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Famous birthdays for May 10: Bono, Helio Castroneves

Musician Bono turns 60 and race car driver Helio Castroneves turns 45, among the famous birthdays for May 10.




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Why extending lockdown could be catastrophic

Extending the lockdown well beyond mid-May would shave 8-9% off the real GDP. but, the damage being done doesn’t seem to be filtering up to those in charge




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Ramon Castro, Fidel's older brother, dies at 91

A lifelong rancher and farmer, Ramon Castro bore a strong physical resemblance to younger brother Fidel Castro




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Astronaut Jessica Meir's return to Earth has been far from ordinary

As the whole world was affected by the pandemic, "only three of us who were in space at the time weren't," Meir said. "That was really difficult to comprehend."




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SpaceX, Blue Origin land contracts to build NASA's astronaut moon lander

The two companies, plus the space firm Dynetics, will share $967 million from the space agency.




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Astronomers find closest black hole to Earth, hints of more

European astronomers have found the closest black hole to Earth yet, so near that the two stars dancing with it can be seen by the naked eye.




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Coaches warn of ‘disastrous’ consequences over plan to revert to one-ref system

Tune into our new show Fox League Live on Channel 502 Monday to Friday at 6.30pm and on Saturday at 3pm and Sunday at 5pm.




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The method entrepreneurs use to avoid catastrophic failures

Few things in life are as difficult as acknowledging mistakes, in particular those that we have made out of conviction. Choosing an unsuitable profession or...




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The Contribution of Reinsurance Markets to Managing Catastrophe Risk

This report makes use of a unique set of data on premiums and claims provided by global reinsurance companies to examine the contribution that reinsurance has made to enhancing the capacity of the primary insurance market to manage catastrophe risk and to reducing the economic and insurance market disruption that often follows catastrophic events.




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Der Komet Halley: gemeinverständliche astronomische Abhandlung / von Bruno H. Bürgel-Berlin ..

Archives, Room Use Only - QB723.H2 B87 1910




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Astronomers could spot life signs orbiting long-dead stars




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South African, US astronomers use MeerKAT to solve mystery of 'X-Galaxies'




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Astrophysical Observatory scientists are monitoring the mysterious movements of glaciers

In southeastern Greenland, two rivers of ice named Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq flow in spurts and starts toward the coast. They are much like any other […]

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Radio telescopes give astronomers rare glimpse at a young protostar’s formation

The way that massive stars form remains mysterious, in part, because massive stars are rare and tend to spend their youth shrouded by dust and gas and hidden from view.

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Astronomers Find Super-Earth Using Amateur, Off-the-Shelf Technology

The newfound world, GJ1214b, is about 6.5 times as massive as the Earth. Its host star, GJ1214, is a small, red type M star about one-fifth the size of the Sun. GJ1214b orbits its star once every 38 hours at a distance of only 1.3 million miles. Astronomers estimate the planet's temperature to be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Although warm as an oven, it is still cooler than any other known transiting planet because it orbits a very dim star.

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Distant, dying star gives astronomers preview of the fate of our Sun

Chi Cygni pulses once every 408 days. At its smallest diameter of 300 million miles, it becomes mottled with brilliant spots as massive plumes of hot plasma roil its surface. As it expands, Chi Cygni cools and dims, growing to a diameter of 480 million miles—large enough to engulf and cook our solar system out to the asteroid belt.

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Astronomers see supernova from a new angle

"Just like mirrors in a changing room show you a clothing outfit from all sides, interstellar dust clouds act like mirrors to show us different sides of the supernova," Rest explains.

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Technology developed for X-ray astronomy is being adapted to study cancer cells

Eric Silver of SAO is pursuing innovative and interdisciplinary uses of his technique for chemical imaging at the cellular level.

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Can we spot volcanoes on alien worlds? Astronomers say yes

Now that astronomers are finding rocky worlds orbiting distant stars, they're asking the next logical questions: Do any of those worlds have volcanoes? And if so, could we detect them? Work by theorists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggests that the answer to the latter is a qualified "Yes."

