News

Proximity Wins :-)

A team of U.S. astronomers led by James Rhoads from the Space Telescope Science Institute, reports the discovery of extremely high rates of star formation in one of the most distant known galaxies in the universe.

A NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory image has revealed a complex of several intergalactic hot gas clouds in the process of merging. The superb Chandra spatial resolution made it possible to distinguish individual galaxies from the massive clouds of hot gas...

NASA engineers and their industry partners have successfully deployed two solar sails — each nearly 33 feet in length along one side — reaching a critical milestone in the development of a unique propulsion technology that could enable future deep space missions.

Taking out the trash - ISS style...

A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the shimmering embers of a dying star, and in their midst a mysterious doughnut-shaped ring.

The Cassini spacecraft, which began its tour of the Saturn system just over a month ago, has detected lightning and a new radiation belt at Saturn, and a glow around the planet's largest moon, Titan.

PASADENA, Calif.--Astronomers have identified a new class of cosmic explosions that are more powerful than supernovae but considerably weaker than most gamma-ray bursts. The discovery strongly suggests a continuum between the two previously-known classes of explosions...

Our Sun and solar system are embedded in a broad pancake of stars deep within the disk of the Milky Way galaxy. Even from a distance, it is impossible to see our galaxy's large-scale features other than the disk...

Astronomers studying data from the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and other telescopes have concluded that a binary pair of stars forming an energetic microquasar was blasted out of the cluster in which it was born by a supernova explosion some 1.7 million years ago. This is the first time that a fast-moving stellar pair has been tracked back to a specific star cluster.

This small nebula was discovered with a 3-inch telescope by amateur astronomer Jay McNeil in January 2004.

In taking this picture, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys was not looking at any particular target...

Here's a great astronomy education project to work on with your kids or grandkids...

Scientists have been able to use the data they received through lunar laser ranging to study the Earth, the Moon and the character of gravity...

Listed among the program speakers is Stephen Hawking who, after nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that falls into it, will be coming to announce that he was wrong. It seems that black holes may after all allow information within them to escape. Hawking will speak on this at the GR17 conference in Ireland this week.