Space Science News

First investigations with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer reveal the dust torus around the black hole in a galactic nucleus
Friday, May 18, 2012 - 14:38

Black holes swallow everything that comes near them and are fuelled by gas and dust from their surroundings. An international research team led by Gerd Weigelt of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn has now focused its attention on this reservoir of material. Using near-infrared interferometry, they observed the inner region of galaxy NGC 3783, which contains a black hole surrounded by a so-called “dust torus”. This torus apparently represents the reservoir of gaseous and dusty material that feeds the hot gas disk (“accretion disk”) and the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. The observations were carried out with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

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Herschel Space Observatory study reveals galaxy-packed filament
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - 13:21

A McGill-led research team using the Herschel Space Observatory has discovered a giant, galaxy-packed filament ablaze with billions of new stars. The filament connects two clusters of galaxies that, along with a third cluster, will smash together and give rise to one of the largest galaxy superclusters in the universe.

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Baby galaxies grew up quickly
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - 10:41

Baby galaxies from the young Universe more than 12 billion years ago evolved faster than previously thought, shows new research from the Niels Bohr Institute. This means that already in the early history of the Universe, there was potential for planet formation and life.  The research results have been published in the scientific journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

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University of Maryland Finding May Hold Key to Gaia Theory of Earth as Living Organism
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - 21:24

Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land -- interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous theory.

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You're beautiful, Vesta
Thursday, May 10, 2012 - 15:43

 

Dawn has been orbiting Vesta and collecting data on the protoplanet's surface since July 2011. Vesta, which is in the doughnut-shaped asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is currently some 321 million miles from Earth.   The journal Science publishes six papers about Vesta on May 11. Christopher T. Russell is a co-author on all of them.
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Dawn spacecraft reveals complexities of ancient asteroidal world
Thursday, May 10, 2012 - 15:23

New findings from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft lay the groundwork for the first geological overview of asteroid (4)Vesta and confirm the existence of not one but two giant impact basins in its southern hemisphere. The findings, published today in a set of Science papers, will help scientists better understand the early solar system and processes that occurred as it formed and evolved.

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