In search of the God particle Apr 8, 2008
"It's a possibility. I think the race is a very close thing. Fermi Lab are obviously trying very hard, they have a disadvantage compared to LHC when it starts, in terms of lack of luminosity, comparatively speaking so it's for them to find it," he said. "But it could be there in their data, but not just found in the analysis, yet. They are certainly hoping that they'll get their first indication before the LHC gets going.". (Independent)
Do Dwarf Galaxies Favor MOND Over Dark Matter? Apr 8, 2008
The value for Sextans could also be due to poor quality measurements of the galaxy s luminosity, which are improving all the time for these ultra dim objects. "These tidal effects can be tested by updating the 13 year old luminosity of Sextans and making accurate observations of the orbits of Draco and Sextans around the Milky Way. We also need to carry out some detailed simulations to understand the exact mechanisms of the tidal heating," said Angus. (Science Daily)
Divisive idea 'explains galaxies' Apr 6, 2008
The value for Sextans could also be due to tidal effects but also due to using old measurements of the galaxy's luminosity. Mr Angus said the data were improving all the time for these ultra dim objects. (BBC News -- Science)
A stargazer's guide to the spring sky Mar 29, 2008
Regulus is 77 light years distant; meaning that the light you see emanating from it tonight started on its journey toward Earth back in 1931, when Herbert Hoover was U.S. President, and Spain became a republic with the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII. The diameter of Regulus is estimated to be about five times that of ; its luminosity 160 times greater. Slide show. (MSNBC -- Technology)
Hopping away from the shield Mar 22, 2008
The brightest of these has a luminosity of about 900 suns; you can get a sense of how bright this is by considering that if you put the Sun in M38, it would appear 51,700 trillion times dimmer than it currently does in our sky. You would need a large telescope to glimpse it at all. (Corvallis Gazette Times, OR)
> read more Feb 23, 2008
Because all white dwarfs have the same mass when they reach this tipping point, astrophysicists expect all Type Ia's (of a given subtype) to have the same luminosity. Therefore, cosmologists believe they can use Type Ia's as accurate "standard candles" to measure the distances of remote galaxies independently of redshift. (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Viewer's guide: Total lunar eclipse on Wed. Feb 19, 2008
The French astronomer, Andre Danjon, introduced the following five-point scale of lunar luminosity ("L") to classify eclipses. L = 0: Very dark eclipse, moon almost invisible, especially in mid-totality. (USA Today -- Tech)
Light echoes whisper the distance to a star Feb 11, 2008
Because the luminosity of the star changes in a very distinctive pattern, the presence of the nebula allows the astronomers to see light echoes and use them to measure the distance of the star ... "Knowing the distance to a Cepheid star with such an accuracy proves crucial to the calibration of the period-luminosity relation of this class of stars," says Kervella ... 1]: Cepheids are rare and very luminous pulsating stars whose luminosity varies in a very regular way. (EurekAlert!)
Colliding Worlds: Distant Planetary Collision Jan 13, 2008
Its temperature, luminosity, age, and location do not match up with any theory ... Given its temperature, astronomers would expect a certain luminosity for 2M1207B, but it is 10 times fainter than expected. (Science Daily)
Demolition derby in deep space? Jan 11, 2008
Its temperature, luminosity, age and location do not match any theory ... "Essentially the luminosity of the object is about 1/50,000th that of the sun, and we have an estimate of the temperature," Mr. Mamajek said. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA)
Ancestors Of Milky Way-type Galaxies Discovered Jan 9, 2008
Gawiser, while a National Science Foundation (NSF) astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellow at Yale, initiated a search for several types of galaxies that could be precursors of Milky Way-type spirals; Gronwall led an investigation into the luminosity, density and distribution of the distinctive Lyman alpha emitters. Their statistical analyses and computer simulations of how galaxies cluster led them to the conclusion they first reported in the Dec. 10, 2007, issue of Astrophysical... (Science Daily)
Christmas star debate gets its due on Epiphany Jan 6, 2008
" An Eastern Orthodox Christian, Mathewes-Green says the star may be ultimately unexplainable, just like the Christian belief that Jesus was God in human flesh. "I think that's one of the things that the star speaks to us, that in its brilliance, its luminosity, its elevated qualities but yet participating in this very same universe that we're in that it shows the depth of the story and, just as it led the wise men, it leads us as well, deeper and deeper into the mystery. " Posted | | | To... (USA Today)
Russian scientist urges 'stock up on fur coats' to face upcoming GLOBAL COOLING... Jan 4, 2008
There is another, principal reason solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate. (The Drudge Report)
