When we think of a galaxy, we think of our own Milky Way or perhaps Andromeda; a majestic spiral containing hundreds of billions of stars. Or maybe we think of an irregular galaxy, not so majestic-looking, but still made of regular stuff, like stars, planets… people.
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XMM-Newton’s View of Supernova 1987A
I linked you to an image of Supernova 1987A taken by the Hubble Space Telescope around the explosion’s 20th anniversary. Here’s another, this time taken by ESA’s XMM-Newton Observatory to show you how it looks in X-rays.
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Star’s Magnetic Field Slams its Solar Winds Back Together
ESA’s XMM-Newton X-Ray observatory has helped astronomers puzzle through a mystery that’s haunted them for a long time. For more than 20 years, observatories have detected X-rays streaming from something in the AB Aurigae system. But nothing in the system should be able to generate this quantity of X-rays.
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Instruments Integrated Into the Supercool Planck Observatory
One of the most powerful new space observatories, ESA’s Planck mission, reached an important milestone with the integration of several instruments into the main satellite. The integration was performed by Alcatel Alenia Space in Cannes, France.
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20th Anniversary of the Brightest Supernova in Recent History
Only 20 years ago, astronomers were treated to one of the most powerful nearby explosions – a sight not seen in 400 years, before the advent of modern telescopes. What we now call Supernova 1987A detonated in the Large Magellenic Cloud providing a wealth of data for astronomers. Okay, it actually detonated 163,000 years ago, but that’s how long it took the light to reach us.
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Powerful Solar Winds Colliding Head On
Off to one corner of NGC 346, a star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud, there’s an amazing collision between two stars. Well, not the stars themselves, but the powerful winds they’re ejecting.
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New Survey of the Gamma Ray Skies
ESA’s Integral spacecraft has released a new survey of the sky, seen in gamma rays – the most energetic radiation we know of. This latest survey brings the total sky coverage to 70%.
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Chandra Gives Another Look at the Pillars of Creation
Probably the most famous photograph every taken by the Hubble Space Telescope is of the “Pillars of Creation”; a star forming region inside the Eagle Nebula (aka M16). Astronomers have wanted to know just how much star formation is actually going on inside the nebula.
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Hubble View of Planetary Nebula NGC 2440
This beautiful photograph was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, and it shows the planetary nebula NGC 2440. Once again, we’re looking at a haunting vision of the future that awaits our own Sun.
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Comets Colliding Inside the Helix Nebula
The latest photograph taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope shows a bizarre false colour view of the Helix Nebula. Located around 700 light years from Earth, in the constellation of Aquarius, this beautiful nebula used to be a star similar to our own Sun. As it died, it sloughed off its outer layers, creating the view we see today.
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