Our Sun Is Moving Slower Than Thought
“Shocking” find may redraw picture of solar system’s cosmic shield.
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‘First Light’ Instrument Ready to Ship
One of Europe’s main contributions to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is built and ready to ship to the US. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) will gather key data as the $9 billion observatory seeks to identify the first starlight in the Universe. James Webb – regarded as the successor to Hubble – is due…
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Monster Black Holes Stifle Star Birth
The intense energy and winds from gigantic black holes can block the birth of stars as scientists have long suspected, a new analysis of distant galaxies reveals. Most galaxies, including our own Milky Way, are thought to have supermassive black holes at their hearts. Some of these monster black holes are relatively calm, but others,…
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‘Ridiculously Dim’ Bevy of Stars Found Beyond Milky Way
A team of American, Canadian and Chilean astronomers have stumbled onto a remarkably faint cluster of stars orbiting the Milky Way that puts out as much light as only 120 modest Sun-like stars. The tiny cluster, called Munoz 1, was discovered near a dwarf galaxy in a survey of satellites around the Milky Way using…
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Cosmic Blasts Powered By a Hot Glow
Since its launch in 2008, the Fermi space telescope has recorded hundreds of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), flashes of light that, for just a few seconds or minutes, are the brightest objects in the Universe. And now the telescope is yielding data that is starting to explain the mechanisms that unleash these beam-like jets of light,…
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First-Ever Light From Earth-Like Planet Seen
Light from an alien “super-Earth” twice the size of our own Earth has been detected by a NASA space telescope for the first time in what astronomers are calling a historic achievement. NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope spotted light from the alien planet 55 Cancri e, which orbits a star 41 light-years from Earth. The…
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NASA Budget Cuts Draw Threat of Presidential Veto
A 2013 spending bill that would fund NASA’s commercial crew program below the level President Barack Obama requested drew a veto threat as the U.S. House of Representatives was preparing to begin debate on the proposal. The $51 billion Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Act for 2013 (H.R. 5326) that the Republican-led House began debating on…
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Tidal Heating Shrinks the Goldilocks Zone
A previously little-considered heating effect could shrink estimates of the habitable zone of the Milky Way’s most numerous class of stars — ‘M’ or red dwarfs — by up to one half, says Rory Barnes, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. That factor — gravitational heating via tides — suggests a menagerie…
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New Jupiter Mission to Target Alien Oceans
The European Space Agency’s next big mission may be particularly juicy for scientists hunting for signs of extraterrestrial life. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, spacecraft has been formally approved and is now slated to blast off for the gas giant planet in 2022, ESA officials announced. The space probe will tour three of…
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Ancient Volcanic Blast Provides More Evidence of Water on Early Mars
The atmosphere of Mars is less than 1% the density of Earth’s. It’s one of the reasons liquid water covers much of our planet but cannot exist on the Red Planet. As more research points toward the possibility of water on early Mars, scientists have increased their studies on the density of its atmosphere billions…