Magnetic field makes gamma bursts shine An international team of astronomers reports that new data from the Swift Space Observatory indicate where and how exactly the typical enormous radiation from gamma ray bursts in space originates. Over the past few decades, the supernovae of certain massive suns - the Wolf-Rayet stars - have been identified as the cause of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).
Read more
Getting lost on Mars is getting harder and harder The Mars probes from Esa and Nasa are currently making headlines of varying quality: While the older Mars Express is setting new topographical highlights, the still young camera eye of the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) is gradually going blind.
Read more
Exoplanet in Purgatory The planet Mercury, which is closest to the sun, may seem to some to be the forecourt of hell - it is so hot on its surface that even lead would melt. Compared to the inferno that many an exoplanet has to endure, Mercury is still a comfortable distance from its central star.
Read more
New details of a hot exoplanet HD 209458b is an old acquaintance among the planets of distant stars. In 1999, it was the first to be caught by researchers due to its transit – a mini solar eclipse, so to speak. Since then, astronomers have repeatedly targeted it, and the Hubble Space Telescope has now provided new information about the exoplanet's atmosphere.
Read more
Students: First internship after graduation The number of university graduates who do at least one internship after graduation has increased significantly in recent years and is now 37 percent. This is the result of a study by Freie Universität Berlin commissioned by the Hans Böckler Foundation, which surveyed 500 graduates of the 2002/2003 winter semester about starting their careers.
Read more
The Eternally Vibrant Multiverse We assume full of optimism that mankind will master its earthly problems and also the burning out of the sun in a few billion years. But she still can't escape the fate of the universe. In view of our short time on earth, some questions may seem absurd, but they are always exciting.
Read more
The radiant companions of Orion You probably know this too: the view out of the window into the wintry night always finds the same target - the great hunter Orion, who immediately attracts our attention, regardless of whether he crosses the meridian in the evening or himself toward the western horizon at midnight.
Read more
Corot sees first light The Corot space telescope has successfully started operation. As the European space agency Esa announced yesterday, the protective cover of the telescope opened on the night of January 17th to 18th. Experts are currently calibrating the instrument and preparing it for scientific use, which is scheduled to begin in early February.
Read more
Six months completely weightless Seeing the earth from space - who wouldn't want that? ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter has already been in space twice. Eleven years ago he orbited the earth on board the Russian space station MIR, his most recent stay was on board the International Space Station ISS.
Read more
Chinese shoot down satellites The People's Republic of China shot down its own satellite with a rocket. The USA sees itself threatened and fears for its supremacy in space. The process could trigger a new arms race. According to US intelligence agencies, an outdated Chinese weather satellite was destroyed during the January 11 missile test.
Read more
Geoscientists warn of underfunding of earth observation A newly formed panel of more than fifty US geoscientists is calling on the US government to provide sufficient funding for selected space missions to observe the Earth in the coming years.
Read more
Japan lunar mission canceled It has been planned for a long time, but it will not fly: The Japanese moon probe Lunar-A. As the Japanese space agency JAXA announced at a press conference on January 15th, 2007, the ambitious project of an own lunar probe is about to end.
Read more
End for Japanese moon mission The stricken Japanese space program has to cope with another setback: Following a recommendation by the Jaxa space agency, Japan will apparently finally stop its Lunar-A moon mission. Development difficulties had regularly delayed the launch date for more than ten years.
Read more
Last bite for our black hole decades ago The black hole at the center of the Milky Way's enduring fast appears to be periodically punctuated by smaller morsels. However, its last meal was around sixty years ago: the black hole then swallowed dust and gas clouds from the mass of Mercury in one fell swoop, according to scientists led by Michael Muno from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Read more
Mars in 3D From January 21st, visitors to the Laupheim Planetarium can experience the Red Planet in three dimensions. Thanks to the high-resolution stereo cameras of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and the Mars Express probe, the bizarre desert landscapes, canyons and craters of the Red Planet can now be explored from the comfortable planetarium seat.
Read more
Comet glows in the twilight In the sky over Central Europe, a comet causes a stir among stargazers. Named after its Australian discoverer, David McNaught, the comet was only discovered in August last year. The tail star has been visible to the naked eye for a few days as a faint patch of light, but it is easier to see with binoculars at dawn and dusk.
Read more
Quasar triplet spotted and explained The quasar LBQS 1429-008 discovered in 1989 has not just one, but two fainter counterparts. This was discovered by researchers led by George Djorgovski from the California Institute of Technology and the University of Lausanne.
Read more
Boundary of neighboring galaxy shifts further The spiral galaxy closest to us, the Andromeda Nebula M 31, could be up to five times larger than previously thought, reports an international team of astronomers. The researchers had studied the movements of a group of distant stars and found that even these distant objects are still controlled by M 31's gravity.
Read more
The Framework of the Universe Dark matter is the skeleton of the universe. This framework, around which the usual visible matter is arranged, is itself completely invisible. But that's no reason not to create a detailed overview in 3-D anyway, found resourceful cartographers of the universe.
