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amateur astronomers reported that a faint star in the constellation of Ophiuchus had suddenly become clearly visible in the night sky without the aid of a telescope. Records show that this so-called recurrent nova, RS Ophiuchi (RS Oph), has previously reached this level of brightness five times in the last 108 years, most recently in 1985. The latest explosion has been observed in unprecedented detail by an armada of space- and ground-based telescopes.

Speaking today (Friday) at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting at Leicester, Professor Mike Bode of Liverpool John Moores University and Dr Tim O'Brien of Jodrell Bank Observatory will present the latest results which are shedding new light on what happens when stars explode.

RS Oph is just over 5,000 light years away from Earth. It consists of a white dwarf star (the super-dense core of a star, about the size of the Earth, that has reached the end of its main hydrogen-burning phase of evolution and shed its outer layers) in close orbit with a much larger red giant star.

The two stars are so close together that hydrogen-rich gas from the outer layers of the red giant is continuously pulled onto the dwarf by its high gravity. After around 20 years, enough gas has been accreted that a runaway thermonuclear explosion occurs on the white dwarf's surface. In less than a day, its energy output increases to over 100,000 times that of the Sun, and the accreted gas (several times the mass of the Earth) is ejected into space at.

Amazing new sun images

NJIT Distinguished Professor Philip R. Goode and the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) team have achieved "first light" using a deformable mirror in what is called adaptive optics at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). Using this equipment, an image of a sunspot was published yesterday on the website of Ciel et l'Espace, as the photo of the day: http://www.cieletespace.fr/node/5752. "This photo of a sunspot is now the most detailed ever........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 8/25/2010 6:54:18 AM)

Dark-matter search plunges

This month physicist Juan Collar and his associates are taking their attempt to unmask the secret identity of dark matter into a Canadian mine more than a mile underground. The team is deploying a 4-kilogram bubble chamber at SNOLab, which is part of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Ontario, Canada. A second 60-kilogram chamber will follow later this year. Scientists anticipate that dark matter particles will leave bubbles in their tracks........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 8/11/2010 7:31:05 PM)

Refining a cosmic clock

Physicists will soon have a better measure of the age of our galaxy, thanks to experiments described in a trio of papers appearing in the journal Physical Review C The papers report on experiments at the CERN neutron time-of-flight (n_TOF) facility and the Karlsruhe Van de Graaff accelerator that clarify the processes that affect the abundance of the element osmium-187. The element is created when rhenium-187 decays. Because rhenium-187 was........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 7/16/2010 7:12:03 AM)

Image of cosmic concoction

Strangely shaped dust clouds, resembling spilled liquids, are silhouetted against a colourful background of glowing gas in this newly released Hubble image. The star-forming region NGC 2467 is a vast cloud of gas mostly hydrogen that serves as an incubator for new stars. Some of these youthful stars have emerged from the dense clouds where they were born and now shine brightly, hot and blue in this picture, but a number of others remain........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 7/13/2010 6:53:40 AM)

Widespread Glacial Meltwater Valleys on Mars

Planetary researchers have uncovered telltale signs of water on Mars - frozen and liquid - in the earliest period of the Red Planet's history. A new claim, made public this month, is that a deep ocean covered some of the northern latitudes. But the evidence for water grows much more scant after the Noachian era, which ended 3.5 billion years ago. Now Brown University planetary geologists have documented running water that sprang from........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 6/24/2010 11:06:16 PM)

Ancient ocean may have covered one-third of Mars

A vast ocean likely covered one-third of the surface of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, as per a newly released study conducted by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists. The CU-Boulder study is the first to combine the analysis of water-related features including scores of delta deposits and thousands of river valleys to test for the occurrence of an ocean sustained by a global hydrosphere on early Mars. While the notion of a large,........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 6/13/2010 10:37:28 PM)

Active galaxy's 'smokestack plumes'

If our eyes could see radio waves, the nearby galaxy Centaurus A (Cen A) would be one of the biggest and brightest objects in the sky, nearly 20 times the apparent size of a full moon. What we can't see when looking at the galaxy in visible light is that it lies nestled between a pair of giant radio-emitting gas plumes ejected by its supersized black hole. Each plume is nearly a million light-years long. NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 4/2/2010 7:00:17 AM)

