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Paired with super telescopes, model Earths guide hunt for life

Astronomers have created five models representing key points from our planet's evolution, like chemical snapshots through Earth's own geologic epochs. The models will be spectral templates for astronomers to use in the approaching new era of powerful telescopes, and in the hunt for Earth-like planets in distant solar systems.

Mar 27th, 2020

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Star formation project maps nearby interstellar clouds

Astronomers have captured new, detailed maps of three nearby interstellar gas clouds containing regions of ongoing high-mass star formation. The results of this survey, called the Star Formation Project, will help improve our understanding of the star formation process.

Mar 23rd, 2020

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The strange orbits of 'Tatooine' planetary disks (w/video)

Astronomers have found striking orbital geometries in protoplanetary disks around binary stars. While disks orbiting the most compact binary star systems share very nearly the same plane, disks encircling wide binaries have orbital planes that are severely tilted. These systems can teach us about planet formation in complex environments.

Mar 19th, 2020

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Astrophysicists wear 3D glasses to watch quasars

Researchers have shown a way to determine the origins and nature of quasar light by its polarization. The new approach is analogous to the way cinema glasses produce a 3D image by feeding each eye with the light of a particular polarization: either horizontal or vertical.

Mar 13th, 2020

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Discovery points to the origin of mysterious ultraviolet radiation

Billions of lightyears away, gigantic clouds of hydrogen gas produce a special kind of radiation, a type of ultraviolet light known as Lyman-alpha emissions. The enormous clouds emitting the light are Lyman-alpha blobs (LABs). LABs are several times larger than our Milky Way galaxy, yet were only discovered 20 years ago.

Mar 12th, 2020

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Observed: An exoplanet where it rains iron

This exoplanet, 390 light years away towards the constellation Pisces, has days when its surface temperatures exceed 2,400 Celsius, sufficiently hot to evaporate metals. Its nights, with strong winds, cool down the iron vapour so that it condenses into drops of iron.

Mar 11th, 2020

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Producing human tissue in space

Researchers have sent adult human stem cells to the International Space Station (ISS) to explore the production of human tissue in weightlessness.

Mar 7th, 2020

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Space lettuce

Nutritious and safe crops would be a dietary supplement to assist long-distance space missions.

Mar 6th, 2020

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