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Astronomers map space's icy wastes
Astronomers have made the first large-scale maps of icy material where stars are forming. In a challenge to conventional ideas about the formation of water in space, they find ice in regions with little dust or gas.
June 24, 2014 Read more
Archaeo-astronomy steps out from shadows of the past
This week, a developing field of research that merges astronomical techniques with the study of ancient man-made features and the surrounding landscapes will be highlighted at the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) 2014 in Portsmouth.
June 24, 2014 Read more
Spectral 'ruler' is first standardized way to measure stars
A team of astronomers have created the first standardized set of measurement guidelines for analyzing and cataloging stars.
June 24, 2014 Read more
An Earth-size diamond in space
A team of astronomers has identified possibly the coldest, faintest white dwarf star ever detected. This ancient stellar remnant is so cool that its carbon has crystallized, forming - in effect - an Earth-size diamond in space.
June 24, 2014 Read more
New type of dust in Martian atmosphere discovered
Scientists have discovered a new peculiarity of the Martian atmosphere. They had analyzed satellite-acquired data and concluded that the dust particles in the planet's atmosphere can be of two types.
June 23, 2014 Read more
Mining the Moon: Panel at EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2014
Who owns the moon? What kind of valuable resources does Earth's nearest neighbor hold? And how - and when - can we access them? All these questions will be debated today by a panel comprised of scientists, entrepreneurs and policy makers brought together by Google Lunar XPRIZE at the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2014.
June 23, 2014 Read more
Time to think big: a call for a giant space telescope
In the nearly 25 years since the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers and the public alike have enjoyed ground-breaking views of the cosmos and the suite of scientific discoveries that followed. The successor to HST, the James Webb Telescope should launch in 2018 but will have a comparatively short lifetime.
June 22, 2014 Read more
Mysterious 'Magic Island' appears on Saturn moon
Astronomers have discovered a bright, mysterious geologic object - where one never existed - on Cassini mission radar images of Ligeia Mare, the second-largest sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Scientifically speaking, this spot is considered a 'transient feature', but the astronomers have playfully dubbed it 'Magic Island'.
June 22, 2014 Read more
A stellar odd couple that takes it slow
An x-ray investigation of a slowly rotating neutron star paired with a red-giant star reveals properties that conflict with existing theory.
June 20, 2014 Read more
Swiftly moving gas streamer eclipses supermassive black hole
An international team of astronomers, using data from several NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) space observatories, has discovered unexpected behavior from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy NGC 5548, located 244.6 million light-years from Earth. This behavior may provide new insights into how supermassive black holes interact with their host galaxies.
June 19, 2014 Read more
BICEP2 researchers publish nuanced account of stunning patterns in the microwave sky
Following a thorough peer-review process, the researchers who previously announced the detection of B-mode polarization in a patch of the microwave sky have published their findings today. Possibly primordial gravitational waves, but galactic dust not ruled out.
June 19, 2014 Read more
Starbursts in dwarf galaxies played a bigger role than expected in early universe
They may only be little, but they pack a star-forming punch: new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show that starbursts in dwarf galaxies played a bigger role than expected in the early history of the Universe.
June 19, 2014 Read more
Two low-cost, car battery-sized Canadian space telescopes launched today
Costing a fraction of conventional space telescopes and similar in size and weight to a car battery, the satellites are two of six that will work together to shed light on the structures and life stories of some of the brightest stars in the sky, uncovering unique clues as to the origins of our own Sun and Earth.
June 19, 2014 Read more
A laser message from space (w/video)
On June 5th, 2014, the ISS passed over the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, California, and beamed an HD video to researchers waiting below. Unlike normal data transmissions, which are encoded in radio waves, this one came to Earth on a beam of light.
June 18, 2014 Read more
Delving into dark matter
Theory says there may be disk of it at center of galaxy.
June 18, 2014 Read more
Solar photons drive water off the moon
New research indicates that ultraviolet photons emitted by the sun likely cause H2O molecules on the lunar surface to either quickly desorb or break apart. The fragments of water may remain on the lunar surface, but the presence of useful amounts of water on the sunward side is not likely.
June 17, 2014 Read more
New molecules around old stars
Using ESA's Herschel space observatory, astronomers have discovered that a molecule vital for creating water exists in the burning embers of dying Sun-like stars.
June 17, 2014 Read more
Hubble to begin search beyond Pluto for a New Horizons mission target
The Hubble Space Telescope Time Allocation Committee has recommended using Hubble to search for an object the Pluto-bound NASA New Horizons mission could visit after its flyby of Pluto in July 2015.
June 16, 2014 Read more