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ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Catalog of Nearly 1.7 Billion Stars

Gaia’s all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars. Brighter regions indicate denser concentrations of especially bright stars, while darker regions correspond to patches of the sky where fewer bright stars are observed. The color representation is obtained by combining the total amount of light with the amount of blue and red light recorded by Gaia in each patch of the sky. The bright horizontal structure that dominates the image is the Galactic plane, the flattened disc that hosts most of the stars in our home Galaxy. In the middle of the image, the Galactic center appears vivid and teeming with stars. Darker regions across the Galactic plane correspond to foreground clouds of interstellar gas and dust, which absorb the light of stars located further away, behind the clouds. Many of these conceal stellar nurseries where new generations of stars are being born. Sprinkled across the image are also many globular and open clusters -- groupings of stars held together by their mutual gravity, as well as entire galaxies beyond our own. The two bright objects in the lower right of the image are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. In small areas of the image where no color information was available -- to the lower left of the Galactic center, to the upper left of the Small Magellanic Cloud, and in the top portion of the map -- an equivalent grayscale value was assigned. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC.
Apr 26, 2018 by News Staff

ESA’s Gaia mission has released the largest catalogue ever of Milky Way stars. It includes the positions on the sky for approximately 1.7 billion stars, as well as a measure of their overall brightness at optical wavelengths. Preliminary analysis of this phenomenal data reveals fine details about the make-up of the Milky Way’s stellar population and about how stars move, essential information for investigating the formation and evolution of our...

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This artist’s impression of SPT2349-56 shows a group of interacting and merging galaxies in the early Universe. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Discover Two Massive Protoclusters of Young Galaxies in Early Universe

Apr 26, 2018 by News Staff

Peering deep into space — an astounding 90% of the way across the observable Universe — two groups of astronomers led by University of Edinburgh’s...

Indigenous Bajau People Evolved Larger Spleens for Free-Diving

Apr 25, 2018 by News Staff

The indigenous Bajau people of Southeast Asia spend their whole lives at sea, working 8-hr diving shifts with traditional equipment and short breaks to...

Researchers Find New DNA Structure in Living Human Cells

Apr 24, 2018 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Universities of New South Wales and Sydney has identified a new DNA structure...

Astronomers Detect Hydrogen Sulfide in Uranus’ Upper Atmosphere

Apr 24, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea have detected hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives rotten eggs their distinctive odor,...

Major worker of Colobopsis explodens with characteristically enlarged head. Image credit: Heinz Wiesbauer.

New Species of ‘Exploding Ant’ Discovered: Colobopsis explodens

Apr 23, 2018 by News Staff

Entomologists are claiming they have discovered a new species of so-called ‘exploding ant’ living in the remote rainforests of Borneo, Thailand, and...

Spectacular Lagoon Nebula Glows in Hubble’s 28th Birthday Photos

Apr 20, 2018 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit by a space shuttle on April 24, 1990. It was the first space telescope of its kind, and has...

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Heads for Final Science Orbit after Successful Launch

Apr 19, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was delivered to space Wednesday, April 18, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from...

The lesser superb bird-of-paradise (Lophorina minor). Image credit: William Matthew Hart.

Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise Confirmed as New Species

Apr 18, 2018 by News Staff

One of New Guinea’s dancing birds-of-paradise — the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise (Lophorina niedda) — was finally confirmed to be an...

If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to human era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today? Image credit: Michael Osadciw, University of Rochester.

Silurian Hypothesis: Were There Industrial Civilizations on Earth before Humans?

Apr 17, 2018 by News Staff

How do we really know there weren’t previous civilizations on our planet that rose and fell long before humans appeared? That’s the question posed...

Current guidelines say that, if necessary, paracetamol should be used at the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible time; ibuprofen should be avoided during pregnancy. Image credit: Steve Buissinne.

Painkillers in Pregnancy May Harm Baby’s Future Fertility: Study

Apr 17, 2018 by News Staff

According to a new study, published in the April edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, taking painkillers such as paracetamol (acetaminophen)...

Tratayenia rosalesi crosses a stream in what is now Patagonia, Argentina roughly 85 million years ago. Image credit: Andrew McAfee, Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

New Carnivorous Dinosaur Unveiled: Tratayenia rosalesi

Apr 16, 2018 by News Staff

A partial skeleton of a megaraptorid dinosaur unearthed over a decade ago in northwestern Patagonia, Argentina, has been recognized as belonging to a new...

Ecological restoration of moths in the Cretaceous Burmese amber forest. Image credit: Dinghua Yang.

Fossil Study Sheds Light on Mesozoic Butterfly and Moth Wing Colors

Apr 13, 2018 by News Staff

New research by a team of scientists from the University of Exeter and elsewhere offers an illuminating insight into iridescent colors found on the earliest...

A cold and windy spring night on the vast landscape of the Devon Ice Cap where two subglacial lakes are lurking 1,805 to 2,460 feet (550-750 m) below the surface. Image credit: Anja Rutishauser.

Geophysicists Discover Two Salty Subglacial Lakes in Canadian Arctic

Apr 12, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of geophysicists has discovered two hypersaline lakes beneath the Devon Ice Cap, one of the largest ice caps in the Canadian Arctic. A...

Giant ichthyosaurs Shonisaurus. Image credit: Nobumichi Tamura.

Giant Triassic Ichthyosaur is One of Biggest Animals Ever

Apr 11, 2018 by News Staff

According to a study released this week in the journal PLoS ONE, an isolated bone from the lower jaw of a prehistoric marine reptile found in Somerset,...

A Homo heidelbergensis, a Neanderthal and a Cro-Magnon. Image credit: SINC / José Antonio Peñas.

Mobile Eyebrows Played Important Role in Human Survival, Research Suggests

Apr 10, 2018 by News Staff

New research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution contributes to a long-running debate about why archaic hominins had gigantic brow...

Thin section of a Xenorhabdus nematophila cell, showing outer membrane blebs on the surface of the cell and in the surrounding area. Image credit: Mattia2 / Kenyon College.

Odilorhabdins: Researchers Discover New Class of Antibiotics

Apr 9, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists led by the University of Illinois, Chicago, has discovered a new class of naturally produced, ribosome-targeting antibacterial...

Astronomers Find Isolated Neutron Star in Small Magellanic Cloud

Apr 6, 2018 by News Staff

New images from the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile have revealed a ring-shaped structure in the young supernova remnant 1E 0102.2-7219...

This image shows the nearby globular cluster NGC 6397, located at a distance of 7,800 light-years in the southern constellation Ara. Image credit: NASA / ESA / T. Brown & S. Casertano, STScI / J. Anderson, STScI.

Astronomers Make First Precise Distance Measurement to Ancient Globular Cluster

Apr 5, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have for the first time precisely measured the distance to one of the oldest objects in the Universe...

10,000 Stellar-Mass Black Holes Exist in Milky Way’s Central Region, Astronomers Say

Apr 5, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered what they believe are 12 stellar-mass black holes gathered around Sagittarius A*,...

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