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Domain: starstuff.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to starstuff.org.
Stories · 9
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Six Optical Telescopes Combined Into One
00Paddy writes: "Starstuff.org reports on how astronomers successfully combined the light from six independent telescopes to form a single, high-resolution image of a distant multiple-star system using interferometry techniques. The combined telescopes gives a effective mirror diameter of 430 meters, much bigger than any single mirror could be made. This technology will lead to images of sunspots of distant stars and maybe images Jupiter-sized planets orbiting distant stars." -
The 1st Generation of Stars
Andy_Howell writes "Astronomers may have found members of the first generation of stars in the universe. Using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck I telescope, they observed a faint red blob that had been magnified into a double image by a gravitational lens. The blob was found to be a cluster of stars 13.6 billion light years away, seen when the age of the universe was less than a billion years old. The clump appears to contain only about a million stars, and is less than a few million years old. It is thought that swarms of these clumps came together over the age of the universe to create the galaxies we see today." -
Stellar Apocalypse Shows Water
Andy_Howell writes "Astronomers using the SWAS satellite found a cloud of water vapor around the aging giant star CW Leonis, and the most plausible explanation is that the star incresed in lumiosty during its giant phase and is boiling away its comets. This is the first evidence for water in another solar system. In five billion years, our sun is expected to do the same thing." -
DS1 Gets Upgraded and Rebooted
Andy_Howell writes "In the "even spaceships have to reboot departmet," NASA's DS1, which is essentially "software with an ion drive," just got new code. This new software is part of an extension of its mission to investigate Comet Borrelly this September." -
More Evidence For An Extinction Comet
Andy_Howell writes: "There is more evidence that a comet or an asteroid is believed to be the cause of another mass extinction. This one happened 250 million years ago, long before the one that killed the dinosaurs, it and wiped out most of the life on earth, including the trilobites. The evidence comes from buckyballs with unusual isotopes trapped inside -- isotopes that were apparently created in carbon stars." -
HETE-2 Satellite Launched To Study Gamma-Ray Bursts
Dr.Copernicus writes: "A new satellite named HETE-2 was just launched (missile-style from a plane) to study Gamma-Ray Bursts. These mysterious objects are the most powerful explosions known in the universe, yet we don't know exactly what they are. They might result from neutron stars colliding, or stars collapsing, or they might involve black holes. HETE-2 will allow astronomers to study gamma-ray bursts farther away (and farther back in time) than ever before. The satellite partially replaces CGRO which recently had to be crashed into the ocean so that it wouldn't kill people." -
HETE-2 Satellite Launched To Study Gamma-Ray Bursts
Dr.Copernicus writes: "A new satellite named HETE-2 was just launched (missile-style from a plane) to study Gamma-Ray Bursts. These mysterious objects are the most powerful explosions known in the universe, yet we don't know exactly what they are. They might result from neutron stars colliding, or stars collapsing, or they might involve black holes. HETE-2 will allow astronomers to study gamma-ray bursts farther away (and farther back in time) than ever before. The satellite partially replaces CGRO which recently had to be crashed into the ocean so that it wouldn't kill people." -
Hacking Satellites To Spot Gamma Ray Bursts
mustermark writes: "By reprogramming on the fly some of the instruments on satellites cruising the solar system, astronomers have pieced together an interplanetary "fishing net" to catch gamma-ray bursts, the most energetic explosions known in the cosmos. Lasting only seconds, they briefly outshine the entire universe but disappear before astronomers can get a fix on them. This latest hack, though, lets them triangulate a burst's position in a matter of seconds, catching them in the act." -
How Neutron Stars Get Their Kicks
mustermark writes: "Now we may know why neutron stars zip through space at 1000 times the speed of a normal star. Massive stars have been shown to collapse aspherically, and chunks blown off in this process may recoil the neutron-star remnant in the opposite direction."