News
New theory of how planets form finds havens of stability amid turbulence
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new theory of how planets form finds havens of stability amid violent turbulence in the swirling gas that surrounds a young star. These protected areas are where planets can begin to form without being destroyed. The theory will be published in the February issue of the journal Icarus. <b>NOTE: French, German, and Italian translations follow...</b>
Cassini Captures First-Ever Photographs of Saturn's Radiation Belts
Using an innovative camera on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists have captured images of a radiation belt inside the rings of Saturn and have the clearest picture yet of the planet’s giant magnetosphere, according to a mid-year report of the spacecraft published today in the journal Science. <b>NOTE: French, German, and Italian translations follow...</b>
NASA Observes One of Brightest Cosmic Explosions
Scientists detected a flash of light from across the Galaxy so powerful; it bounced off the moon and lit up the Earth's upper atmosphere. The flash was brighter than anything ever detected from beyond our Solar System, and it lasted over a tenth of a second. <b>NOTE: French, German, and Italian translations follow...</b>
NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Continues Making New Discoveries
New findings include wandering and rubble-pile moons; new and clumpy Saturn rings; splintering storms and a dynamic magnetosphere. <b>NOTE: French, German, and Italian translations follow...</b>
Swift Sees Pinwheel Galaxy, Satellite Fully Operational
The Swift satellite's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) has seen first light, capturing an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, long loved by amateur astronomers as the "perfect" face-on spiral galaxy. The UVOT now remains poised to observe its first gamma-ray burst and the Swift observatory, launched into Earth orbit in November 2004, is now fully operational.<b> NOTE: French, German, and Italian translations follow...</b>
CCD Imager's Tool Review Nabs Prize
The Optec Pyxis Rotator gets graded, rated, and rotated by Bob Benamati...
Titan's Atmosphere Comes from Ammonia, Huygens Data Says...
Cassini-Huygens supplied new evidence about why Titan has an atmosphere, making it unique among all solar system moons, a University of Arizona planetary scientist says. (Article by Lori Stiles. University of Arizona)
Mysterious Magnetar Yielding Secrets to VLA
A giant flash of energy from a supermagnetic neutron star thousands of light-years from Earth may shed a whole new light on scientists' understanding of such mysterious "magnetars" and of gamma-ray bursts.
Matter Surfs on Ripples of Space Time Around Black Hole
Scientists at Harvard and MIT say they have seen evidence of hot iron gas riding a ripple in spacetime around a black hole, much like a surfer catching a gnarly wave. <b> NOTE: French, German, and Italian translations follow...</b>
Saturn's Auroras Defy Scientists' Expectations
The dancing light of the auroras on Saturn behaves in ways different from how scientists have thought possible for the last 25 years.
From the Battle emerges a Victor!
This week's review winner concerns a Battle Royale of diminutive proportions....
The Ring, like you've never seen it before...
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope finds a delicate flower in the Ring Nebula. The outer shell of this planetary nebula looks surprisingly similar to the delicate petals of a camellia blossom.
Hysteresis* in spectral state transitions of accreting black holes
Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics describe a further step in understanding the flow of matter towards objects of very high concentration of mass. These compact objects are known as "black holes", with gravitation so dominant that all matter and radiation fall into them if close enough.
Pulsar pair gives scientists magneto-pause for thought
A study of the first double-pulsar binary system to be discovered shows that magnetic interactions between the pulsars are strikingly similar to those between the Sun and the Earth.
Colliding galaxies light up dormant black holes
In the early universe, many galaxies exhibit extremely bright sources at their nuclei, so-called quasars. It is thought that the luminosity of the quasars is produced by super massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. The masses of these black holes are tightly correlated with the velocity dispersion of the stars in the central bulge of their host galaxies, which suggests a common formation mechanism...
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