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    Category Astronomy/Space

    First Age-Map of the Heart of the Milky Way

    April 3, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This is an artist's impression showing the peanut shaped structure in the central bulge. Credit: ESO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Kornmesser/R. Hurt

    This is an artist’s impression showing the peanut shaped structure in the central bulge. Credit: ESO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Kornmesser/R. Hurt

    The first large-scale age-map of the Milky Way shows that a period of star formation lasting around 4 billion years created the complex structure at the heart of our galaxy. The results will be presented by Marina Rejkuba at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) in Liverpool on Tuesday, 3rd April.

    The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with a bulge at the centre, thousands of light years in diameter, that contains about a quarter of the total mass of stars...

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    Is the Milky Way getting Bigger?

    April 3, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This is a composite image of NGC 4565 used in the new study. Credit: C. M. Lombilla / IAC

    This is a composite image of NGC 4565 used in the new study. Credit: C. M. Lombilla / IAC

    The galaxy we inhabit, the Milky Way, may be getting even bigger, according to Cristina Martínez-Lombilla, a PhD candidate at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Tenerife, Spain, and her collaborators. She will present the work of her team in a talk on Tuesday 3 April at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science in Liverpool.

    The Solar System is located in one of the arms in the disc of a barred spiral galaxy we call the Milky Way, with a diameter of about 100,000 light years. Our home galaxy consists of several hundred billion stars, with huge amounts of gas and dust, all intermingled and interacting through the force of gravity...

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    Cosmic Lens helps Hubble capture image of most Distant Star ever seen

    April 3, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Icarus, whose official name is MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1, is the farthest individual star ever seen. It is only visible because it is being magnified by the gravity of a massive galaxy cluster, located about 5 billion light-years from Earth. Called MACS J1149+2223, this cluster, shown at left, sits between the Earth and the galaxy that contains the distant star. The team had been using Hubble to monitor a supernova in the far-off spiral galaxy when, in 2016, they spotted a point of light near the supernova that began to brighten. Even though the object subsequently became three times brighter in one month, the colors of the light coming from the object did not change. Analysis of these colors showed it was a blue supergiant star in the background galaxy whose magnification grew for several weeks due to an intervening object, probably a star, in the galaxy cluster. The panels at the right show the view in 2011, without Icarus visible, compared with the star's brightening in 2016. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Kelly, University of Minnesota

    Icarus, whose official name is MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1, is the farthest individual star ever seen. It is only visible because it is being magnified by the gravity of a massive galaxy cluster, located about 5 billion light-years from Earth. Called MACS J1149+2223, this cluster, shown at left, sits between the Earth and the galaxy that contains the distant star. The team had been using Hubble to monitor a supernova in the far-off spiral galaxy when, in 2016, they spotted a point of light near the supernova that began to brighten. Even though the object subsequently became three times brighter in one month, the colors of the light coming from the object did not change...

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    Is there Life Adrift in the Clouds of Venus?

    April 1, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology

    This is a composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life. Credit: Image from the Akatsuki Orbiter, built by Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

    This is a composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life. Credit: Image from the Akatsuki Orbiter, built by Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

    In the search for extraterrestrial life, scientists have turned over all sorts of rocks. Mars, for example, has geological features that suggest it once had – and still has – subsurface liquid water, an almost sure prerequisite for life. Scientists have also eyed Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus as well as Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto as possible havens for life in the oceans under their icy crusts.

    Now, however, scientists are dusting off an old idea that promises a new vist...

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