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Star watch - Archaeologists discover a “cosmic clock” Overcrowded in their lower reaches they might be, but the Canary Islands still possess some solitary mountain wilder-nesses, places little visited thanks to their rugged inaccessibility, and which have hardly changed since they were frequented by the pre-colonial aboriginal islanders. And traces of their presence are still turning up, often in the form of petroglyphs, enigmatic scratched marks on rocks and boulders which held some special significance about which we can only guess today. The latest find is, say archaeologists, one of the most exciting. They are calling it a cosmic clock,...

Astronomers have found a piece of the universe's puzzle that's been missing for awhile: a type of extremely hot, dense matter that is all but invisible to us. Engaging in something like cosmic accounting, astronomers have tried to balance the scant amount of matter that has been directly observed with the vast amount that remains unobserved directly. The latter constitutes about 90 percent of the universe's matter. Galaxies, the stars within them, the planet we live on and the chairs we sit on are made up of normal matter — the protons, electrons and neutrons that are collectively called baryons....

Universe's most energetic particles point to huge black holesThe most energetic particles in the universe – ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays – likely come from supermassive black holes in the hearts of nearby active galaxies, says a study by scientists from nearly 90 research institutions worldwide, including the University of Utah. “We discovered the sources of the highest energy particles in the universe,” says Miguel Mostafa, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Utah and one of 370 scientists and engineers belonging to a 17-nation collaboration that operates the $54 million Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. “The sources are the...

Black holes often are thought of as just endless pits in space and time that destroy everything they pull toward them. But new findings confirm the reverse is true, too: Black holes can drive extraordinarily powerful winds that push out and force star formation and shape the fate of a galaxy. Supermassive black holes are suspected to lurk in the hearts of many—if not all—large galaxies. These holes drag gas inward, which accrues in rapidly spinning, glowing disks. Astronomers have long thought that such "accretion disks" give off mighty winds that shape the host galaxies, profoundly influencing how they grow....

WASHINGTON - Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday. Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody's home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years...

Astronomers just got their most detailed look yet at supersonic 'bullets' of gas piercing through dense clouds of hydrogen gas in the Orion Nebula. Each bullet [image] is about ten times the size of Pluto's orbit around the Sun and travels through the clouds at up to 250 miles (400 kilometers) per second-or about a thousand times faster than the speed of sound. The bulk of both the bullets and the surrounding gas cloud [image] consists of molecular hydrogen. The tip of each bullet is packed with iron atoms that are heated by friction and glow bright blue in the...

Cosmic rays blamed for global warming By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:08am GMT 11/02/2007 Man-made climate change may be happening at a far slower rate than has been claimed, according to controversial new research. Scientists say that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth's climate than global warming experts previously thought. In a book, to be published this week, they claim that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet. High levels of cloud cover blankets the Earth...

PARIS (AFP) - Astronomers in Europe and the United States have detected the remnants of two exploding stars that could lead to a rethink about supernovae, the European Space Agency said. The team examined X-ray data from the embers of two supernovae, DEM L238 and DEM L249, which were stars that had exploded in a nearby galaxy. Most supernovae occur when a very massive star runs out of fuel, its core collapses and then explodes, leaving behind a neutron star or a black hole. But there is also a rarer supernova, called Type 1a, which starts with a binary system...

Cosmic rays may solve global warming problem By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 04/10/2006) Cosmic events could help soften the impact of global warming by triggering cloud formations, suggests research published yesterday. A team of Danish scientists concluded in the Proceedings of the Royal Society that making clouds is plausible, using the Sun's magnetic field. The Sun has been at its strongest for more than 60 years and a period of high solar activity could be approaching its end. "This would produce a cooling effect that could counter part of the global warming predicted for the next century," said Dr...

Recent images from the depths of cosmos show more than 500 galaxies in the early universe, scientists reported today. The galaxies—viewed with the Hubble Space Telescope—existed less than a billion years after the Big Bang, the purported birth of our universe, and flourished when the cosmos was less than 7 percent of its current age. They are smaller than most of today's giant galaxies and sport a blue shade, a signature of blazing star births. The blue light, which took almost 13 billion years to arrive on Earth, was shifted to a red color because the expansion of space stretches...

