astronomy

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Get Set for Meteor Shower This Evening

Waxing moon makes this a good year for Draconids

(Newser) - If you're a fan of skygazing—but not early mornings—you could be in for a treat tonight. The annual Draconid meteor shower will be at its peak and while it doesn't tend to be the most spectacular event of its kind, it is unusual because it is...

Moon Maybe Not as Old as Previously Thought

New research suggests it's 100M years younger

(Newser) - No wonder the moon has such a youthful complexion (well, it vaguely resembles a teenager's spotty face)—new research suggests it isn't quite as old as previously thought. The standard theory was that the moon formed some 4.56 billion years ago, after another planet slammed into Earth....

Sun Ready to Flip Its Magnetic Fields

It's part of a regular 11-year cycle

(Newser) - Sun feel a little off to you these days? Congratulations on being finely attuned to the inner workings of the solar system. The sun is in the process of reversing its magnetic fields, and the full process should be complete before the year is out, reports Space.com . It may...

Gold's Origins Discovered ... in Space

Star collision produces untold quantities of the shiny stuff

(Newser) - If you've got, say, a gold wedding ring, you are currently wearing a memento from the collision of two neutron stars. Or at least, that's what scientists hypothesize after witnessing one such collision in space, seemingly answering a longstanding scientific quandary, the LA Times reports. Neutron stars are...

Hunch Leads Astronomer to New Neptune Moon

Planet's 14th moon is just 12 miles across

(Newser) - An astronomer poring over old images from the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a previously unknown 14th moon of Neptune. SETI Institute researcher Mark Showalter—who has five other moon discoveries to his name—followed a hunch while studying ring segments around the planet and tracked a white dot to...

Astronomers Ignore People's Pick for Pluto Moon Name

Moons named Styx and Kerberos, despite William Shatner's campaign

(Newser) - Though Star Trek fans (led by William Shatner) overwhelmingly won an online vote to name one of Pluto's recently found moons "Vulcan" earlier this year, the International Astronomical Union has decided against the moniker. It has named the former planet's fourth and fifth moons "Styx" and...

Big Asteroid Buzzes by Earth Tomorrow

No risk of collision, but astronomers should be happy

(Newser) - Backyard astronomers, ready your telescopes. A big asteroid is about to zip by Earth, with its closest approach coming at 4:59pm Eastern tomorrow, says NASA . The rock will be 3.6 million miles away at that point, meaning there's no chance for a collision, but that should allow...

Moon's Water May Come From ... Earth

New study suggests it arrived via ancient meteorites

(Newser) - Scientists discovered water on the moon only a few years ago, and until recently, the prevailing theory was that it got there via comets. Now they're not so sure. New research on rocks brought back from the Apollo 15 and 17 strongly suggests a different possibility: The moon got...

Thank San Quentin Ex-Con for Iconic LA Observatory

Griffith Griffith had it built after shooting his wife, serving time

(Newser) - Movie fans are probably familiar with the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, given that it sits in view of the famed "Hollywood" sign and remains a popular film location year after year. But the Los Angeles Times today offers a interesting peek into the life of Griffith J. Griffith,...

Scientists Figure Out Russia Meteor's Origin

As biggest piece yet found in Ural Mountains

(Newser) - Turns out there is a cool use for trigonometry: Scientists in Colombia have been able to calculate the trajectory of the meteor that injured 1,000 in Russia this month using data gleaned from local camera footage and a lake landing spot. Once they had determined the meteor's path...

'Vulcan' Wins Pluto's Moon Naming Contest

'Captain Kirk' hails win as Cerberus comes 2nd

(Newser) - The contest to pick Hades-related names for Pluto's fourth and fifth moons is over and the winner will be familiar to Star Trek fans: Vulcan was the runaway winner of the poll at plutorocks.com , taking 174,000 votes out of 475,000 cast for 21 candidates. Vulcan is...

Scientists Spot Smallest Planet Ever Seen

Exoplanet Kepler-37b is the size of our moon

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered the smallest known planet, just a third of the size of the Earth. Mercury, the smallest in our solar system, is two-fifths Earth's size, the AP notes; the new discovery, Kepler-37b, is a far-off exoplanet. "This research shows for the first time that other stellar...

Moon May Once Have Hosted Water
 Moon May 
 Once Have 
 Hosted Water 
study says
Feb 18, 2013 12:08 PM CST

Moon May Once Have Hosted Water

Study undermines theories of its creation

(Newser) - Scientists' theories on how the moon developed may not hold water—because it seems that the moon itself once did. That's what researchers are saying after new analysis of Apollo mission moon rocks, the Los Angeles Times reports. The widely-accepted story is that the moon is the result of...

Asteroid Buzzes By, World Spins On

It came within a relative whisker of 17K miles

(Newser) - The world is safe: That 150-foot cosmic rock astronomers were watching hurtled safely past Earth about 2:30pm Eastern. It was the closest known flyby for a rock of its size, passing within 17,500 miles, closer than some satellites. The asteroid was invisible to astronomers in the US at...

Scientists Spot 'Precursor to Life' in Deep Space

Milky Way chemical could help seed planetary life

(Newser) - Astronomers have spotted hints of a precursor to chemical to life about 1,000 light-years away, LiveScience reports. Detected in a star-forming region of the Milky Way, the chemical—called hydroxylamine—is theoretically able to mix with other compounds, form amino acids, and seed other planets with life. "It'...

Astronomers Find Biggest Thing in the Universe
Astronomers Find Biggest Thing in the Universe
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jan 13, 2013 7:53 AM CST

Astronomers Find Biggest Thing in the Universe

Quasar cluster is 4 billion light-years wide

(Newser) - Scientists have found a structure so large that it undermines their understanding of the universe. It's a collection of quasars that measures a difficult-to-imagine 4 billion light-years across, Space.com reports. To put that in perspective, the entire Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years wide. Known as a...

Earth-Like Planet Spotted
 Earth-Like Planet Spotted 
Jan 10, 2013 2:20 PM CST

Earth-Like Planet Spotted

KOI 172.02 orbits star like our sun

(Newser) - Less than two weeks after astronomers predicted they would find an Earth-like planet some time in 2013, the feat may have already been accomplished. Scientists this week announced at the 221st meeting of American Astronomical Society that the Kepler telescope has found a "super-Earth" whose radius is 1.5...

'Doomsday Asteroid' Even Bigger Than Thought

And there's still a chance it could hit us in 2036

(Newser) - The asteroid Apophis , whose reported threat to our planet has attracted widespread attention, is even larger than scientists believed, according to new images. Europe's Herschel Space Observatory says the asteroid is some 1,066 feet feet wide, some 20% wider than previously thought. That "translates into a 75%...

Milky Way Has 17B Planets the Size of Ours

And that's a conservative estimate

(Newser) - Before we start feeling too special about our home planet, scientists have a message: There are at least 17 billion planets the size of Earth in the Milky Way alone, Space.com reports. About 17% of our galaxy's stars have Earth-size exoplanets closely orbiting them—so 100 billion stars...

Prediction: We'll Discover 1st 'Earth Twin' in 2013

With 50B planets in Milky Way, astronomers think big discovery looms

(Newser) - With more than 800 exoplanets identified since 1995, many astronomers are predicting that 2013 will be the year that the first truly Earth-like planet is spotted, reports Space . Scientists have gotten ever closer to finding an alien Earth in recent years, identifying several in the right temperature range and others...

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