Supermassive Black Holes Are Cannibals
Astronomers have found black holes and supermassive black holes. But the discovery of a mid-size black hole could support the idea that supermassive black holes grow by eating others.
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President’s 2013 Budget Hits Planetary Science Hard
The president’s 2013 budget asks for modest increases for some federal science agencies but trims funding to NASA. The request takes a deep bite out of Mars and outer-planet science exploration in particular. NASA’s funding would fall to the lowest level in four years, with a total budget of $17.71 billion. The president’s request projects…
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What Makes a Planet Livable? Five Things Scientists Look For
Since 1995, astronomers have been hunting in earnest for possible havens for life outside the solar system. So far, they’ve detected more than 550 extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. Another 2,000-plus possible planets are waiting in the wings for confirmation. Researchers are working on ways to identify a “potentially Earth-like” planet – even if it isn’t…
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NASA Issues Call for New Space Taxis
NASA is looking for at least two U.S. firms to design and build space taxis to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, program managers said. NASA plans to invest $300 million to $500 million in each of the firms selected under new 21-month partnership agreements. The new program aims to build upon…
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Black Hole in Milky Way Seen Snacking on Asteroids?
Our Milky Way galaxy’s supermassive black hole is apparently dining on all-you-can-eat asteroids, according to a new study. Dubbed Sagittarius A*, the monster black hole lies 26,000 light-years away in the galactic center. The black hole is surrounded by an accretion disk—a swirling ring of superheated gases—which spews radiation as matter is consumed. But astronomers…
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Do Aliens Go Invisible By ‘Going Green’?
The Fermi Paradox asks the simple question “where are they?” Our Milky Way galaxy is so big and so old — and we are estimated to be accompanied by at least 100 billion planets — that aliens should have visited us by now. Instead, when we peruse the heavens, we are faced with the Great…
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Habitable Zones Around Alien Suns May Depend on Chemistry
Trace elements in stars may influence the evolution of habitable zones around them where life as we know it might dwell. Stars are made nearly entirely from hydrogen and helium gas. Still, traces of heavier elements — which astronomers call metals, even if they are not what one normally think of as metals — can…
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Newfound Super-Earth Planet Could Support Life
A potentially habitable alien planet — one that scientists say is the best candidate yet to harbor water, and possibly even life, on its surface — has been found around a nearby star. The planet is located in the habitable zone of its host star, which is a narrow circumstellar region where temperatures are neither…
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NASA Spots ‘Alien’ Matter From Beyond Solar System
For the very first time, a NASA spacecraft has detected matter from outside our solar system — material that came from elsewhere in the galaxy. This so-called interstellar material was spotted by NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a spacecraft that is studying the edge of the solar system from its orbit about 200,000 miles (322,000…
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‘Starbursts’ and Black Holes Lead to Biggest Galaxies
Frenetic star-forming activity in the early Universe is linked to the most massive galaxies in today’s cosmos, new research suggests. This “starbursting” activity when the Universe was just a few billion years old appears to have been clamped off by the growth of supermassive black holes. An international team gathered hints of the mysterious “dark…