outer space

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10-Year-Old Is Youngest to Find a Supernova

Canadian girl inherits dad's love of the stars

(Newser) - While most 4th-graders are playing with dolls, this little astronomer found something stellar 240 million light years away. Kathryn Aurora Gray of New Brunswick, Canada, pored over images of a galaxy made on New Year's Eve and—with the help of her astronomer father—made an excellent discovery: the remnants...

Death of a Moon Created Saturn's Rings
Death of a Moon Created Saturn's Rings
in case you missed it
Dec 18, 2010 1:45 PM CST

Death of a Moon Created Saturn's Rings

Space murder led to iconic shape: astronomer

(Newser) - How did Saturn get its distinctive rings? Through the destruction of one of its moons, new research suggests. It was “a case of cosmic murder,” reports the Daily Mail : A Colorado astronomer argues that a layer of hydrogen gas drove many moons toward the planet. In the process,...

Neil Armstrong: Why I Didn't Walk Far on Moon
Neil Armstrong: Why I
Didn't Walk Far on Moon
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Dec 12, 2010 7:16 AM CST

Neil Armstrong: Why I Didn't Walk Far on Moon

For one thing, it was really hot

(Newser) - When NPR's Robert Krulwich wondered aloud on his blog why Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked such a short distance on the moon—less than 100 yards—he got a surprise reply from none other than Armstrong himself. Among the reasons: NASA wanted them to stay within the range of...

Private Spaceship to Attempt to Reach Orbit, Return

NASA's future could hinge on Elon Musk's SpaceX launch

(Newser) - Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm is ready to boldly go where no non-governmental entity has gone before. Tomorrow, the company will launch what, if all goes well, will be the first private spacecraft to reach orbit, and then return to earth. The spacecraft, dubbed the "Dragon," won’t...

Milky Way Emits Huge Gamma Ray Bubbles

Massive bubbles of energy stump astrophysicists

(Newser) - Scientists say they have discovered two vast and mysterious bubbles of gamma-ray energy coming from the center of our galaxy. The bubbles, which extend an incredible 25,000 light years above and below the galaxy's plane, were discovered by scientists analyzing data from NASA's Fermi telescope, the Los Angeles Times...

Dad, Son, iPhone Grab Awesome Earth Shots

Jerry-rigged contraption gets out-of-this-world video

(Newser) - A high-flying Brooklyn father-and-son team have captured among the most impressive amateur video ever of the stratosphere using an HD video camera, iPhone, and a weather balloon. Views from as high as 100,000 feet (19 miles) show the curvature of the Earth as the balloon rocks back and forth...

NASA Finds Bizarre X-Shaped Comet

Debris from extremely recent collision

(Newser) - The Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a bizarre X-shaped object with a comet-like streak of dust behind it, NASA announced yesterday. Scientists believe the images represent an extremely recent asteroid collision, with a small rock, perhaps 10-15 feet wide, colliding with a larger, roughly 400-foot-wide one. When...

New, Life-Sustaining Planet May Not Exist

Gliese 581g found only in minute, possibly incorrect measurements

(Newser) - US-based researchers may have gotten a tad carried away when they announced the discovery of a new, potentially life-sustaining planet a couple weeks back. Yesterday, a team of Switzerland-based astronomers said their own observations of star Gliese 581g didn’t back up the American team at all. “We do...

Scientists Find Planet With Possibility of Sustaining Life

So-called Goldilocks planet is 20 light years away

(Newser) - Astronomers have announced the discovery of a planet with conditions that may be suitable for habitation. NASA reports that a team studying Gliese 581g for over a decade thinks it's in a zone where water could exist on the surface. Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz, says...

UN May Tap 'Envoy' to Greet ET
 UN May Tap 'Envoy' to Greet ET 
Sep 27, 2010 3:16 AM CDT

UN May Tap 'Envoy' to Greet ET

(Newser) - ET, phone the General Assembly. United Nations scientific advisory committees are about to debate whether to place the organization's Office for Outer Space Affairs in charge of coordinating humankind's response if and when extraterrestrials make contact. The unit's boss is Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman, called "absolutely the nearest thing...

Planet-Hunters Make Biggest Find Yet: Vast New Solar System

Up to 7 planets spotted orbiting distant star

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered the most planet-rich solar system outside our own ever discovered. At least five, and possibly seven, planets orbit a star 127 light years away called HD 10180. Researchers say they have clearly detected five Neptune-like planets and signs of two smaller ones. One is just 1.4...

Man Admits to Stealing Sally Ride's Flight Suit

Ex-wife snitched on sticky-fingered Texas man

(Newser) - File this under strange, but true: A Texas man pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing the flight suit worn by Sally Ride as she trained to be the first US woman in outer space. Calvin Dale Smith of Houston stole the suit and other NASA equipment while he was working for...

'Citizen Scientists' Find Rare Star

Spare computing power donated to sift through observatory data

(Newser) - Three regular people who volunteered to put their idle home computers to work crunching scientific data in off-hours have been credited with making a major discovery in deep space. The "citizen scientists"—two in Iowa and one in Germany—downloaded and processed the data that found a disrupted...

Hawking: Ditch Earth, Head to Space to Survive

But watch out for the aliens

(Newser) - If mankind is to survive we must leave earth for colonies on other planets within the next 100 years, warns renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. "I see big dangers for mankind. Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth but to spread out...

Carbon Spaceballs Spotted in Cosmic Dust

Telescope discovers giant 'buckyball' molecules

(Newser) - A type of carbon only seen before in Earth laboratories has been spotted in a cloud of cosmic dust by NASA's Spitzer telescope. "Buckyballs"—soccer ball-shaped molecules made up of 60 carbon atoms—are the largest molecules ever seen in space. Buckyballs have been made in labs by...

Physicists: We Need to Look for Alien Tweets

Scientists say SETI has the wrong approach

(Newser) - If aliens are out there and trying to communicate, they are most likely sending short messages—the interstellar equivalent of Tweets, the Telegraph reports. The theory of a cosmic Twitter is being put forth by two physicists calling for a new approach to the long-running Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project....

Astronomers Discover Impossibly Huge Star

It's at least 265 times more massive than the sun

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered a star so big and bright that it stretches the boundaries of what scientists believed was possible. The star, known so far only as R136a1, has an observed mass 265 times greater than our sun, and modeling suggests it was once 320 times bigger. “If it...

Space Probe Visits Biggest Asteroid Yet

Europe's Rosetta snapping photos of mysterious Lutetia

(Newser) - The European Space Agency is pulling off a nifty feat 280 million miles from home. Its comet-chasing space probe Rosetta is making a flyby of the biggest asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft, reports the BBC . Rosetta will be sending back photos of Lutetia, which was first spotted 150 years...

Space Telescope Captures Big Bang Radiation

Planck beams back microwave map of entire sky

(Newser) - The European Space Agency’s Planck space telescope has beamed back its first, much-anticipated image: a map of the entire sky, composed of microwave light. That bright line in the center of the image is our own Milky Way galaxy, and the lights surrounding it represent not stars but the...

The Sun Plays Music: Scientists
 The Sun Plays Music: Scientists  
in case you missed it
Jun 26, 2010 7:00 PM CDT

The Sun Plays Music: Scientists

Giant magnetic fields vibrate like guitar strings

(Newser) - The sun produces its own music, and scientists have been able to re-create and record it, the Telegraph reports. Astronomers analyzed magnetic loops that vibrate around the sun's atmosphere and found the "coronal loops" move—a little like violin strings, a little like wind inside a flute. By taking...

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