Futurity.org » astronomy

Lens method puts dark new galaxy in focus

Andy Fell-UC Davis — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:03:58 +0000

UC DAVIS (US) — A faint “satellite galaxy” 10 billion light years from Earth is the lowest-mass object ever detected at such a distance, say researchers.

The find, described in a paper published in the journal Nature, could help astronomers find similar objects and confirm or reject theories about the structure of the cosmos.

When galaxy clusters collide

Andy Fell-UC Davis — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:53:19 +0000

UC DAVIS (US) — Researchers have new details about what happens when two clusters of galaxies collide.

“A galaxy cluster is like a little universe, because it has the same matter composition as the whole universe,” says William Dawson, a PhD candidate in physics at the University of California, Davis. “By studying this little universe, we can learn more about our own.”

Tiny planet triplets orbit dwarf star

Deborah Williams-Hedges-Caltech — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:55:59 +0000

CALTECH (US) — Astronomers have discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system.

The trio of new planets that are smaller than Earth and appear rocky, orbit a single star too closely to be in its habitable zone—the ring-shaped region around a star where the temperature is mild enough for liquid water, and possibly life, to exist.

El Gordo: Big, hot galaxy cluster found

Carl Blesch-Rutgers — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:36:10 +0000

RUTGERS (US) — Astrophysicists have discovered the largest galaxy cluster ever seen in the distant universe, located more than 7 billion light years from Earth.

Officially known as ACT-CL J0102-4915, the galaxy cluster has been nicknamed “El Gordo” (the big one or the fat one in Spanish) by the researchers who discovered it.

Milky Way is ‘white as snow’

Anita Srikameswaran-Pittsburgh — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:24:52 +0000

U. PITTSBURGH (US) — The most accurate determination yet of the color of the Milky Way galaxy finds it is pure white—”almost mirroring a fresh spring snowfall,” astrophysicists say.

While color is one of the most important properties of galaxies that astronomers study, it has been difficult to get that measurement for the Milky Way because our solar system is located well within the galaxy so clouds of gas and dust obscure all but the closest regions from view.

Odd eclipse reveals ‘Saturn on steroids’

Peter Iglinski-Rochester — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:04:11 +0000

U. ROCHESTER (US) — A team of astrophysicists has discovered a Saturn-like ring system in the constellation Centaurus.

Led by Eric Mamajek , assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, scientists used data from the international SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) and All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) project to study the light curves of young Sun-like stars in the Scorpius-Centaurus association—the nearest region of recent massive star formation to the Sun.

Imagine yourself sitting in a park on a sunny afternoon and a softball passes between you and the sun. The intensity of light from the sun would appear to weaken for just a moment. Then a bird then flies by, causing the intensity of the sunlight to again weaken—more or less than it did for the baseball, depending on the size of the bird and how long it took to pass. That’s the principle that allowed the researchers to discover a cosmic ring system.

Two new planets survive red-giant blast

Mike Krapfl-Iowa State — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:30:13 +0000

IOWA STATE (US) — Astronomers have discovered two Earth-sized planets that survived getting caught in the red-giant expansion of their host star.

Steve Kawaler, professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University and a leader of the Kepler Asteroseismic Investigation, helped the research team study data from the Kepler space telescope to confirm that tiny variations of light from a star were actually caused by two planets of that star.

Early black holes gorged on ‘fast food’

Jocelyn Duffy-Carnegie Mellon — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:47:23 +0000

CARNEGIE MELLON (US) — The largest cosmological simulation ever conducted shows that a steady diet of cold dense gas caused the rapid growth of the early supermassive black holes.

The research published in Astrophysical Journal Letters shows that thin streams of cold gas flowing uncontrolled into the center of the first black holes caused them to grow faster than anything else in the universe.

Supernova fireworks shed light on cosmos

Sonia Chernobieff-Caltech — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:04:21 +0000

CALTECH (US) — The brightest and closest stellar explosion seen from Earth in 25 years offers the most detailed picture yet of how this kind of explosion happens.

Known as a Type Ia supernova, this type of blast is an essential tool that allows scientists to measure the expansion of the universe and understand the very nature of the cosmos.

Massive black holes may be quasar relics

Nicole Casal Moore-Michigan — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:00:01 +0000

U. MICHIGAN (US) — Two newly discovered black holes that are 10 billion times the mass of the sun—the largest ever found—may be the fossil remains of quasars from the early universe.

Black holes are dense concentrations of matter that produce such strong gravitational fields that not even light can escape. These new ones are at the centers of two elliptical galaxies more than 300 million light years from Earth.