Tag Archives: distant galaxy

Seeing Stars, Finding Nukes: Radio Telescopes Can Spot Clandestine Nuclear Tests

SAN FRANCISCO — In the search for rogue nukes, researchers have discovered an unlikely tool: astronomical radio telescopes.

Ohio State University researchers previously demonstrated another unlikely tool, when they showed that South Korean GPS stations detected telltale atmospheric disturbances from North Korea’s 2009 nuclear test.

Both techniques were born out of the discovery that underground nuclear explosions leave their mark—on the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere. (more…)

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World’s Most Powerful Digital Camera Begins Hunt for Dark Energy

Eight billion years ago, rays of light from distant galaxies began their long journey to Earth. That ancient starlight has now found its way to a mountaintop in Chile, where the newly constructed Dark Energy Camera, the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created, has captured and recorded it for the first time.

That light may hold within it the answer to one of the biggest mysteries in physics: Why the expansion of the universe is speeding up. (more…)

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Spitzer Captures Infrared Rays From a Sunflower

The various spiral arm segments of the Sunflower galaxy, also known as Messier 63, show up vividly in this image taken in infrared light by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Infrared light is sensitive to the dust lanes in spiral galaxies, which appear dark in visible-light images. Spitzer’s view reveals complex structures that trace the galaxy’s spiral arm pattern.

Messier 63 lies 37 million-light years away — not far from the well-known Whirlpool galaxy and the associated Messier 51 group of galaxies. (more…)

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