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Science News
Fossil from the Big Bang Discovered with W. M. Keck Observatory
Rare Relic is One of Only Three Fossil Clouds Known in the Universe Maunakea, Hawaii – A relic cloud of gas, orphaned after the Big Bang, has been discovered in the distant universe by astronomers using the world’s most powerful optical telescope, the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii. The discovery of such a […]
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Exoplanet Stepping Stones
Researchers are Perfecting Technology to One Day Look for Signs of Alien Life Summary: New observations of a young gas giant demonstrate the power of a ground-based method for searching for signatures of life. Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers have gleaned some of the best data yet on the composition of a planet known as HR […]
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Astronomers Find Possible Elusive Star Behind Supernova
Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers may have finally uncovered the long-sought progenitor to a specific type of exploding star by sifting through NASA Hubble Space Telescope archival data and conducting follow-up observations using W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The supernova, known as a type Ic, is thought to detonate after a massive star has shed […]
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Super-Earth Discovered Orbiting the Sun’s Famous Stellar Neighbor
PLANET ORBITS BARNARD’S STAR, THE CLOSEST SINGLE STAR TO THE SUN Maunakea, Hawaii – At only six light-years away, Barnard’s star has fascinated exoplanet hunters since the 1960’s, largely due to its extreme proximity to us. It is the closest single star to the sun and second closest stellar system only to the Alpha Centauri […]
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Astronomers Get Best View Yet of Supermassive Black Holes in Merging Galaxies, Slowly Moving on a Collision Course with Each Other
Maunakea, Hawaii – Two galaxies, drawn together by the force of gravity, are merging into a tangled mass of dense gas and dust. Structure is giving way to chaos, but hiding behind this messy cloud of material are two supermassive black holes, nestled at the center of each of the galaxies, that are now excitingly […]
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New Insight Into Why Galaxies Stop Forming Stars
A team of scientists get best measure yet of why star formation stopped in galaxy clusters in the early universe Maunakea, Hawaii – Galaxy clusters are rare regions of the universe consisting of hundreds of galaxies containing trillions of stars, as well as hot gas and dark matter. It has long been known that when […]
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Researchers Solve Mystery at the Center of the Milky Way
Astronomers from Lund University in Sweden have now found the explanation to a recent mystery at the center of the Milky Way galaxy: the high levels of scandium discovered last spring near the galaxy’s giant black hole were in fact an optical illusion. Maunakea, Hawaii – Last spring, researchers published a study about the apparent presence […]
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Dying Star Emits a Whisper
The Death of a Massive Star and the Birth of a Compact Neutron Star Binary Maunakea, Hawaii – A Caltech-led team of researchers, with the help of W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii, has observed the peculiar death of a massive star that exploded in a surprisingly faint and rapidly fading supernova. These observations suggest […]
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Young Galaxy’s Halo Offers Clues to its Growth and Evolution
Maunakea, Hawaii – A team of astronomers has discovered a new way to unlock the mysteries of how the first galaxies formed and evolved. In a study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, lead author Dawn Erb of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her team – for the very first time – used new […]
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Astronomers Find a Famous Exoplanet’s Doppelgänger
Maunakea, Hawaii – When it comes to extrasolar planets, appearances can be deceiving. Astronomers have imaged a new planet, and it appears nearly identical to one of the best studied gas-giant planets. But this doppelgänger differs in one very important way: its origin. “We have found a gas-giant planet that is a virtual twin of […]
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