Posts tagged "astronomy"

• The sky just swelled to contain over 560 million objects from the new WISE mission catalog →

  

  Our view of the Universe just grew quite a bit more detailed as NASA JPL released the compendium of results from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer orbital telescope. WISE was launched into a 525 km orbit on December 14, 2009 and gathered data until the WISE team ran out of funding on February 17, 2011.

  With hardware over 1,000 times more sensitive than prior infrared space surveys, WISE surveyed 99 percent of the sky at 4 different wavelengths. Over 15 terabytes of data and 2.7 million images revealed 560 million stars, galaxies, comets, asteroids, and various other objects too cool or red-shifted to show up in anything but the infrared. Astronomers saw Y-dwarfs for the first time, which are white dwarf stars that have become nearly invisible as they cooled. The first Earth trojan asteroid also revealed itself to WISE—it scouts Earth’s orbit 60 degrees ahead of us around the Sun.

  NASA JPL space stars astronomy future
  1 year ago reblog like 9 notes
• The Most Astounding Fact

  Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked in an interview with TIME magazine, “What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?” This is his answer.

  video videos physics astronomy interviews
  1 year ago reblog like 14 notes
• Four telescope link-up creates world's largest mirror →

  

  Astronomers have created the world’s largest virtual optical telescope, linking four telescopes in Chile so that they operate as a single device.

  astronomy research future telescope
  1 year ago reblog like 1 note
• New super-Earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby star →

  

  An international team of scientists has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. With an orbital period of about 28 days and a minimum mass 4.5 times that of the Earth, the planet orbits within the star’s “habitable zone,” where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface. The researchers found evidence of at least one and possibly two or three additional planets orbiting the star, which is about 22 light years from Earth.

  earth planets astronomy
  1 year ago reblog like 4 notes
• Hot on the trail of exoplanets that are right for life →

  At least four times in the last few years, astronomers have announced they have found planets orbiting other stars in the sweet spot known as the habitable zone — not too hot, not too cold — where water and thus perhaps life are possible. In short, a planet fit to be inhabited by the biochemical likes of us, a so-called Goldilocks planet.

  solar system space astronomy
  1 year ago reblog like 3 notes
• '100 percent' chance for life on newly found planet? →

  Gliese 581g may be the new Earth.

  A team of astronomers from the University of California and the Carnegie Institute of Washington say they’ve found a planet like ours, 20 light years (120 trillion miles) from Earth, where the basic conditions for life are good.

  space travel astronomy
  2 years ago reblog like 1 note