skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Astronomers have discovered a strange spinning star that appears to be older than the explosion that gave birth to it, scientists say. The star is a pulsar, a rotating, super-dense core left behind after a massive star goes supernova. This pulsar, known as SXP 1062, is spinning quite slowly, suggesting an advanced age.
But the pulsar can't be as old as it looks, because the star probably exploded less than 40,000 years ago, researchers said. They've just now begun delving into this newly discovered cosmic mystery.
A pulsar is born
Pulsars are created after supernova explosions, when a star's remnant collapses and becomes so dense that protons and electrons squish together to form neutrons. [ Supernova Photos: Great Images of Star Explosions ]
Conservation of angular momentum causes these newly formed, city-size neutron stars to rotate, often extremely rapidly. They're called pulsars because this rotation makes their light appear to pulse at regular intervals.
Astronomers feel fortunate to have detected SXP 1062.
"Not many pulsars have been observed within their supernova remnant, and this is the first clear example of such a pair in the [Small Magellanic Cloud]," study leader Vincent Hénault-Brunet, of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, said in a statement.
The Small Magellanic Cloud is one of the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way.
A second team, led by Frank Haberl of the Max-Planck Institute in Germany, independently confirmed Hénault-Brunet's findings that the leftover supernova debris is between 10,000 and 40,000 years old.
Read the entire article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45800105/ns/technology_and_science-space/
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN Laboratory in Switzerland, are trying to slam particles together hard enough to break them into never-before-seen pieces, which could solve some of the biggest puzzles in nature.
But UFOs — unidentified falling objects, that is — keep getting in their way.
The LHC is a 17-mile (27-km) circular tunnel lined with powerful magnets, which accelerate protons (particles in the nuclei of atoms) to 99.9999991 percent the speed of light. Beams of these super-brisk protons are accelerated clockwise around the ring and collide with beams traveling counter-clockwise, and, like a well-struck piñata, a dead-on hit produces a thrilling outburst of subatomic goodies. When they turn the proton beams up to full power, the physicists hope to find the Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle," which is believed to create the drag that gives everything else mass, among the collision debris. They'll also look for dark matter, the invisible substance that permeates the outskirts of galaxies.
However, since last year, something has been fluttering in the way of the proton beams and dampening the force of their blows, the physicists say. These "UFOs" aren't from outer space — they're probably microscopic dust particles of unknown origin — but they're still mysterious, and while they're around, the prize goodies will likely remain stashed. [LHC On Hold Until 2012]
Read the entire article:
http://www.space.com/13754-ufos-lhc-large-hadron-collider.html
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
GENEVA — The chances have risen that Einstein was wrong about a fundamental law of the universe. Scientists at the world's biggest physics lab said Friday they have ruled out one possible error that could have distorted their startling measurements that appeared to show particles traveling faster than light.
Many physicists reacted with skepticism in September when measurements by French and Italian researchers seemed to show subatomic neutrino particles breaking what Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein considered the ultimate speed barrier.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research said more precise testing has now confirmed the accuracy of at least one part of the experiment.
"One key test was to repeat the measurement with very short beam pulses," the Geneva-based organization, known by its French acronym CERN, said in a statement.
The test allowed scientists to check if the starting time for the neutrinos was being measured correctly before they were fired 454 miles (730 kilometers) underground from Geneva to a lab in Italy.
The results matched those from the previous test, "ruling out one potential source of systematic error," said CERN.
Read the entire article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/cern-experiment-faster-than-light_n_1101151.html
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
A laser powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of space could be built in Britain as part major new scientific project that aims to answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe.
Due to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider, the latest "big science" experiment being proposed by physicists will see the world's most powerful laser being constructed.
Capable of producing a beam of light so intense that it would be equivalent to the power received by the Earth from the sun focused onto a speck smaller than a tip of a pin, scientists claim it could allow them boil the very fabric of space – the vacuum.
Contrary to popular belief, a vacuum is not devoid of material but in fact fizzles with tiny mysterious particles that pop in and out of existence, but at speeds so fast that no one has been able to prove they exist.
The Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility would produce a laser so intense that scientists say it would allow them to reveal these particles for the first time by pulling this vacuum "fabric" apart.
They also believe it could even allow them to prove whether extra-dimensions exist.
Read the entire article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8857154/Worlds-most-powerful-laser-to-tear-apart-the-vacuum-of-space.html
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
(Reuters) - Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.
The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.
"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon -- i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun," said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.
