Astronomy News

Astronomers have unveiled a new atlas of the inner regions of the Milky Way - that's our home galaxy, if you're from someplace else - and it's peppered with thousands of previously undiscovered dense knots of cold cosmic dust, the potential birthplaces of new stars.

Mars gets as far as 250 million miles away, but many parts of it closely resemble places on Earth, including its landscape, history of water, soil and even its weather, says a Texas A&M University researcher in the current issue of " Science " magazine.

Using a worldwide combination of diverse telescopes, astronomers have discovered that a giant galaxy's bursts of very high energy gamma rays are coming from a region very close to the supermassive black hole at its core.

Vatican City, July 2 - The Catholic Church risks approaching modern science with the same prejudices that resulted in it rejecting the theories of Galileo, a Vatican official warned Thursday.

Two University of Hawai'i at MA noa astronomers have found a binary star-disk system in which each star is surrounded by the kind of dust disk that is frequently the precursor of a planetary system.

It's the Goldilocks variety of black holes: not too big and not too small. The newA source HLX-1, A the light blue object to the top left of the galactic bulge, is the ambassador for a new class of black holes, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun .

Two University of Hawai'i at MA noa astronomers have found a binary star-disk system in which each star is surrounded by the kind of dust disk that is frequently the precursor of a planetary system.

This new guide for astronomers, known as the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy shows the Milky Way in submillimetre-wavelength light .

A new class of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers.

Researchers have completed the largest ever survey for very distant clusters of galaxies.

Our Milky Way galaxy only survived because it was already immersed in a large clump of dark matter which trapped gases inside it, scientists led by Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology found.

More than 100 delegates from 11 countries are gathering in West Virginia for the 2009 National Youth Science Camp.

Like astronomers counting stars in the familiar universe of outer space, chemists in Switzerland are reporting the latest results of a survey of chemical space a ' the so-called chemical universe where tomorrow's miracle drugs may reside.

Southbourne's public library is set to reopen next month a ' marking its 40th birthday.

Southbourne's public library is set to reopen next month a ' marking its 40th birthday.

Profile Christina K. Pikas is a science and engineering librarian in a special library as well as a doctoral student in information studies.

Find out more about Sohoni: Sohoni is a technical writer living in San Ramon, CA.

Today is Monday, June 29, the 180th day of 2009 with 185 to follow. The moon is waxing.

In the early evening any night this time of year, the Big Dipper is standing on its bowl, and you can use the bowl to point to the twin galaxies, Messier 81 and Messier 82 .

RE: Why can't Observatory groups work together, column by Marney Beck, June 18. Why? The town can honour or dismiss entirely the CRB recommendations to protect four of the main structures and most of the surrounding Dunlap lands, precluding any encroachment and development.