Moves for more energy-efficient lighting run into complications Jan 2, 2008
It also advertised itself as "high luminosity.". But Bouchard seems to have been right: The LED bulbs were only available in decorative colors, and the green model I bought gave off the kind of faint illumination you would expect from a flashlight running low on batteries. (International Herald Tribune -- Business)
'Cosmic Bird' Triple Cosmic Collision Of Galaxies Jan 1, 2008
Also, the 'head' appears to be the major source of infrared luminosity in the system, though it is the smallest of the three galaxies ... The 'Bird' belongs to the prestigious family of luminous infrared galaxies, with an infrared luminosity nearly one thousand billion times that of the Sun. (Science Daily)
Meteor showers, changing comets Nov 10, 2007
That impression changed about two weeks ago as Comet Holmes, receding from the sun, underwent a brightening changing its luminosity by a factor of almost half a million. This has resulted in the comet reaching naked-eye visibility in the constellation Perseus. (Albany Democrat-Herald, OR)
Suddenly erupting comet visible to naked eye Nov 6, 2007
Comet Holmes, however, exploded in size and luminosity within hours on Oct. 23, because of some still-unexplained event that caused it to belch out a huge cloud of material. "This is truly a celestial surprise," Lewis said. (Xinhuanet, China)
Comet million times brighter than normal Nov 4, 2007
Comet Holmes, however, exploded in size and luminosity within hours, because of some still-unexplained event that caused it to belch out a huge cloud of material. That cloud of particles, when it interacts with the sun, gives the comet its yellowish hue. (Windsor Star)
Shouldn't Be Possible Oct 20, 2007
If other massive stars also lose very little material during their last stages, it could explain the incredible luminosity of 2006gy, one of the brightest supernovas ever observed, the researchers say. One day, the lone star in M33 X-7 will also disappear, notes study team member Jeffrey McClintock of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. (Fox News)
Monster black hole busts theory Oct 18, 2007
Twin black holesIf other massive stars also lose very little material during their last stages, it could explain the incredibly luminosity of , one of the brightest supernovas ever observed, the researchers say. One day, the lone star in M33 X-7 will also disappear, notes study team member Jeffrey McClintock of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. (MSNBC -- Technology)
Multiwavelength Images Of Distant Universe Now Available On Google Sky Oct 9, 2007
Chandra x-ray images (bottom right) are needed to measure the luminosity of the mini-quasar, while Spitzer infrared images (top right and bottom left) reveal radiation from that and from the ongoing burst of star formation. (Credit: AEGIS collaboration). (Science Daily)
Astronomers Pinpoint Origin Of Nature's Most Powerful Magnetic Bursts Oct 1, 2007
Astronomers discovered a magnetar with the NASA's X-Ray Timing Explorer in July 2003, when it brightened by about 100 times its usual faint luminosity. They continued monitoring it regularly with the European Photon Imaging Camera, known as EPIC, on the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton Observatory until March 2006, when the object faded to its pre-outburst brightness. (Science Daily)
Scientist reworks star distances Sep 29, 2007
Astronomers can only determine the physical properties of stars by comparing their luminosity with their distance from Earth. Without an accurate measurement of distance, the star's true luminosity or size cannot be known. (BBC News -- Science)
Your guide to the total lunar eclipse Aug 26, 2007
com encourages viewers to estimate the a five-point scale of lunar luminosity ("L") to classify eclipses at mid-totality. TimetableThe beginning and ending of a lunar eclipse happens simultaneously for every viewer, unlike an eclipse of the Sun. (MSNBC -- Technology)
Red Sky at Night Aug 25, 2007
SPACE.com encourages viewers to estimate the a five-point scale of lunar luminosity ("L") to classify eclipses at mid-totality. Timetable. (Fox News)
Viewer's Guide: Tuesday Morning's Lunar Eclipse Aug 25, 2007
SPACE.com encourages viewers to estimate the - a five-point scale of lunar luminosity ("L") to classify eclipses - at mid-totality. The Moon enters the umbra at 4:51 a.m. EDT (1:51 a.m. PDT). (Yahoo News)
Doorstep astronomy: See the summer triangle Jul 7, 2007
That tells us that in terms of overall luminosity between the two, Vega is indeed the brighter star: it is 48 times brighter than our sun, while Altair is only 12 times brighter ... With a good pair of binoculars or a telescope you can now observe millions of sparkling little stars that make up this glowing, irregular belt of luminosity. (MSNBC -- Technology)
ESF helps Europe play lead role in new age of astronomical discovery Jul 5, 2007
The main gain is that the whole 'spectral energy distribution' (SED for short) can be mapped for each source, which means that one does not only measure total luminosity, but also 'colours' and emission from specific molecules, said van Kampen. From the SED one can derive many properties of the sources, including temperatures and composition. (EurekAlert!)
