One of the most interesting questions in astronomy today is how have galaxies changed since the beginning of the universe? The current thinking - based on lots of observational evidence - is that at early times galaxies were forming many more stars then they are now, and that the large clusters of galaxies we see in the nearby universe formed rather recently. However, recent analysis of a Spitzer observation of a galaxy cluster when the universe was much younger than it is today found that the properties of its galaxies are very similar to those of nearby galaxt clusters. Very, very, interesting. Go here to read more.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
A Hole in Space
Not really a "hole", but Herschel has recently detected a large region of almost no gas or dust created by the expanding outflow from a young star as it forms. Go here for more details. Interesting.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Archaeology from Space
Read this New York Times article how airplane and space imaging revealed massive Mayan cities long lost to the jungles. Enjoy!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
What happens when you lock strangers together in a room for 500 days?
ESA is about to find out, since any manned mission to Mars will involve something very similar to this. Go here to read more about this test.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
First results from Herschel
The European Space Agency launched the Herschel space telescope, designed to detect mid-infrared light from the universe (dominated by emission from hot dust, e.g. from intensely star-forming galaxies at early times or around hot, young stars in the Milky Way) has released its first science results. Go here to read them. Exciting!
Monday, July 5, 2010
Congratulations Dr. Neil Gehrels!
Dr. Neil Gehrels, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and one of leaders of the Swift mission which has revolutionized the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (among other fields of Astronomy) has just been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (go here for details) - a very high honor. To learn more about his research, listen to this interview he gave on this program describing his research. Hope you enjoy and, again, congratulations!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Free NASA DVD for Educators
Sorry for the late notice, but go here for details. Hope they are still available.
They might be called "dwarf planets"
but they are still interesting. NASA is developing a mission called Dawn to travel to and orbit two of the largest bodies in the Asteroid belt, Ceres and Vesta. Go here to read more. Enjoy!
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