Sharpest view ever of star factories

Astronomers have combined a natural gravitational lens and a sophisticated telescope array to get the sharpest view ever of "star factories" in a galaxy over 10 billion light-years from Earth. They observed that the distant galaxy, known as SMM J2135-0102, is making new stars 250 times faster than our Galaxy, the Milky Way. They also pinpointed four discrete star-forming regions within the galaxy, each over 100 times brighter than locations........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 3/22/2010 7:49:10 PM)

Early galaxy went through teenage growth spurt

Researchers have found a massive galaxy in the early Universe creating stars like our sun up to 100 times faster than the modern-day Milky Way. The team of international researchers, led by Durham University, described the finding as like seeing "a teenager going through a growth spurt". Due to the amount of time it takes light to reach Earth the researchers observed the galaxy as it would have appeared 10 billion years ago just three........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 3/22/2010 7:43:18 PM)

White Dwarf Star System Exceeds Mass Limit

An international team led by Yale University has, for the first time, measured the mass of a type of supernova believed to be long to a unique subclass and confirmed that it surpasses what was thought to bean upper mass limit. Their findings, which appear online and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal, could affect the way cosmologists measure the expansion of the universe. Cosmologists use Type Ia........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 3/15/2010 8:08:48 PM)

Mapping the Milky Way

At this very moment, tens of thousands of home computers around the world are quietly working together to solve the largest and most basic mysteries of our galaxy. Enthusiastic and inquisitive volunteers from Africa to Australia are donating the computing power of everything from decade-old desktops to sleek new netbooks to help computer researchers and astronomers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute map the shape of our Milky Way galaxy.........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 2/11/2010 8:15:43 AM)

Merging galaxies create a binary quasar

Astronomers have found the first clear evidence of a binary quasar within a pair of actively merging galaxies. Quasars are the extremely bright centers of galaxies surrounding super-massive black holes, and binary quasars are pairs of quasars bound together by gravity. Binary quasars, like other quasars, are believed to be the product of galaxy mergers. Until now, however, binary quasars have not been seen in galaxies that are unambiguously in........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 2/3/2010 2:23:11 PM)

Differences between Ganymede and Callisto

Differences in the number and speed of cometary impacts onto Jupiter's large moons Ganymede and Callisto some 3.8 billion years ago can explain their vastly different surfaces and interior states, as per research by researchers at the Southwest Research Institute appearing online in Nature Geoscience Jan. 24, 2010. Ganymede and Callisto are similar in size and are made of a similar mixture of ice and rock, but data from the Galileo and........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 1/25/2010 12:01:36 AM)

First Comprehensive Sky Map

Ever since NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, mission researchers released the first comprehensive sky map of our solar system's edge in particles, solar physicists have been busy revising their models to account for the discovery of a narrow "ribbon" of bright emission that was completely unexpected and not predicted by any model at the time. Further study by a team of researchers funded through NASA's Heliophysics Guest........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 1/13/2010 7:45:29 AM)

Pulverized Planet Dust

Tight double-star systems might not be the best places for life to spring up, as per a newly released study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared observatory spotted a surprisingly large amount of dust around three mature, close-orbiting star pairs. Where did the dust come from? Astronomers say it might be the aftermath of tremendous planetary collisions. "This is real-life science fiction," said Jeremy Drake of the........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 8/25/2010 6:55:58 AM)

Ancient Galaxy Cluster Still Producing Stars

Much like quiet, middle-aged baby boomers peacefully residing in some of the world's largest cities, families of some galaxies also have a hidden wild youth that they only now are revealing for the first time, as per research by astronomers at Texas A&M University. In ongoing observations of one of the universe's earliest, most distant cluster of galaxies using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of scientists led by Texas........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 8/19/2010 7:18:02 AM)

Spotting Stellar Nurseries

Astronomers scanning the skies as part of ESO's VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey have now obtained a spectacular picture of the Tarantula Nebula in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. This panoramic near-infrared view captures the nebula itself in great detail as well as the rich surrounding area of sky. The image was obtained at the start of a very ambitious survey of our neighbouring galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, and their........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 8/11/2010 7:44:53 PM)

An unusual cosmic lens

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have discovered the first known case of a distant galaxy being magnified by a quasar acting as a gravitational lens. The discovery, based in part on observations done at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, is being published July 16 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics Quasars, which are........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 7/16/2010 7:04:25 AM)