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - A honeycomb cluster of cells on NASA's Stardust spacecraft captured thousands of samples of interstellar and comet dust that scientists said Thursday could give them the first definitive evidence about how the solar system formed. "Its cargo was an ancient, cosmic treasure from the very edge of the solar system - a treasure that formed when the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago," said Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington scientist who worked on the Stardust mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Some of the samples collected during the seven-year,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers said on Monday they have detected a cosmic explosion at the very edge of the visible universe, a 13-billion-year-old blast that could help them learn more about the earliest stars. The brilliant blast -- known as a gamma ray burst -- was probably caused by the death of a massive star soon after the Big Bang, but was glimpsed on September 4 by NASA's new Swift satellite and later by ground-based telescopes. The explosion occurred soon after the first stars and galaxies formed, perhaps 500 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang explosion that...

The radiation encountered on a journey to Mars and back could well kill space travellers, experts have warned. Astronauts would be bombarded by so much cosmic radiation that one in 10 of them could die from cancer. The crew of any mission to Mars would also suffer increased risks of eye cataracts, loss of fertility and genetic defects in their children, according to a study by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Cosmic rays, which come from outer space and solar flares, are now regarded as a potential limiting factor for space travel. "I do not see how the problem...

Summary - (Apr 29, 2005) Gravitational lensing happens when the gravity of a relatively close galaxy acts as a telescope lens to focus the light from a more distant galaxy. It allows astronomers to see distant objects they could never have a hope of observing with current instruments, essentially looking back to moments after the Big Bang (cosmically speaking). The galaxies are never perfectly lined up, though, and the "natural telescope" is a bit blurry. But now astronomer Remi Cabanac has found one of the most complete lenses ever discovered: a near perfect Einstein Ring, magnifying a distant galaxy with...

For more than 30 years, astrophysicists have believed that black holes can swallow nearby matter and release a tremendous amount of energy as a result. Until recently, however, the mechanisms that bring matter close to black holes have been poorly understood, leaving researchers puzzled about many of the details of the process. Now, however, computer simulations of black holes developed by researchers, including two at The Johns Hopkins University, are answering some of those questions and challenging many commonly held assumptions about the nature of this enigmatic phenomenon. "Only recently have members of the research team -- John Hawley and...

Cosmic Rays to Solve Ancient Mexican Mystery By John von Radowitz, PA Science Correspondent Sub-atomic particles created by cosmic rays from space are to be used to probe a giant Mexican pyramid and solve one of the world’s greatest archaeological mysteries. Investigators are to install detectors beneath the Pyramid of the Sun that look for muons – charged particles generated when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere which continuously shower the Earth. They hope the rate at which muons pass through the pyramid will reveal any hidden burial chambers inside. The step pyramid, about 30 miles north-east of Mexico city, is...

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Black holes may actually drag the fabric of space and time around them as they spin, creating waves for cosmic material to surf on, astronomers said on Monday. This is new evidence that some black holes spin, even as they pull in everything around them, including light. Additional research shows that black holes can twirl material at tremendous speed, as fast as 20,000 miles per second. "Gas whipping around the black hole has no choice but to ride that wave," Jon Miller of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said. "Albert Einstein predicted this over 80 years...

'No cosmic ray climate effects' By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent Clouds' role in climate change remains contested The principal cause of recent climate change is not cosmic rays but human activities, a group of scientists says. They say an article last year linking cosmic rays and changes in temperature was "scientifically ill-founded". They say the authors' methods were open to doubt and their conclusions wrong, surprising experts with their claims. In Eos, the journal of the American Geophysical Union, the 11 Earth and space scientists insist that greenhouse gases remain the chief climate suspect. In the climate...

