Category: Stars in their eyes
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Are primordial quark nuggets hiding among the asteroids?
Jorge Horvath from the Universidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil seems to think so and believes that our current search for near Earth asteroids may uncover them. Here is his thinkin’. About 20 years ago, a number of physicists investigated the possibility that a quark gluon plasma–a state of matter that should only have existed…
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First observation of Hawking radiation?
In 1974, Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes would emit radiation. So-called Hawking radiation is produced when pairs of virtual particles pop into existence near the event horizon of a black hole (as they do all over the universe). Usually these pairs simply annihilate each other and disappear. But Hawking predicted that in some cases,…
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First light from Keck’s null mode
Astronomers from the Keck Observatory at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii are reporting the first results from the telescope used as an interferometer in “null mode”. For background, the Keck Observatory consists of two 10 m telescopes that work together to give combined resolution equivalent to an 85 m mirror. It’s easily the…
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Australians make interstellar hologram
Measure the beam from a pulsar for an hour or so and you’ll see all kinds of interference fringes in amongst the noise. This intereference is caused by light scattered from the interstellar medium, probably in the form of whisps of gas and dust although nobody knows for sure. There’s all kinds of infromation locked…
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Extragalactic meteor spotted over Russia
On 28 July 2006, Victor Afanasiev from the Russian Academy of Sciences observed the spectrum of a faint meteor as it burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. He recorded the event using a 6 metre telescope in the remote Zelenchuksky region of Russia near the border with Georgia. It soon became clear to Afanasiev that…
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The bar at the heart of the galaxy
Bars are common features of galactic structure but we ain’t talking whiskey chasers. 56 per cent of galaxies have strong bars and a large fraction of these have spiral arms emanating from the ends of the bars. The question: is how did these structures form and why are they so common? Now Merce Romero-Gomez at…
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The sunset on HD 189733b
HD 189733b is a Jupiter-sized gaseous planet orbiting a yellow dwarf in the constellation of Vulpecula. With a good pair of binoculars ya can see this star just a hair’s breadth to the east of the Dumbbell Nebula. With something a little more sophisticated, ya can see the star darkening as this planet passes in…
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The curious case of the CMB cold spot
Astrobods have found a cold spot in the the cosmic microwave background radiation. Now that’s a problem cos there shouldn’t be no cold spot up there. And this has set them a-frettin’ and a-worryin’ about how to explain it away. Today Pavel Neselsky at the Niels Boh Institute at the University of Copenhagen and…
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The encouraging habitability of exoplanets
Not alotta of planets around other stars could support life judging by the criteria we look for now: the possible presence of liquid water. In fact none of ’em could (with the possible exception of one). But our method for determining whether liquid water could be present is crude to say the least. It’s based…
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Solar System heading thataway
Take a look at the cosmic microwave background radiation and ya can see a slight bias caused by the movement of the solar system. Now Christopher “He’s Alive” Gordon at the University of Oxford and a coupla pals have worked out where we’re goin’ by estimating our motion relative to the CMB using Type Ia…