The Sky Tonight

April 14, 2016

Are cosmic rays the key to galaxy formation
Heidelberg, Germany (SPX) Apr 14, 2016
The new Junior Research Group "High Energy Astrophysics and Cosmology" (HAC) has now started at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS). HITS astrophysicist Dr. Christoph Pfrommer has been awarded a Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). He will use the euro 2 million research grant to establish his own group. At present there are 13 research groups - including Pfrommer's group - working at HITS on data-driven science, from mathematics to molecular biology. Wit ... read more

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1917 astronomical plate has first-ever evidence of exoplanetary system You can never predict what treasure might be hiding in your own basement. We didn't know it a year ago, but it turns out that a 1917 image on an astronomical glass plate from our Carnegie Observator ... more		How to reach Alpha Centauri in just 20 years Billionaire Russian investor Yuri Milner and British cosmologist Stephen Hawking on Tuesday announced an ambitious new space initiative for a mission to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to Earth. ... more		The Missing Brown Dwarfs When re-analysing catalogued and updated observational data of brown dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood, astronomers from Potsdam have found that a significant number of nearby brown dwarfs should st ... more
				Mysterious alignment of black holes discovered Deep radio imaging by researchers in the University of Cape Town and University of the Western Cape, in South Africa, has revealed that supermassive black holes in a region of the distant universe a ... more		New tool refines exoplanet search Planet-hunting is an ongoing process that's resulting in the discovery of more and more planets orbiting distant stars. But as the hunters learn more about the variety among the tremendous number of ... more

Cooked planets shrink due to radiation Astrophysicists at the University of Birmingham have used data from the NASA Kepler space telescope to discover a class of extrasolar planets whose atmospheres have been stripped away by their host ... more		Lunar lava tubes could help pave way for human colony Scientists have found evidence that the Moon's underground could have long tunnels of volcanic origin, which could potentially be repurposed to house human colonies. These channels (also called "lav ... more		Russia offers to extend nuclear arms limits with US Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		More accurately measuring distances between planetary nebulae and Earth A way of estimating more accurate distances to the thousands of so-called "planetary nebulae" dispersed across our Galaxy has just been announced by a team of three astronomers based at the Universi ... more
				Glass beads, meteorite fragments hold secret to working on asteroids The secret to planetary formation and working on asteroids lies in a handful of glass beads and meteorite fragments. These materials are the main component for the Astromaterials Research and ... more		Stars strip away atmospheres of nearby super-Earths Even a super-Earth can fly too close to the sun, according to a new study. An international team of astronomers has found a new category of planets beyond our solar system whose atmosphere has been ... more

Human 2 Mars Conference May 17-19 2016 - Washington DC

Military Network Modernization 2016 - Washington DC - April 25-27

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Pasadena CA - May 24-26, 2016

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 7-9 - Las Vegas

Directed Energy And Next Generation Munitions - 20-22 June - Washington DC

SwRI-led team identifies clathrate ices in comet 67P For decades, scientists have agreed that comets are mostly water ice, but what kind of ice - amorphous or crystalline - is still up for debate. Looking at data obtained by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft i ... more		Solar storm researchers prepare for the 'big one' with new urgency The specter of a geomagnetic solar storm with the ferocity to disrupt communications satellites, knock out GPS systems, shut down air travel and quench lights, computers and telephones in millions o ... more		Ex-US climate envoy: Trump threatening 'consensus science' worldwide How did an Indian zoo get the world's most endangered great ape? Australian scientists grapple with 'despicable' butterfly heist		Behemoth black hole found in an unlikely place Astronomers have uncovered a near-record breaking supermassive black hole, weighing 17 billion suns, in an unlikely place: in the center of a galaxy in a sparsely populated area of the universe. The ... more
When will a neutron star collapse to a black hole Neutron stars are the most extreme and fascinating objects known to exist in our universe: Such a star has a mass that is up to twice that of the sun but a radius of only a dozen kilometres: hence i ... more		Saturn spacecraft not affected by hypothetical Planet 9 Contrary to recent reports, NASA's Cassini spacecraft is not experiencing unexplained deviations in its orbit around Saturn, according to mission managers and orbit determination experts at NASA's J ... more		Artificial comet holds clues to the origin of life Researchers have for the first time shown that ribose, a sugar that is one of the building blocks of genetic material in living organisms, may have formed in cometary ices. To obtain this result, sc ... more		Quantum effects affect the best superconductor The theoretical results of a piece of international research published in Nature, whose first author is Ion Errea, a researcher at the UPV/EHU and DIPC, suggest that the quantum nature of hydrogen ( ... more

	ORNL neutron 'splashes' reveal signature of exotic particles Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutrons to uncover novel behavior in materials that holds promise for quantum computing. The findings, published in Natu ... more		Exotic quantum effects can govern the chemistry around us Objects of the quantum world are of a concealed and cold-blooded nature: they usually behave in a quantum manner only when they are significantly cooled and isolated from the environment. Experiment ... more

What to look for in China and Europe's climate plans

Chinese firms pay price of jihadist strikes against Mali junta

EU states agree broad UN emissions target avoiding 'embarrassment'

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GenDyn completes Space Fence radar array structure		The 'R' in RNA is likely abundant in space, scientists say		An Oasis in the brown dwarf desert - astronomers surprised, relieved		Supermassive black holes may be lurking everywhere in the universe		Physicists discover rare brown dwarf, essential for testing theoretical models

Searching for Far Out and Wandering Worlds

Galaxy with a huge black hole is a hermit

NASA celebrates 25 years of breakthrough gamma-ray science

Proof that ancient supernovae zapped Earth sparks hunt for after effects

ALMA's most detailed image of a protoplanetary disc

RadioAstron Observations of the Extremely Hot Heart of Quasar 3C 273

Andromeda's first spinning neutron star

Record-breaking steel could be used for body armor, shields for satellites

How deep does life go?

Asteroid-Hunting Spacecraft Delivers a Second Year of Data

WVU astrophysicists part of gravitational wave search

Planet formation in Earth-like orbit around a young star

Simulating supermassive black holes

Hubble's journey to the center of our galaxy

Elusive Japanese black hole seeking satellite breaks silence

One year on station at Ceres

Researchers demonstrate a new way to characterize twisted light

Electronic counterpart to ecological models revealed

NASA's Spitzer Maps Climate Patterns on a Super-Earth

New use for X-rays: A radar gun for unruly atoms

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