Category Astronomy/Space

Range of the size for a typical neutron star compared to the city of Frankfurt. Credit: Lukas Weih, Goethe University, satellite image: GeoBasis-DE/BKG (2009) Google

Comparison of billions of theoretical models with gravitational waves results in the answer to an old riddle. How large is a neutron star? Previous estimates varied from eight to sixteen kilometres. Astrophysicists at the Goethe University Frankfurt and the FIAS have now succeeded in determining the size of neutron stars to within 1.5 kilometres by using an elaborate statistical approach supported by data from the measurement of gravitational waves. The researchers’ report appears in the current issue of Physical Review Letters.

Neutron stars are the densest objects in our universe, with a mass larger than that of our sun comp...

An illustration of the structure of a greasy carbon molecule, set against an image of the galactic centre, where this material has been detected. Carbon is represented as grey spheres and hydrogen as white spheres. Credit: D. Young (2011), The Galactic Center. Flickr – CreativeCommons

Astronomers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney (UNSW), and Ege University in Turkey used a laboratory to manufacture material with the same properties as interstellar dust and used their results to estimate the amount of ‘space grease’ found in the Milky Way. Their results appear in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Organic matter of different kinds contains carbon, an element considered essential for life...

Cassini discovered complex organic molecules erupting from Enceladus into space. Southwest Research Institute scientists think hydrothermal processes in the moon’s rocky core could synthesize organics from inorganic precursors. Alternatively, these processes could be transforming preexisting organics by heating, or they could generate geochemical conditions in the ocean of Enceladus that would allow possible forms of alien life to synthesize biological molecules. Credit: Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/LPG-CNRS/Nantes-Angers/ESA

Discovery indicates Saturn’s moon meets critical requirements for life...

This image montage taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the surface of planet Mars, which researchers believe hardened only 20 million years after the birth of the Sun, much earlier than first thought

The crust that encases rocky planets and makes possible the emergence of life took shape on Mars earlier than thought and at least 100 million years sooner than on Earth, researchers said Wednesday. Analysing grains of the mineral zircon extracted from a Martian meteorite known as Black Beauty, they determined that the Red Planet’s outer layer hardened 4.547 billion years ago, only 20 million years after the birth of the Sun.

“Mars’s primary crust formation—which is the end product of planet formation—happened much faster than previously thought,” said Martin Bizzarro, a scientist at Denmark...