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    Category Astronomy/Space

    California Nebula Stars in final mosaic by NASA’s Spitzer

    April 20, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Figure A shows the section of the nebula captured by Spitzer in the context of a larger, visible-light image of the nebula.

    Five days before NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope ended its mission on Jan. 30, 2020, scientists used the spacecraft’s infrared camera to take multiple images of a region known as the California Nebula—a fitting target considering the mission’s management and science operations were both based in Southern California at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech. This mosaic is made from those images. It is the final mosaic image taken by Spitzer and one of hundreds the spacecraft captured throughout its lifetime.

    Located about 1,000 light-years from Earth, the nebula looks more than a little like the Golden State when viewed by visible-light telescopes: It is...

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    ESO Telescope sees Star dance around Supermassive Black Hole, proves Einstein right

    April 19, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

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    Observations made with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed for the first time that a star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way moves just as predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Its orbit is shaped like a rosette and not like an ellipse as predicted by Newton’s theory of gravity. This long-sought-after result was made possible by increasingly precise measurements over nearly 30 years, which have enabled scientists to unlock the mysteries of the behemoth lurking at the heart of our galaxy.

    Observations made with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed for the first time that a star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way moves just as predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity...

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    Earth-size, Habitable-zone Planet found hidden in early NASA Kepler data

    April 17, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist’s concept shows what exoplanet Kepler-1649c could look like on its surface. The planet is the closest to Earth in size and temperature found yet in data from the Kepler space telescope. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Daniel Rutter

    While the star it orbits is much smaller than our Sun, it gets about 75 percent of the sunlight Earth does. A team of transatlantic scientists, using reanalyzed data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, has discovered an Earth-size exoplanet orbiting in its star’s habitable zone, the area around a star where a rocky planet could support liquid water.

    Scientists discovered this planet, called Kepler-1649c, when looking through old observations from Kepler, which the agency retired in 2018...

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    Why the Solar Wind is Hotter than Expected

    April 16, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A mirror machine is a linear fusion reactor. It allows scientists to apply research in the machines to an understanding of solar wind phenomena. COURTESY OF CARY FOREST

    When the sun expels plasma, the solar wind cools as it expands through space – but not as much as the laws of physics would predict. Physicists now know the reason. University of Wisconsin-Madison physicists provide an explanation for the discrepancy in solar wind temperature. Their findings suggest ways to study solar wind phenomena in research labs and learn about solar wind properties in other star systems.

    “People have been studying the solar wind since its discovery in 1959, but there are many important properties of this plasma which are still not well understood,” says Stas Boldyrev, professor of physics and lea...

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