Read the entire article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/us-planet-diamond-idUSTRE77O69A20110825
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
Not since the work of Fritz Zwicky has the astronomy world been so excited about the missing mass of the Universe. His evidence came from the orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters, rotational speeds, and gravitational lensing of background objects. Now there’s even more evidence that Zwicky was right as Australian student – Amelia Fraser-McKelvie – made another breakthrough in the world of astrophysics.
Working with a team at the Monash School of Physics, the 22-year-old undergraduate Aerospace Engineering/Science student conducted a targeted X-ray search for the hidden matter and within just three months made a very exciting discovery. Astrophysicists predicted the mass would be low in density, but high in temperature – approximately one million degrees Celsius. According to theory, the matter should have been observable at X-ray wavelengths and Amelia Fraser-McKelvie’s discovery has proved the prediction to be correct.
Dr Kevin Pimbblet from the School of Astrophysics explains: “It was thought from a theoretical viewpoint that there should be about double the amount of matter in the local Universe compared to what was observed. It was predicted that the majority of this missing mass should be located in large-scale cosmic structures called filaments – a bit like thick shoelaces.”
Read more here:
http://www.universetoday.com/85927/australian-student-uncovers-the-universes-missing-mass/#more-85927
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
The search for Planet X may be problematic, but astronomers believe there's a "Galaxy X" lurking on the other side of the Milky Way.
Based on an analysis of our home galaxy's distribution of cold atomic hydrogen gas, two astronomers at the University of California at Berkeley are predicting that a previously undetected dwarf galaxy, about 1 percent the mass of the total Milky Way, should lie about 300,000 light-years out from the center of the Milky Way ... in an area that's obscured by intervening gas and dust.
Such a galaxy hasn't been detected directly — yet — but postdoctoral fellow Sukanya Chakrabarti and Leo Blitz are betting that it's out there nevertheless.
"This is the first time in my profession that I'm really going out on a limb and making a very specific prediction," Chakrabarti told me.
This month, a request is being put in for observing time on the infrared-sensitive Spitzer Space Telescope, as part of its GLIMPSE survey. If the request is approved, Chakrabarti and Blitz should find out sometime this year whether their bet has paid off. The payoff could be big: If Galaxy X is found, its existence could explain a curious discrepancy in the current theoretical model for dark matter distribution in the universe.
And if the bet goes bad? "Even if we're wrong, we'll learn something significant, because it could be due to the shape of the dark matter halo," she said.
Chakrabarti discussed her research, which has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal, at the American Astronomical Society's winter meeting in Seattle today.
Read the entire article:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/13/5831930-astronomers-search-for-galaxy-x
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
Scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before.
Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 TGFs occur daily worldwide, but most go undetected.
"These signals are the first direct evidence that thunderstorms make antimatter particle beams," said Michael Briggs, a member of Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). He presented the findings Monday, during a news briefing at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.
Fermi is designed to monitor gamma rays, the highest energy form of light. When antimatter striking Fermi collides with a particle of normal matter, both particles immediately are annihilated and transformed into gamma rays. The GBM has detected gamma rays with energies of 511,000 electron volts, a signal indicating an electron has met its antimatter counterpart, a positron.
Although Fermi's GBM is designed to observe high-energy events in the universe, it's also providing valuable insights into this strange phenomenon. The GBM constantly monitors the entire celestial sky above and the Earth below. The GBM team has identified 130 TGFs since Fermi's launch in 2008.
Read the entire article:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/fermi-thunderstorms.html
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
You may have heard the names, 'Nemisis', 'Nibiru' or 'Planet X' tossed around the past few years in regards to our sun being a part of a binary system. So, is there any validity to this claim? Well it seems the scientific community is quite torn over this one...
Recently I read an article in space.com that seems to indicate that there might be a solar partner to our sun. The implications of this could be staggering if it is true...but is it? I don't know, and apparently neither does space.com:
Yea: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/secret-giant-planet-sun-companion-1011201.html
Nea: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun-hidden-companion-nemesis-100720.html
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
Physicists probing the origins of the cosmos hope that next year they will turn up the first proofs of the existence of concepts long dear to science-fiction writers such as hidden worlds and extra dimensions.
And as their Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva moves into high gear, they are talking increasingly of the "New Physics" on the horizon that could totally change current views of the universe and how it works.
"Parallel universes, unknown forms of matter, extra dimensions... These are not the stuff of cheap science fiction but very concrete physics theories that scientists are trying to confirm with the LHC and other experiments."
This was how the "ideas" men and women in the international research center's Theory Group, which mulls over what could be out there beyond the reach of any telescope, put it in CERN's staff-targeted Bulletin this month.
