Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet being born.
Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet being born. Adam Kraus, of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, said the planet is being formed out of dust and gas circling a two-million-year-old star about 450 light years from Earth. The planet itself, based on scientific models of how planets form, [...]
Oceans of Water Found In Disk of Nearby Star
Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a dusty disk around a young star. The findings suggest that this disk, which is poised to develop into a solar system, contains great quantities of water, suggesting that water-covered planets like Earth may be common in [...]
The Day All Life on Earth Almost Ended
On August 12th, 1883, a pack of life-extinguishing comets came within a few hundred miles of slamming into the Earth, killing everything on the planet. That’s what scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico are saying after re-analyzing the findings of José Bonilla, a Mexican astronomer who may have unknowingly come close to witnessing the [...]
Bolshoi Simulations of the Universe
This is a visualization of the Bolshoi Simulation, an attempt to chart the evolution of the large-scale structures in the universe using the data from the cosmic background radiation. (“Bolshoi” means “great” or “grand” in Russian.) From i09: The Bolshoi supercomputers create this simulation of the large-scale structure of the universe by first examining the data [...]
Saltwater Ocean Beneath Enceladus
Astronomers have found strong evidence that a saltwater ocean lies beneath the icy crust of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s inner moons. By analyzing data collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, scientists have detected sodium and potassium salts – similar to those in Earth’s oceans – in ice grains near the [...]
Dying Star Betelgeuse Spews Fiery Nebula
Betelgeuse, some 640 light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion, may look pretty healthy when you see it shining in the night sky it is one of the brightest stars out there but as this infrared image from the European Southern Observatory ESO shows, Betelgeuse is falling apart… literally. ANALYSIS: DON’T PANIC! Betelgeuse Won’t Explode [...]
Stunning Imagery of Saturn from the Cassini Mission
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” – Carl Sagan The footage was captured by the hardworking men and women at NASA with the Cassini Imaging Science System. Learn more: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm
An Asteroid Missed Earth this Week, What are the Odds that We’ll Always be Lucky?
An asteroid the size of a truck zoomed near Earth this week (June 1), coming closer to us than the moon ever does. The 23-foot-long (7-meter) space rock, named 2009 BD, came within 215,000 miles (346,000 kilometers) of Earth at around 8:51 p.m. EDT (0051 GMT on June 2). The moon’s average distance from us [...]
Does Milky Way’s Extraterrestrial Environment Effect Earth’s Biology?
Astronomers focusing on a star at the center of the Milky Way, measured precisely how long it takes the sun to complete one orbit (a galactic year) of our home galaxy: 226 million years. The last time the sun was at that exact spot of its galactic orbit, dinosaurs ruled the world. The Solar System [...]
