deep space news stories on Newser

Scientists Find Diamond Planet

Polly Davis Doig — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:54:05 CDT

If a diamond is a girl's best friend, then maybe women aren't from Venus, after all: Astronomers combing the southern sky have found a diamond planet, reports Space.com . Dubbed the rather unglamorous PSR J1719-1438, the alien planet is the remnant of a dead star and spins 10,000 times...

Telescope Spots 'Impossible' Star

Emily Rauhala — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:40:54 CDT

The Herschel telescope has made an "impossible" discovery: a star so large it dwarfs our sun—and it's still growing. The newborn is already eight to 10 times the size of the sun, and will continue to feed off the 2,000 solar masses that surround it. While scientists are...

New Hubble Images Dazzle

Kevin Spak — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:46:09 CDT

NASA released the first shots from the recently upgraded Hubble Space Telescope today, and the results are spectacular. Thanks to the new imagers installed in May, Hubble can now see farther, with greater clarity and a wider color spectrum, reports NPR. Officially, NASA calls it a new beginning for the...

'Big Wave' Theory Challenges 'Dark Energy'

Jane Yager — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:38:31 CDT

The 'Big Wave,' a new explanation for the universe's mysterious accelerating expansion, is sending ripples through the world of astronomy. According to the theory, the Big Bang set off a wave, or waves, that rippled outward through space-time, making distant galaxies appear to expand away from us. Mathematicians came...

Hubble Gets New Camera

John Johnson — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:58:47 CDT

The Hubble space telescope got some improved vision today in the form of a new camera. Two Atlantis astronauts completed a seven-hour spacewalk to give the 19-year-old telescope a much-needed upgrade, Space.com reports. "Woo-hoo, it's moving out," said astronaut Andrew Feustel after the old camera refused to budge at...

Scientists Pitch Massive Mirror Sun Shade to Save Earth

Mary Papenfuss — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:17:44 CST

Scientists are proposing a stunning rescue project right out of a science fiction movie to save the earth from global warming: a massive 100,000-square-mile mirrored "sun shade." Trillions of tiny mirrors would be blasted by a cannon into space a million miles above earth to deflect the sun's rays...

Massive Gamma Blast Spotted

Jason Farago — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:15:00 CST

The strongest-ever gamma ray blast—a burst more powerful than 9,000 exploding stars—has been detected 12.2 billion light years away in deep space, reports the Telegraph. The blast took place in September in the constellation Carina, and produced energy up to 5 billion times that of light....

Scientists Say Black Hole Lies at Center of Galaxy

Green Point — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:22:55 CST

A giant black hole sits at the core of our galaxy, say astronomers who participated in a 16-year German study that monitored the movements of 28 stars circling the center of the Milky Way. “Beyond any reasonable doubt,” the stars orbit a core concentration of mass 4 million times greater...

Missing Tool Bag Spotted in Space

Nick McMaster — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:42:22 CST

Look, in the sky: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's … the tool bag that floated away during a spacewalk last week. A few backyard astronomers have spotted the shiny bag that drifted away from an astronaut outside the International Space Station. The $100,000 toolkit will be visible...