Tag Archive | "astrophysics"

New Spitzer Space Telescope image shows space nursery

New Spitzer Space Telescope image shows space nursery

The image shows one of the most active and turbulent regions of star birth in our galaxy, a region called Cygnus X. [...more]

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Two Earth-sized planets discovered orbiting a distant Sun-like star

Two Earth-sized planets discovered orbiting a distant Sun-like star

Astronomers using NASA's Kepler mission have detected two Earth-sized planets orbiting a distant star. This discovery marks a milestone in the hunt for alien worlds, since it brings scientists one step closer to their ultimate goal of finding a twin Earth. [...more]

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New details on birth of black hole Cygnus X-1 revealed by Chandra X-ray Observatory

New details on birth of black hole Cygnus X-1 revealed by Chandra X-ray Observatory

Astronomers are confident the Cygnus X-1 system contains a black hole, and with these latest studies they have remarkably precise values of its mass, spin, and distance from Earth. [...more]

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City lights could reveal E.T. civilization

City lights could reveal E.T. civilization

In a new paper, Avi Loeb, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Edwin Turner, Princeton University, suggest a new technique for finding aliens: look for their city lights. [...more]

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Frigid water cloud may be source of water delivered to dry planets by comets

Frigid water cloud may be source of water delivered to dry planets by comets

For the first time, astronomers have detected around a burgeoning solar system a sprawling cloud of water vapor that’s cold enough to form comets, which could eventually deliver oceans to dry planets. [...more]

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Dark matter mystery deepens

Dark matter mystery deepens

The nature of dark matter is a mystery -- a mystery that a new study has only deepened. [...more]

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Infrared survey reveals fewer near-Earth asteroids than previously thought

Infrared survey reveals fewer near-Earth asteroids than previously thought

New observations by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, show there are significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought. [...more]

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Transiting exoplanet survey satellite

Transiting exoplanet survey satellite

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite project is one of 11 proposals recently accepted for evaluation as potential future science missions by NASA. Each project will receive $1 million to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. Led by George Ricker, senior research scientist at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, TESS would use an [...] [...more]

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Science Spotlight

This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of long-proboscid insects that lived in Asia from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. The paper documents the first formal record of fossil Aneuretopsychidae in China. The new fossils reveal previously unknown and detailed structure of the mouthparts, antennae, head, thorax, legs and abdomen of this distinctive insect lineage.

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