EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science

'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Carnegie Institution) Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionization epoch likely began.

AGU journal highlights -- Nov. 5, 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(American Geophysical Union) Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Antarctica warming a regional, not local, trend"; "New model factors storms into shoreline loss"; "Study agrees reservoir contributed to Wenchuan earthquake"; "Much Arctic warming linked to sea-ice, cloud-cover changes"; "Sorting out natural from human influences in ocean warming"; and "Meteoritic impacts may have cooked up life's components."

DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory names 6 scientists as 2009 Fellows

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory) Antoinette "Toni" Taylor, Stephen Becker, Joachim Birn, Lowell Brown, Patrick Colestock and Samuel "Tom" Picraux have been designated 2009 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows in recognition of sustained, outstanding scientific contributions and exceptional promise for continued professional achievement.

Tackling new Arctic challenges from space

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(European Space Agency) International scientists, researchers and decision makers met at the Space and the Arctic workshop to identify the needs and challenges of working and living in the rapidly changing Arctic and to explore how space-based services can help to meet those needs.

German high-school students involved in an astronomical research project

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Astronomy & Astrophysics) Astronomy & Astrophysics publishes the results of an unusual research project, by a team involving German high-school students. They present an accurate, long-term ephemeris of the cataclysmic variable EK Ursae Majoris, obtained using a professional remotely-controlled telescope.

New type of supernova explosion reported; predicted by theoretical physicists at UCSB

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(University of California - Santa Barbara) A new class of supernova was discovered by scientists at Berkeley and may be the first example of a new type of exploding star. A team of astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara had predicted this kind of explosion in their theoretical work.

Rapid supernova could be new class of exploding star

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(University of California - Berkeley) UC Berkeley post-doc Dovi Poznanski was looking through seven-year-old data when he chanced upon a very strange supernova that flashed and was gone in less than a month, when 3-4 months is typical. The unusually rapid supernova appears to match the predicted behavior of a thermonuclear explosion on a white dwarf that is drawing helium from its binary companion. This mechanism is quite different from the two standard types of supernovae.

USGS science picks

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(United States Geological Survey) Did you know that that the United States uses less water today than 35 years ago and that there might be caves on Mars? In this edition of Science Picks, learn more about these stories, as well as the latest on carbon storage in the Arctic and faulty wallboard from China that may be making Florida residents sick. Also, discover why bats are dying near wind turbines and how endangered whooping cranes are being saved.

Carbon atmosphere discovered on neutron star

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Chandra X-ray Center) Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object.

Study uses satellite imagery to identify active magma systems in East Africa's Rift Valley

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) A team from University of Miami, University of El Paso and University of Rochester used Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) images compiled over a decade to study volcanic activity in the African Rift. A paper, published in the November issue of Geology, focuses on the section of the rift in Kenya. Surface deformation of four active volcanoes underscore possibility for human hazard, as well as the potential of geothermal resources.

Texas A&M prof to predict weather on Mars

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Texas A&M University) Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms, and Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, has been awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather.

Follow Rosetta's final Earth boost

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(European Space Agency) ESA's comet chaser Rosetta will swing by Earth for the last time on Nov. 13 to pick up energy and begin the final leg of its 10-year journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA's European Space Operations Center will host a media briefing on that day.

University of Utah celebrates telescope's 'first light'

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(University of Utah) The University of Utah will celebrate the initial observations or "first light" of its new $860,000 research telescope in southwest Utah during a Wednesday, Nov. 11 symposium and reception on the Salt Lake City campus. The new Willard L. Eccles Observatory's 32-inch reflecting telescope took its first pictures the night of Oct. 15 from the 9,600-foot level on Frisco Peak in southern Utah.

U of A physicist identifies mysterious core left by exploding star

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(University of Alberta) University of Alberta physics professor Craig Heinke has solved a mystery that lies 11,000 light years beyond Earth. A supernova (or exploding star), 20 times heavier than our sun blasted apart, leaving behind a small core that has puzzled astronomers since its discovery in 1999.

Tropical Depression 97W passing through central Philippines

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Tropical Depression 97W hasn't grown into a tropical storm and is now tracking through the central Philippines, far south of Manila. The storm is weakening and is dissipating, and NASA's Aqua satellite verified that the thunderstorm cloud tops are not as cold as they were yesterday, indicating a weakening storm.

NASA's TRMM satellite provides a rainfall map of Mirinae's flooding rains

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite is managed by NASA and the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA. From its vantage point in space, TRMM flew over Typhoon Mirinae during its lifetime and cataloged its rainfall.

NASA's Robert F. Cahalan elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Robert F. Cahalan, head of the Climate and Radiation Branch of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Laboratory for Atmospheres in the Earth Sciences Division, in Greenbelt, Md., was recently elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

SMOS forms 3-pointed star in the sky

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(European Space Agency) Following the launch of ESA's SMOS satellite on Nov. 2, the French space agency CNES, which is responsible for operating the satellite, has confirmed that the instrument's three antenna arms have deployed as planned, and that the instrument is in good health.

NRL sensor provides critical space weather observations

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Naval Research Laboratory) Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard an United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle, Oct. 18, 2009, the Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI) developed by NRL's Space Science Division and Spacecraft Engineering Department offers a first of its kind technique for remote sensing of the ionosphere and thermosphere from space.

How astronomy freed the computer from its chains

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Science in Public) The 2009 Australian Prime Minister's Prize for Science goes to astronomer/engineer Dr. John O'Sullivan. When you use Wi-Fi -- at home, in the office or at the airport -- you are using patented technology born of his work. His team created a technology that made the wireless LAN fast and robust. And their solution came from his efforts to hear the faint radio whispers of exploding black holes.

Shedding light on the cosmic skeleton

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(ESO) Astronomers have tracked down a gigantic, previously unknown assembly of galaxies located almost seven billion light-years away from us. The discovery, made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world, is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant Universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed.

NASA's Fermi telescope detects gamma-ray from 'star factories' in other galaxies

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called "starburst" galaxies, plus a satellite of our own Milky Way galaxy, represent a new category of gamma-ray-emitting objects detected both by Fermi and ground-based observatories.

Mirinae floods Philippines, makes landfall in Vietnam with strong thunderstorms

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Mirinae caused 12 hours of flooding rains in the Philippines when it crossed the northern Luzon region over the weekend. On Oct. 31 at 5 a.m. Local (Asia/Manila) Time (Oct. 30 at 2100 UTC) Typhoon Mirinae weakened dramatically after it moved inland over central Luzon, the Philippines.

NASA satellite confirms another tropical cyclone may impact the Philippines

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) When NASA's Aqua satellite flew over the Philippine Sea during the early morning hours today, Nov. 2, infrared imagery saw another new tropical cyclone coming together.

Starburst galaxy sheds light on longstanding cosmic mystery

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(University of Delaware) An international collaboration that includes scientists from the University of Delaware's Bartol Research Institute in the Department of Physics and Astronomy has discovered very-high-energy gamma rays in the Cigar Galaxy (M82), a bright galaxy filled with exploding stars 12 million light years from Earth. The gamma rays observed by the team are the highest-energy photons ever detected from a galaxy undergoing large amounts of star formation and point to the origins of cosmic rays.