Category Astronomy/Space

IMAGE: Artist’s impression of Gaia14aae.
Credit: Marisa Grove/Institute of Astronomy

It is a type of 2-star system known as a Cataclysmic Variable, where one super dense white dwarf star is stealing gas from its companion star, effectively ‘cannibalising’ it.The system could also be an important laboratory for studying ultra-bright supernova explosions, which are a vital tool for measuring the expansion of the Universe. The system, named Gaia14aae, is 730 light years away in Draco constellation. It was discovered by the ESA’s Gaia satellite in August 2014 when it suddenly became 5 times brighter over the course of a single day.

>>Additional observations made by the Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA), a collaboration of amateur and professional astronomers, found the system is a rare e...

A new close-up image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100M yrs old, and is possibly still being shaped by geologic processes. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy mountains, in the center-left of the heart feature, informally named “Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

This fascinating icy plains region – resembling frozen mud cracks on Earth — has been informally named “Sputnik Planum” (Sputnik Plain) after the Earth’s first artificial satellite. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments, roughly 12 miles across, bordered by what appear to be shallow troughs...

IMAGE1: The latest spectra from New Horizons Ralph instrument reveal abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. “We just learned that in the north polar cap, methane ice is diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice resulting in strong absorption of infrared light,” …In one of the visually dark equatorial patches, the methane ice has shallower infrared absorptions indicative of a different texture. “The spectrum appears as if the ice is less diluted in N…or that it has a different texture in that area.”

IMAGE2: New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise – a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet above the surface of the icy body...

A team from US, France, U.K. is reporting data sent back by Mars rover Curiosity suggests Mars may have once had a continental crust similar to Earth. They describe 20 rocks that had been probed by the rover, and why their findings suggest a different history for the planet than has been thought. Researchers believe they have found evidence that suggests that rather than a lack of magmatic planetary activity, which should have been evident in rock samples showing mostly basalt, rock samples are full of silica and have a rich composition.

The light-colored rock samples are from an area inside the Gale Crater (in the southern hemisphere near Mount Sharp) and have been dated back to approximately 3.6B years ago...