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First Wide-Field X-Ray Camera for Studying Charge Exchange

Three NASA scientists teamed up to develop and demonstrate NASA's first wide-field-of-view soft X-ray camera for studying "charge exchange," a poorly understood phenomenon that occurs when the solar wind collides with Earth's exosphere and neutral gas in interplanetary space.

8 Feb 2013

Proof-of-Concept Device May Pave the Way for On-Chip Optical Quantum Networks

A proof-of-concept device that could pave the way for on-chip optical quantum networks has been created by a group of researchers from the US.

8 Feb 2013

Interactions between Two Newly-Formed Stars Cause Strobe Flashes

The cause of the fireworks seen in this Hubble image and video is hidden behind a dense disc and envelope of dust. However, astronomers think that the strobe effect is due to periodic interactions between two newly-formed stars that are gravitationally bound to each other.

8 Feb 2013

Massive Star Undergoes a Mini-Explosion Before it Goes All-Out Supernova

Before they go all-out supernova, certain large stars undergo a sort of "mini-explosion," throwing a good-sized chunk of their material off into space. Though several models predict this behavior and evidence from supernovae points in this direction, actually observations of such pre-explosion outbursts have been rare. In new research led by Dr. Eran Ofek of the Weizmann Institute, scientists found such an outburst taking place a short time – just one month – before a massive star underwent a supernova explosion.

8 Feb 2013

Mysterious Infant Star Behaves Like a Strobe Light

Two of NASA's great observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, have teamed up to uncover a mysterious infant star that behaves like a strobe light.

8 Feb 2013

Scientists Find Ways to Manipulate Surface States of Topological Insulators

In bulk, topological insulators (TIs) are good insulators, but on their surface they act as metals, with a twist: the spin and direction of electrons moving across the surface of a TI are locked together. TIs offer unique opportunities to control electric currents and magnetism, and new research by a team of scientists from China and the U.S., working with Berkeley Lab’s Alexei Fedorov at beamline 12.0 at the Advanced Light Source, points to ways to manipulate their surface states.

7 Feb 2013

Dark and Glowing Red Clouds Weave Amongst Bright Stars in the Seagull Nebula

Running along the border between the constellations of Canis Major (The Great Dog) and Monoceros (The Unicorn) in the southern sky, the Seagull Nebula is a huge cloud mostly made of hydrogen gas. It's an example of what astronomers refer to as an HII region. Hot new stars form within these clouds and their intense ultraviolet radiation causes the surrounding gas to glow brightly.

7 Feb 2013

Renowned Astro-Photographer Assembles Photo Illustration of Magnificent Spiral Galaxy

Working with astronomical image processors at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., renowned astro-photographer Robert Gendler has taken science data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive and combined it with his own ground-based observations to assemble a photo illustration of the magnificent spiral galaxy M106.

7 Feb 2013

Some Red Dwarf Stars Found to Have Habitable, Earth-Sized Planets

Using publicly available data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that six percent of red dwarf stars have habitable, Earth-sized planets. Since red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy, the closest Earth-like planet could be just 13 light-years away.

7 Feb 2013

Supernova Hunt Sheds New Light on Death Sequence of Massive Stars

An automated supernova hunt is shedding new light on the death sequence of massive stars—specifically, the kind that self-destruct in Type IIn supernova explosions.

7 Feb 2013