August 2010

Astronomers have found the most populous alien solar system yet - and it looks a bit like ours. In a study published this month in Astronomy & Astrophysics, researchers say they have confirmed five new planets orbiting HD 10180, a star located only 127 light-years away in the southern constellation Hydrus. The team made the observations by tracking subtle changes in the wavelengths of the solar system's sun, caused when the planets gravitationally tug on the star. They've also uncovered evidence for two more bodies: a Saturn-sized world and an Earth-sized, rocky world, which, if verified, would have the smallest mass of any extrasolar planet yet found. But don't book spaceship passage just yet. That planet orbits 3 million kilometers from its star, just 1/20th of the distance of Mercury from our sun.

They're not exactly prime real estate, but Martians may have called them home. The craterlike features in this image, taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, are not from comet or asteroid impacts. They're small volcanic cones about 250 meters wide, thousands of which dot a northern lowlands region of the red planet called Acidalia Planitia. Scientists analyzing the cones have concluded that their centers are filled with sediments that once harbored water. The muddy layers were ejected from deep under the surface possibly billions of years ago. If so, the team reports in this month's issue of the journal Icarus, the mud could have contained enough organic materials to support primitive forms of life. Even if the sediments turn out to be lifeless, they could reveal more about the planet's chemical and geological history.

It's been a while, but there's a new movie from Simon's Cat.

Something unusual and mysterious has happened to NGC 4696. Located about 150 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus, the object is an elliptical galaxy. That should mean a previous collision with another galaxy ripped off its spiral arms, stripped away most of its interstellar gas, and condemned it to a slow death. But NGC 4696 has sprouted something never seen on another galaxy: a huge swirl of dust that stretches for tens of thousands of light-years and whips back around like a question mark. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope released today show another first: filaments of ionized, or charged, hydrogen gas branching from the dust swirl. And views in x-ray light reveal super-powerful jets of matter squirting from the galaxy's central black hole at nearly the speed of light. Together, these features show that NGC 4696 is a galaxy like no other. Astronomers suspect that the filament resulted from some sort of gravitational interaction with another galaxy, possibly a collision.

• Archief

• Neighboring Solar System Resembles Ours
  2010-08-25 10:15:43 - 16 views - 0 reacties
  Astronomers have found the most populous alien solar system yet...
• Martian Volcano Mud May Have Hosted Life
  2010-08-24 17:44:26 - 17 views - 0 reacties
  They're not exactly prime real estate, but Martians may have...
• Simon's Cat in 'The Box'
  2010-08-19 17:50:06 - 22 views - 0 reacties
  It's been a while, but there's a new movie from Simon's Cat.
• Rock, paper, scissors
  2010-08-16 08:07:49 - 36 views - 0 reacties
  
• Odd Galaxy Raises Many Questions
  2010-08-13 08:25:41 - 43 views - 0 reacties
  Something unusual and mysterious has happened to NGC 4696....

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