Recent Comments

    Category Astronomy/Space

    Astrophysicist announces her Discovery that could Rewrite Story of how Galaxies Die

    June 25, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist conception depicts an energetic quasar that has cleared the center of the galaxy of gas and dust, and the winds are now propagating it to the outskirts. Soon, there will be no gas and dust left, and only a luminous blue quasar will remain. Credit: Michelle Vigeant.

    A breakthrough finding overturns assumptions about the maturation of galaxies and may represent a phase of every galaxy’s life cycle that was unknown until now. At the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Missouri, Allison Kirkpatrick, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, will announce her discovery of “cold quasars” – galaxies featuring an abundance of cold gas that still can produce new stars despite having a quasar at the center.
    Her news brie...

    Read More

    Astronomers see ‘Warm’ Glow of Uranus’s Rings

    June 24, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Composite image of Uranus’s atmosphere and rings at radio wavelengths, taken with the ALMA array in December 2017. The image shows thermal emission, or heat, from the rings of Uranus for the first time, enabling scientists to determine their temperature: a frigid 77 Kelvin (-320 F). Dark bands in Uranus’s atmosphere at these wavelengths show the presence of molecules that absorb radio waves, in particular hydrogen sulfide gas. Bright regions like the north polar spot (yellow spot at right, because Uranus is tipped on its side) contain very few of these molecules. (UC Berkeley image by Edward Molter and Imke de Pater)

    First heat images of the rings enable scientists to determine their temperature...

    Read More

    Northern Lights’ ‘Social Networking’ reveals true scale of Magnetic Storms

    June 23, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Northern lights (stock image).
    Credit: © PixieMe / Adobe Stock

    Magnetic disturbances caused by phenomena like the northern lights can be tracked by a ‘social network’ of ground-based instruments, according to a new study from the University of Warwick.

    The researchers, led by Professor Sandra Chapman from the University’s Department of Physics, have for the first time characterised the observations from over 100 ground based magnetometers in terms of a time-varying directed network of connections. They monitored the development of geomagnetic substorms using the same mathematics used to study social networks. The magnetometers ‘befriend’ one another when they see the same signal of a propagating disturbance.

    The research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, o...

    Read More

    Astronomers make 1st Detection of Polarized Radio Waves in Gamma Ray Burst jets

    June 22, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Black hole illustration (stock image).
    Credit: © cosmicvue / Adobe Stock

    Good fortune and cutting-edge scientific equipment have allowed scientists to observe a Gamma Ray Burst jet with a radio telescope and detect the polarisation of radio waves within it for the first time – moving us closer to an understanding of what causes the universe’s most powerful explosions.

    Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic explosions in the universe, beaming out mighty jets which travel through space at over 99.9% the speed of light, as a star much more massive than our sun collapses at the end of its life to produce a black hole.

    Studying the light from Gamma Ray Burst jets as we detect it travelling across space is our best hope of understanding how these powerful jets are formed, but...

    Read More