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Hot Topic
Deep Space
Cosmic Evolution
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Galactic Construction Boom
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/25/04 |
| Imagine clusters that smash together thousands of galaxies and trillions of stars. Its energy would seem second only to the Big Bang itself. While inconceivable from the comfort of our planet, just such an event was witnessed near the constellation, Hydra, like two heads of that giant monster coming together. |
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High Carb Heaven
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/20/04 |
| From 26,000 light-years-- near the center of our galaxy-- comes a radio signal that can be interpreted as a cloud of sugar molecules, one key component of what might have assisted the development of life if transported on primordial comets. |
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Mira Behind the Molecules
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/16/04 |
| Among the stellar class known as red giants, Mira stars provide seventy-five percent of our galaxy's molecules including water vapor. These red giants pulsate as fast as every few months to years with their brightness varying by ten times during a cycle. |
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Sauron's Eye
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/09/04 |
| The Cat's Eye Nebula was the first planetary nebula ever to be discovered but its complex gas layers give knots and jets like the Lord of the Ring's famous floating eye of Sauron. |
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Giving Up the Galactic Ghost
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
09/07/04 |
| While a terrestrial view of a galaxy might disguise the turbulent, changing mergers that fuel their formation, a famous cluster called Stephan's Quintet shows that seemingly immutable stars are always in flux. |
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Choices in The Quantum Universe
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/31/04 |
| Asking questions about the quantum universe is a fool's game: one cannot get a single answer, only a probability. A committee of particle physicists bounced this concept around a table to pose the top nine questions, and a probable path to answering them. |
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Cassiopeia's Cool Jets
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/23/04 |
| The Chandra X-ray telescope probes depths of exploded stars not otherwise accessible. When pointed towards the supernova Cassiopiea A, a relatively cool history highlights a lack of iron and a jet that may help explain its inner neutron star. |
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Celestial Geode
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/17/04 |
| In the latest Hubble images, a remarkable young star has yielded the visual equivalent of a celestial geode. Like the sparkling interior of a crystalline sphere, a strong stellar wind is inflating this super-bubble. |
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Plurality of Worlds
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/10/04 |
| Did the same Greek philosophers who declared the first truce for Olympic competition have the foresight to imagine a universe not just where many countries could coexist, but also a universe occupied by many such habitable worlds? |
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Hubble in Trouble
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| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
08/08/04 |
| The spectrometer or color detector on Hubble Space Telescope seems to have a malfunction, which jeopardizes about a third of science observations. One possible casualty, if engineers cannot recover the instrument, is detection of atmospheres around newly discovered planets outside our solar system. |
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