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Home > News > Tags > cosmic dust
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Stories about: cosmic dust |
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Violent cosmic collisions between carbon particles and shock waves produced by supernova explosions may be responsible for the creation of DNA-sized diamonds in outer space. Experts first found these structures inside meteorites that survived atmospheric reentry, and crashed to the surface.
This discovery is very i... |
17 February 2012
10:14 GMT |
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A massive dust filament located in the Taurus Molecular Cloud was recently imaged by experts at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The 10-light-year-long gas cloud stretches like a ribbon through the constellation Taurus, and is home to numerous forming stars.
According to data collected by the Atacama Pathfin... |
15 February 2012
08:53 GMT |
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When viewed in visible-light wavelengths, the North American Nebula looks somewhat like that famous continent. However, in this new image from the Spitzer Space Telescope, the shape disappears due to the fact that the observations were made in infrared wavelengths. The shape resembling North America is caused by mass... |
19 October 2011
03:57 GMT |
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Astronomers using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory announce the discovery of massive volumes of dust in supernova remnants. The finding confirms the theory which holds that the violent death of massive stars is responsible for seeding heavy elements in the Cosmos.Determining which mec... |
8 July 2011
03:22 GMT |
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Over the past few years, carbon molecules called buckyballs have been detected throughout the Universe, in dying stars, nearby galaxy, in the space separating galactic clusters, and so on. Now, experts propose that these molecules are what brought the seeds of life here on Earth. Thus far, scientists have widely beli... |
16 June 2011
05:40 GMT |
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Scientists operating the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope announce that they recently discovered large amounts of tiny crystals falling into a growing star. The crystals are in fact the green mineral olivine, which can be found deep in Earth's crust as well.
This phenomenon was observed in large gas clouds that t... |
27 May 2011
01:41 GMT |
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In a series of recent observations, investigators managed to determine the existence of a flowing cloud of cosmic dust in the Omega Nebula. The cloud, dubbed M17 SWex, is currently forming stars, but has not yet began igniting massive, O-type stars, experts say.O stars are the most massive stars in the Universe, and ... |
2 May 2011
05:37 GMT |
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Last June, the Hayabusa sample-return mission finally made its way back to Earth, after years of wandering damaged through space. The fine dust grains recovered from its sample container cannot be processed and analyzed however, due to the damage caused in the necessary installations by a tremor.On March 11, 2011, a ... |
23 March 2011
04:39 GMT |
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According to a recent announcement made by astronomers, it would appear that dust particles inside interstellar clouds can spin faster than ten billion times each second. In the attached photo, the red regions are microwave emissions believed to originate from such fast-spinning particles. The phenomenon has thus far... |
14 January 2011
11:00 GMT |
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For the most part, old galaxies tend to exhibit much lower rates of stellar formation that younger ones, and for obvious reasons. Yet it would appear that one particular galaxy identified by the Hubble Space Telescope didn't get the memo.While conducting investigations of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4150, the obse... |
30 November 2010
10:29 GMT |
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One of the last great standing mysteries in astronomy is galaxy and star formation. Experts are disassembling the issue in its components, and are currently focusing on what controls the formation of new stars. This work has recently made important progress.The rate at which new, blue stars form in essential for the ... |
27 November 2010
07:09 GMT |
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The general feeling in the international astronomical community is that clearing up one of the last great mysteries of the Universe, how galaxies form, is now closer than ever. Studies and computer models are already beginning to provide the missing insight we lacked in this issue. For example, the role of cosmic du... |
25 November 2010
10:50 GMT |
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A team of astronomers managed to obtain an impressive new view of a distant cosmic structure, which features two stars locked in a deadly dance. The two bodies are surrounded by a massive cloud of gas and dust, which makes it resemble a cosmic jellyfish.The experts used the NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (W... |
18 November 2010
01:46 GMT |
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A group of astronomers believes it may have discovered a new and interesting cosmic event, in which massive stars go supernova not in a massive bang, but rather by fizzling out inside a dust cocoon. The cosmic dust is apparently capable of smothering the star to death, investigators believe, adding that this type of ... |
13 October 2010
02:16 GMT |
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For many years, the prevailing theory to explain how stars are born was that they develop inside stellar clusters, but a new paper that argues against this mainstream opinion has just been published.The work casts doubt as to whether all stars actually appear inside stellar nurseries, where conditions are ripe for th... |
10 September 2010
09:58 GMT |
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Astronomers have been debating whether the body known as TMR-1C is an exoplanet or a star for many years, but now two new studies appear to have finally ended the controversy. Back in 1998, experts snapped an interesting picture of this mysterious cosmic object, and a group of experts proposed that this was the first... |
13 August 2010
06:44 GMT |
