Stellary Starry Universe

 

Mysterious gaps in the asteroid belt may have been caused by a shift in the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn four billion years ago, researchers say.

A computer simulation of the gravitational influence of these migrating planets matches previously unexplained gaps in the belt, according to a report published in the British journal Nature today.

“The pattern in the missing asteroids confirms other lines of evidence that the giant planets went through a brief episode of migration some time in the Solar System’s early history,” said David Minton study co-author and astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson, USA.

Source: Cosmos Online – click here for full article

 

 

LONDON: An intense star-forming region that produces a combined mass of more than one thousand solar masses a year has been found 12.8 billion light-years from Earth.

The so-called ‘hyper-starburst’ is part of a young, quasar-containing galaxy. Because it is so far away, we can only see how the galaxy appeared far into the past, when the universe was less than a billion years old.

Limits of physics

This fledgling galaxy produces 1,000 times more star matter than our galaxy, and within a diameter of just 4,000 light-years, compared with the Milky Way’s 100,000 light-years.

It helps confirm a theory that young galaxies can grow massive very rapidly.

“The star-forming rate we observed is as high as it gets,” said lead author Fabian Walter, a astrophysicist from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. “Physics wouldn’t allow a higher star-formation rate.” [...]

 

Source: Cosmos Online – click here for full article

 

 

Astronomers have observed a planet some 200 light-years from Earth that, for a few hours, becomes 700 ºC hotter every time its elliptical orbit brings it close to its sun.

In a study today in the British journal Nature, the scientists say they have generated the most realistic images ever captured of an exoplanet.

Hotter than molten lava

They used infrared data collected from NASA’s space-based Spitzer telescope to gain pictures of a strange world exposed briefly to a raging inferno. The computer generated images show a thin blue crescent on the dark side of the planet, opposite its star, while the scorched side glows a deep, crimson red.

Known as HD 80606b, the planet is a giant ball of gas that has four times the mass of Jupiter, the biggest planet of our system. [...]

 

Source: Cosmos Online – click here for full article

 

 

Scientists have been dreaming up ways to talk to aliens since the 19th century.

The desire to contact intelligent life on other planets is much older than the UFO craze and the SETI movement. Several 19th century scientists contemplated how we might communicate with possible Martians and Venusians.

These early proposals – which predate by 150 years the first extraterrestrial message that was sent in 1974 – were based on visual signals, as the invention of radio was still decades away.

In fact, as history shows, ideas for interplanetary communication have largely been driven by whatever the current technology allowed – be it lamps, radios or lasers.

“You go with what you know,” said Steven Dick, NASA Chief Historian.

Are we alone?

Over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks argued over the existence of life on other planets, but the idea really took off after the Copernican revolution.

“Once it was realized that all the planets go around the sun, it was not hard to imagine that the other planets could be like Earth,” Dick said. [...]

 

 

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

 

A mock Orion capsule and launch abort tower arrived at NASA’s spaceport Wednesday.

An aerodynamically exact mock-up of the Orion spacecraft of NASA and the accompanying launch abort system all arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is a milestone toward the launch this year of the Ares I test flight. It will be the first such test flight.

 

Source: Space.com News – click here for full article