Gaia wins the stellar jackpot

© Afrim Constantin –

Thanks to the data collected by the satellite Gaia and all observations of a group of amateur astronomers has been possible to discover Gaia14aae, a new class of binary system of Cataclysmic Variables. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that, from our point of view, is perfectly cut, showing an eclipse every 50 minutes. The

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Breathe the new worlds

© Afrim Constantin –

How planetary systems form and evolve? These questions will be answered by ARIEL, if it is selected from a shortlist of three candidates, which the ESA space mission will send into orbit in about ten years. How planetary systems form and evolve? To receive the answers to these fundamental questions, Italy will give the mission

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New Horizons Mission – Pluto

© Afrim Constantin –

Click on image to make it bigger Credit: Infographic created by Afrim Constantin COPYRIGHT 2015 © spacefan.org

Crust of Mars

© Afrim Constantin –

According to a team headed by Dr Violaine Sautter from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, similar to early Earth’s, Mars had a continental crust. That is the finding of a new paper published in Nature Geoscience. NASA’s Curiosity rover has turned its beam onto some unusually light-colored rocks on Mars. The

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In the veins of the Butterfly Nebula

© Afrim Constantin –

Thanks to the Gemini South telescope in Chile, we have taken unprecedented details of knots and strands of molecular hydrogen in the “wings” of the bipolar planetary nebula NGC 2346, known for some time as Butterfly Nebula. It is a star in a short but highly spectacular phase of its life cycle. A group of

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To Pluto and beyond

© Afrim Constantin –

We have the images of the close encounter with Pluto arriving exactly half a century after the first pictures from Mars, taken by Mariner 4. Half a century to pass close to (or touch) all the planets, plus an assortment of minor bodies: satellites, asteroids and comets. Homo sapiens Planetarius completed exploration “in situ” of

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Cosmic giants against dwarf galaxies

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A recent study reports the results of an observational campaign conducted on over 20,000 galaxies and shows that the rate of star formation as a result of a collision depends on the size of the galaxy compared to that with which it is colliding. The article can be found in the Monthly Notices of the

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A premature black hole

© Afrim Constantin –

A supermassive black hole, called CID-947, has grown much earlier than expected while its galaxy continued to generate stars. And what emerges from a study published in Science led by researchers at ETH Zurich is that black holes and their host galaxies do not always evolve together, a fact that calls into question the current

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Is anyone out there? HDST could tell us

© Afrim Constantin –

A futuristic project for the heir to Hubble and the James Webb: a super-telescope with a mirror 12 meters in diameter to be placed in orbit in the thirties. For now little more than a dream, however, described in detail in a report just published by a group of USA astronomers. Take a group of

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