astronomy
By Daniel Lawler Paris (AFP) - L'Univers est riche de trous noirs, avec des poids lourds supermassifs nichés au cœur des galaxies ou des poids légers conçus dans l'effondrement d'une étoile, mais la quête d'un "poids moyen" était jusqu'ici sans succès. Des astronomes ont affirmé mercredi avoir trouvé la meilleure preuve d'un tel chaînon manquant dans Omega centauri, le plus grand amas d'étoiles de la Voie lactée, à quelques 18.000 années lumières de la Terre. Ils ont remarqué "quelque chose de curieux" au centre de cet amas de quelques dix millions d'étoiles, a expliqué à l'AFP Maximilian Häbe...
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Washington (AFP) - The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered what appears to be a new record-holder for the most distant known galaxy, a remarkably bright star system that existed just 290 million years after the Big Bang, NASA said Thursday. Since coming online in 2022, the Webb telescope has ushered in a new era of scientific breakthroughs, peering farther than ever before into the universe's distant reaches -- which also means it is looking back in time. And the latest finding has "profound implications" for our understanding of the so-called Cosmic Dawn, researchers said. An internatio...
AFP
By Daniel Lawler Paris (AFP) - Le télescope spatial européen Euclid a découvert sept nouvelles planètes orphelines, des mondes solitaires errant dans l'espace interstellaire, sans lien avec une étoile. A la différence de la Terre ces astres ne connaissent ni jour ou nuit, ni mois ou années. Pourtant des scientifiques pensent que certains pourraient abriter une forme de vie, et se compter en milliards de milliards dans la galaxie. La découverte des nouvelles planètes orphelines a été faite vendredi dernier, dans une étude scientifique en prépublication sur arXiv.org, au lendemain de l'annonce d...
AFP (Français)
Washington (AFP) - NASA's James Webb telescope has captured the most detailed infrared images ever taken of the Horsehead Nebula, one of the most majestic and recognizable objects in the night sky, the space agency said Monday. The new observations show the top of the "horse's mane," revealing for the first time the small scale structures on the edge of the giant cloud of dust and gas. Located roughly 1,300 light years away in the constellation Orion ("The Hunter"), the iconic silhouette of a horse's head and neck rises from what look like churning waves of interstellar foam. Webb, the most po...
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Washington (AFP) - Just a single, unguarded glance at a solar eclipse can result in a lifetime of vision loss, eye health experts warn. On Monday, tens of millions of spectators across Mexico, the United States and Canada will witness the Moon completely obscure the Sun's light, a rare celestial spectacle that won't be visible for most of North America again until 2044. Medical literature is teeming with examples of people who suffered damage to their retinas -- the layer of light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye -- and health professionals are offering advice on how to avoid becoming t...
AFP
New York (AFP) - Six US prisoners have sued authorities to be allowed to see the year's biggest astronomic event, a total solar eclipse on April 8. The inmates argued in a court filing that their right to religious freedom would be violated if the New York state prison service upheld a planned penitentiary lockdown during the eclipse. "Eclipses, like the one on April 8, are recognized by various religions as special events that warrant gathering, celebration, worship, and prayer," said the submission lodged on March 29. "(The inmates) have each expressed a sincerely held religious belief that...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - US communities along the path of the April 8 total solar eclipse are preparing for the year's biggest astronomic event, with millions of visitors expected to brighten local economies -- and snarl up logistics. Near the US-Canada border in Burlington, Vermont, which is set to experience the totality just before 3:30 pm (1930 GMT), many hotels have been sold out for months. The few remaining rooms, which typically go for around $150 a night, show online prices of $600-$700 for the night of the eclipse. "I don't know that we'll have anything quite like this again," Jeff Lawson,...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - In a hushed room of a museum in Washington, cameras and cell phones focus on a tiny piece of rock, no larger than a piece of gravel. The fragment might seem insignificant, but it is a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu, which scientists are studying in the hope of discovering if asteroids actually brought the building blocks of life -- carbon and water -- to Earth. Exhibited to the public on Friday for the first time at the Smithsonian in the US capital, the tiny stone is just visible inside its small capsule. "This asteroid, now we know, has water crystals and carbon, tw...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - For the first time ever, a NASA probe is set to journey to an object composed not of rock, ice, or gas, but metal: the asteroid Psyche. By studying this space oddity, scientists hope to learn more about the inner cores of rocky planets such as our own -- or, potentially catalog a previously unknown class of cosmic body. Here are some big numbers and fun facts to dazzle your friends with about the mission. $10 quadrillion - If Psyche were mineable, its iron, nickel and gold deposits could be worth an eye-watering $10,000 quadrillion (that's $10,000,000,000,000,000,000), acc...
AFP
Houston (AFP) - A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed on Wednesday, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. The discovery follows a seven-year-round-trip to the distant rock as part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, which dropped off its precious payload in the Utah desert last month for painstaking scientific analysis. "This is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to Earth," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at a press event at the Johnson Space Center in Houst...
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