Have you heard of polyurethanes? As you read this, you’re undoubtedly close to some, or maybe sitting on them: this versatile class of chemicals is used for everything from padding your couch to insulating your windows, packaging food to carpet underlay, electronics casings to skateboard wheels. They also have vital uses in space, triggering a new ESA Clean Space project aiming to manufacture them in a greener way.

Trieste, Italy (SPX) Jan 12, 2021
Two billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was still very young. However, thousands of huge galaxies, rich in stars and dust, were already formed. An international study, led by SISSA - Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, now explains how this was possible. Scientists combined observational and theoretical methods to identify the physical processes behind their evolu

Huntsville AL (SPX) Jan 11, 2021
In 2020, astronomers added a new member to an exclusive family of exotic objects with the discovery of a magnetar. New observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory help support the idea that it is also a pulsar, meaning it emits regular pulses of light. Magnetars are a type of neutron star, an incredibly dense object mainly made up of tightly packed neutron, which forms from the coll

Washington DC (UPI) Jan 7, 2021
The brown dwarf closest to our solar system hosts wind bands and jet streams, according to new analysis of the object's atmosphere. Brown dwarfs are too big to be planets but not quite massive enough to generate fusion, a prerequisite for stellar classification. Though hot in their infancy, brown dwarfs steadily cool as they mature, making them difficult to spot and study. Becaus

Munich, Germany (ESA) Jan 11, 2021
To celebrate a new year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has published a montage of six beautiful galaxy mergers. Each of these merging systems was studied as part of the recent HiPEEC survey to investigate the rate of new star formation within such systems. These interactions are a key aspect of galaxy evolution and are among the most spectacular events in the lifetime of a galaxy. It

Durham UK (SPX) Jan 12, 2021
Our astronomers have looked nine billion years into the past to find evidence that galaxy mergers in the early universe could shut down star formation and affect galaxy growth. Using a powerful Earth-based telescope they saw that a huge amount of star-forming gas was ejected into the universe by the coming together of two galaxies. The merger created a new galaxy called ID2299 at a t

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 13, 2021
During a typical year, over a million people visit Yellowstone National Park, where the Old Faithful geyser regularly blasts a jet of boiling water high in the air. Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic equivalent, a distant galaxy that erupts roughly every 114 days. Using data from facilities including NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Transiting Exopla

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 12, 2021
Through the centuries, scientists and non-scientists alike have looked at the night sky and felt excitement, intrigue, and overwhelming mystery while pondering questions about how our universe came to be, and how humanity developed and thrived in this exact place and time. Early astronomers painstakingly studied stars' subtle movements in the night sky to try and determine how our planet moves i

Columbus OH (SPX) Jan 13, 2021
You've heard of Old Faithful, the Yellowstone National Park geyser that erupts every hour or two, a geological phenomenon on a nearly predictable schedule. Now, an international group of scientists who study space have discovered an astronomical "Old Faithful" - an eruption of light flashing about once every 114 days on a nearly predictable schedule. The researchers believe it is a tidal d

Maunakea HI (SPX) Jan 13, 2021
The most distant quasar known has been discovered. The quasar, seen just 670 million years after the Big Bang, is 1000 times more luminous than the Milky Way, and is powered by the earliest known supermassive black hole, which weighs in at more than 1.6 billion times the mass of the Sun. Seen more than 13 billion years ago, this fully formed distant quasar is also the earliest yet discover