Category Astronomy/Space

Bang! A new moon crater appeared between Oct. 25, 2012, and April 21, 2013. At 12 meters (40 feet) wide, the crater is not hard to spot in the image, but the starburst pattern of ejected debris is elusive to trace. Image by NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

The Moon’s surface is being “gardened” – churned by small impacts – more than 100 times faster than scientists previously thought. This means that surface features believed to be young are perhaps even younger than assumed. It also means that any structures placed on the Moon as part of human expeditions will need better protection. This new discovery comes from >7 years of high-resolution lunar images studied by a team of scientists from Arizona State University and Cornell University...

Artist’s impression of the dust disk and a forming planet around TW Hydrae. Credit: NAOJ

A number of extrasolar planets have been found in the past two decades and now researchers agree that planets can have a wide variety of characteristics. However, it is still unclear how this diversity emerges. Especially, there is still debate about how the icy giant planets, such as Uranus and Neptune, form. To take a close look at the planet formation site, a research team led by Takashi Tsukagoshi at Ibaraki University, Japan, observed the young star TW Hydrae. This star, estimated to be 10 million years old, is one of the closest young stars to the Earth...

The cosmic microwave background over the whole sky, with the unusual ‘Cold Spot’ feature circled at the lower right. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Portsmouth

The map of cosmic void positions – large empty spaces with relatively few galaxies – and superclusters – huge regions with many more galaxies than normal – can be used to measure the effect of dark energy ‘stretching’ the universe. The results confirm the predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity. Lead author Dr Seshadri Nadathur from the University’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation said: “We used a new technique to make a very precise measurement of the effect that these structures have on photons from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – light left over from shortly after the Big Bang – passing through them...