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Astronomy: Related Pages.
Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. Astronomers of early civilizations performed methodical observations of the night sky.
Dec 27, 2005 - A team of Italian astronomers have discovered that a pulsar racing through the Milky Way has a comet-like trail blazing behind it. The object is called Geminga, and it was previously found to have twin jets of material blasting from its poles. This new, longer tail, was uncovered by studying data archived by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Geminga is only 500 light-years away from Earth, and moving quickly across our field of view giving astronomers a unique opportunity to study such an exotic object. Photos of Young Stellar Clusters Dec 26, 2005 - Two ESO telescopes captured stars at different points of the stellar lifecycle in this photograph of star cluster NGC 2467. This cluster, located in the southern constellation Puppis, contains the open clusters Haffner 18 (centre) and Haffner 19 (middle right). And at the heart of Haffner 18 the stars at various ages. Mature stars are in the middle; a newborn star that has just started blazing is in the bottom left; and a dust cloud containing embryonic stars is in the right-hand corner. Young Stars in the Christmas Tree Cluster Dec 23, 2005 - The Christmas Tree Cluster, also known as NGC 2264, is a well known star cluster in the Monoceros (the Unicorn) constellation. It got its nickname because it looks like a tree in visible light. But this view, taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, shows what it looks like in infrared light. Normally obscured by thick dust, individual newborn stars packed together in the cluster can be seen shrouded in the nebula. Galaxies Grow Up in Dark Matter Nurseries Dec 23, 2005 - Want to know where new galaxies are going to be born? Just look for clumps of dark matter. Although dark matter is completely invisible to any kind of detector we have today, this mysterious substance can warp radiation by its gravity. Astronomers have used Hubble and the Subaru Telescope to map out the distribution of dark matter in an area of sky 5 times larger than the full Moon. Wherever dark matter is at its thickest, galaxies are likely to form. Echoes from Ancient Supernovae Dec 21, 2005 - Even though they explode in an instant, the after effects of supernovae can be seen for hundreds of years. Astronomers have observed the remains of three supernovae that flashed in our skies hundreds of years ago. Careful image analysis found concentric arcs of light moving outwards from where the supernovae exploded. Light from these explosions has bounced off of clouds of interstellar gas, and is now visible to astronomers like an echo can be heard when sound bounces off a distant object. Clearer Images of the Milky Way's Centre Dec 21, 2005 - One of the big problems with Earth-based observatories is our own atmosphere. It distorts the light from distant objects, always making them a little blurry. The giant W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii uses a laser to create a bright virtual star in the sky so astronomers can calculate and remove these distortions to create amazingly clear views of the night sky. Its latest target is the centre of our own Milky Way which is thought to hide a supermassive black hole. Alpha Centauri's Sounds Measured Dec 21, 2005 - Astronomers have used the ESO's Very Large Telescope to measure the stellar vibrations of a nearby star. The team studied Alpha Centauri B, one of our closest neighbours - only 4.3 light-years away - and relatively similar to our own Sun. Churning gas in the star's outer layers creates low-frequency sound waves that bounce around inside the star and cause it to pulse in and out slightly. The star only changes about a dozen metres every four minutes, but that makes enough of a change in the wavelength of light we see to be able to detect it. Perseus Spiral Arm is Closer Than Previously Thought Dec 15, 2005 - Like all spiral galaxies, our own Milky Way has magnificent spiral arms. We're just inside the galaxy, so we don't get a good view of them. An international team of radio astronomers have revised the distance to the Milky Way's Perseus spiral arm. They used a simple method called triangulation, where the angles to various stars are measured when the Earth is at opposite sides of its orbit. The previous estimates are probably off because the stars are moving more quickly than astronomers realized, which added errors to the calculations. Massive Gas Halos Surround Most Galaxies Dec 14, 2005 - ESA's XMM-Newton observatory has turned up hot gaseous halos around several spiral galaxies. These ghostly veils have been seen surrounding "starburst galaxies", which are going through a tremendous amount of star formation - but not around the more common kinds of galaxies. Unlike a starburst galaxies, which concentrates their halos, regular galaxies will have simmering star formation stretching across them entirely. These halos can contain up to 10 million solar masses of gas. Dec 14, 2005 - An international team of astronomers have discovered a new large object in the Kuiper Belt; a region of the Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune. The object's official designation is 2004 XR 190, but the discoverers