Almost 25 years after it was launched into low Earth orbit, Hubble Telescope remains an invaluable tool in space research. Astronomers used the powerful telescope to complete the largest survey of dusty debris surrounding stars between 10 million and 1 billion years old. After planets take shape, the leftovers of initial collisions may hinder potentially habitable planets. The discovery of star … [Read more...]
Exozodiacal Light Hinders the Discovery of Alien Planets
Astronomers are searching for signs of extraterrestrial life forms using all the tools they have. The Earth’s neighboring planets, as well as comets and asteroids are extensively researched with the help of orbiters and rovers. But finding habitable planets outside the Solar System is the astronomical Holy Grail. Unfortunately, a team of scientists found a characteristic that may hinder such a … [Read more...]
Mercury Hosts Water Ice in North Pole Craters
Searching for extraterrestrial water presence has never been so rewarding. Messenger, NASA’s probe orbiting Mercury, has discovered ice sheets on the planet’s North Pole. Finding ice on the Sun’s closest neighbor is astonishing. While Earth lies comfortably at 93 million miles away from the Sun, Mercury and the star are separated by just 36 million miles. Because it has almost no atmospheric layer … [Read more...]
Lunar Eclipse and “Selenelion” will Occur on Wednesday
North Americans & Australians will have the opportunity to enjoy a rare sight on Wednesday (October 8): a total lunar eclipse. But this is no ordinary lunar eclipse. It will also come with an exceptional cosmic activity: selenelion. According to Alan Duffy, astronomer, this lunar eclipse will be more spectacular than that of April. Australians will definitely have the best view. They have … [Read more...]
Half of Earth’s Water is Older than the Sun
Think about all the astronomical knowledge we produced during the last decades and keep this in mind: we are still in the early days of space research. The research domain is ridiculously vast, but what drives the endeavor is the challenge of breaking the dogmatic view of Earth as an exception. There are two main ways of providing data that can tell us if we are alone in the Universe. One is by … [Read more...]
Astronomers Discovered Water Vapors on Exoplanet
Exciting astronomical news! With the help of Hubble Telescope, astronomers detected water vapors on an exoplanet. HAT-P-11b is 124 light years away from Earth. So far, astronomers managed to observe atmospheric characteristics of Jupiter-sized exoplanets. HAT-P-11b has a size similar to Neptune, making it the smallest planet outside of our solar system ever to have its most important … [Read more...]
Oldest star in the universe found!
It’s seems like the ultimate age barrier has been broken. The oldest living star formed only one or two hundred million years after the Big bang itself may have been discovered. Born some 13.6 billion years ago, the ancient star offers a unique view into what the universe looked like soon after its birth and bests the previous record handily, by 400 million years. According to the lead author … [Read more...]
Universe’s early galaxies spread out and grow through collisions
Scientists have been inquisitive about enormously massive galaxies that were already old and no longer forming new stars in the very early universe, approx. 3 billion years after the Big Bang. By arraying NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Europe's Herschel Space Observatory, the mystery surrounding the evolution of compact elliptical galaxies, have been solved. Now new research from the … [Read more...]