As particles are collided in the vast underground LHC complex at increasingly high energies, what the Bulletin article referred to informally as the "universe's extra bits" -- if they do exist as predicted -- should be brought into computerized, if ephemeral, view, the theorists say.
Read the entire article:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=11926151
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.
Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail online. [Alien Planet Gliese581g: FAQ]
Bhathal is a member of the Australian chapter of SETI, a non-profit scientific organization that is dedicated to research, exploration and education in the field of astrobiology.
"Whenever there's a clear night, I go up to the observatory and do a run on some of the celestial objects," Bhathal told the Daily Mail. "Looking at one of these objects, we found this signal. We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we're looking for – a very sharp spike. And that is what we found."
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/11/scientist-claims-strange-signal-comes-alien-planet/?test=latestnews
Could this be a hoax space.com as called this 'Very Suspicious'?
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/gliese581g-mysterious-light-pulse-101008.html
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
An alien – 'no matter how many tentacles it has' – could have a soul, says pope's astronomer. Aliens might have souls and could choose to be baptised if humans ever met them, a Vatican scientist said today. The official also dismissed intelligent design as "bad theology" that had been "hijacked" by American creationist fundamentalists.
Guy Consolmagno, who is one of the pope's astronomers, said he would be "delighted" if intelligent life was found among the stars. "But the odds of us finding it, of it being intelligent and us being able to communicate with it – when you add them up it's probably not a practical question."
Speaking ahead of a talk at the British Science Festival in Birmingham tomorrow, he said that the traditional definition of a soul was to have intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions. "Any entity – no matter how many tentacles it has – has a soul." Would he baptise an alien? "Only if they asked."
Consolmagno, who became interested in science through reading science fiction, said that the Vatican was well aware of the latest goings-on in scientific research. "You'd be surprised," he said.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, of which Stephen Hawking is a member, keeps the senior cardinals and the pope up-to-date with the latest scientific developments. Responding to Hawking's recent comments that the laws of physics removed the need for God, Consolmagno said: "Steven Hawking is a brilliant physicist and when it comes to theology I can say he's a brilliant physicist."
Read entire article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/17/pope-astronomer-baptise-aliens
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
Giant rings of ultraviolet light have been spotted around some ancient galaxies, sending some scientists reeling from the completely unexpected phenomenon.
The odd ultraviolet formations were spotted around several aged galaxies that astronomers had presumed to be astronomically dead – inactive, that is.
"We haven't seen anything quite like these rings before," said researcher Michael Rich at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a statement. "These beautiful and very unusual objects might be telling us something very important about the evolution of galaxies."
Astronomers observed the ultraviolet rings using two orbiting space observatories: NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer and Hubble Space Telescope. They studied 30 elliptical and lens-shaped "early" galaxies with strong UV emissions to determine why they – though ancient and having no visible signs of star formation – were still emitting such energetic light.
NASA announced the discovery this month. Details of the research appeared in the April 21 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Mystery rings in deep space
While young and lively galaxies have bluish hues from their active stars, older galaxies emit reddish collective starlight, NASA officials said in a statement. This reddish trait of the stars in the ancient galaxies allowed scientists to peg the ages of most of the stars at around 10 billion years old.
When astronomers studied the same galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists discovered the source of the energetic look.
Read the entire article:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/giant-ultraviolet-rings-around-galaxies-100825.html
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.
Physicists have struggled to marry quantum mechanics with gravity for decades. In contrast, the other forces of nature have obediently fallen into line. For instance, the electromagnetic force can be described quantum-mechanically by the motion of photons. Try and work out the gravitational force between two objects in terms of a quantum graviton, however, and you quickly run into trouble—the answer to every calculation is infinity. But now Petr HoYava, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks he understands the problem. It’s all, he says, a matter of time
Read the entire article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=splitting-time-from-space
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning? We don't have any reason to think it will in the next few million millennia, but Witold Fraczek, an employee of geographic imaging software company ESRI, was curious. He used ArcGIS, the company's flagship software, to build a virtual model of the planet in the absence of centrifugal force.
Currently, the spin of our planet (it goes 1,667 kilometers per hour at the equator) pulls the mass of water toward the equator, creating an unsightly ellipsoidal bulge, and the oceans we are familiar with.
