Astronomy

  1. Astronomy

    Astronomy Gets Polarized

    Studies using polarized light, an endeavor once considered astronomy's stepchild, are now elucidating the shape of supernovas as well as providing new details about the early universe.

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  2. Astronomy

    Planet-making disk has a banana split

    Two banana-shaped arcs of gas and dust face each other within a newly discovered planet-forming disk that surrounds a young, nearby star.

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  3. Astronomy

    Galactic de Gustibus

    About 13 billion years after its birth, our galaxy is still packing on the stars.

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  4. Astronomy

    Magnetic Thrust: Fields force matter into black holes

    New observations confirm that magnetic fields provide matter with the last push to plunge into a black hole.

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  5. Astronomy

    Not a planet?

    New observations add to the evidence that an image of a planetary-mass object discovered beyond the solar system is not that of a bona fide planet.

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  6. Astronomy

    Spewing superdust

    Astronomers have identified a type of supernova as the main source of space dust.

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  7. Astronomy

    Mini Solar Systems? Astronomers find disks around planet-size objects

    Disks with the potential to form planets, or at least moons, have been found orbiting objects outside the solar system that themselves are no heftier than planets.

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  8. Astronomy

    Safe from a Heavenly Doom: Gamma-ray bursts not a threat to Earth

    Gamma-ray bursts are likely to occur in the Milky Way.

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  9. Astronomy

    Crust on a star

    By analyzing X rays generated by the rumblings of a neutron star 40,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers have estimated the thickness of the dense star's crust.

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  10. Astronomy

    Big Breakup: That’s the way the comet crumbles

    Scores of telescopes are watching the continuing breakup of a comet as it nears the sun.

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  11. Astronomy

    Energy-Saving Space Engines: Black holes can be green

    Some seemingly quiet black holes are actually efficient engines that emit jets of high-energy particles.

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  12. Astronomy

    Crash: Ripples of space-time debut in black hole simulations

    Two teams have for the first time successfully simulated the merger of two black holes and the event's production of gravitational waves.

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