Ancient Oxygen Found; Biggest Tatooine-Like Planet Spotted; 2nd Gravitational Wave Detected
Astronomers Find Really Really Old Oxygen in Distant Galaxy Astronomers say they have spotted some of the oldest oxygen in the universe. Using the European Southern Observatory’s ALMA or Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array of radio telescopes, the scientists say they’ve picked up a strong signal that indicates oxygen in a galaxy about 13.1 billion light-years […]
Our Expanding Universe; LISA Pathfinder is a Success; Drugs in Waterways
How Fast is the Universe Expanding? The universe is a big place. And it’s getting even bigger, and at a faster rate than scientists had predicted. That’s according to a new study at Johns Hopkins University, led by Professor Adam Reiss. The study is based on an analysis of data gathered by the Hubble Space […]
Trio of Planets Found Circling “Ultra-cool” Star Might Support Life
An international team of astronomers has discovered three exoplanets that could possibly host alien life. The trio of planets are circling an “ultra-cool” brown dwarf that’s located about 40 light years from Earth, in the constellation of Aquarius. “Ultra-cool” dwarf stars are those that that are much cooler and redder than our Sun, and only […]
Happy 26th Birthday Hubble Space Telescope!
Sunday, April 24, 2016 will mark the 26th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope aboard the space shuttle Discovery mission STS-31. It was deployed from the shuttle’s payload bay the following day, April 25, 1990 Over its 26 years of service Hubble’s numerous discoveries and the breath-taking and detailed images it has […]
Astronomers Find a Bunch of ‘Monster Stars’ in Star Cluster
A group of astronomers probing a young star cluster within the ultraviolet section of the light spectrum just found a bunch of huge ‘monster stars.’ The R136 star cluster, located in the Tarantula Nebula, inside the Large Magellanic Cloud, is about 157,000 light years from Earth. They chose to explore in the ultraviolet range since there are […]
Astronomers Spot 80 of the Oldest Galaxies
Advancing technology is making it possible for scientists to investigate the early universe. About 200 million years after the Big Bang, it is thought that clumps of condensed primordial cold gas clouds provided material for the first stars to be born. As stars were created they formed small galaxies. An international team of researchers are […]
India OK’s New Observatory; Japan’s X-Ray Telescope; Long-Lasting Eclipse Detected
LIGO Scientific Collaboration to Build New Observatory in India Just days (2/11/16) after announcing the first detection of Einstein’s theorized gravitational waves, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration has been granted approval in principle by India to build an Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory there. LIGO currently operates two observatories in the United States; one in Hanford, […]
NASA Seeks Astronauts; Good Sleep = Good Mood; Device Finds Water in Space
Help Wanted – NASA As NASA continues to prepare to resume human spaceflight launches and readies its ambitious ‘Journey to Mars’, it is putting out its “help wanted” sign. The space agency announced that it will soon begin to accept applications for its next class of astronauts who will fly from the Space Coast of […]
2015 Nobel Science Prizes Announced
The 2015 Nobel Prizes for Physiology or Medicine, Physics, and Chemistry were announced this week in Sweden. On Monday (10/5/15) the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet said this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine has been awarded to three scientists who developed unique therapies for fighting parasitic diseases that especially impact the world’s […]
Universe Dying?; Seals Use Voice Recognition; Bacteria Helps Smokers Quit
Astronomers Say our Universe is Dying Is our universe slowly dying? An international group of astronomers, who studied more than 200,000 galaxies and precisely measured the energy produced within a large portion of the cosmos, have confirmed that a section of the Universe is generating about half as much energy as it did two billion […]