Read the entire article and view the image below:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/what-would-earth-look-if-it-stopped-spinning
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
A blast of the brightest X-rays ever detected from beyond our Milky Way galaxy's neighborhood temporarily blinded the X-ray eye on NASA's Swift space observatory earlier this summer, astronomers now report. The X-rays traveled through space for 5-billion years before slamming into and overwhelming Swift's X-ray Telescope on June 21. The blindingly bright blast came from a gamma-ray burst, a violent eruption of energy from the explosion of a massive star morphing into a new black hole. "This gamma-ray burst is by far the brightest light source ever seen in X-ray wavelengths at cosmological distances," said David Burrows, senior scientist and professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University and the lead scientist for Swift's X-ray Telescope (XRT)
Although the Swift satellite was designed specifically to study gamma-ray bursts, the instrument was not designed to handle an X-ray blast this bright. "The intensity of these X-rays was unexpected and unprecedented" said Neil Gehrels, Swift's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He said the burst, named GRB 100621A, is the brightest X-ray source that Swift has detected since the observatory began X-ray observation in early 2005. "Just when we were beginning to think that we had seen everything that gamma-ray bursts could throw at us, this burst came along to challenge our assumptions about how powerful their X-ray emissions can be," Gehrels said.
Read the entire article:
http://live.psu.edu/story/47506
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
An international team of researchers has uncovered a cosmological anomaly and are now trying to determine if it is an uncanny coincidence or a vital clue to understanding the origins of our Universe.
The irregularity, described in a paper accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters, has left the team, including researchers from Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology, scratching their heads.
According to Swinburne co-author Dr Michael Murphy, the paper reveals a strange coincidence - or at least what appears to be a strange coincidence - occurring in distant galaxies.
"We were studying the abundance of molecules containing deuterium-deuterated molecular hydrogen (HD) in two different galaxies in the distant Universe.
"What we inadvertently discovered was that in these two galaxies the fraction of molecules which were HD was the same as the fraction of atoms which were deuterium (D), hydrogen's doubly-heavy cousin. We then looked at the only other two existing measurements of HD in distant galaxies and found almost exactly the same thing."
Read the entire article:
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/chancellery/mediacentre/research/news/2010/07/cosmological-anomaly-confounds-astronomers
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
Until now, astronomers have used telescopes to find Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), moon-sized bodies, and obtain their spectra to determine what types of ices are on their surface. They have also used thermal-imaging techniques to get a rough idea of the size of KBOs, but other details have been difficult to glean.
While astronomers think there are about 70,000 KBOs that are larger than 100 kilometers in diameter, the objects' relatively small size and location make it hard to study them in detail.
One method that has been has been proposed for studying KBOs is to observe one as it passes briefly in front of a bright star; such events, known as stellar occultations, have yielded useful information about other planets in the solar system.
Read the entire article:
http://www.spacedaily.com/...
Read more...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10333601.stm
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
New findings have roused a great deal of hoopla over the possibility of life on Saturn's moon Titan, which some news reports have further hyped up as hints of extraterrestrials. However, scientists also caution that aliens might have nothing to do with these findings.
All this excitement is rooted in analyses of chemical data returned by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. One study suggested that hydrogen was flowing down through Titan's atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Astrobiologist Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center speculated this could be a tantalizing hint that hydrogen is getting consumed by life.
"It's the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth," McKay said.
Another study investigating hydrocarbons on Titan's surface found a lack of acetylene, a compound that could be consumed as food by life that relies on liquid methane instead of liquid water to live.
"If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth," McKay said.
However, NASA scientists caution that aliens might not be involved at all.
Read the entire article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100607/sc_space/strangediscoveryontitanleadstospeculationofalienlife
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
There's the common notion that black holes suck in everything in the nearby vicinity by exerting a strong gravitational influence on the matter, energy, and space surrounding them. But astronomers have found that the dark matter around black holes might be a different story. Somehow dark matter resists 'assimilation' into a black hole.
About 23% of the Universe is made up of mysterious dark matter, invisible material only detected through its gravitational influence on its surroundings. In the early Universe clumps of dark matter are thought to have attracted gas, which then coalesced into stars that eventually assembled the galaxies we see today. In their efforts to understand galaxy formation and evolution, astronomers have spent a good deal of time attempting to simulate the build up of dark matter in these objects.
Dr. Xavier Hernandez and Dr. William Lee from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) calculated the way in which the black holes found at the center of galaxies absorb dark matter. These black holes have anything between millions and billions of times the mass of the Sun and draw in material at a high rate.
Read the entire article:
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/03/22/astronomers-find-black-holes-do-not-absorb-dark-matter/
|
[Click here to read the rest of this article...]
|
