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Home > News > Today's News
The most detailed map ever created of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the relic radiation from the Big Bang, was recently released by The European Space Agency (ESA). Acquired by the Planck space telescope, the map reveals some surprises that challenge the foundation of our current understanding of the Universe. For example, an asymmetry in the average temperatures on opposite hemispheres of the sky runs counter to the prediction made by the standard model that the Universe should be broadly similar in any direction we look. Also, a cold spot extends over a patch of sky that is much larger than expected. It is hoped that continued analysis of Planck data over the next few years will help shed light on this conundrum.
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Although many of us use beer while looking at planets, not many of us use BEER to find them. Astronomers at Tel Aviv University and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for the first time have discovered a new planet by using a new method called BEER (BEaming effect with Ellipsoidal and Reflection/emission modulations).
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Virgin Galactic, the world's first commercial spaceline, has completed the first rocket powered flight of its space vehicle, SpaceShip Two. The test, conducted by teams from Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, officially marks Virgin Galactic's entrance into the final phase of vehicle testing prior to commercial service. In the coming months, the Virgin Galactic and Scaled test teams will expand the spaceship's powered flight envelope culminating in a full space flight from Spaceport America in New Mexico, which the companies anticipate will take place before the end of 2013.
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The Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteors breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn's rings. These observations make Saturn's rings the only location besides Earth, the moon, and Jupiter where scientists have been able to observe meteor impacts in real-time.
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The European Space Agency mission, launched almost four years ago, revealed the universe's "coolest" secrets by observing the frigid side of planet, star and galaxy formation.
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ESA's XMM-Newton space telescope has helped to identify a star and a black hole that orbit each other at the dizzying rate of once every 2.4 hours, smashing the previous record. The red dwarf orbits at a speed of two million kilometers per hour, making it the fastest star ever seen in a binary system. The system was first discovered by NASA's Swift space telescope, with follow-up observations by the Japanese MAXI instrument on the International Space Station, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, ESA's XMM-Newton and ESO's ground-based Very Large Telescope.
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Quantum Entanglement, a term first coined by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935, is a phenomenon where a strong correlation exists between two particles, regardless of the distance between them. For example, if two particles are entangled, a measurement on one particle simultaneously affects the other particle irrespective of the distance between the two particles. You can separate them as far as you like -- in theory these particles could be at opposite ends of the universe -- and a change in one will instantly be reflected in the other. On the trail of this odd "faster than light" property, physicists at the University of Vienna have provided the most complete experimental proof that the quantum world really does work in strange ways, in conflict with our everyday experience and intuition.
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Human travel to Mars has long been the dangling carrot for the space program. Now, we could be a step closer to our nearest planetary neighbor through a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion -- the same energy that powers the sun and stars. University of Washington researchers and scientists are building components of a fusion-powered rocket that may clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long transit times, exorbitant costs, and health risks. Using current technology, a round-trip expedition to Mars would take more than four years. A rocket powered by fusion has the potential to send humans to Mars in 30 to 90 days.
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Out near the orbit of Jupiter, a faint speck of light is moving through the black of space. At first glance it doesn't look like much -- no brighter than a thousand distant stars speckling in the velvet sky behind it. Indeed, it takes a big telescope to make out that it is a comet. But what a comet it could turn out to be... Later this year, "Comet ISON" could blossom into a striking naked eye object visible even in broad daylight. Whether we'll look back on ISON as the "Comet of the Century" or as an over-hyped cosmic dud remains to be seen. But astronomers are planning to learn the most they can about this unusual visitor no matter what happens.
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NASA's James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a controversial and highly vocal voice of alarm about the planet's changing climate, will retire as the director of the space institute, NASA announced Tuesday -- and plans to immediately sue his former employer.
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A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken an important step closer to finding the birth certificate of a star that's been around for a very long time. Estimates from observations dating back to 2000 placed the star's age at 16 billion years. This figure, if correct, would make it older than the universe's calculated age of about 13.8 billion years -- an obvious dilemma for cosmologists. The "Methuselah Star" has been known about for more than a century because of its fast proper motion across the sky. The high rate of speed is evidence that the star is simply a visitor to our stellar neighborhood. The latest measurements indicate that the star is 14.5 billion years (plus or minus 0.8 billion years), which still has astronomers scratching their heads. But at least that age is more in line with the estimated age of the universe.
