ScienceDaily: Astronomy News |
- Monster galaxies lose their appetite with age
- When galaxies switch off: Hubble's COSMOS survey solves 'quenched' galaxy mystery
- NASA technologist makes traveling to hard-to-reach destinations easier
- New Explorer mission chooses the 'just-right' orbit
| Monster galaxies lose their appetite with age Posted: 01 Aug 2013 04:57 PM PDT Our universe is filled with gobs of galaxies, bound together by gravity into larger families called clusters. Lying at the heart of most clusters is a monster galaxy thought to grow in size by merging with neighboring galaxies, a process astronomers call galactic cannibalism. New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is showing that, contrary to previous theories, these gargantuan galaxies appear to slow their growth over time, feeding less and less off neighboring galaxies. |
| When galaxies switch off: Hubble's COSMOS survey solves 'quenched' galaxy mystery Posted: 01 Aug 2013 06:54 AM PDT Some galaxies hit a point in their lives when their star formation is snuffed out, and they become "quenched". Quenched galaxies in the distant past appear to be much smaller than the quenched galaxies in the Universe today. This has always puzzled astronomers -- how can these galaxies grow if they are no longer forming stars? A team of astronomers has now used a huge set of Hubble observations to give a surprisingly simple answer to this long-standing cosmic riddle. |
| NASA technologist makes traveling to hard-to-reach destinations easier Posted: 31 Jul 2013 08:02 PM PDT Traveling to remote locations sometimes involves navigating through stop-and-go traffic, traversing long stretches of highway and maneuvering sharp turns and steep hills. The same can be said for guiding spacecraft to far-flung destinations in space. It isn't always a straight shot. |
| New Explorer mission chooses the 'just-right' orbit Posted: 31 Jul 2013 08:02 PM PDT Principal investigator George Ricker likes to call it the "Goldilocks orbit" -- it's not too close to Earth and her Moon, and it's not too far. In fact, it's just right. And as a result of this never-before-used orbit — advanced and fine-tuned by NASA engineers and other members of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) team — the Explorer mission led by Ricker will be perfectly positioned to map the locations of more than 500 transiting exoplanets, extrasolar planets that periodically eclipse each one's host star. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Astronomy News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment