Category Astronomy/Space

An artist’s impression of the new pure and massive brown dwarf. Credit: John Pinfield

An international team has identified a record breaking brown dwarf (a star too small for nuclear fusion) with the ‘purest’ composition and the highest mass yet known. The object, SDSS J0104+1535, is a member of the so-called halo – the outermost reaches – of our Galaxy, made up of the most ancient stars. Brown dwarfs are intermediate between planets and fully-fledged stars. Their mass is too small for full nuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium (with a consequent release of energy) to take place, but they are usually significantly more massive than planets.

Located 750 light years away in the constellation of Pisces, SDSS J0104+1535 is made of gas that is around 250 times purer than the Sun, so consists of ...

In this study, astronomers used data from the Keck and Spitzer telescopes to trace the star forming and dusty regions of galaxies at about 10 billion years ago. The picture in the background shows the GOODS field, one of the five regions in the sky that was observed for this study. Credit: Mario De Leo-Winkler with images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage team.

A molecule found in car engine exhaust fumes that is thought to have contributed to the origin of life on Earth has made astronomers heavily underestimate the amount of stars that were forming in the early Universe, a University of California, Riverside-led study has found. That molecule is called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). On Earth it is also found in coal and tar...

Magetic field model/Magnetic anomaly. Credit: ESA

Satellites have been mapping the upper part of the Earth magnetic field by collecting data for 3 years and found some amazing features about the Earth’s crust. The result is the release of highest resolution map of this field seen from space to date. This ‘lithospheric magnetic field’ is very weak and therefore difficult to detect and map from space. But with the Swarm satellites it has been possible. “By combining Swarm measurements with historical data from the German CHAMP satellite, and using a new modelling technique, it was possible to extract the tiny magnetic signals of crustal magnetization with unprecedented accuracy,” said professor Nils Olsen from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

Most of the Earth magnetic field is gen...

Comet 67P that orbits the sun has growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and rolling boulders, according to scientists working on the Rosetta mission. Credit: NASA

Images returned from the ESA’s Rosetta mission indicate the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was a very active place during its most recent trip through the solar system, says a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. The images show the comet’s surface is full of growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and massive rolling boulders. Moving material buried some features on the comet’s surface and exhumed others. A study on 67P’s changing surface was released Tuesday in the journal Science.

“As comets approach the sun, they go into overdrive and exhibit spectacular changes on their surface,” said Ramy El-Maarry, ...