Astronomers are already getting set for the arrival of Comet ISON, which may become one of the brightest comets ever seen when it cruises through the inner solar system this fall.
Tag Archives: Astronomers
Astronomers gearing up for possible ‘comet of the century’
Posted by Gsurface
on March 18, 2013
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Astronomers Probe Mysterious Gas In Titan’s Atmosphere
Posted by Gsurface
on March 14, 2013
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sciencehabit writes “A fluorescent glow high in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, signifies the presence of a gas that astronomers have yet to identify. The glow appears only on the daytime side of the moon at altitudes between 600 and 1250 kilometers, with the largest intensity occurring at an altitude of about 950 km. Detailed analyses reveal that the glow doesn’t stem from a problem with the Saturn-orbiting Cassini craft, and it isn’t associated with methane or any of the other hydrocarbons already identified as constituents of Titan’s atmosphere.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Astronomers Calculate Orbit of Chelyabinsk Meteorite
Posted by Gsurface
on February 25, 2013
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Astronomers discover Moon-sized exoplanet called Kepler-37b
Posted by Gsurface
on February 22, 2013
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Scientists have announced that they have discovered an odd little planet that has set a new record for the smallest alien world ever discovered. According to the scientists, the exoplanet is about the same size as the Earth’s moon. The planet has been dubbed Kepler-37b. The scientists involved in the discovery say that this is
Astronomers discover two asteroid belts around Vega
Posted by Gsurface
on January 10, 2013
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If you’re a sky watcher, you may be familiar with Vega. Vega is the fifth brightest star in the sky. Astronomers have recently made an interesting discovery that has to do with Vega. Using data from the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope and the ESA Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have discovered that Vega has two asteroid
Astronomers find potentially habitable planet nearby
Posted by Gsurface
on December 20, 2012
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A nearby Sun-like star is host to a planet that may be capable of supporting life, according to an international group of astronomers.
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Astronomers Detect and ‘Weigh’ Very Young Solar System
Posted by Gsurface
on December 9, 2012
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ogre7299 writes “Astronomers have found direct evidence of a forming proto-solar system and ‘weighed’ the forming star for the first time The results were reported in Nature (abstract) and the pre-print is available at the arXiv. ‘The star, called L1527 IRS, is only one-fifth the mass of the sun, and is expected to keep growing as the swirling disk of matter surrounding it falls into its surface. Astronomers estimated the star formed around the same time that Neanderthals evolved on Earth: just 300,000 years ago. … Generally, a star forms from a cloud of gas that collapses into itself. Material streams inward from the cloud and forms a protostar in the center of a disk of gas and dust. Over millions of years, material falls on the protostar and releases quite a bit of energy. In L1527, 90 percent of its energy comes from material landing on the surface of the protostar. The remaining 10 percent comes from the star itself.’ Measurements for the research came from the Submillimeter Array and the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy.”
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Birth of a star: Astronomers spot new solar system 450 light years away
Posted by Gsurface
on December 5, 2012
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A vast protostar, spewing a torrent of matter formed from huge dust clouds, could give astronomers the best insight to-date into how our solar system was created. The star-in-waiting, just 300,000 years old and found 450 light years away in the Taurus constellation, is early in its lifecycle: L1527 (aka Roberta J. L1527) has consumed roughly
Astronomers Get Picture of Nearby Exoplanet
Posted by Gsurface
on November 19, 2012
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The Bad Astronomer writes “While nearly a thousand planets are known to orbit other stars, getting direct pictures of them is extremely difficult due to the glare from their host stars. Fewer than a dozen images of exoplanets exist. However, we can now add one more to the list: Kappa Andromedae b, or Kap And b for short. It’s about 170 light years away, and orbits Kappa And, a massive star bright enough to see with the naked eye. One hitch: its mass puts it right at the upper limit for a planet, and it may edge into brown dwarf territory. Further observations are needed to pin its mass down.”
