A new multimillion-rand telescope in the Karoo will offer astronomers an unprecedented view of the stars. The MeerLICHT instrument in Sutherland will be specifically linked to the MeerKAT radio telescope array near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape. Unlike its bigger brother SALT (Southern African Large Telescope), the MeerLICHT is meant …
The search for extraterrestrial life is about to get a big boost with the announcement that a new telescope will be built solely for this purpose. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute plans to build a telescope that will be 100 metres on a side and will consist of …
the first telescope images of the dust rings around distant stars reveal startling new evidence of planets formed beyond the Solar System. This was stated by astronomers at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, usa. Pictures of two distant stars from the Hubble Space Telescope show …
THE first telescope images of dust rings around distant stars reveal powerful new evidence of planets formed beyond the solar system. This was stated by US astronomers at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, USA. Pictures from the Hubble space telescope of two distant stars show …
SCIENTISTS have long been perplexed by a question: how many galaxies are there in the universe? Taking a census of the galaxies is like counting the grains of sand on a beach. But thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, they have now come up with an estimate: 125 billion. Arriving …
OKAY, so it was not as impressive as it was supposed to be. But now that the over-hyped Lenoid meteor shower is a thing of the past, one group of people - the satellite owners - are breathing sighs of relief. As far as meteor showers are concerned, astronomers still …
Our neighbour in the cosmos, the Andromeda Galaxy is home to puzzling concentric rings of cold dust that may one day sparkle with stars, say astronomers. Using the Infrared Space Observatory, Martin Haas of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, and his colleagues captured images of the …
Stars on the Net The biggest cosmic event of the year, the meteor showers was not as impressive as most experts had us believe. A few meteors here, a few there and then it was over. But star gazers with a Net connection can still freak out, provided you hit …
THE Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has never failed to surprise us. A team of us astronomers have recently used it to discover what may be the oldest and farthest galaxies ever seen. This will have a serious impact on the theories on the evolution of the Universe and formation of …
THE complexities of the solar system foxed our scientists yet again. Indeed, the Leonid meteor storm did take place, but almost 16 hours earlier than predicted. And it didn't strike at the rate of 10,000 meteors per hour. The spectacular display of God's own fireworks" that was predicted was nothing …
COME November 17 and sky watchers will get cricks in their necks. But it will be worth it. The Earth will wade through a spectacular rain of meteors left behind by a passing comet. The last time the planet passed through the cosmic debris in 1966, hundreds of thousands of …
The Rubble Space Telescope has revolutionised the study of the Universe. A survey of the early Universe completed recently has revealed some unusual results. It suggests that the giant clusters of galaxies were already formed when the Universe was much younger. Researchers have found 92 cluster candidates and evidence that …
Astronomers have assumed that the strong gravitational force exerted by black holes helps them capture any gaseous cloud that they can pull. When this happens, the region surrounding the hole shines brightly as the gas' gravitational energy is converted into heat. But some black holes are not as bright as …
A PHYSICIST from USA and an astronomer from Germany argue that cosmic rays of exceptional power have reached earth from outermost edges of the Universe. They made this observation after studying five most energetic cosmic rays that came from five extremely distant quasars, objects at the very edge of the …
Twelve billion light-years away, it was the biggest cosmic explosion since the Big Bang, the initial explosion that started it all, say astronomers. Astronomers S George Djorgovski and Srinivas R Kulkarni of the California Institute of Technology in California, USA, reported that the gammaray burst detected in December 14, 1997, …
It is our passage to billions of light-years into space. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey's electronic camera, mounted on a 2.5-metre telescope in New Mexico, USA, captured its first images of stars, galaxies and quasars on the nights of May 9 and 10. Merely one per cent of the data …
Pierre Sikivie, physicist at the University of Florida in Gainsville, USA, says that rings of invisible matter are spreading out from the centre of our Galaxy like ripples on a pond. The last of these passed the Sun about 900 million years ago, and the next is due in 350 …
NEUTRON stars are rapidly rotating stars composed predominantly of closely packed neutrons. They emit rapid, regular pulses of radiation (usually at radio frequencies, and are known as pulsars). Since 1967, when the first pulsar was discovered accidentally, a lot of research has gone into neutron stars. One of the several …
ASTRONOMERS in Hawaii, USA, have discovered a solar system that seems to be forming around the star Epsilon Eridani, about 10 light years away. The astronomers, who were using a British telescope, say that the star, which is similar to the Sun, has a ring of dust around it like …
THE world's highest observatory will be set up at Hanle, Ladakh. It will be remote-controlled from Hoskote near Bangalore via satellite link. The prestigious project is being undertaken by the Bangalore-based Institute of Astro-physics (IIA). Located at an altitude of 4,517 metres above the sea level, compact in design and …