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Scientists at the ETH Zürich in Switzerland have recently determined the existence of a new phase of water in a star-forming region of the Milky Way. The researchers there say that the vapors their analysis revealed have electrical charges, something that has not been observed in nature back on Earth. Generally,... |
8 May 2010
03:43 GMT |
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The Epsilon Aurigae star system is a peculiar stellar formation, astronomers say. For many years, scientists have been pointing their instruments at it, in hopes of gaining additional insight into how the structure actually looks like. Many have hypothesized that the system is a binary, but thus far pieces of evidenc... |
8 April 2010
05:01 GMT |
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Supernovae are without any doubt some of the most energetic outbursts of energy in the entire Universe. At times, they can blow up so fiercely, that they produce flashes of light which briefly outshine entire galaxies, as viewed from our vantage point. They produce vast amount of radiation, promote the development of... |
30 March 2010
02:30 GMT |
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The European Space Agency (ESA) can now be proud of the amazing instrument it is managing. The Planck Space Telescope is undoubtedly one of the most advanced pieces of equipments sent to space, as evidenced by the volume of work that went in it, as well as by the amazing results it is constantly sending back to Earth... |
17 March 2010
07:05 GMT |
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Using its impressive Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), the Hubble Space Telescope has recently managed to snap a series of impressive photos of the Iris Nebula, a structure also known as NGC 7023. The nebula actually hides a stellar nursery, a region of intense stellar formation that produces new, blue stars at an i... |
1 December 2009
10:49 GMT |
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Centaurus A is a very active galaxy, whose core is currently producing a large number of stars. It is believed that, 200 to 700 million years ago, it collided with another similar structure, which it consumed. The remains of that galaxy are still being ground down in the core of the former, triggering a large number ... |
21 November 2009
02:32 GMT |
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Questions related to how the solar system appeared some 4.7 billion years ago have been around since the first people started using their brains for more than capturing their next meal. Science has only recently been able to provide some preliminary answers to this type of questions, although numerous ones still rema... |
21 August 2009
10:53 GMT |
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Astronomers know that stars can form when a mass of cooled cosmic dust and gas collapses on itself due to gravitational pull, or inside stellar nurseries, where the vast amounts of gas and dust present make this very easy. However, they may have just discovered a new way of boosting stellar generation rates, inside a... |
21 August 2009
09:55 GMT |
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If you point your telescope towards the Sagittarius constellation at night, and have a very powerful tool, you could see the dazzling stellar nursery Omega Nebula – also known as the Swan Nebula – some 5,500 light-years away. In its continuous star-forming activity, it is light from the inside out that gi... |
7 July 2009
19:51 GMT |
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Astronomers and astrophysicists studying stellar nurseries – the places inside galaxies where conditions are perfect for the formation of new stars – and crowded galactic cores will soon have at their disposal a new survey of the skies, to use in assessing probabilities of where such places may exist. The... |
3 July 2009
15:01 GMT |
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Astronomers using the Spitzer Telescope for stellar observations have recently discovered three new stars at the core of the Milky Way, which live in a particularly harsh environment. Outer space, as a whole, is not the friendliest neighborhood to live in, but the conditions that these stellar formations bear are bey... |
11 June 2009
01:40 GMT |
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Astronomers know that massive, young, blue stars are formed from equally large gas clouds, where high temperatures and chemical concentrations are just right for this to happen. However, until now, they have only observed such formations after they already took shape. In a new sky survey, a team of experts has discov... |
10 June 2009
04:46 GMT |
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Understanding how the first galaxies formed in the earliest Universe is one of the main goals of astronomy, as the knowledge could provide researchers with a great many answers on why galaxies behave and interact the way they do today. By using a special camera known as AzTEC, experts from an international initiative... |
21 May 2009
10:55 GMT |
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Gleaming at supernova remnants (SNR) is not always easy, mostly because they are either very distant, or because they are surrounded by large amounts of dust. In either case, direct observations become very difficult, because only observatories working in radio, infrared, or ultraviolet wavelengths can pierce through... |
23 April 2009
09:56 GMT |
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Understanding exactly how supermassive black holes were formed is a long-standing dream that astronomers have, as these behemoths of the skies could be the key to unlocking some of the secrets of the Universe. But, although theories of how they came to be are many, none manages to explain all aspects of these complex... |
23 April 2009
02:34 GMT |
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Cosmic dust may be one of the most important barriers in our way to understanding the exact nature of the Universe, astronomers have recently said, following a new study by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II). They have added that, regardless of an observer's position in the vastness of space, a direct view w... |
26 February 2009
10:17 GMT |
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Stellar dust can be found in nearly every portion of a galaxy, and its role is one of the most important in the Universe – more specifically that of facilitating the formation of stars and planets, implicitly. Up until this point, astronomers have had no idea as to what the actual origin of this dust might be, ... |
25 February 2009
15:01 GMT |
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