Detecting Extra-solar Planets Now Easier With New ESO Imaging Spectrograph Jun 23, 2007
With a temperature of about 3 000 degrees (about half as hot as the Sun) and a luminosity about one thousand times dimmer than the Sun, AB Doradus C lies on the exact track expected for a 75 million year old star with 9% the Sun's mass ... In the future one can thus use these tracks to extrapolate the mass of small young stars, once its temperature and luminosity are precisely determined. (Science Daily)
Rare Star Explosion Follows A Flash Of Light Jun 20, 2007
The supernova, named SN2006jc(3), reached the maximum luminosity that is characteristic of the most powerful star explosions, more than a billion times brighter than the Sun ... It also experienced an outburst of luminosity making it the second brightest star in the sky in 1843. (Science Daily)
A Pristine Galaxy Heading Our Way Jun 16, 2007
And XII is only about 400 light-years across, with perhaps 100,000 to 1 million stars and a luminosity of only 100,000 Suns. That might make it seem like a mere globular star cluster, but its not. (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Matter Flashed At Ultra Speed Jun 13, 2007
6-m REM telescope at ESO La Silla, we can now study in great detail the very first moments following these cosmic catastrophes," says Emilio Molinari, leader of the team that made the discovery. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are powerful explosions occurring in distant galaxies, that often signal the death of stars. They are so bright that, for a brief moment, they almost rival the whole Universe in luminosity. They last, however, for only a very short time, from less than a second to a few minutes.... (Science Daily)
Chronicle Of A Star's Death Foretold Jun 5, 2007
Because the star's luminosity changes periodically, the astronomers observed it simultaneously with both instruments, at several different epochs. The first epoch occurred close to the stellar minimum luminosity and the last just after the maximum on the next cycle ... After this intense matter production and ejection the star continues its pulsation and when it reaches the maximum luminosity, it displays a much more expanded dust shell. (Science Daily)
NASA'S Fuse Satellite Catches Collision of Titans May 29, 2007
The mass loss rate of both stars is consistent with other single stars having the same temperature and luminosity. As the stars age and swell in size, they will begin to transfer substantial amounts of mass to each other. (PR Newswire)
NASA Scientists Pioneer Technique For 'Weighing' Black Holes May 17, 2007
The QPO frequencies, as well as the luminosity and spectral characteristics of the source, implies that it is powered by an intermediate-mass black hole. "We had two other ways of estimating the mass of the black hole, and all three methods agree within a factor of two," says Mushotzky. (Science Daily)
Exploded Star the Brightest Ever Seen May 9, 2007
The extra luminosity faded around 1870, but the star began to brighten noticeably a century later. Unlike Eta Carinae, the newly discovered exploding star is not prominent in the sky because it is so far away. (Yahoo News -- Astronomy and Space)
Biggest stellar explosion detected May 9, 2007
When observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a space telescope, failed to find enough X-rays to support that idea, the group was forced to consider an alternative: that the luminosity was produced by the decay of radioactive nickel. But to match the observations, the star would have had to produce 22 solar masses of radioactive nickel - way off scale for the core collapse model. (International Herald Tribune)
Astronomers Report Biggest Stellar Explosion May 8, 2007
When observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory failed to find enough X-rays to support that scenario, the group was forced to consider the alternative that the luminosity was produced by the decay of radioactive nickel ... Dr. Wheeler said, We dont have a good alternative explanation for the source of luminosity, but we need some smoking gun. (Yahoo News -- Astronomy and Space)
Star explosion rocks astronomers May 8, 2007
Normally, the luminosity of an exploding star drops quickly as the shock wave from a supernova burns through gas left over from the explosion. Instead, X-ray measurements made by Chandra suggest a new theory: Radioactive elements created in the blast are burning away steadily. (USA Today -- Tech)
COROT Discovers Its First Exoplanet And Catches Scientists By Surprise May 5, 2007
Another strong point is the accuracy with which it measures the variations in the luminosity of the star ... COROT observed a bright Sun-like star continuously for 50 days, showing large, unexpected luminosity variations on time scales of a few days ... The preliminary analysis of the oscillations in stellar luminosity clearly shows the seismic signature typical of a Sun-like star. (Science Daily)
