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Hot Topic
Deep Space
Cosmic Evolution
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Our Cosmic Self-Esteem
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
01/10/05 |
| Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees describes how for the first time, humans as a species may start to change in observable ways within single lifetimes and under some loose control of our own influence. If this future plays out, the future itself becomes more difficult to forecast. |
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Before the Beginning
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
01/05/05 |
| Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees discusses the limits to our knowledge of what might have preceded the big bang. Everyone asks the question: what was 'there' the instant before everything came to be?, but the question may not go as deep as the answers it spawns. |
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Not So Nebulous
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
01/04/05 |
| For the first time, a team of astronomers based in Germany has detected the presence of magnetic fields in the central stars of four planetary nebulae. Planetary nebulae are expanding gas shells that remain after Sun-like stars eject their outer layers at the end of their lifetimes. |
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Our Cosmic Patch
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
01/03/05 |
| Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees talks to Astrobiology Magazine about the conditions for life. How unique is our world? Is the universe itself just the byproduct of many failed, sterile or stillborn universes that might have preceded it? |
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Venus: Sizing Up the Solar System
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
12/28/04 |
| Counting down the top ten astrobiology stories for 2004 highlights the accomplishments of those exploring Mars, Saturn, comets, and planets beyond Pluto. Number nine in this countdown was the rarest of all eclipses, the once-per-century eclipse of the Sun by Venus. |
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Antimatter over Antarctica?
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
12/21/04 |
| An international team of researchers will fly a balloon and sensitive detectors over the South Pole. They won't be searching for anything known in our universe of matter. They will seek out remnants of antimatter. |
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Decoding Dusty Disks
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
12/13/04 |
| Looking at sun-like stars known to harbor planets, the Spitzer Space Telescope has found evidence of dusty rings similar to the Kuiper Belt in our own solar system. Beautiful new images from Hubble show how such systems might appear, looking from the outside in. |
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Bring in the Clouds
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
12/10/04 |
| The Tarantula Nebula is a stunning example of turbulent mixing--an energetic display of dust and voids that gives this region of the southern sky its spider-like legs. These filaments span nearly its entire thousand light-year width. |
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The Search for Ourselves in the Cosmos
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
12/01/04 |
| Our senses alone offer only a narrow window on the physical universe, as Neil deGrasse Tyson writes in his four-part NOVA/PBS series, "Origins". The tour de force looks at how we measure our place in the universe based on the part of the universe we sense around us. |
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Dust to Rocky Planets
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
11/30/04 |
| New observations reveal how pristine, primordial dust aggregates to form rocky planets around other stars. One question astronomers would like to answer is how common such Earth-like planets are and whether solar system formation proceeds routinely around other stars. |
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