Category Astronomy/Space

Supernova G1.9+0.3. Credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/S. Chakraborti et al.

Scientists have used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NSF’s Jansky Very Large Array to determine the likely trigger for the most recent supernova in the Milky Way. They applied a new technique that could have implications for understanding other Type Ia supernovas, a class of stellar explosions that scientists use to determine the expansion rate of the Universe.

Astronomers had previously identified G1.9+0.3 as the remnant of the most recent supernova in our Galaxy, Type Ia category. It is estimated to have occurred about 110 years ago in a dusty region of the Galaxy that blocked visible light from reaching Earth...

This is an illustration of 55 Cancri e. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The most detailed map of a small, rocky ‘super Earth’ to date reveals a planet almost completely covered by lava, with a molten ‘hot’ side and solid ‘cool’ side. Conditions on the hot side of the planet are so extreme that it may have caused the atmosphere to evaporate, with the result that conditions on the 2 sides of the planet vary widely: temperatures on the hot side can reach 2500C, while temperatures on the cool side are around 1100C.

Using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, the researchers examined a planet known as 55 Cancri e, which orbits a sun-like star located 40 light years away in the Cancer constellation, and have mapped how conditions on the planet change throughout a complete orbit, the first time this...

Artistic view of the 10-meter space radio telescope on the Russian satellite Spektr-R comprising the space-borne component of the RadioAstron mission. Credit: © Astro Space Center of Lebedev Physical Institute

Super high resolution reveals new details of Quasar and Milky Way. Astronomers using an orbiting radio telescope in conjunction with 4 ground-based radio telescopes have achieved the highest resolution, or ability to discern fine detail, of any astronomical observation ever made. Their achievement produced a pair of scientific surprises that promise to advance the understanding of quasars, supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies.

The scientists combined Russian RadioAstron satellite with the ground-based telescopes to produce a virtual radio telescope more than 100,000 mil...

This enhanced color view of Enceladus shows much of the southern hemisphere and includes the south polar terrain at the bottom of the image. Scientists at the University of Chicago and Princeton University have published a new study describing the process that drives and sustains this moon of Saturn’s long-lived geysers. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The Cassini spacecraft has observed geysers erupting on Saturn’s moon Enceladus since 2005, but the process that drives and sustains these eruptions has remained a mystery. Now, scientists at the Uni of Chicago and Princeton University have pinpointed a mechanism by which cyclical tidal stresses exerted by Saturn can drive Enceladus’s long-lived eruptions.

Enceladus, which probably has an ocean underlying its icy surface, has someho...