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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Distant Quasars Surrounded by Dark Matter Halos
Astronomers have taken 4,000 of the brightest quasars and figured out just how much dark matter surrounds them. As we’re starting to learn, wherever there’s matter, there’s 10x as much dark matter. These quasars back that theory up.
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Distant Cluster of Galaxies Viewed by Hubble
This beautiful picture is of a distant collection of galaxies called the Abell S0740 galaxy cluster, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s located more than 450 million light years away in the constellation Centaurus.
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What’s Up this Week: January 29 – February 4, 2007
Monday, January 29 – Tonight we will return again to the lunar surface to have a look through binoculars or telescopes at another tremendous impact region.
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First Images of the Sun from STEREO
Remember the recent launch of the STEREO spacecraft? These are two identical solar observing spacecraft which will give astronomers a thrilling 3-D view of the Sun. Officially, they’re the Solar TerrEstrial RElations Observatories (STEREO… get it?), and they were lofted into orbit on October 25.
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