Astronomers using a world-wide collection of telescopes have discovered the most prolific star factory in the Universe, surprisingly in a galaxy so distant that they see as it was when the Universe was only six percent of its current age.
The galaxy, dubbed HFLS3, 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, is producing the equivalent of nearly 3,000 Suns per year, a rate more than 2,000 times that of our own Milky Way. The galaxy is massive, with a huge reservoir of gas from which to form new stars.
The most fertile bursts of star birth in the early Universe took place in distant galaxies containing lots of cosmic dust. These galaxies are of key importance to our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution over the history of the Universe, but the dust obscures them and makes them difficult to identify with visible-light telescopes. To pick them out, astronomers must use telescopes that observe light at longer wavelengths, around one millimetre, such as ALMA.
"We now know that the Christmas burst occurred much farther off, more than halfway across the observable universe, and was consequently far more powerful than these researchers imagined," said Andrew Levan, an astronomer at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England.
As Earth moves around the sun, it travels surrounded by a giant bubble created by its own magnetic fields, called the magnetosphere. As the magnetosphere plows through space, it sets up a standing bow wave or bow shock, much like that in front of a moving ship. Just in front of this bow wave lies a complex, turbulent system called the foreshock. Conditions in the foreshock change in response to solar particles streaming in from the sun, moving magnetic fields and a host of waves, some fast, some slow, sweeping through the region.
Cyclone Imelda has lost both her punch and her hurricane status as the storm moved into an area of higher wind shear and cooler waters in the Southern Indian Ocean. NASA's Aqua satellite provided an image of Imelda that showed wind shear that has been hammering the storm, had pushed the bulk of the storm's precipitation southeast of the center.
Philadelphia, Pa. (April 16, 2013) - Startup companies founded by physician entrepreneurs are an important source of patents used in developing innovative new medical devices, suggests a study in the May issue of Medical Care.
A team led by the University of Warwick has pinpointed a new type of exceptionally powerful and long-lived cosmic explosion, prompting a theory that they arise in the violent death throes of a supergiant star.
These explosions create powerful blasts of high energy gamma-rays, known as gamma-ray bursts, but while most bursts are over in about a minute, this new type can last for several hours.
Spanish industry is leading the Proba-3 mission, a world first in precise formation flying. This European Space Agency (ESA) project aims to demonstrate that two satellites can move as one single object with sub-millimetre precision. This configuration will enable the creation of enormous space telescopes with the lens and detector hundreds of metres apart.
A team of Virginia Tech researchers has succeeded in transforming cellulose into starch, a process that has the potential to provide a previously untapped nutrient source from plants not traditionally though of as food crops.
New research results from Uppsala University, Sweden, instil hope of efficient hydrogen production with green algae being possible in the future, despite the prevailing scepticism based on previous research. The study, which is published today in the esteemed journal PNAS, changes the view on the ability of green algae – which is good news.
A group of researchers led by San Diego State University communication professor Peter Andersen, have teamed up with 40 resorts nationwide to encourage vacationers to be smart about sun protection through Go Sun Smart.
The program, funded by the National Institute of Health, kicked off in March at the PGA Golf Resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and Lago Mar Resort and Club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It will continue to roll out to resorts all over North America this summer.
Cyclone Imelda reached hurricane strength on April 14 and its eye "opened" and became apparent on visible imagery on imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite. By April 15, the eye had "closed" and become filled in with clouds.
When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Imelda on April 14 at 0955 UTC (5:55 a.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard captured a visible image that clearly showed the eye of the storm. The image was created by the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Agricultural fires are set all over the world at different times to prepare the soil for the planting of new crops. Several fires in India and many dozen fires in Nepal have been set and are burning in this image from April 13, 2013. This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner.
During geomagnetic storms, stable auroral red (SAR) arcs reach down from polar latitudes, their faint glow stretching equatorward of the traditional auroral oval.