Recent Comments

    Category Astronomy/Space

    A Big Space Crash Likely made Uranus Lopsided

    December 26, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space


    This image made from video provided by Durham University astronomy researcher Jacob Kegerreis shows a computer simulation generated by the open-source code SWIFT that depicts an object crashing into the planet Uranus. Kegerreis says the detailed simulations show that the collision and reshaping of Uranus 3 billion to 4 billion years ago likely caused the massive planet to tilt about 90 degrees on its side. (Jacob A. Kegerreis/Durham University via AP)

    Uranus is a lopsided oddity, the only planet to spin on its side. Scientists now think they know how it got that way: It was pushed over by a rock at least twice as big as Earth...

    Read More

    The Coolest Experiment in the Universe

    December 25, 2018, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space


    The International Space Station, shown here in 2018, is home to many scientific experiments, including NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory.
    Credit: NASA

    The Cold Atom Lab (CAL) is the first facility in orbit to produce clouds of “ultracold” atoms, which can reach a fraction of a degree above absolute zero: -459ºF (-273ºC), the absolute coldest temperature that matter can reach. Nothing in nature is known to hit the temperatures achieved in laboratories like CAL, which means the orbiting facility is regularly the coldest known spot in the universe.

    NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory on the International Space Station is regularly the coldest known spot in the universe...

    Read More

    Faint Starlight in Hubble images reveals distribution of Dark Matter

    December 24, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space


    Abell S1063, a galaxy cluster, was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope as part of the Frontier Fields program. The huge mass of the cluster — containing both baryonic matter and dark matter — acts as cosmic magnification glass and deforms objects behind it. In the past astronomers used this gravitational lensing effect to calculate the distribution of dark matter in galaxy clusters.
    Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Montes (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia)

    Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have employed a revolutionary method to detect dark matter in galaxy clusters...

    Read More

    Newly discovered Adolescent Star seen undergoing ‘Growth Spurt’

    December 23, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space


    3-panel layout, showing the outbursting star.
    Credit: Caltech/T. Pyle (IPAC)

    Astronomers have discovered a young star undergoing a rare growth spurt – giving a fascinating glimpse into the development of these distant stellar objects.

    A team of international researchers, including experts from the University of Exeter’s Physics and Astronomy department, have observed a rare stellar outburst on a newfound star, called Gaia 17bpi. Gaia 17bpi belongs to a group of stars known as FU Ori’s, named after the original member of the group, FU Orionis found in the Orion constellation.

    Typically these FU Ori stars, which are less than a few million years old, are hidden behind thick clouds of dust and are therefore hard to observe...

    Read More