Two X-ray space observatories, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton, have teamed up to measure definitively, for the first time, the spin rate of a black hole with a mass 2 million times that of our Sun. This artist’s concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to [continue reading]
February 28, 2013 NGC 6188, an emission nebula in Ara Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Sidonio (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002) NGC 6188 (also known as The Great Wall of Ara or Fighting Dragons of Ara) is an emission nebula of roughly 600 light-years across that lies some 4,000 light-years away, in the southern constellation of Ara. It is [continue reading]
When the Sun rose over Russia’s Ural Mountains on Friday, Feb. 15th, many residents of nearby Chelyabinsk already knew that a space rock was coming. Later that day, an asteroid named 2012 DA14 would pass by Earth only 17,200 miles above Indonesia. There was no danger of a collision, NASA assured the public. In [continue reading]
Water really is everywhere. Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the Universe. Looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar—one of the brightest and most violent objects in [continue reading]
February 27, 2013 Messier 56, a globular cluster in Lyra Image Credit: NASA & ESA, Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine Messier 56 (also known as NGC 6779) is a globular cluster of roughly 84 light-years across that lies about 32,900 light years away from the Earth, about 31,500 light-years from the Galactic Center and 4,800 light-years above [continue reading]
Even dying stars could host planets with life – and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. This encouraging result comes from a new theoretical study of Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarf stars. Researchers found that we could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a white [continue reading]