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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Cosmic magnifying-glass effect captures universe’s brightest galaxies

    June 7, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    These six Hubble Space Telescope images reveal a jumble of misshapen-looking galaxies punctuated by exotic patterns such as arcs, streaks, and smeared rings. These unusual features are the stretched shapes of the universe's brightest infrared galaxies that are boosted by natural cosmic magnifying lenses. Some of the oddball shapes also may have been produced by spectacular collisions between distant, massive galaxies. The faraway galaxies are as much as 10,000 times more luminous than our Milky Way. The galaxies existed between 8 billion and 11.5 billion years ago. Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Lowenthal (Smith College)

    These six Hubble Space Telescope images reveal a jumble of misshapen-looking galaxies punctuated by exotic patterns such as arcs, streaks, and smeared rings. These unusual features are the stretched shapes of the universe’s brightest infrared galaxies that are boosted by natural cosmic magnifying lenses. Some of the oddball shapes also may have been produced by spectacular collisions between distant, massive galaxies. The faraway galaxies are as much as 10,000 times more luminous than our Milky Way. The galaxies existed between 8 billion and 11.5 billion years ago. Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Lowenthal (Smith College)

     
    Boosted by natural magnifying lenses in space, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured unique close-up views of the universe’s brightest infrared galaxies, which ...
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    Hubble’s tale of 2 Exoplanets: Nature vs. Nurture

    June 6, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This diagram compares Hubble Space Telescope observations of two "hot Jupiter"-class planets orbiting very closely to different sunlike stars. Astronomers measured how light from each parent star is filtered through each planet's atmosphere. HAT-P-38 b did have a water signature indicated by the absorption-feature peak in the spectrum. This is interpreted as indicating the upper atmosphere is free of clouds or hazes. WASP-67 b, has a flat spectrum that lacks any water-absorption feature, suggesting most of the planet's atmosphere is masked by high-altitude clouds. Credits: Artwork: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI); Credit: Science: NASA, ESA, and G. Bruno (STScI)

    This diagram compares Hubble Space Telescope observations of two “hot Jupiter”-class planets orbiting very closely to different sunlike stars. Astronomers measured how light from each parent star is filtered through each planet’s atmosphere. HAT-P-38 b did have a water signature indicated by the absorption-feature peak in the spectrum. This is interpreted as indicating the upper atmosphere is free of clouds or hazes. WASP-67 b, has a flat spectrum that lacks any water-absorption feature, suggesting most of the planet’s atmosphere is masked by high-altitude clouds.
    Credits: Artwork: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI); Credit: Science: NASA, ESA, and G. Bruno (STScI)

    Is it a case of nature versus nurture when it comes to 2 “cousin” exoplanets? In a unique experiment, scientists used NASA’s Hubble...

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    ALMA returns to Boomerang Nebula

    June 6, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); NASA/ESA Hubble; NRAO/AUI/NSF

    Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); NASA/ESA Hubble; NRAO/AUI/NSF

    An ancient, red giant star in the throes of a frigid death has produced the coldest known object in the cosmos – the Boomerang Nebula. How this star was able to create an environment strikingly colder than the natural background temperature of deep space has been a compelling mystery for more than two decades. The answer, according to astronomers using ALMA may be that a small companion star has plunged into the heart of the red giant, ejecting most the matter of the larger star as an ultra-cold outflow of gas and dust.

    This outflow is expanding so rapidly – about 10 times faster than a single star could produce on its own – that its temperature has fallen to less than 0.5 K (-458.5F)...

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    Extreme Exoplanet: Astronomers discover Alien World Hotter than most Stars

    June 5, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    1.Artist illustration of star KELT-9 and its ultrahot planet KELT-9b. (Robert Hurt / NASA/JPL-Caltech) 2. KELT North telescope in Arizona. (KELT Collaboration)

    1.Artist illustration of star KELT-9 and its ultrahot planet KELT-9b. (Robert Hurt / NASA/JPL-Caltech)
    2. KELT North telescope in Arizona. (KELT Collaboration)

    Imagine a planet like Jupiter zipping around its host star every day and a half, superheated to temperatures hotter than most stars and sporting a giant, glowing gas tail like a comet. That is what an international research team led by astronomers at Ohio State and Vanderbilt universities think they have found orbiting a massive star they have labeled KELT-9, located 650 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. With a day-side temperature peaking at 4,600 Kelvin, the newly discovered exoplanet, KELT-9b, is hotter than most stars and only 1,200 Kelvin cooler than our own sun...

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