Closing in on gamma-ray bursts
The origin of gamma-ray bursts is one of the biggest unsolved problems in astrophysics. Some 3000 of these short-lived bursts of intense gamma-rays have been detected in the last three decades, but it...
US astronomers look to the future
The other priorities established by the panel are the ground-based 30-metre Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope, the space-based Constellation-X Observatory, expansion of the Very Large Array radio teles...
Calling all cosmophysicists
Fundamental physics is a new activity for ESA, although it has ambitious plans to launch LISA, a set of three spacecraft that would detect gravitational waves. It is also considering proposals to test...
Hubble prepares for the next ten years
Recently a “second decade” working group looked at the future of the billion-dollar telescope, which is funded by NASA and the European Space Agency. After ten years in orbit, what more ca...
Read article: Hubble prepares for the next ten years
Astronomers look to ‘virtual’ observatories
The first virtual observatory to receive significant funding will be a European project called ASTROVIRTEL, which is based at the ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany. European astronomers will be ab...
Hubble sees mystery object
There are four possible explanations for the object: a highly obscured galaxy, an old elliptical galaxy at redshift 3 or 4, a galaxy at redshift 12, or an intergalactic carbon star. However, there are...
Read article: Hubble sees mystery object
Comet Hyakutake makes a mark on Ulysses
Ulysses was launched to make continuous measurements of the solar wind, a steady stream of ionized particles that flows outwards from the star. In 1998 Pete Riley and colleagues from Los Alamos Nation...
Space-based telescope will look for Earth-like planets
“Microlensing is the only way low-mass planets can be detected from the ground,” says Sun Hong Rhie from the University of Notre Dame and a member of MPS team. Rhie and his colleague David...
ESA gets flexible
The three space science missions are: STORMS, a set of three spacecraft that will be used to monitor magnetic storms in space; SOLAR ORBITER, a mission to study the surface and atmosphere of the Sun i...
X-ray telescope burns-up
Meanwhile, ESA this week released the first two images from XMM-Newton. One shows the Magellanic Cloud, with hot gas released from supernova explosions and new stars being created in a interstellar nu...
Read article: X-ray telescope burns-up
