Tag Archives: Astronomy

11 Must-See Skywatching Events in 2014

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist December 31, 2013 8:36 AM As 2013 draws to a close, it’s time to look forward to the stargazing highlights of the coming year. Here … Continue reading

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Bizarre Physics, Exomoons and Humanoids: Science Wishes for 2014

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: LiveScience By Stephanie Pappas, Senior Writer December 31, 2013 8:31 AM Science breakthroughs in the past year include the discovery of new planets far beyond Earth’s solar system, the confirmation of an … Continue reading

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Star Trails and Milky Way Shine over Lighthouse in Dazzling Photo

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Nina Sen, SPACE.com Contributor  The Milky Way moves across the night sky in this stunning composite image recently sent to SPACE.com. Astrophotographer Mike Taylor combined 65 frames from a static time … Continue reading

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Scientists discover greenhouse gas 7,100 times more potent than carbon dioxide

Interesting stuff.. TGO Refer to story below. Source: Geekquinox By Scott Sutherland | Geekquinox A team of chemists from the University of Toronto has published a study that found a gas called perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), which has been in use for … Continue reading

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Venus Now Shining at Its Brightest: How to See It

Interesting stuff… TGORefer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Geoff Gaherty, Starry Night Education December 5, 2013 6:56 PM Venus is shining at its brightest in the low southwestern night sky just after sunset, making it a fine time for … Continue reading

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Scientists to Congress: We Have the Technology to Find Alien Life

Interesting stuff… TGORefer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer  For thousands of years, humans have been wondering whether there’s life elsewhere in the universe. Now, the technology finally exists to search for it. To find extraterrestrial … Continue reading

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Signs of Water Found on 5 Alien Planets by Hubble Telescope

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Mike Wall, Senior Writer NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected water in the atmospheres of five planets The five exoplanets with hints of water are all scorching-hot, Jupiter-size worlds that are … Continue reading

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Giant Electric Fields May Supercharge Particles In Earth’s Radiation Belts

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor  Huge electric fields in the radiation belts around Earth may help explain how electrons surrounding the planet can be accelerated to speeds near that of … Continue reading

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Seeing Coldest Blobs in the Universe in New Light

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: LiveScience   By Becky Oskin, Staff Writer  Physicists have come up with a new way to gaze longingly at some of the weirdest matter on Earth — the super-cold, super-calm gas called … Continue reading

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No sign of comet after pass around sun: scientists

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Reuters By Irene Klotz November 28, 2013 3:34 PM (Reuters) – A comet’s 5.5-million-year journey to the inner solar system apparently ended during a suicidal trip around the sun, leaving no trace … Continue reading

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Milky Way s Black Hole Is Shooting Particle Jets

Interesting stuff… Refer to story below. Source: Scientific American By Clara Moskowitz  A torrent of energetic particles appears to be spewing from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, coming from the gigantic black hole that lies at its heart, … Continue reading

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Comet ISON Headed for Close Sun Encounter on Thanksgiving

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Mike Wall, Senior Writer Comet ISON’s highly anticipated flyby of the sun is now just two weeks away, and scientists and skywatchers alike hope the encounter gives them another reason … Continue reading

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Spooky Nebula is Coldest Known Object in Universe

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com   by Elizabeth Howell, SPACE.com Contributor A ghostly nebula shining about 5,000 light-years from Earth is also the coldest known object in the universe. The dead star creating the Boomerang Nebula … Continue reading

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India, U.S. preparing satellites to probe Martian atmosphere

Don’t you just love it? Of the over 1 billion people in India, half of them are living in sub-standard conditions and tens of million of others in downright poverty. Yet here is India, working on the space program with … Continue reading

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Mystery of Galaxy Evolution Revealed by Distant Cosmic Lens

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com  By Denise Chow, Staff Writer The most distant cosmic lens — a galaxy whose gravity warps and deflects light from an even more distant stellar nursery — has been discovered by … Continue reading

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Earth Life Likely Came from Mars, Study Suggests

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com by Mike Wall, Senior Writer NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped this shot of Mars on Aug. 26, 2003, when the Red Planet was 34.7 … We may all be Martians. Evidence is … Continue reading

