|
|
|
|
|
|
| ASTRONOMY
NEWS ARCHIVE |
|
|
|
 |
14/09/2006 |
Looking at detail in the
composition of stars with the VLT, astronomers are providing a new look at the history of
our home galaxy, the Milky Way. They reveal that the central part of our Galaxy formed not
only very quickly but also independently of the rest.
|
 |
24/08/2006 |
The distant icy world Pluto
is no longer regarded a true planet, according to a new definition of the term
voted on by astronomers at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague.
|
 |
18/08/2006 |
Astronomers have discovered
large disc galaxies akin to our Milky Way that must have formed on a rapid time scale,
only 3 billion years after the Big Bang. This was achieved using adaptive optics
techniques in a record-breaking resolution of a mere 0.15 arcsecond, giving an
unprecedented detailed view of the anatomy of such a distant proto-disc galaxy.
|
 |
08/08/2006 |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
has for the first time identified the parent star of a distant planet discovered through
gravitational microlensing.
|
 |
27/07/2006 |
ESO's Very Large Telescope has
taken images of three different 'Island Universes', each amazing in their own way, whose
curious shapes testify of a troubled past, and for one, of a foreseeable doomed future.
|
 |
04/07/2006 |
ESO's Very Large Telescope has
helped astronomers discover a large primordial 'blob', more than 10 billion light-years
away. The most likely scenario to account for its existence and properties is that it
represents the early stage in the formation of a galaxy, when gas falls onto a large clump
of dark matter.
|
 |
27/06/2006 |
An asteroid possibly a little
over half a kilometre in size designated 2004 XP14, and discovered on Dec. 10, 2004 is
rapidly approaching the Earth but there is no need for alarm as this large space rock
makes an exceptionally close approach to our planet early on Monday, July 3, passing just
beyond the moon's average distance from Earth. Click here for positions
|
 |
07/06/2006 |
Two new studies, based on
observations made with ESO's telescopes, show that objects only a few times more massive
than Jupiter are born with discs of dust and gas, the raw material for planet making. This
suggests that miniature versions of the solar system may circle objects that are some 100
times less massive than our Sun.
|
 |
18/05/2006 |
Using the HARPS spectrograph
on the 3.6m telescope at La Silla (Chile), a team of astronomers have discovered a nearby
star hosting three Neptune-mass planets. The innermost is suspected to be a rocky world
while the outermost is the first known Neptune-mass planet to reside in the habitable
zone. This unique system is likely further enriched by an asteroid belt. With three
roughly equal-mass worlds, and an asteroid belt, this planetary system shares many
properties with our own solar system.
|
 |
12/05/2006 |
ESO's Very Large Telescope,
with the multi-mode FORS instrument, took an image of NGC 3190, a galaxy so distorted that
astronomers gave it two names. And as if to prove them right, in 2002 it fired off, almost
simultaneously, two stellar explosions, a very rare event.
|
 |
09/05/2006 |
Using a quasar as a beacon
some 12.3 billion light-years away , a astronomers detected the presence of molecular
hydrogen in the farthest system ever. An invisible galaxy that we observe when the
Universe was less than 1.5 billion years old, (about 10% of its present age) they found
there is about one hydrogen molecule for 250 hydrogen atoms. A similar set of observations
for two other quasars, together with the most precise laboratory measurements, allows
scientists to infer the ratio of the proton to electron masses may have changed with time.
If confirmed, this would have important consequences on our understanding of physics.
|
 |
26/04/2006 |
Comet Doomed to
Disintegrate - ESO's Very Large Telescope observed fragment B of the comet Schwassmann-Wachmann
3 that had split a few days earlier. To their great surprise, the ESO astronomers
discovered that the piece just ejected by fragment B was splitting again! Five other
mini-comets are also visible on the image.
|
 |
12/04/2006 |
New image released by ESO and
taken with the Very Large Telescope looks at the spidery cosmic inferno of the Tarantula
Nebula, an insight into the many processes at play and how the life and death of stars
shape this giant nebula.
|
 |
23/03/2006 |
The Sun's New Exotic
Neighbour
Astronomers have discovered a brown dwarf belonging to the 24th closest stellar system to
the Sun. Brown dwarfs are intermediate objects that are neither stars nor planets. This
object is the third closest brown dwarf to the Earth yet discovered, and orbits a very
small star at about 4.5 times the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun.
|
 |
30/02/2006 |
New Pluto moons
-Using the Hubble Space Telescope, Astrnomers have confirmed the presence of two new moons
around the distant planet Pluto. First suspected in May 2005, the Pluto Companion Search
team probed even deeper with Hubble in February. The moons have provisionally been
designated S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2, are located to the right of Pluto and Charon.
|
 |
24/02/2006 |
First artificial star
in the Southern Hemisphere.
Allowing astronomers to study the Universe in the finest detail, ESO's Very Large
Telescope array have established an artificial laser guide star which makes it possible to
apply adaptive optics systems, that counteract the blurring effect of the atmosphere,
almost anywhere in the sky.
|
 |
16/02/2006 |
Using the Chandra X-ray
Observatory, scientists have found for the first time a theorised dim halo of hot gas
around a spiral-shaped galaxy. This new discovery helps to justify a yet unproven model
for spiral galaxy formation. This image shows a blue halo 60,000 light years across
surrounding NGC 5746.
|
|
|
|
 |
10/02/2006 |
VLT Reveals Troubled Past for
M12 Globular Cluster
Astronomers measured the brightness and colours of more than 16,000 stars within the
globular star cluster M12 using the FORS1 multi-mode instrument attached to one of the
VLT's at Cerro Paranal in Chile. They studied stars 40 million times fainter than what the
unaided eye can see.
|
 |
26/01/2006 |
LEAST MASSIVE EXOPLANET FOUND!