MITHRAISM The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras by David Ulansey Author of THE ORIGINS OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES (Oxford University Press, 1991) The following essay is adapted from my article,"Solving the Mithraic Mysteries" Biblical Archaeology Review (vol. 20, #5 [September/October 1994] pp. 40-53) This article is a summary of my book on Mithraism, THE ORIGINS OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES(Oxford University Press, revised paperback, 1991) [To order this book (for $13.95), click here.]   The Encyclopedia Britannica has given this page its "Web's Best Sites" award. The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras (Note: complete documentation for the following essay can be found...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 14 The Heart in NGC 346 Credit: Y.Nazé (Université de Liège) et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: Yes, it's Valentine's Day (!) and looking toward star cluster NGC 346 in our neighboring galaxy the Small Magellanic Cloud, astronomers have noted this heart-shaped cloud of hot, x-ray emitting gas in the cluster's central region. The false-color Chandra Observatory x-ray image also shows a strong x-ray source just above...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 9 COBE Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe Credit: DMR, COBE, NASA, Four-Year Sky Map Explanation: Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But these speeds are less than the speed...

Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Date: 2003-01-22 Earth Likely Spared From One Form Of Cosmic Doom We have one less thing to worry about. While the cosmic debris from a nearby massive star explosion, called a supernova, could destroy the Earth's protective ozone layer and cause mass extinction, such an explosion would have to be much closer than previously thought, new calculations show. Scientists at NASA and Kansas University have determined that the supernova would need to be within 26 light years from Earth to significantly damage the ozone layer and allow cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation to saturate the Earth's...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 8 Abell 1689 Warps Space Credit: N. Benitez (JHU), T. Broadhurst (Hebrew Univ.), H. Ford (JHU), M. Clampin(STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick), ACS Science Team, ESA, NASA Explanation: Two billion light-years away, galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is one of the most massive objects in the Universe. In this view from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, Abell 1689 is seen to warp...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 19 RAPTOR Images GRB 021211Credit: P. Wozniak, W.T. Vestrand, et al., RAPTOR Project, LANL Explanation: On December 11 astronomers found one of the brightest and most distant explosions in the Universe - a gamma-ray burst - hiding in the glare of a relatively nearby star. The earliest image of the burst's visible light was caught by an earthbound RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response). The two...

Saturday, 19 October, 2002, 12:36 GMT 13:36 UKCosmic rays 'linked to clouds' The influence of clouds on climate change is poorly understood By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent German scientists have found a significant piece of evidence linking cosmic rays to climate change. They have detected charged particle clusters in the lower atmosphere that were probably caused by the space radiation. They say the clusters can lead to the condensed nuclei which form into dense clouds. Clouds play a major, but as yet not fully understood, role in the dynamics of the climate, with some types acting to...

Reprinted from ScienceDaily Magazine ...Source:             NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center Date Posted:    Thursday, August 01, 2002Web Address:   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020801080835.htm Chandra Discovers "Rivers Of Gravity" That Define Cosmic Landscape NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered part of an intergalactic web of hot gas and dark matter that contains most of the material in the universe. The hot gas, which appears to lie like a fog in channels carved by rivers of gravity, has been hidden from view since the time galaxies formed. "The Chandra observations, together with ultraviolet observations, are a major advance in our understanding of how the universe evolved over the last 10 billion...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 May 29 Cosmic Ripples Implicate Dark Universe Credit: Very Small Array Collaboration Explanation: What may appear fuzzy to some makes things crystal clear to others. The cosmic microwave background radiation emanating from the universe could only have the above fuzzy pattern if it contained clear amounts of dark matter and dark energy. The conclusion, based on a detailed analysis of the temperature and spacing of the bumps,...

Earth punctured by tiny cosmic missiles By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent (Filed: 12/05/2002) FORGET dangers from giant meteors: Earth is facing another threat from outer space. Scientists have come to the conclusion that two mysterious explosions in the 1990s were caused by bizarre cosmic missiles. The two objects were picked up by earthquake detectors as they tore through Earth at up to 900,000 mph. According to scientists, the most plausible explanation is that they were "strangelets", clumps of matter that have so far defied detection but whose existence was posited 20 years ago. Formed in the Big Bang and inside...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 March 28 Centaurus Galaxy Cluster in X-RaysCredit: J. Sanders, A. Fabian, (IoA Cambridge), NASA Explanation: The Centaurus Cluster is a swarm of hundreds of galaxies a mere 170 million light-years away. Like other immense galaxy clusters, the Centaurus Cluster is filled with gas at temperatures of 10 million degrees or more, making the cluster a luminous source of cosmic x-rays. While individual galaxies are not seen here,...