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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Catastrophic Galactic Collision could send Solar System flying into space

    January 6, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Photo of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds over a smoking volcano at Bromo Semeru Tengger National Park, Java, Indonesia
    Here are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, from Gilbert Vancell Nature Photography in November 2018

    New research led by astrophysicists at Durham University, UK, predicts that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) could hit the Milky Way in two billion years’ time. The collision could occur much earlier than the predicted impact between the Milky Way and another neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, which scientists say will hit our galaxy in eight billion years.

    The catastrophic coming together with the Large Magellanic Cloud could wake up our galaxy’s dormant black hole, which would begin devouring surrounding gas and increase in size by up to ten times.

    As it feeds, the now-active black hole would throw out high-energy radiation and while these cosmic fireworks are unlikely to a...

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    Tiny satellites could be ‘Guide Stars’ for huge next-generation Telescopes

    January 6, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In the coming decades, massive segmented space telescopes may be launched to peer even closer in on far-out exoplanets and their atmospheres. To keep these mega-scopes stable, MIT researchers say that small satellites can follow along, and act as “guide stars,” by pointing a laser back at a telescope to calibrate the system, to produce better, more accurate images of distant worlds. In the coming decades, massive segmented space telescopes may be launched to peer even closer in on far-out exoplanets and their atmospheres. To keep these mega-scopes stable, MIT researchers say that small satellites can follow along, and act as “guide stars,” by pointing a laser back at a telescope to calibrate the system, to produce better, more accurate images of distant worlds.
    Credit: Christine D...
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    Next up: Ultracold Simulators of Super-Dense Stars

    January 5, 2019, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Rice University graduate student Tom Langin makes an adjustment to an experiment that uses 10 lasers of varying wavelengths to laser-cool ions in a neutral plasma.
    Credit: Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University

    Rice University physicists have created the world’s first laser-cooled neutral plasma, completing a 20-year quest that sets the stage for simulators that re-create exotic states of matter found inside Jupiter and white dwarf stars. The findings are detailed this week in the journal Science and involve new techniques for laser cooling clouds of rapidly expanding plasma to temperatures about 50 times colder than deep space.

    “We don’t know the practical payoff yet, but every time physicists have laser cooled a new kind of thing, it has opened a whole world of possibilities,” said ...

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    NASA’s New Horizons Mission reveals entirely new kind of world

    January 4, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    three views of the object showing how color data was overlaid on a higher resolution view to create the color view
    The first color image of Ultima Thule, taken at a distance of 85,000 miles (137,000 kilometers) at 4:08 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, highlights its reddish surface. At left is an enhanced color image taken by the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), produced by combining the near infrared, red and blue channels. The center image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) has a higher spatial resolution than MVIC by approximately a factor of five. At right, the color has been overlaid onto the LORRI image to show the color uniformity of the Ultima and Thule lobes. Note the reduced red coloring at the neck of the object.
    Source: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
    Published: January 2, 2019
    Historical Date: January 1,...
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