are calling it "Buffy" for now. Buffy is approximately half the size of Pluto, and orbits the Sun roughly double the distance of Neptune. Although there are larger objects in the Kuiper Belt, Buffy has one of the most unusual orbits: 47-degrees off the plane of the ecliptic, where the other planets orbit. Spitzer Finds More than 100 New Star Clusters Dec 13, 2005 - NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found more than 100 new star clusters hidden within the dusty areas of our own Milky Way. The powerful infrared observatory can see through the dark dust that normally obscures our view of this region of the galaxy. The team of astronomers that made the discovery found that there are twice as many clusters in the southern galactic plane (visible from the southern skies) as there are from the northern galactic plane. This may offer hints about the location of the Milky Way's spiral arms. Dec 11, 2005 - Even through scientists have no idea what dark matter really is, they're able to see its effect on regular matter, and use this data to build a map of where it's clustered. Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to map the dark matter in two very young galaxy clusters. Their observations lend evidence to the theory that galaxies form at the densest regions of dark matter. Zeiss Optics in Hubble's Successor Dec 6, 2005 - Germany's Carl Zeiss Optronics has signed a contract to supply the optical system for two instruments to be installed on the James Webb Space Telescope; the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Due for launch in 2013 on board an Ariane rocket, the telescope will be stationed at a stable position in space called the Lagrangian point L2. JWST will be cooled down to -230 degrees Celsius so that it's highly sensitive infrared instruments can peer through clouds of gas and dust. Galaxies Colliding All Around Us Dec 6, 2005 - The history of our nearby Universe has been dominated by galactic collisions. More than half of the nearby galaxies have collided other galaxies in the last 2 billion year according to data from two comprehensive sky surveys. By processing 126 galaxies in the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey and the Multiwavelength Survey by Yale/Chile, researchers have found that 53% of galaxies have evidence of long tails of stars trailing away from them; the result of a recent galactic collision. Chandra Views the Perseus Cluster Dec 1, 2005 - NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory has gathered 280 hours worth of data on the Perseus galaxy cluster to reveal massive amounts of turmoil in thousands of galaxies. Chandra discovered bright loops, ripples, and jet-like streaks. The supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy NGC 1275 (Perseus A) is creating low pressure plumes of gas extending out for 300,000 light-years. Dwarf Galaxies are Ablaze in Star Formation Dec 1, 2005 - When galaxies collide, it's a messy affair. Gas, dust and stars are often spun out into space and can form into satellite dwarf galaxies that continue to orbit their parent galaxies. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a few dwarf galaxies in the process of formation around a recent merger in NGC 5291. Spitzer found that the dwarf galaxies are ablaze with star formation. Nov 30, 2005 - Astronomers from Penn State University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found a miniature solar system in the making. A failed star with a hundredth the mass of our own Sun seems to have a planet forming disc of dust and gas surrounding it. With only 8 times the mass of Jupiter, this brown dwarf star is more like a large planet, and yet it's capable of forming a planetary system of its own. AMBER Instrument Combines Three Telescopes Nov 25, 2005 - The newly installed AMBER instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer combines the light from two or three 8.2 metre telescopes creating a virtual telescope 40 - 90 metres across (131 - 295 feet). It was used to observe a young, newly forming star called MWC 297, and discovered that it's surrounded by a proto-planetary disc which is strangely truncated near the star. Einstein's Cosmological Constant Predicts Dark Energy Nov 22, 2005 - Researchers are finding that the mysterious dark energy found to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe is remarkably well predicted by Einstein's cosmological constant. Einstein originally added this constant to balance out the gravitation of the Universe, but threw it out after seeing evidence of the Big Bang. An international team of researchers has performed the Supernova Legacy Survey, and found that it calculates dark energy to be within 10% of Einstein's prediction. Interesting Views from an Airplane Nov 22, 2005 - If you're going to be travelling by airplane, take a look out the window; you might be amazed. On the side opposite to the Sun, you could see the shadow of the airplane in the clouds, and shimmering rings of colour surrounding it. Look out the sunward side, and you might see ice halos - arcs of light caused by ice crystals in the high clouds. And don't forget to look up. You're above much of the Earth's atmosphere, and should be able to see a clearer view of the night sky than from the ground. Print Version Print This Article |
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