Curiosity grows

While, NASA's next rover to Mars does at least. Go here to read about the progress on its construction.

The Earth has an Atmosphere!

Well, you already knew that - but astronomers recently detected the absorptions lights associated with it from light reflected off the Earth, to the Moon, during a lunar eclipse. Go here to read why this is actually a very important result for the search of other Earth-like planets in the Milky Way.

The Core of Neptune

This isn't a sci-fi story: scientists are working on replicating the physical conditions of Neptune's core in lab's here on Earth. Go here to read more. It always amazes me how much we don't know about the everyday things around us - like water and ice.

Runaway star

Thanks to a nice little quirk in gravity (which actually NASA and ESA routinely use to send satellites to other planets in the Solar System), a small object orbiting a more massive one can get a big boost to its speed. Well, the most massive object in the Milky Way is the black hole at is center - Sgr A*. And it can accelerate stars to ridiculously high velocities. Well, some of these stars have been found - including one which should have exploded long before it reached its current location in the galaxy even with its high velocity. Go here and here and here to read more about how it survived its trip.

Mapping the Universe

One of the most powerful tools we have in trying to understand the properties of the universe as a whole (e.g how much normal matter is in there, how much dark matter, how much dark energy? - i.e, the entire field of cosmology) are galaxy surveys - figuring out both how many galaxies there are at a particular redshift / time after the Big band and how close they are too each other. Traditionally, this has been done using large optical surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - which finds galaxies by detecting their star light. Galaxies also contain a lot of hydrogen gas, which when cold emits light at particular wavelength - 21 cm, in the radio band. It is possible to a galaxy survey by detecting this emission, which may be more sensitive to low mass galaxies with few stars than optical surveys. Such radio galaxy surveys are now feasible using telescopes like NRAO's 100m Green Bank Telescope and NAIA's Arecibo Telescope. To read more about these surveys, and how they can help determine the answer to such questions like "the nature of dark energy" read this and this and this article, with the full research articles here and here(Subscription, required).

Quakes in Space

While "earth quake" like events actually occur somewhat regularly on the surface of neutron stars and white dwarfs, something similar - for very different reasons - was also recently observed to occur in the Earth's magnetic field. Go here to read more, or listen to it here. Enjoy!

The end of the world is coming!

Well, maybe. Okay, a 0.1% chance. In 2182. Go here to read more about the next possible killer asteroid.

Pretty picture alert

WARNING! The images contained in this link may cause you to change your desktop background.

New map of Mars

Eight years in the making, courtesy of the the THEMIS camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. You can read more about the making of this map here or here, or just go here to look at the stunning results. Enjoy!

Cosmic Soccer Balls!

Not human sized soccer balls, but those of the molecular variety - chains of carbon atoms which arrange themselves into a soccer-ball like shape, also known as buckyballs. These have long been manufactured on Earth and have lots of industrial uses, but it wasn't thought that they would necessarily form through the essentially random processes which govern the formation of molecules in space. Well, until the Spitzer Space Telescope detected their tell-tale infrared glow. Go here and here to read more. Neat!

The Most Massive Star

An important question in star formation is how massive can a star be? This is a very
tricky question, depending strongly on how the infalling material which forms the star interacts with the light emitted by it. Too much light (radiation pressure), it prevents from the material from falling onto the star. How the light interacts with the material depends on many factors: the chemical composition of the infalling material, the (unknown, honest) atomic properties of these atoms, etc. It was thought that the most massive star that could form today was 200 Solar Masses, but astronomers recently found something even more massive. Go here to read more about it.

Rockets to Mars

While its not clear if NASA is still planning on developing spacecraft to go to Mars, but that isn't and shouldn't be stopping people for developing possible rocket fuel. Check it out here. Enjoy!

The hidden properties of electrons

Revealed by studying... ceramic? Read more here. Enjoy!

NASA's Search for Life

Is not confined to the stars, but also to the Earth. The reasoning is that, if life can survive in extreme environments (i.e, very hot, very cold, very dark, high pressure, etc.) on Earth, then maybe they can form in other examples of such environments. Read more about it here.

Planetary Snowball Fight!

Not really, but it does make for a nice title. Saturn's rings are a collection of tiny pieces of ice and rock, and the combined gravitational push and pull of Saturn's moons causes this material to clump into beautiful structures, as you can see here and here and here. This is how small, icy moons are made by the way- which is really cool to observe.

How old is the Milky Way?

Maybe a better answer will be coming soon. Go here to read how particle physics might help.

Mars Touchdown Will be Televised Live

Well, not the American football version, but the landing of NASA's next Mars rover Curiousity. Hopefully, if all works. And not for a while. But read about it here.

The Heart of Darkness

Well, of black holes at least. Go here to learn more.

First results from Herschel Space Telescope

Recently launched to study cold nearby objects and very hot ones far away (isn't redshift grand?), its first results have been published. Read about them here.

Peculiar lens

According to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, mass bends space, causing light not to travel in a straight line by curve. Therefore, massive objects can act like lenses, amplifying the line observed from objects behind them. Lots of these have been seen, most commonly a galaxy lensing a quasar behind it. Well, recently, a quasar was discovered lensing a background galaxy. Neat. Read more about it here.

WISE job done

Well, at least the picture taking part. The data analysis and interpretation will go on for a while, as it should. Read about it here and here.

Bad Weather

It's not just on Earth, but above it as well (for completely different reasons and causes. I'm just trying to be "cute"). Read about it here. As more satellites are launched, it becomes an ever-growning problem.

A new listening post

for NASA space missions. Read about it here. People do interesting science with the Deep Space Network as well.

Messages about Mercury

Courtesy of MESSENGER! (groan)

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Read about it here.

A Stellar Comet

Well, a star producing a comet-like tail. Not because it is losing material from being too close to a star like a comet does, but because of powerful winds at its surface. Read about it here and here.

Titan video

Not the parents of the Greek gods, but Saturn's largest moon. Read about it here and here.

Chicken Little was right

The sky IS falling. In the loosest sense of the word. What am I talking about it? Read about it here or listen here (audio courtesy of NASA, not me).

Brightest GRB ever!

Until the next one, at least. Read more about it here, and learn more about the Swift satellite by listening to this.

What is Dark Energy?

Maybe it's isn't so mysterious after all, or it is. Read the debate here. The sad thing is, the pessimist in me wonders if we can ever find out...

Dawn of a new age

of finding new extrasolar planets of course. Are you as excited as the protagonist in this wonderful xkcd comic below?

The birth of the most massive stars

The current picture of star formation looks like this: small sections of a giant molecular cloud collapse under their own gravitational attraction (or something like that), and the collapsing gas and dust forms a star. This stops once either there is no more gas and dust or the light output of the star (luminosity) is sufficiently strong to blow away the surrounding gas and dust. Massive stars are so luminous that they stop this process before enough material can collapse to form them, a problem for models. As a result, people thought that maybe massive stars from from the merger of lower mass stars. Not so, say recent observations of a massive star forming that has a dusty disk around it and is expelling material - just as observed around single low mass stars as they form as you can read here or here or here or here or in its full detail here (subscription required. Sorry.)

So how do they form, that is still a mystery. But form directly they appear to do.