Wednesday, April 17, 2013

ScienceDaily: Astronomy News

ScienceDaily: Astronomy News


NASA's Wind mission encounters 'SLAMS' waves

Posted: 16 Apr 2013 03:00 PM PDT

To tease out what happens at that boundary of the magnetosphere and to better understand how radiation and energy from the sun can cross it and move closer to Earth, NASA launches spacecraft into this region to observe the changing conditions. From 1998 to 2002, NASA's Wind spacecraft traveled through this foreshock region in front of Earth 17 times, providing new information about the physics there.

Dying supergiant stars implicated in hours-long gamma-ray bursts

Posted: 16 Apr 2013 03:00 PM PDT

Three unusually long-lasting stellar explosions discovered by NASA's Swift satellite represent a previously unrecognized class of gamma-ray bursts. Two international teams of astronomers studying these events conclude that they likely arose from the catastrophic death of supergiant stars hundreds of times larger than the sun.

Strange new bursts of gamma rays point to a new way to destroy a star

Posted: 16 Apr 2013 11:47 AM PDT

Scientists have pinpointed a new type of exceptionally powerful and long-lived cosmic explosion, prompting a theory that they arise in the violent death throes of a supergiant star.

For the very first time, two spacecraft will fly in formation with millimeter precision

Posted: 16 Apr 2013 08:42 AM PDT

A new project aims to demonstrate that two satellites can move as one single object with sub-millimeter precision. This configuration will enable the creation of enormous space telescopes with the lens and detector hundreds of meters apart.

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