Thursday, July 18, 2013

ScienceDaily: Stars News

ScienceDaily: Stars News

In the zone: How scientists search for habitable planets

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 02:54 PM PDT

There is only one planet we know of, so far, that is drenched with life. That planet is Earth, and it has all the right conditions for critters to thrive on its surface. Do other planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, also host life forms? Astronomers still don't know the answer, but they search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria. Ideally, they want to find planets just like Earth, since we know without a doubt that life took root here. The hunt is on for planets about the size of Earth that orbit at just the right distance from their star -- in a region termed the habitable zone.

Earth's gold came from colliding dead stars

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 10:49 AM PDT

We value gold for many reasons: Its beauty, its usefulness as jewelry, and its rarity. Gold is rare on Earth in part because it's also rare in the universe. Unlike elements like carbon or iron, it cannot be created within a star. Instead, it must be born in a more cataclysmic event -- like one that occurred last month -- known as a short gamma-ray burst.

Ripped apart by a black hole: Gas cloud makes closest approach to monster at center of Milky Way

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 06:53 AM PDT

New observations show for the first time a gas cloud being ripped apart by the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. The cloud is now so stretched that its front part has passed the closest point and is traveling away from the black hole at more than 10 million km/h, whilst the tail is still falling towards it.
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