Newborn Stars Discovered

A wave of massive star formation appears poised to begin within a mysterious, dark cloud in the Milky Way. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed a secluded birthplace for stars within a wispy, dark cloud named named M17 SWex. The dark cloud is part of the larger, parent nebula known as M17, a vast region of our galaxy with a bright, central star cluster. "We believe we've managed to observe this dark cloud in a very early phase of star........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 7/8/2010 7:02:32 AM)

Zapping Titan-like atmosphere with UV rays

The first experimental evidence showing how atmospheric nitrogen can be incorporated into organic macromolecules is being reported by a University of Arizona team. The finding indicates what organic molecules might be found on Titan, the moon of Saturn that researchers think is a model for the chemistry of pre-life Earth. Earth and Titan are the only known planetary-sized bodies that have thick, predominantly nitrogen atmospheres, said........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 6/30/2010 6:42:51 AM)

Was Venus once a habitable planet?

ESA's Venus Express is helping planetary researchers investigate whether Venus once had oceans. If it did, it may even have begun its existence as a habitable planet similar to Earth. These days, Earth and Venus seem completely different. Earth is a lush, clement world teeming with life, whilst Venus is hellish, its surface roasting at temperatures higher than those of a kitchen oven. But underneath it all the two planets share many........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 6/24/2010 10:58:59 PM)

Brightest galaxies tend to cluster in busiest parts of universe

For more than a decade, astronomers have been puzzled by bright galaxies in the distant universe that appear to be forming stars at phenomenal rates. What prompted the prolific star creation, they wondered. And what kind of spatial environment did these galaxies inhabit? Now, using a super-sensitive camera/spectrometer on the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers - including a UC Irvine team led by Asantha Cooray - have mapped the skies as........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 5/21/2010 7:12:57 AM)

Hubble confirms cosmic acceleration

A group of astronomers [1], led by Tim Schrabback of the Leiden Observatory, conducted an intensive study of over 446 000 galaxies within the COSMOS field, the result of the largest survey ever conducted with Hubble. In making the COSMOS survey, Hubble photographed 575 slightly overlapping views of the same part of the Universe using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) onboard Hubble. It took nearly 1000 hours of observations. In addition........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 3/25/2010 7:59:04 PM)

Discovery of a New Planet

An international team of scientists, including several who are affiliated with UC Santa Barbara, has discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The finding is reported in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature. The planet, called CoRoT-9b, was discovered by using the CoRoT space telescope satellite, operated by the French space agency, The Centre National d'Études Spatiales, or CNES. The newly discovered planet orbits a star similar to........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 3/17/2010 7:56:56 PM)

Shocking recipe for making killer electrons

Take a bunch of fast-moving electrons, place them in orbit and then hit them with the shock waves from a solar storm. What do you get? Killer electrons. That's the shocking recipe revealed by ESA's Cluster mission. Killer electrons are highly energetic particles trapped in Earth's outer radiation belt, which extends from 12 000 km to 64 000 km above the planet's surface. During solar storms their number grows at least ten times and they can........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 3/12/2010 8:17:02 AM)

Sample from asteroid 'time capsule'

Meet asteroid 1999 RQ36, a chunk of rock and dust about 1,900 feet in diameter that could tell us how the solar system was born, and perhaps, shed light on how life began. It also might hit us someday. "This asteroid is a time capsule from before the birth of our solar system," said Bill Cutlip of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., one of the leaders of Goddard's effort to propose a mission called OSIRIS-REx that will........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 3/12/2010 7:24:59 AM)

Student-built satellite

A tiny communications satellite designed and built by University of Colorado at Boulder undergraduates has been selected as one of three university research satellites to be launched into orbit in November as part of a NASA space education initiative. The three satellites, dubbed "CubeSats" because of their shape, were built by CU-Boulder, Montana State University and Kentucky Space, which is a consortium of state universities. CubeSats are........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 1/28/2010 12:19:23 AM)

New Research On Star Formation

"Crazy" and "cool" are two of the words Michigan State University astronomer Megan Donahue uses to describe the two distinct "tails" found on a long tail of gas that is thought to beforming stars where few stars have been formed before. Donahue was part of an international team of astronomers that viewed the gas tail with a very long, new observation made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and detailed it in a paper published this month in the........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 1/25/2010 8:15:01 AM)

Meteorite hits doctor's office

Of course, it happened with a doctor’s office, what else? An excerpt from the Washington Post report........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 1/24/2010 11:36:47 PM)

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