temperatures and pressures generated could have produced life building organic compounds – including the building blocks of […]
Earth resides between two major spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy in what was thought to be a smaller spur structure called the Local Arm. Now, however, new observations indicate that our Local Arm is in fact much more like the adjacent major arms. “Our new evidence suggests that the Local Arm should appear […]
Astronomers using NASA’s Swift X-ray Telescope have observed a spinning neutron star suddenly slowing down, a never before seen event that is expected to catalyze renewed efforts to better understand the puzzling physics of these bizarre stellar remnants. The star, known as 1E2259 586, is in the Northern Hemisphere sky in the constellation Cassiopeia. The […]
For the first time, astrophysicists from Tel Aviv University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have discovered an exoplanet using a new technique that relies on Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Previously, the two most successful techniques for finding exoplanets were radial velocity (looking for wobbling stars – caused by an orbiting planet pulling on […]
The Hubble Space Telescope has found the building blocks of Earth-like planets in an unlikely place: the atmospheres of a pair of burnt-out white dwarf stars in a nearby star cluster. According to astronomers from the European Space Agency, the new discovery suggests that rocky planet assembly is common in such clusters. The pair of […]
The Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists with the first close-up views of a massive hurricane-like vortex swirling around Saturn’s north pole. The vortex – about 20 times larger than the average hurricane on Earth – spins inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern which astronomers call “the hexagon.” “We did a double take when we […]