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Explosion on Jupiter spotted by amateur astronomers
Posted by Gsurface
on September 13, 2012
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Moon Formed In Interplanetary Hit-and-Run Incident, Say Astronomers
Posted by Gsurface
on July 26, 2012
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A new theory of lunar formation suggests Earth was the victim of a hit-and-run incident–and that the culprit may still be at large
The origin of the Moon is one of the more important problems for planetary geologists and in recent years, they’ve made giant strides in understanding how it happened. That’s largely because of a much improved understanding of the Moon’s composition an interior structure.
Astronomers Catch Asteroid In Near-Miss Video
Posted by Gsurface
on June 21, 2012
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ananyo writes in with a story about an asteroid near miss and a neat video taken by researchers. “It may look like a blurry blob, but researchers using the InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Hawaii have posted a video of 2012 KT42 — a small asteroid that zipped past Earth at a distance of just three Earth radii on 29 May — the sixth closest encounter of any known asteroid. The bright asteroid appears fixed, while background stars zip past but in fact the asteroid is zipping along at 17 kilometres per second. ‘You get the view of riding along with it,’ says planetary scientist Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who led the observations. At its closest, the asteroid was at a distance between the orbit of the space station (about 1 Earth radii) and geosynchronous satellites (about 6 Earth radii).”
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Ancient Mayan workshop for astronomers discovered
Posted by Gsurface
on May 10, 2012
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Astronomers See the Glow of a Boiling Planet
Posted by Gsurface
on May 9, 2012
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The Bad Astronomer writes “For the first time, astronomers have detected the light from a ‘super-Earth’ exoplanet. The planet 55 Cancri e (with twice the radius and 8 times the mass of Earth) circles its host star every 18 hours, and is so hot it glows in the infrared. By observing in that wavelength, the astronomers measured the dip in light as the planet’s glow was blocked by the star itself. This is the reverse of the usual method of detecting a planet as it blocks the light of its host star.”
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Astronomers See Another Star Torn Apart By a Black Hole
Posted by Gsurface
on May 2, 2012
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The Bad Astronomer writes “A star in a galaxy 2.7 billion light years away wandered too close to a supermassive black hole and suffered the ultimate fate: it was literally torn apart by the black hole’s gravity. The event was seen as a flash of ultraviolet light flaring 350 times brighter than the galaxy itself, slowly fading over time. Astronomers were able to determine that some of the star’s material was eaten by the black hole, and some flung off into space. Although rare, this is the second time such a thing has been seen; the other was just last year.”
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Ancient Egyptians Recorded Algol’s Variable Magnitude 3000 Years Before Western Astronomers
Posted by Gsurface
on May 1, 2012
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A statistical analysis of a 3000-year old calendar reveals that astronomers in ancient Egyptian must have known the period of the eclipsing binary Algol
The Ancient Egyptians were meticulous astronomers and recorded the passage of the heavens in extraordinary detail. The goal was to mark the passage of time and to understand the will of the Gods who kept the celestial machinery at work.
Astronomers Discover Rectangular Galaxy
Posted by Gsurface
on March 20, 2012
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A dwarf galaxy in the constellation of Eridanus resembles an ‘emerald cut diamond’, say discoverers
Galaxies essentially have three different shapes. The vast majority are flattened discs, often with spiral arms; some are ellipsoids, like rugby balls; and a few are completely irregular with no symmetry.
Astronomers aim to take first picture of black hole
Posted by Gsurface
on January 19, 2012
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Astronomers Estimate Milky Way May Have 100 Billion Alien Worlds
Posted by Gsurface
on January 12, 2012
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astroengine writes “Last year, using the exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope as a guide, astronomers took a statistical stab at estimating the number of exoplanets that exist in our galaxy. They came up with at least 50 billion alien worlds. Today, astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., and the PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) collaboration have taken their own stab at the ‘galactic exo-planetary estimate’ and think there are at least 100 billion worlds knocking around the Milky Way.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Astronomers Discover 18 Huge New Alien Planets
Posted by Gsurface
on December 6, 2011
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Strong Evidence Life Spread by Comets, Astronomers Say
Posted by Gsurface
on October 20, 2011
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Blog – Astronomers Discover New Standard Candle
Posted by Gsurface
on September 26, 2011
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