Space

Hot Flow Anomalies: Planet-Sized Space Weather Explosions Rock Venus

A common space weather phenomenon on the outskirts of Earth's magnetic bubble, the magnetosphere, has a much different effect on Venus.  The giant explosions, called hot flow anomalies, can be so large at Venus that they're bigger than the entir ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 20 2014 - 9:35pm

Snake Nebula Cosmic Seeds Grow Into Massive Stars

The Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA) telescope has providec the most detailed view yet of stellar nurseries within the Snake nebula and what they found lends new insight into how cosmic seeds can grow into massive stars. Stretching across almo ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 26 2014 - 1:03pm

MQ1 Microquasar: Super-Powered Small Black Hole Is Only 60 Miles Wide

Astronomers studying nearby galaxy M83 have found a new super-powered small black hole, named MQ1. M83, the iconic Southern-sky galaxy, is being mapped with the Hubble Space and Magellan telescopes (detecting visible light), the Chandra X-ray Observatory ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 28 2014 - 10:38am

Let's Plan For Exploration and Discovery of Space with no End Date- NOT Escape from Earth- Opinion Piece

This continues from my earlier article "Ten reasons not to live on Mars, great place to Explore." Many of the ideas in that article apply not just to Mars but to the solar system generally. ...

Blog Post - Robert Walker - Mar 9 2014 - 4:22pm

Fast And Furious 200,000,000: Ram Pressure Stripping In Spiral Galaxy ESO 137-001

In a new Hubble telescope image, spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 is zooming toward the upper right, in between other galaxies in the Norma cluster located over 200 million light-years away. The road is perilous: intergalactic gas in the Norma cluster is sparse, ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 5 2014 - 10:05am

Asteroid P/2013 R3 Is Mysteriously Disintegrating

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a never-before-seen break-up of an asteroid,  P/2013 R3, which has fragmented into as many as ten smaller pieces. Although fragile comet nuclei have been seen to fall apart as they approach the Sun, nothing like the ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 6 2014 - 11:18am

Beta Pictoris: Icy Debris Suggests 'Shepherd' Planet

A vast belt of carbon monoxide located at the fringes of the Beta Pictoris system is concentrated in a single clump located about 8 billion miles from the star, or nearly three times the distance between the planet Neptune and our sun. The total amount of ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 6 2014 - 4:40pm

Could Spinning Hammocks Keep Astronauts Healthy in Zero g?

When astronauts get sick from zero g during long duration flights in zero g, the best medicine is to return them to Earth and full gravity. So, what if they could spend a few hours or minutes a day in artificial gravity during the flight? It's far ea ...

Blog Post - Robert Walker - Aug 12 2019 - 10:09pm

GAMA And The Cosmic Web- These Aren't The Voids You're Looking For

Calling H.P. Lovecraft: Galaxies in the vast empty regions of the Universe are actually aligned into tendrils.  A team of astronomers based at The University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) has fo ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2014 - 10:27am

O-Types: Death Stars In Orion Blast Proplyds To Dust

There's a cosmic war happening between highly luminous O-type stars and nearby protostars in the Orion Nebula. The Orion Nebula is home to hundreds of young stars and even younger protostars known as proplyds. Many of these nascent systems will go on ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2014 - 11:57am