Read more
Planets for breakfast The sky will be interesting for fans of the wandering stars: get up half an hour earlier in the morning and enjoy Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. You probably know this too: The view out of the window into the wintry night always finds the same target - the great hunter Orion, who immediately attracts our attention, regardless of whether he crosses the meridian in the evening or closes toward the western horizon at midnight.
Read more
Planet Hunter COROT in Space Equipped with a 30 cm telescope, the new satellite will search for extrasolar planets and explore the interiors of stars. Around 200 planets outside our solar system have been detected in the last decade.
Read more
Planet Hunter Corot Launched In our own solar system, we can already see small planets like Mars with the naked eye. With the European Corot space telescope, terrestrial celestial bodies can finally be detected elsewhere - using the tiniest changes in brightness.
Read more
There will be something Family celebration, gifts, happy faces everywhere - or almost - isn't it wonderful this Christmas season. Excuse me - too dangerous? Who says that? It's still hectic. The last gift, the chain of lights broken, an order still has to go - everything is pushing, annoying and creating.
Read more
Vortex around our planets Some spacecraft are showing signs of age or failure, others just don't seem to want to communicate anymore. Nevertheless, the group does a great job in space and delivers mountains of data every day about distant worlds, adventurous phenomena and last but not least about our planet and those that used to be there.
Read more
Space and the island of stability are not far away from black Nano is in, macro is out? As the year draws to a close, it shows: not at all, on the contrary - old and new departments benefited extensively from each other. And with them many other scientific disciplines.
Read more
Atypical gamma-ray burst observed The properties of the gamma-ray burst GRB 060614 do not fit into the usual scheme of such explosions, which release more energy in a few seconds than our sun releases in billions of years. The existing division into only two different classes may now need to be expanded.
Read more
Soft screen around a hard core Why is Mercury's magnetic field much smaller than conventional theories predict? Apparently, outer layers of the liquid iron core, which do not participate in the currents at greater depths, shield the magnetic field.
Read more
Feather Dusters in Space The cometary dust carried to Earth by the Stardust spacecraft is now raising dust - because what it reveals is astonishing to science. The icy celestial bodies appear to have a much more complex history than previously thought.
Read more
Start of construction for European giant telescope in three years? Construction of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) could begin in as little as three years: The Council of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) approved a total of 57 million euros for the necessary preliminary studies.
Read more
Carbon dioxide thins Earth's atmosphere The rapid increase in carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere could thin out the outermost parts of our planet's gas envelope by 2017 and thus also affect space travel. A lower density of the so-called thermosphere - the area of the atmosphere furthest from the earth at an altitude of around 100 to 650 kilometers - would therefore reduce the air resistance for the earth satellites orbiting in this area as well as the Hub
Read more
Manned lunar station scheduled for 2024 Nasa plans to build a permanently manned international lunar base within the next seventeen years. This was announced yesterday by several of their official spokesmen. The US space agency does not want to act alone, but in cooperation with partners around the world.
Read more
Wet or just slipped off? H 2O is not only found on the blue planet, but also on the red planet - there, however, only in a form that has been frozen for millions of years. But wait a minute: What are those new puddles in the pictures from last winter?
Read more
White dwarfs don't die nice and round The type Ia among the supernovae has kept a few secrets for a long time. At least it was clear: Here a white dwarf explodes next to a second star. A very close look at the radiation from afar reveals exactly how he does this.
Read more
Green light for Seventh Framework Program for Research The European Parliament approved the Seventh Research Framework Program (FP7) on Thursday. For the period from 2007 to 2013, more than 54 billion euros are available to support research and development.
Read more
The Stars of Andromeda Legend High in the east, some heroic constellations make for a remarkable sight. On cold December evenings, an armada of bright winter constellations fills the sky from the zenith to the eastern horizon.But before we get into them, let's finish with the stars of late autumn.
Read more
The Moon Machine It is old hat that the ancient Greeks were excellent at mathematics and astronomy. But then it comes as a surprise that they constructed sophisticated calculating machines down to the smallest detail: The more than 2000-year-old gear mechanism from Antikythera - discovered a hundred years ago - turns out to be even more complicated than expected.
Read more
Old Mars probe no longer responding Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), which has been orbiting Mars for ten years, will have to be abandoned, Nasa space engineers fear. The longest-serving of the four probes currently orbiting our neighboring planet has not responded to attempts to contact Earth for more than two weeks.
Read more
Clues to the Origin of Cosmic Rays A new analysis of images from the Chandra X-ray telescope suggests that electrons in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A are being accelerated to almost the speed of light. As a result, such explosions could produce the high-energy particle radiation that hits Earth from space.
Read more
Rubidium in stars confirms old theory Researchers led by Domingo García-Hernandez from the European Space Astronomy Center in Madrid demonstrated that certain stars produce the isotope rubidium-87 in late stages of evolution. In doing so, they confirm for the first time what astronomers predicted forty years ago.
Read more
Small neighboring galaxies not related to the Milky Way A survey of stars carried out at the European Southern Observatory casts doubt on the most common theory of the formation of larger galaxies. This theory had predicted that our Milky Way was formed by the merger of smaller, older minigalaxies.
Read more
