• Spectrum of young extrasolar planet yields surprising results

    Updated: 2010-08-31 00:00:00
    The data indicate that young gas-giant planets are extremely cloudy.

  • NASA Glenn tests alternative green rocket engine

    Updated: 2010-08-31 00:00:00
    The non-toxic oxygen and methane propellant combination has the potential for greater engine performance.

  • Cluster Collisions Switch on Radio Halos

    Updated: 2010-08-30 06:00:00
    This is a composite image of the northern part of the galaxy cluster Abell 1758, located about 3.2 billion light years from Earth.

  • Shrinking atmospheric layer linked to low levels of solar radiation

    Updated: 2010-08-30 00:00:00
    Research indicates that the Sun's magnetic cycle, which produces differing numbers of sunspots over an approximately 11-year cycle, may vary more than previously thought.

  • Particle Accelerators for Dummies?

    Updated: 2010-08-27 12:53:08
    In a fun Q&A piece, the HHMI Bulletin asked four researchers "What 'For Dummies' book are you most qualified to write?"

  • Stellar fireworks are ablaze in galaxy NGC 4449

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    Hundreds of thousands of vibrant blue and red stars are visible in this new image of galaxy NGC 4449 taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Hot bluish white clusters of massive stars are scattered throughout the galaxy, interspersed with numerous dustier reddish regions of current star formation. Massive dark clouds of gas and dust are silhouetted against the flaming starlight........

  • Cluster makes a shocking discovery

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    ESA's Cluster was in the right place and time to make a shocking discovery. The four spacecraft encountered a shock wave that kept breaking and reforming - predicted only in theory. On 24 January 2001, Cluster's spacecraft observed shock reformation in the Earth's magnetosphere, predicted only in theory, over 20 years ago. Cluster provided the first opportunity ever to observe such an event, the details of which have been published in a paper on 9 March this year........

  • Most Energetic Form Of Light

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    n 2002, when astronomers first detected cosmic gamma rays - the most energetic form of light known - coming from the constellation Cygnus they were surprised and perplexed. The region lacked the extreme electromagnetic fields that they thought were required to produce such energetic rays. But now a team of theoretical physicists propose a mechanism that can explain this mystery and may also help account for another type of cosmic ray, the high-energy nuclei that rain down on Earth in the billions........

  • James Webb Space Telescope Testing

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    A model of the James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-InfraRed Instrument will be tested before Christmas at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, England to ensure the final instrument can see infrared light. Observing the universe in the infrared light portion of the spectrum is important because a number of objects researchers want to observe in space are far too cold to radiate at shorter wavelengths that can be seen as visible light, but they radiate strongly in infrared light........

  • Fifty Times sharper than Hubble

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    M87, the central galaxy of the Virgo cluster in a distance of only 50 million light years, was observed by Yuri Kovalev from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronony (MPIfR) in Bonn and colleagues with the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) at 2 cm wavelength. The resulting image provides details down to a resolution of one milli-arcsecond, corresponding to a linear resolution of only three light months. The new image of the inner radio jet of M87 shows a highly collimated jet which appears limb-brightened, and also a faint counter-jet. It is unprecedented in its combination of sensitivity and spatial resolution........

  • Mars' mysterious elongated crater

    Updated: 2010-08-27 00:00:00
    A new image shows the elliptical depression with unprecedented clarity.

  • Distant star's sound waves reveal cycle similar to the Sun's

    Updated: 2010-08-27 00:00:00
    Studying many stars with stellar seismology could help scientists better understand how magnetic activity cycles can differ from star to star, as well as the processes behind such cycles.

  • The Particle Physics Song

    Updated: 2010-08-26 15:41:54
    Members of the CERN choir sing an ode the Higgs boson to the tune of "The Hippopotamus Song" by Flanders and Swann.

  • NASA's Kepler mission discovers two planets transiting same star

    Updated: 2010-08-26 00:00:00
    Systems with multiple transiting planets are particularly rich with information that provides clues as to their physical characteristics.

  • WISE captures the Unicorn's Rose

    Updated: 2010-08-26 00:00:00
    The Rosette Nebula is a huge star-forming region in our Milky Way Galaxy.

  • New international study shows some asteroids live in own "little worlds"

    Updated: 2010-08-25 00:00:00
    Scientific results show that when asteroids spin fast enough, they can undergo rotational fission, splitting into two pieces that then begin orbiting each other.

  • Pulverized planet dust may lie around double stars

    Updated: 2010-08-24 00:00:00
    Scientists believe that planetary collisions are kicking up fresh dust.

  • Richest planetary system discovered

    Updated: 2010-08-24 00:00:00
    Scientists believe there are as many as seven planets orbiting this Sun-like star.

  • Scientists develop a new way to weigh planets

    Updated: 2010-08-23 00:00:00
    The method is based on corrections astronomers make to signals from pulsars.

  • Neutrinos and the evolution of young scientists

    Updated: 2010-08-19 11:44:33
    At the 38th annual SLAC Summer Institute, more than 150 graduate students, postdocs and researchers got an in-depth look at "Neutrinos: Nature's Mysterious Messengers" -- and built social bonds that will sustain them throughout their careers.

  • Nicola Cabibbo: 1935–2010

    Updated: 2010-08-18 18:55:16
    The Italian physicist Nicola Cabibbo, who many said should have shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2008 for his contribution to understanding the mechanism of quark mixing, died Monday at the age of 75.

  • Galactic Super-volcano in Action

    Updated: 2010-08-18 06:00:00
    This image shows the eruption of a galactic "super-volcano" in the massive galaxy M87.

  • Edwin Hubble, the man behind HST

    Updated: 2010-08-16 01:00:58
    Who is Edwin Hubble, the guy who gave the Hubble Space Telescope its name? Who is the mysterious guy behind the telescope? Well, actually, Edwin Powell Hubble is not the ‘man behind the telescope’ at all. He was born on 20th of November 1889 in the US and studied Physics and Astronomy in Chicago. He then, [...]

  • Dark energy studies top astronomy and astrophysics priorities

    Updated: 2010-08-13 16:01:41
    High-energy physics interests are ranked highly in the decadal study of astronomy and astrophysics priorities released by a National Research Council committee today. The top-ranked projects include studies of dark energy and dark matter although a strong emphasis on extra-solar planet astronomy pushed some high-energy physics further down the list.

  • A Galactic Spectacle

    Updated: 2010-08-05 06:00:00
    A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA's Great Observatories.

  • Kalmbach Publishing Co. acquires Discover magazine

    Updated: 2010-08-05 00:00:00
    The magazine will join Astronomy to enhance the publishing company's science coverage.

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