Amazing Science

Astronomers from the UK and Australia have put forward a new theory about why black holes become so hugely massive, some growing to a size billions of times heavier than the sun. Almost every galaxy has an enormously massive black hole in its center. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has one about four million times heavier than the sun. But some galaxies have black holes a thousand times heavier still which grew very quickly after the Big Bang.

http://www.stfc.ac.uk/News+and+Events/38787.aspx

A belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a “fairy story” for people afraid of death, Stephen Hawking (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/hawking) has said. “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,” he said.  In a lecture at the Google Zeitgeist meeting he addressed the question: “Why are we here?” He argued that tiny quantum fluctuations in the very early universe became the seeds from which galaxies, stars, and ultimately human life emerged. “Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in,” he said.

http://tinyurl.com/45x2bnp

A neutron star is the closest thing to a black hole that astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times more mass than Earth into a sphere no larger than a city.

http://tinyurl.com/744ma4v

Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing the results of a detailed investigation of how many 'ultra-compact dwarf galaxies' (UCDs) can be found in nearby galaxy clusters. UCDs were recognized as a populous and potentially distinct class of stellar systems about a decade ago. But they are still mysterious objects that are characterized by a compact morphology (30-300 light-years in size) and high masses (more than one million solar masses). More generally, their properties (e.g., their size, shape, or luminosity) are similar to those of both star clusters and dwarf galaxies. Several hundred UCDs have been found to date. Two main formation channels for these puzzling objects have been proposed so far. UCDs might either be very massive star clusters or be 'normal' dwarf galaxies transformed by tidal effects.

http://tinyurl.com/6omxmyv

Some scientists call the cosmological constant the "worst prediction of physics." And when today’s theories give an estimated value that is about 120 orders of magnitude larger than the measured value, it’s hard to argue with that title. In a new study, a team of physicists has taken a different view of the cosmological constant, Λ, which drives the accelerated expansion of the universe. While the cosmological constant is usually interpreted as a vacuum energy, here the physicists provide evidence to support the possibility that the mysterious force instead emerges from a microscopic quantum theory of gravity, which is currently beyond physicists’ reach. http://tinyurl.com/6o8ulbu

A curious correlation between the mass of a galaxy's central black hole and the velocity of stars in a vast, roughly spherical structure known as its bulge has puzzled astronomers for years.

Astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form in the cosmos.

Formally named buckminsterfullerene, buckyballs are named after their resemblance to the late architect Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes. They are made up of 60 carbon atoms arranged into a hollow sphere, like a soccer ball. Their unusual structure makes them ideal candidates for electrical and chemical applications on Earth, including superconducting materials, medicines, water purification and armor.

New data suggests that Mercury has undergone much more dynamic processes than previously believed and that its core is unlike any of the other rocky planets in our solar system.

NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, which has been in orbit around the solar system’s smallest and innermost planet for just over a year, has beamed back plenty of surprises for scientists here on Earth.

http://tinyurl.com/7586bra

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is composed of billions of stars and planets, dust and gas. According to school textbooks, everything works like clockwork; stars are born from clouds of gas (known as nebulae) and the disk of gas and dust surrounding newborn stars agglomerate to build the planets. Brown dwarfs and so-called "nomad planets" could effectively be "rest stops" in future interstellar travel.

http://tinyurl.com/7984vtq

The Earth could soon have a second sun, at least for a week or two.

The cosmic phenomenon will happen when one of the brightest stars in the night sky explodes into a supernova. And, according to a report yesterday, the most stunning light show in the planet’s history could happen as soon as this year.

http://tinyurl.com/4o3cf4z

In recent years the number of large objects tracked by U.S. military sensors and listed in the official government catalogue has reached an all-time high of around 15,000 pieces of debris, plus about 1,000 active satellites. This growth in space debris has become a concern because of the threat posed to satellites and to piloted spacecraft. The very high speed of objects in orbit means that debris as small as a centimeter can seriously damage or destroy a satellite. And debris can linger in orbit for decades or longer at high altitudes so it builds up as more is produced.

http://tinyurl.com/7v7fe5t

San Francisco CA (SPX) Mar 08, 2012 - Last week, the Kepler science team released its list of candidate planets based on the data collected during the mission's first sixteen months. The last comparable publication summarized the mission's first four months of data. Overall, our solar system is qualitatively typical in placing larger planets farther out than smaller planets. However, it is quantitatively atypical: While Kepler shows us that there are almost certainly several planets for every star, it shows us that our solar system is distributed freakishly outwards, in comparison to more typical planetary systems in other parts of the universe

http://tinyurl.com/86vqmsh