The Purple Rose Of Virgo: VLT Image of Bright Supernova in Spiral Galaxy Mar 29, 2007
Observations on 4 March with ESO's New Technology Telescope at La Silla revealed that this energetic explosion is a Type Ia supernova that was observed a few days before it reached its maximal luminosity. Matter from the doomed star is ejected with velocities above 15,000 km/s. (Science Daily)
Canis Major top dog in night sky Mar 18, 2007
This part of the sky happens to be rich in hot super-giant stars of extraordinary luminosity, appearing fainter than Sirius, owing to their remoteness from us. Four stars in particular (you could say the ones making up the Dog s hips, hind leg, and tail) stand out in their distance and luminosity: Omicron 2 is upwards of 3,400 light-years away, with about 50,000 times the Sun s brightness ... Then the runt of the bunch, Adhara, is only 680 light-years away with 9,000 times the solar luminosity. (Albany Democrat-Herald, OR)
AEGIS survey reveals new principle governing galaxy formation and evolution Mar 7, 2007
The Tully-Fisher relation correlates the luminosity of a spiral galaxy with its rotational speed: The brighter the galaxy, the faster it rotates. Recent refinements of the Tully-Fisher relation have replaced luminosity with stellar mass ... By extending the Tully-Fisher relation to include other galaxy morphologies in addition to spiral galaxies, the new analysis seems to encompass another famous scaling law for galaxies, the Faber-Jackson relation, which correlates the luminosity of elliptical... (EurekAlert!)
Lunar eclipse a thriller Mar 6, 2007
"It was really very dark," said Paul Harper, Chairman of the Croydon Astronomical Society, who estimated that moon had lost over four-fifths of its luminosity. "It was quite a nice one.". (CNN -- Science)
Total Lunar Eclipse Over, Next One in August 28 This Year Mar 6, 2007
It was L=3 to L=4 on the Danjon scale (a five-point scale useful for measuring the appearance and luminosity of the Moon during a lunar eclipse), it was fully visible over Europe and Africa and at least partly visible over the eastern Americas, Asia, and western Australia ... "It was really very dark," said Paul Harper, Chairman of the Croydon Astronomical Society, who estimated that moon had lost over four-fifths of its luminosity. (Playfuls.com)
Earth causes total lunar eclipse Mar 4, 2007
He estimated that the Moon had lost more than four-fifths of its luminosity. Red planet. (Aljazeera.Net)
High-Energy 'Relic' Wind Reveals Past Behavior Of Dead Stars Feb 21, 2007
A team of astronomers from France and South Africa announced the first catalog of a new type of gamma-ray source, a dozen clouds of relic radiation from dead stars that reveal information about the energetic past of these celestial objects. One of the most remarkable "relic" gamma-ray clouds of the new catalog, the source HESS J1825-137 which is 100 light-years across. (Science Daily)
Image-Stabilize Your Binoculars! Feb 14, 2007
5 magnitude deeper doubles the volume of space that you examine for objects of a given luminosity. . (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Magnetic Explosions In The Distant Universe Feb 10, 2007
A new theory to explain the high-energy gamma-ray emissions from collapsing stars has been put forward by an international team of researchers. Their results will be published shortly in the Monthly Notices of the RAS.. (Science Daily)
Unexpected Cooling Effect In Saturn's Upper Atmosphere Jan 27, 2007
UK researchers from University College London (UCL), along with colleagues from Boston University, have found that the hotter than expected temperature of Saturn's upper atmosphere -- and that of the other giant planets -- is not due to the same mechanism that heats the atmosphere around the Earth's Northern Lights. Reporting in Nature (25th January) the researchers findings thus rule out a long held theory. (Science Daily)
AAS Supernova Roundup Jan 17, 2007
The supernova blast wave would have plowed through this material, heating it up and increasing the event's luminosity. This idea fits in nicely with recent observational evidence that Type Ia supernovae can vary in luminosity, and that there might be more than one class of progenitor. (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Astronomers Find Eight New Dwarf Galaxies, Seven Of Them Satellites Orbiting Milky Way Jan 12, 2007
Because it's too distant to be strongly influenced by the Milky Way's tides, Leo T's low luminosity (the equivalent of roughly 50,000 Suns) is likely intrinsic, not a consequence of tidal stripping of loosely bound stars. "Leo T has probably always been very faint, retaining its gas and slowly forming stars in relative isolation," comments Mike Irwin, a discovery team member and Cambridge University astronomer. (Science Daily)
Rethinking Last Century's Closest, Brightest Supernova Jan 11, 2007
