Scientists using the European Space Agency’s Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) instrument aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 Lunar Orbiter have determined how water could be created on the lunar surface. In addition, the same discovery could lead to an entirely new mechanism ...
Explaining Blue Stragglers’ Youthful Appearance
Astronomers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have recently published an article that sheds light over the ‘youthful’ appearance of stars known as blue stragglers. These shiny stars, which seem older than they are, have puzzled scientists for almost 50 years; ...
The Source of Cosmic Microwave Background
Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and other institutions have used data from the Herschel Space Telescope to resolve a portion of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) into its constituent sources. Using images in the far infrared range ...
Stellar Spire in the Eagle Nebula
Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this object is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90 ...
Avatar’s Moon Pandora Could Be Real
NASA’s Kepler mission has excited the imagination of many astronomers, when it showed recently the potential to detect Earth-sized objects and habitable moons. In a new paper, researcher from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggests that stellar objects could have ...
Spitzer Telescope Observes Baby Brown Dwarf
NASA has recently released images of a baby brown dwarf, captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The object, which is a unique kind of a star, might be the youngest brown dwarf ever observed; therefore, scientists hope it could shed ...
Allen Telescope Array Delivers First Results
Researchers at the Allen Telescope Array in northern California have released the first results from the observatory. The most important images captured show the movement of atomic hydrogen clouds in the spaces between nearby galaxies. Researchers hope to use these ...
Evidence of Ancient Lake on Mars
Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have discovered evidence of shorelines on Mars, indicating the presence of an ancient lake on the Red Planet. Found on a broad delta with a series of alternating ridges and troughs, the ...
Butterfly Emerges from Stellar Demise
This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is far from serene. What resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The gas is tearing across space at more ...
How Supergiant Stars Lose Mass
Two teams of astronomers, one from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, and one from the Paris Observatory, France, have recently used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to study Betelgeuse, the second brightest star ...