Astronomy

From among the millions of stars that exist in the Universe, until now man has been able to identify five planets that, although alien to our Solar System, have the appropriate characteristics to host life such as the c

Every week, telescopes around the world detect new exoplanets orbiting stars other than the Sun. But the last one found by the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT), 3.8 meters in diameter and located in Hawaii, is out of the usual, since being very swollen "defies conventional models of planetary evolution".

An evocative new image obtained by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) shows a dark cloud of cool cosmic dust, called Lupus 3, in which new stars are forming. To his right, with a cluster of stars that have already emerged from their dusty stellar nursery, it shines brilliantly. The new image was obtained with the MPG / ESO 2.2-meter telescope, installed at the La Silla Observatory, in Chile.

This is the first of the year in the northern hemisphere. They are observed from January 1 to 6, with a maximum on day 3. The number of visible meteors can exceed 100 per hour, as reported by NASA. In 2013, the average speed of entry of meteors into the atmosphere was estimated to be about 41 km / s.

In 2012, the Belarusian Vitali Nevski and the Russian Artyom Novichonok discovered a comet grazing the Sun called C / 2012 S1, which is heading toward the Sun from somewhere between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. According to astronomers' forecasts, at the end of November 2013 it will pass very close to our star and will reach a brightness of magnitude 11.6, equivalent to that of the full Moon.

The neighboring Andromeda galaxy has a black hole that sometimes emits more luminosity than would be expected for its mass. Why? An international team of scientists is in charge of solving this astronomical mystery, including researchers from the Institute of Space Sciences of the CSIC.

NASA to the exploration of the red planet

Today 12/12/12, a giant and irregular peanut-shaped asteroid will approach the Earth and will be closely observed by astronomers from all over the world. It is called Tutatis, it measures 4.46 kilometers long and 2.4 kilometers wide, and although it does not represent any danger, its passage 6.9 million kilometers away represents an opportunity for astronomers to gather new information about the origins. Of the solar system.