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How Giant Black Holes Spin: New Twist Revealed

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com Mike Wall July 29, 2013 A newly discovered way to determine the spin of monster black holes could help shed light on the evolution of these bizarre objects and the galaxies … Continue reading

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Comet ISON Blazes with Distant Galaxies in Stunning Hubble Photo

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com Mike Wall July 26, 2013 Science, Social Science, & HumanitiesC/2012 S1 A spectacular new photo gives a deep-space view of Comet ISON, which could put on a dazzling show when it … Continue reading

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Space Cloud Ripped Apart by Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: LiveScience Megan Gannon Astronomers have spied a huge gas cloud being pulled like taffy around the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Their observations suggest that the space … Continue reading

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Strange Blue World: Alien Planet’s True Color Revealed, a First

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com by Miriam Kramer, Staff Writer  Call it the deep blue dot. For the first time, scientists have seen the visible color of a distant alien world. The exoplanet — called HD … Continue reading

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Mercury’s Volcanic Facelift Belies Planet’s True Age

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com by Miriam Kramer, Staff Writer July 3, 2013 Mercury is looking good for its age. Even the oldest parts of the surface of the planet closest to the sun are only … Continue reading

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‘We Might Be Martians’

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: The Atlantic By J.J. Gould | The Atlantic In a sense, the history of astronomy has been a history of the marginalization of life on Earth in our understanding of the universe. … Continue reading

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Black Holes May Have Been Common in Early Universe

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Charles Q. Choi | SPACE.com Black holes may have been abundant among the first stars in the universe, helping explain the origin of the supermassive monsters that lurk at the … Continue reading

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Huge Asteroid Cruises Past Earth

Interesting… Millions upon millions of human beings waste their lives fighting with one another, abusing one another, killing one another… And yet, if one of these gigantic asteroids collides with Earth, people will realize just how stupid they are and … Continue reading

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Rare View of Ancient Galaxy Crash Revealed

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Mike Wall | SPACE.com Astronomers have caught two big ancient galaxies in the act of colliding, shedding new light on the role such megamergers played in galactic evolution during the … Continue reading

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Did Asteroid Impacts Spark Life’s ‘Left-Handed’ Molecules?

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor | SPACE.com The mysterious bias of life on Earth toward molecules that skew one way and not the other could be due to how light … Continue reading

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50-Year Cosmic Mystery: 10 Quasar Questions for Discoverer Maarten Schmidt

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Mike Wall | SPACE.com Astronomy changed forever 50 years ago this week, when scientists first began to understand the true nature of quasars, the brightest objects in the universe. On … Continue reading

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Has Dark Matter Finally Been Found? Big News Coming Soon

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Clara Moskowitz | SPACE.com  BOSTON — Big news in the search for dark matter may be coming in about two weeks, the leader of a space-based particle physics experiment said … Continue reading

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The Star Explosion That Wasn’t: Astronomers Solve 150-Year-Old Mystery

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: SPACE.com By Nola Taylor Redd | SPACE.com – Sat, Feb 2, 2013 After a stellar explosion was reported in 1866, British astronomer John Herschel announced he had seen a bright flare from … Continue reading

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Massive Star Explosion Captured in Stunning Photo

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Tia Ghose | SPACE.com LONG BEACH, Calif. – A beautiful new image snapped by a NASA spacecraft captures the aftermath of a massive star explosion with unprecedented resolution. The image … Continue reading

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Double-Star Systems Can Be Dangerous for Exoplanets

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Mike Wall | SPACE.com Alien planets born in widely separated two-star systems face a grave danger of being booted into interstellar space, a new study suggests. Exoplanets circling a star with … Continue reading

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New ‘Baby Picture’ of Universe Unveiled

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Megan Gannon, News Editor | SPACE.com – Fri, Dec 21, 2012 Astronomers have released a new “baby picture” of the universe. The all-sky image draws on nine years’ worth of data from … Continue reading

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Gigantic Black Holes Just Got Even Bigger

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Charles Q. Choi | SPACE.com A number of the largest black holes in the universe may be even bigger than previously thought, researchers say. “Ultra-massive black holes — that is, … Continue reading

