Astronomy
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Astronomy
Ring around the galaxy
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the largest number ever of elliptical galaxies with Einstein rings, a marker of gravitational lensing.
By Katie Greene -
Astronomy
Images of a fiery youth
A faint, infrared glow captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope might be light from the universe's first stars.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Infrared telescope spies mountains of star creation
Viewing a star-making region in the infrared, the Spitzer Space Telescope has captured mountains of gas and dust being eroded by winds and radiation from a massive star, triggering waves of star birth.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Moon Zoom
Imagine riding a magic carpet around the moon and being able to zoom down to any point or appear magically at any location. NASA has developed software that allows you to interactively browse three-dimensional images of the moon, based on data obtained by the Clementine spacecraft. These Web pages provide information about downloading the software, […]
By Science News -
Astronomy
Spooky Sounds of Saturn
For Hallowe’en, tune in to eerie, bizarre sounds from the Saturnian system. These NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Web pages provide sound files based on magnetometer data from Cassini spacecraft observations of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, radar echoes from Titan’s surface, Saturn’s radio emissions, and more. Go to: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/sounds/
By Science News -
Astronomy
Crisis in the Cosmos?
Baby galaxies that hail from the early history of the cosmos but are full of old stars and are nearly as massive as the Milky Way is today may challenge the standard theory of galaxy formation.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Cosmic Ray Font: Supernova remnants rev up ions
High-resolution X-ray images of the Tycho supernova remnant offer new evidence that supernova shock waves generate most cosmic rays that bombard Earth.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Keeping Hubble from being hobbled
NASA late last month shut down one of the aging Hubble Space Telescope's three gyros in an effort to extend its life.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Farthest Bang: A burst that goes the distance
The most-distant gamma-ray burst ever found hails from 900 million years after the birth of the universe, around the time when stars and galaxies first flooded the universe with light.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Deep Impact
Data from the Deep Impact mission reveal that the bullet that slammed into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4 excavated material that likely hadn't seen the light of day since the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Recipe for a Heavyweight: Making a massive star
New findings strongly support the notion that at least some massive stars form much as their lighter-weight siblings do, by packing on material from a surrounding disk of gas and dust.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Hidden black holes
A new study has added to existing evidence that most of the monster black holes at the cores of galaxies are shrouded by dust.
By Ron Cowen