Today the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Collaboration announced that BOSS has measured the scale of the universe to an accuracy of one percent. This and future measures at this precision are the key to determining the ...
Tags: Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, scale of the universe
Gemini Planet Imager's first light image of Beta Pictoris b, a planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. The star, Beta Pictoris, is blocked in this image by a mask so its light doesn't interfere with the light of the planet. In addition to ...
Tags: Gemini Planet Imager, image faint planets, exoplanet camera
An international team of astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) has discovered a pulsar that is orbited by two white dwarf stars. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that can be used like precision astronomical clocks. This ...
Galaxies can be remarkably dusty places and supernovas are thought to be a primary source of that dust, especially in the early Universe. Direct evidence of a supernova's dust-making capabilities, however, has been slim and cannot account ...
Tags: supernovas, dust-making, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
The first of a set of unprecedented, super-deep views of the universe from an ambitious collaborative program called The Frontier Fields is being released today at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C. ...
Tags: Consumer Electronics, Electronics
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a unique stellar system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense neutron star, all packed within a space smaller than Earth's orbit around the ...
Tags: unique stellar system, nature of gravity, gravitational interactions
Weather forecasters on exoplanet GJ 1214b would have an easy job. Today's forecast: cloudy. Tomorrow: overcast. Extended outlook: more clouds. A team of scientists led by researchers in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the ...
Tags: exoplanet GJ 1214b, weather forecast, super-Earth class planet, Hubble
Lowell Observatory's iconic Clark Telescope is about to undergo a much-needed facelift. After 117 years of constant use, the instrument will be closed for more than a year as engineers and technicians carefully remove telescope components ...
Asteroids (or comets) whose orbits bring them close to the earth's orbit are called near Earth objects. Some of them are old, dating from the origins of the solar system about four and one-half billion years ago, and expected to be rich in ...
Tags: Asteroid, primitive materials, young solar system, mineral
Gaia, the European Space Agency's long-awaited space observatory, is set to launch on Thursday from the agency's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The €700 million mission is designed to pin down the three-dimensional positions and ...
Tags: Gaia, space observatory, space telescope, astrometry, stellar distances
The European Space Agency’s Swarm expedition was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on 22 November, on a mission to study how the Earth’s magnetic field and ionosphere vary in time and space. It started sending back data four ...
Better data sharing, an improved national data infrastructure and recognising and developing data science as a professional discipline are the main commitments the government is making in "seizing the data opportunity", according to a ...
Tags: Computer Products, software
The Leap Office Chair Moves with Your Back The Leap Office Chair will actually change it's shape to help support your back. This will help keep stress of of your lower back, which in turn keeps you relaxed and comfortable for longer ...
Tags: Furniture, Furnishing, Office Chairs
Scientists have discovered a solar system with three super-Earths that could possibly hold liquid water,meaning they have the ability to support life. The three potentially habitable planets are part of a system of at least six planets ...
Tags: Neighbors, planets, galaxy, super-Earths
NASA's Kepler space telescope is in trouble. The telescope, launched in 2009 in search of Earth-like planets, has lost the use of one of the four wheels that control its orientation in space. Kepler, for the second time this month, has ...
Tags: NASA, Computer Products, Telescope