Recent Comments

    Category Astronomy/Space

    Giant Ringed Planet likely cause of Mysterious Eclipses

    June 1, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist's impression of the giant gas planet orbiting the star PDS 110. Credit: University of Warwick

    Artist’s impression of the giant gas planet orbiting the star PDS 110. Credit: University of Warwick

    A giant gas planet – up to 50X the mass of Jupiter, encircled by a ring of dust – is likely hurtling around a star >1000 light years away from Earth, according to new research by an international team of astronomers, led by the University of Warwick. Hugh Osborn, a researcher from Warwick’s Astrophysics Group, has identified that the light from this rare young star is regularly blocked by a large object – and predicts that these eclipses are caused by the orbit of this as-yet undiscovered planet.

    Using data from the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) and Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT), Osborn and fellow researchers from Harvard University, Vanderbilt University, and Leiden O...

    Read More

    Frost on moon’s surface: New evidence

    June 1, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In craters near the south pole of the moon, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found some bright areas and some very cold areas. In areas that are both bright and cold, water ice may be present on the surface as frost. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio

    In craters near the south pole of the moon, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found some bright areas and some very cold areas. In areas that are both bright and cold, water ice may be present on the surface as frost. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio

    Scientists using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, have identified bright areas in craters near the moon’s south pole that are cold enough to have frost present on the surface. The new evidence comes from an analysis that combined surface temperatures with information about how much light is reflected off the moon’s surface.
     
    “We found that the coldest places near the moon’s south pole are also the brightest places – brighter than we would expect from soil alone – and...
    Read More

    Cassini finds Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have tipped over

    May 31, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Working with image data from NASA's Cassini mission, researchers have found evidence that Saturn's moon Enceladus may have tipped over, reorienting itself so that terrain closer to its original equator was relocated to the poles. This phenomenon is known as true polar wander. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell University

    Working with image data from NASA’s Cassini mission, researchers have found evidence that Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have tipped over, reorienting itself so that terrain closer to its original equator was relocated to the poles. This phenomenon is known as true polar wander. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell University

    Saturn’s icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus may have tipped over in the distant past, according to recent research from NASA’s Cassini mission. Researchers found evidence that the moon’s spin axis—the line through the north and south poles—has reoriented, possibly due to a collision with a smaller body, such as an asteroid...

    Read More

    Do stars fall quietly into black holes, or crash into something utterly unknown?

    May 31, 2017, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    This artist's impression shows a star crossing the event horizon of a supermassive black hole located in the center of a galaxy. The black hole is so large and massive that tidal effects on the star are negligible, and the star is swallowed whole. Mark A. Garlick/CfA

    This artist’s impression shows a star crossing the event horizon of a supermassive black hole located in the center of a galaxy. The black hole is so large and massive that tidal effects on the star are negligible, and the star is swallowed whole. Mark A. Garlick/CfA 

    Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University have put a basic principle of black holes to the test, showing that matter completely vanishes when pulled in. Their results constitute another successful test for Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Most scientists agree that black holes, cosmic entities of such great gravity that nothing can escape their grip, are surrounded by a so-called event horizon...
    Read More