News
Milky Way Churning Out New Stars at a Furious Pace
Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have found in RCW49 more than 300 newborn or 'protostars,' all with circumstellar disks of dust and gas. The discovery reveals that galaxies make new stars at a much more prolific rate than previously imagined. The stelar disks of dust and gas not only feed material onto the growing new stars, but can be the raw material for new planetary systems.
Chandra reveals two faces of supernova power
The NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory image of SNR 0540-69.3 clearly shows two aspects of the enormous power released when a massive star explodes. An implosion crushed material into an extremely dense (10 miles in diameter) neutron star, triggering an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space at speeds in excess of 5 million mph.
Chandra Opens New Line Of Investigation On Dark Energy
Astronomers have detected and probed dark energy by applying a powerful, new method that uses images of galaxy clusters made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The results trace the transition of the expansion of the universe from a decelerating to an accelerating phase several billion years ago...
