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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Astronomy


Mass extinctions linked to comet and asteroid showers
October 22, 2015

Mass extinctions occurring over the past 260 million years were likely caused by comet and asteroid showers, a new study concludes. An artist's illustration of a major asteroid impact on Earth. (credit: NASA/Don Davis)Mass extinctions occurring over the past 260 million years were likely caused by comet and asteroid showers, scientists conclude in a new study published in an open-access paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. For more than 30 years, scientists have argued about a controversial hypothesis relating to periodic mass extinctions and impact craters … more…

Most Earth-like worlds have yet to be born, says new NASA study
October 20, 2015

This is an artist's impression of innumerable Earth-like planets that have yet to be born over the next trillion years in the evolving universe. (credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI); Science: NASA, ESA, P. Behroozi and M. Peeples (STScI)) When our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago, only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed, according to an assessment of data collected by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Kepler space observatory and published today (Oct. 20) in an open-access paper in the Monthly Notices … more…

Largest astronomical image to date contains 46 billion pixels
October 22, 2015

A small section of the Milky Way photo showing Eta Carinae (credit: Lehrstuhl für Astrophysik, RUB)
Accessible for online viewing
Astronomers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany have compiled the largest astronomical image to date: a picture of the Milky Way containing 46 billion pixels, viewable here (you can enter an object name, such as “Eta Carinae,” in the lower-left box). The image was generated over a period of five years of astronomical observations by … more…


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