Astronomy
Podcast: Sedna Loses Its Moon
Remember Sedna? It's that icy object uncovered last year in the outer reaches of the Solar System. When it was…
Old Star Reignites its Flame
"Sakurai's Object" is a white dwarf star that surprised astronomers when if flared brightly in 1996. They originally thought it…
Cosmic Particle Accelerator at the Centre of the Milky Way
A vast looping structure 20 light-years across has been discovered near the heart of the Milky Way. The loop was…
Gamma Ray Bursts Could Have Led to Extinctions
Gamma ray busts are the most powerful known explosions in the Universe, so if one went off in our galactic…
Dark Matter at the Heart of Galaxy Groups
When you look at a galaxy, you can only see a fraction of its total mass. The rest is made…
Early Galaxy Growth Spurt Spotted
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has detected distant galaxies going through a period of tremendous star formation, at the same time…
Sedna Probably Doesn’t Have a Moon
When the planetoid Sedna was discovered last year, astronomers noticed that it had a very slow rotation speed, only turning…
Light Seen From Earliest Stars
Astronomers have used the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes to see some of the first stars that formed in the…
Swift Measures the Distance to Two Blasts
Since its launch late last year, NASA's Swift space telescope has already spotted 24 gamma-ray bursts - the most powerful…
Starburst Galaxies Hide Black Holes
Starburst galaxies get their name from the enormous amount of star formation going on inside them; on average, they create…