4.10.9:A Gamma-Ray Burst for the Record Books.
A Gamma-ray burst from the primordial universe sent astronomers reeling earlier this year with the most distant sighting yet. The burst was picked up by NASA’s Swift spacecraft on April 23, 2009 at...
View Article20.03.10: Spying a Black Hole Welterweight.
Astronomers now have observational evidence for a missing class of black hole. Stellar mass black holes, those up to about 10 solar masses, are well known as the remnants of supernovae. Likewise...
View ArticleSpace Telescopes, Part I: Optical.
(Credit: NASA/ESA/S. Gallagher/J. English). Hickson Group 31 of galaxies as imaged by Hubble. This weeks expose will kick off our four part series on orbiting space telescopes. For starters,...
View Article11.05.10: Ancient Galaxy Mergers.
Astronomers may have found a cosmological missing link in the realm of galactic evolution. The early universe was a crowded place; galaxy mergers must have been much more common in the primeval...
View ArticleThe Great Orbiting Observatories II: The Ultraviolet.
When we last left our installment of this saga, we covered the observatories that target the visible edge of our spectrum. This is a narrow slice; a tiny sliver of what we call the electromagnetic...
View ArticleThe Great Orbiting Observatory Series: Part III: Gamma-Ray Telescopes.
Compton is placed into orbit by the Space Shuttle Atlantis. (Credit: NASA/Art Explosion). By far, the portion of the spectrum with the coolest Science fiction-friendly name is gamma-ray. The highest...
View Article23.06.10- Swift Spies Black Holes Feeding on Galaxy Mergers.
NASAs orbiting Swift telescope is in the news again, this time providing a key link between energetic nuclei and active galaxy mergers. The findings come after a survey conducted since 2004 by...
View ArticleReview: What Are Gamma-ray Bursts? by Joshua S. Bloom.
Out from Princeton Press! In 1888, astronomer Simon Newcomb made the now infamous quip that we are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy One has to wonder what these 19th...
View Article31.05.11: Cosmic Distance Record Broken?
GRB 090429B as seen by Swift. (Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler). Last week, a new possible record smasher was announced in the realm of cosmology. It seems that every few months, we get another...
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