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Doomsday 2012: Watch the ‘End of the World’ Live Online

Three days ’til the end of the world! Yeah, right – if you believe that you’re brain-dead beyond repair. Just drop me a note on this Blog on December 22, 2012; if you’re still alive that is! I never seize … Continue reading

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Your Help Needed to Study Andromeda Galaxy

For those interested in astronomy… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Elizabeth Howell | SPACE.com A group of astronomers is inviting the public to join their star-hunting team in a search of the bright Andromeda Galaxy. The project … Continue reading

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NASA: Voyager 1 enters new region of solar system

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press By By ALICIA CHANG | Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — The unstoppable Voyager 1 spacecraft has sailed into a new realm of the solar system that scientists did not … Continue reading

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Water on Mars and Earth Had Similar Origins

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com The Earth’s oceans and the water that once flowed on Mars likely came from a similar source: meteorites that landed on the planets when they were … Continue reading

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Total Solar Eclipse of 2012 Begins: First Photos

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Mike Wall | SPACE.com The last total solar eclipse until 2015 has begun, with the moon’s shadow commencing its three-hour trek across Earth’s surface in far northern Australia. The total … Continue reading

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‘Super-Earth’ Alien Planet May Be Habitable for Life

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Mike Wall | SPACE.com Astronomers have detected an alien planet that may be capable of supporting life as we know it — and it’s just a stone’s throw from Earth … Continue reading

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Moon’s Mysterious ‘Ocean of Storms’ Explained

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Charles Q. Choi | SPACE.com The largest dark spot on the moon, known as the Ocean of Storms, may be a scar from a giant cosmic impact that created a … Continue reading

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Super-Dense Neutron Star Is Fastest Ever Seen

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Mike Wall | SPACE.com Astronomers have discovered an ultra-dense star that orbits with a dying stellar companion once every 93 minutes, making it the fastest-orbiting star of its kind. The … Continue reading

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Sun Unleashes Huge Solar Plasma Wave

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com A giant wave of super-hot solar plasma larger than the Earth erupted from the sun on Friday (Oct. 19) in a spectacular display captured by a … Continue reading

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Nearby Earth-Sized Alien Planet Could Spur Interstellar Exploration

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Mike Wall | SPACE.com The recent discovery of an Earth-size alien planet right next door to us could help spark humanity’s first true steps beyond our own solar system, scientists … Continue reading

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Newfound Alien Planet a Top Contender to Host Life

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Nola Taylor Redd | SPACE.com A newly discovered alien planet may be one of the top contenders to support life beyond Earth, researchers say. The newfound world, a “super Earth” … Continue reading

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Elusive Dark Energy Is Real, Study Says

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below: Source: Space.com By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com Dark energy, the mysterious substance thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe, almost certainly exists despite some astronomers’ doubts, a new study says. After … Continue reading

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Hubble Telescope Sees Two Galaxies in Cosmic Dance

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com A stunning new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope has captured the perfect galactic portrait: two galaxies that are so different from one another, yet together … Continue reading

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Milky Way ‘Haze’ May Be Dark Matter Signature

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com Strange radiation streaming from the core of our Milky Way galaxy may be a long-sought signal of dark matter, the elusive stuff thought to make up … Continue reading

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Ingredients for Big Black Holes Detected in Milky Way’s Core

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Charles Q. Choi | SPACE.com Scientists investigated our galaxy’s central molecular zone, which contains the most massive, densest, and most turbulent molecular clouds in the Milky Way. These surround the … Continue reading

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Giant Dying Star Caught Devouring Alien Planet

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By SPACE.com Staff | SPACE.com A swollen star near the end if its life has been caught devouring one of its own planets — a scenario that could one day be … Continue reading

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Powerful Spinning Star May be Fastest Stellar Runaway

Interesting stuff… TGO Refer to story below. Source: Space.com By Nola Taylor Redd | SPACE.com Fleeing from the scene of a violent supernova explosion, a compact runaway star may be the fastest traveling pulsar yet discovered, scientists say. The small … Continue reading

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