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It's among the most fundamental of questions: What are the origins of life on Earth? A new experiment simulating conditions in deep space reveals that the complex building blocks of life could have been created on icy interplanetary dust and then carried to Earth, jump-starting life here. Chemists from the University of California - Berkeley and the University of Hawaii - Manoa showed that conditions in space are capable of creating complex dipeptides – linked pairs of amino acids – that are essential building blocks shared by all living things. The discovery opens the door to the possibility that these molecules were brought to Earth aboard comets or meteorites, catalyzing the formation of the proteins, enzymes, and sugars that are necessary for life.
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Imagine a sphere more than 2 million miles across, spinning so fast that its surface is traveling at nearly the speed of light. Such an object exists -- the Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365. Astronomers measured its jaw-dropping spin rate using new data from NASA's NuSTAR and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray satellites.
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On Thursday, March 7, 2013, SpaceX's Grasshopper rose 24 stories or 80.1 meters (262.8 feet), hovered for approximately 34 seconds and landed safely using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control. Reminiscent of hovering rocket ships from classic 1950s SciFi movies, Grasshopper touched down with its most accurate precision thus far on the center-most part of the launch pad. Grasshopper is the centerpiece of SpaceX's efforts to achieve one of its key goals -- to develop fully reusable rockets -- a feat that will transform space exploration by radically reducing its cost.
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In 1895, Lowell Observatory founder Percival Lowell commissioned the Alvan Clark and Sons firm of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts to build a state-of-the-art 24 inch refracting telescope. Percival Lowell initially used the telescope to further his legendary theories about intelligent life on Mars, research that brought worldwide attention to Lowell Observatory. In the 1960s, a team of scientists and artists used the Clark Telescope to create detailed maps of the moon in support of America's manned voyages to the moon. After 117 years of service, the massive Clark Telescope needs an overhaul so it can continue to be the centerpiece of the Lowell Observatory public program for the next century. Raising $257,000 will enable improvements that are necessary to keep the telescope in operation. The observatory is looking to the public for help.
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An analysis of a rock sample collected by NASA's Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and carbon (some of the key chemical ingredients for life) in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month. Scientists were surprised to find a mixture of oxidized, less-oxidized, and even non-oxidized chemicals, providing an energy gradient of the sort many microbes on Earth exploit to live.
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The first mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) has been completed. This 8.4-meter (27.5-foot) mirror is the most challenging large astronomical mirror ever made. Scheduled to become operational in the next decade, GMT will be the first in a new generation of giant telescopes to explore the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and glimpse the formation and evolution of extrasolar planets, stars, galaxies, and black holes. The GMT will peer more deeply into the universe's hidden history than humans have ever attempted. The instrument's combined mirrors will be sensitive enough to detect a candle on the moon, or to see the face on a dime 200 miles away.
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Feb. 6, 2013: Far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, where the sun is a pinprick of light not much brighter than other stars, a vast swarm of icy bodies circles the solar system. Astronomers call it the "Oort Cloud," and it is the source of some of history's finest comets. One of them could be heading our way now.
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The demise of the dinosaurs is the world's ultimate who-dunit. Was it a comet or asteroid impact? Volcanic eruptions? Climate change? All of the above? None of the above? In an attempt to resolve the issue, scientists have now determined the most precise dates yet for the dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago and for the well-known Chicxulub impact that occurred around the same time. The dates are so close, the researchers say, that they now believe the asteroid, if not wholly responsible for the global extinction, at least dealt the dinosaurs their death blow. It is now believed that the dramatic climate variation over the previous million years, including a sustained series of volcanic eruptions in India that produced the extensive Deccan Traps and long cold snaps amidst a general Cretaceous hothouse environment, probably brought many creatures to the brink of extinction. In the end, the impact kicked them over the edge.
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ESA's Venus Express has made unique observations of Venus during a period of reduced solar wind pressure, discovering that the planet's ionosphere balloons out like a comet's tail on its night-side. For Earth, which has a strong magnetic field, the ionosphere is relatively stable under a range of solar wind conditions. By comparison, Venus does not have its own internal magnetic field and relies instead on interactions with the solar wind to shape its ionosphere. A similar effect is also expected to occur around Mars, the other non-magnetized planet in our inner Solar System.
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