Using a network of telescopes scattered across the globe, astronomers have discovered the
least massive exoplanet around an ordinary star detected so far. The planet, which is also
the coolest, is only about 5 times as massive as the Earth and orbits its parent star in
about 10 years. The discovery marks a groundbreaking result in the search for planets that
support life.
|
 |
12/01/2006 |
THOUSANDS OF STARS REVEALED IN
ORION NEBULA
One of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, the HST has captured an
unprecedented view of the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star forming region is one of
astronomy's most dramatic and photogenic celestial objects.
|
 |
09/01/2006 |
Very rare occultation of a
star by Pluto's moon Charon was recorded from 3 sites to determine with great accuracy the
radius and density of the satellite. The density, 1.71 that of water, is indicative of an
icy body with about slightly more than half of rocks. The observations also put strong
constraints on the existence of an atmosphere around Charon.
|
 |
01/01/2006 |
Two ESO telescopes capture
various stages in the life of a star in a single image.Located in the southern
constellation of Puppis ("The Stern"), NGC 2467 has an age of a few million
years at most and is a very active stellar nursery where new stars are born continuously
from large clouds of dust and gas.
|
 |
22/12/2005 |
STAR DUST spacecraft heading
home after a 2.88 billion mile
round-trip journey to return cometary and interstellar dust particles back to Earth. The
capsule is planned for return on the 15th of January 2006.
|
 |
07/12/2005 |
CASSINI REVEALS ACTIVE MOON
ENCELADUS
Jets of fine, icy particles streaming from Saturn's moon Enceladus were captured in recent
images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Theimages provide unambiguous visual evidence the
moon is geologically active.
|
 |
27/11/2005 |
ESO's 3.6-m telescope at La
Silla (Chile) using the HARPS Instrument discovers one of the lightest exoplanets ever
found - a Neptune-Mass exoplanet around small star.
|
 |
27/11/2005 |
Combining the light from two
or three 8.2m telescopes providing the combined telescopic of power of a 40 to 90 metre
instrument, two teams of astronomers have observed the environment of two stars with
unprecedented detail. One is a young, still-forming star and the new results provide
valuable new insights on the conditions leading to the creation of planets.
|
 |
11/11/2005 |
Using the ESO VLT, astronomers
have recorded a massive star moving more than 2.6 million kilometres per hour. Its
position in the sky leads to the suggestion that the star was kicked out from the Large
Magellanic Cloud, providing indirect evidence for a massive black hole in the Milky Way's
closest neighbour. At such a speed, the star would go around the Earth in less than a
minute.
|
 |
05/11/2005 |
Portrait of a Perturbed Family
- Robert's Quartet is a family of four very different galaxies, located at a distance of
about 160 million light-years, close to the centre of the southern constellation of the
Phoenix system. Since such groups contain four to eight galaxies in a very small region,
they are excellent laboratories for the study of galaxy interactions and their effects, in
particular on the formation of stars. Source: ESO
|
 |
01/11/2005 |
Using the Hubble Space
Telescope, astronomers believe they may have revealed 2 new moons orbiting tiny Pluto -
the ninth planet from the Sun. If confirmed, this discovery could offer new insights as to
the evolution of the Pluto and Kuiper Belt system.
|
 |
21/10/2005 |
New images of NGC 1097 taken
at near infrared using ESO's Very Large Telescope, unveil with unprecedented detail a
complex central network of filamentary structure spiralling down to the centre of the
galaxy. These observations provide astronomers with new insights on how super-massive
black holes lurking inside these galaxies are fed.
|
 |
15/10/2005 |
Combined infrared and X-ray
observations indicate a surplus of massive stars formed from a large disk of gas around
Sagittarius A, (the Milky Way's central black hole), Chandra observations of the Galactic
Centre reveal that expected low-mass stars are not present. The conclusion is that massive
stars must have formed where we see them today around the black hole.
|
 |
13/10/2005 |
CHINA'S SECOND HUMAN SPACE
FLIGHT
In another fine effort by the peoples of China and its developing space program, they have
once again demonstrated their position among the elite few countries in the world capable
of human space flight. In this second successful mission, 2 astronauts were sent in to
space aboard Shenzhou 6 seen at left.
|
 |
29/09/2005 |
85 million years ago, in
another corner of the Universe, light left the beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1350 an Sa(r)
type galaxy, for a journey across the universe. It is about 130,000 light-years across
and, hence, is slightly larger than our Milky Way. Part of this light was recorded in 2000
AD by ESO's Very Large Telescope.
|
 |
28/09/2005 |
Astronomers find Big Baby
Galaxies from way back in time identifying one of the farthest and most massive galaxies
that once inhabited the early universe. Conventional thinking is that galaxies grow more
slowly, like streams merging to form rivers. But this galaxy appears to have grown very
quickly, within the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
|
 |
16/09/2005 |
Using the VLT and Hubble Space
Telescope, astronomers couldn't find evidence for encircling galaxy around the bright
quasar HE0450-2958. This, may indicate a rare case of a collision between a seemingly
normal spiral galaxy and a much more exotic object harbouring a very massive black hole.
|
 |
12/09/2005 |
Astronomers observe afterglow
of Gamma-Ray Burst being the farthest known ever. With a redshift of 6.3, the light has
taken 12,700 million years to reach us - when the Universe was less than 900 million years
old. This sets a new astronomical record.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Click Here for News
Archive Listing |
