Category Astronomy/Space

Mars Credit: NASA

Researchers investigating whether liquid water could exist on Mars have provided new insight into the limits of life on the red planet. A team led by Dr Lorna Dougan from the University of Leeds has analysed the structure of water in a magnesium perchlorate solution – what they refer to as “mimetic Martin water” – to better understand how the liquid could exist on the Martian surface. Martian soil samples gathered by the Phoenix Lander in 2009 found calcium and powerful oxidants, including magnesium perchlorate. This fuelled speculation that perchlorate brine flows might be the cause of channelling and weathering observed on the planet’s surface.

Dr Dougan, from the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Astbury Centre said: “The discovery of significant amounts of diffe...

On Aug. 17, 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo Interferometer both detected gravitational waves from the collision between two neutron stars. Within 12 hours observatories had identified the source of the event within the lenticular galaxy NGC 4993, shown in this image gathered with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The associated stellar flare, a kilonova, is clearly visible in the Hubble observations. This is the first time the optical counterpart of a gravitational wave event was observed. Credit: NASA and ESA. Acknowledgment: A.J. Levan (U. Warwick), N.R. Tanvir (U. Leicester), and A. Fruchter and O. Fox (STScI)

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed for the first time the source of a gravitational wave, created by the merger...

The NASA-funded FOXSI instrument captured new evidence of small solar flares, called nanoflares, during its December 2014 flight on a suborbital sounding rocket. Nanoflares could help explain why the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, is so much hotter than the surface. Here, FOXSI’s observations of hard X-rays are shown in blue, superimposed over a soft X-ray image of the Sun from JAXA and NASA’s Hinode solar-observing satellite. Credit: JAXA/NASA/Hinode/FOXSI

Like most solar sounding rockets, the second flight of the FOXSI instrument – short for Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager – lasted 15 minutes, with just 6 minutes of data collection...

This image shows V1247 Orionis, a young, hot star surrounded by a dynamic ring of gas and dust, known as a circumstellar disc. The disc can be seen in two parts: a clearly defined central ring of matter and a more delicate crescent structure located further out. Credit: Stefan Kraus

The quest to discover how planets found in the far reaches of the universe are born has taken a new, crucial twist. A new study by an international team of scientists, led by Stefan Kraus from the University of Exeter, has given a fascinating new insight into one of the most respected theories of how planets are formed. Young stars start out with a massive disk of gas and dust that over time, astronomers think, either diffuses away or coalesces into planets and asteroids.

However, scientists are still searching...