Twenty years ago next month, the closest and brightest supernova in four centuries lit up the southern sky, wowing astronomers and the public alike. A Luminous Blue Variable star named HD168625, located in our Milky Way Galaxy, is surrounded by a bipolar nebula that is similar to the one around SN1987A, a supernova that exploded in 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud and was the nearest supernova to Earth in 400 years. (Science Daily)
Astronomers Detect Black Hole In Tiny 'Dwarf' Galaxy Jan 9, 2007
Astronomers have found evidence of a supermassive black hole at the heart of a dwarf elliptical galaxy about 54 million light years away from the Milky Way galaxy where Earth resides. A Hubble Space Telescope image shows a dwarf galaxy, VCC128, at the center, and the enlargement at right shows a double nucleus that suggests the presence of a black hole. (Science Daily)
Planets can form from space lint Jan 9, 2007
"It would be interesting to see how this porosity changes with the mass and luminosity of the star," he said. 2006 Space. (MSNBC -- Technology)
Astronomers discover an enormous halo of red giant stars around Andromeda Jan 8, 2007
A foreground star with low luminosity and a luminous star that is much farther away can be hard to tell apart because they appear to be equally bright from our perspective, Guhathakurta said. "A firefly 10 feet away and a powerful beacon in the distance can have the same apparent brightness. In this case, the fireflies are dwarf stars in our own galaxy and the beacons are red giant stars in Andromeda," he said. (EurekAlert!)
Black Hole Boldly Goes Where No Black Hole Has Gone Before Jan 5, 2007
Astronomers have found a black hole where few thought they could ever exist, inside a globular star cluster. The finding has broad implications for the dynamics of stars clusters and also for the existence of a still-speculative new class of black holes called 'intermediate-mass' black holes. (Science Daily)
Portrait Of A Dramatic Stellar Crib Dec 27, 2006
Supergiants can have masses from 10 to 70 solar masses and brightness from 30,000 up to hundreds of thousands times the solar luminosity ... -- A Cepheid variable or Cepheid is a member of a particular class of variable stars, notable for a fairly tight correlation between their period of variability and absolute luminosity. (Science Daily)
Stars Can Be Strange: Physicists Explore Strange Matter Hypothesis Dec 22, 2006
Supergiants can have masses from 10 to 70 solar masses and brightness from 30,000 up to hundreds of thousands times the solar luminosity. They vary greatly in. (Science Daily)
New Kind Of Black Hole Explosion Discovered Dec 22, 2006
Certain properties of the burst concerning its brightness and the arrival time of photons of various energies, called the lag-luminosity relationship, suggest that burst behaved more like a short burst (from a merger) than a long burst ... -- Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties (luminosity, density, temperature and chemical composition) of astronomical. (Science Daily)
NASA Telescope Sees Black Hole Munch On A Star Dec 6, 2006
Supergiants can have masses from 10 to 70 solar masses and brightness from 30,000 up to hundreds of thousands times the solar luminosity ... -- Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties (luminosity, density, temperature and chemical composition) of astronomical. (Science Daily)
Asymmetric Ashes: Astronomers Study Shape Of Stellar Candles Dec 5, 2006
-- Red supergiants are supergiant stars of spectral type K-M and a luminosity class of I. They are the largest stars in the universe in terms of physical size, although they are not the most massive ... Supergiants can have masses from 10 to 70 solar masses and brightness from 30,000 up to hundreds of thousands times the solar luminosity. (Science Daily)
Milky Way's Neighbouring Galaxies Have Different History Nov 11, 2006
It has the luminosity of around 2 million Suns. Carina was discovered in 1977 at a distance of around 330 000 light years, with a luminosity equivalent to 400 000 Suns ... It lies 280 000 light years away and has a luminosity equivalent to 500 000 Suns. (Science Daily)
The Great Square of Pegasus is easy pattern to spot in October sky Oct 7, 2006
Their extreme luminosity more than makes up for their small numbers, so they dominate our view of the night sky. Take the stars of the Great Square. (Boston Globe)
'Bulge' yields new planet class Oct 5, 2006
Dr Sahu, from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, US, and colleagues searched for the characteristic dips in a star's luminosity that occur as it is temporarily blocked by an orbiting planet. They carried out back-up, confirmation measurements using the "wobble" method, in which they looked for a telltale oscillation, or wobble, in the light coming from a star as it is tugged by the gravitational attraction of a planet. (BBC News -- Science)