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Center for Astrophysics will play major role in mission to “touch” the Sun

When NASA’s Solar Probe Plus launches before the end of the decade, it will carry a suite of cutting-edge scientific instruments. Only one–the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation (SWEAP)–will directly sample the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

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Kepler spacecraft used by Smithsonian astronomers to find other earths

The Kepler spacecraft was launched in March of 2009 to study extrasolar planets. One of its major goals is the detection of terrestrial planets in habitable zones.

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Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist discovers new method to weigh some distant stars

New research by astrophysicist David Kipping has revealed that in some special cases, a star can be weighed directly. Such a star must have a planet orbiting it with a moon orbiting the planet.

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Astronomers find giant, previously unseen structure in our galaxy

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centered in the Milky Way--a finding likened in terms of scale to the discovery of a new continent on Earth. The feature, which spans 50,000 light-years, may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the center of our galaxy.

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Astronomers discover merging star systems that might explode

Today, researchers who found the first hypervelocity stars escaping the Milky Way announced that their search also turned up a dozen double-star systems. Half of those are merging and might explode as supernovae in the astronomically near future.

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Free, online course in physics offered by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

"Physics for the 21st Century," a free, on-line course developed at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics about current research in physics is now available.

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New interactive World Wide Telescope tour chronicles career of Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer John Huchra

To honor Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer John Huchra, who passed away in October 2010, his friends and colleagues at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have created a […]

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Six orbiting planets sets record for Sun-like stars say Kepler, Smithsonian astronmers

Last week, the Kepler team and CfA astronomers announced the discovery of a system of six transiting planets around one Sun-like star. The previous record holder for the number of transiting planets was three.

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Very Large Baseline Array telescope is helping Smithsonian astronomers remap Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies

Recent work has added dozens of new measurements to star-forming regions in the Milky Way. These measurements have changed the map of the Milky Way, indicating our galaxy has four spiral arms, not two, as previously thought.

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Astronomers detect bizarre superfluid in core of neutron star

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered the first direct evidence for a superfluid, a bizarre, friction-free state of matter, at the core of a neutron star.

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Astronomers explore the rich chemistry surrounding an evolved star

Over 170 molecules have been detected in space, from simple diatomic molecules like CO to complex organic molecules with over 70 atoms, such as fullerene. […]

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Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to own and operate ALMA Vertex Prototype Antenna

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has been selected by the National Science Foundation as the recipient of a 12-meter (39-foot) radio antenna designed for submillimeter-wavelength astronomy. The ALMA Vertex Prototype Antenna was one of three antennas built as prototypes for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, a 66-dish radio observatory currently being constructed in Chile.

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Astronomers seek monster black hole gorging on a buffet of stars

According to new research by Nick Stone and Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), upcoming sky surveys might offer astronomers a way to catch a gorging black hole "in the act."

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Astronomers in distant future might still deduce the Big Bang origin of the Universe

Astronomers of the future won't have to take the Big Bang on faith. With careful measurements and clever analysis, they can find the subtle evidence outlining the history of the universe.

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Astronomers unveil the most complete 3-D map of the local universe

Today, Wednesday, May 25, astronomers unveiled the most complete 3-D map of the local universe (out to a distance of 380 million light-years) ever created. Taking more than 10 years to complete, the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) also is notable for extending closer to the Galactic plane than previous surveys – a region that’s generally obscured by dust.

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Astronomers find that galaxies are either asleep or awake

Astronomers have probed into the distant universe and discovered that galaxies display one of two distinct behaviors: they are either awake or asleep, actively forming stars or are not forming any new stars at all.

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Astronomers find two white-dwarf stars locked in death spiral

"I nearly fell out of my chair at the telescope when I saw one star change its speed by a staggering 750 miles per second in just a few minutes," said Smithsonian astronomer Warren Brown, lead author of the paper reporting the find.

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Stellar eclipse gives glimpse of exoplanet: New data reveals a ‘super-Earth’ next door, astronomically speaking

The far-out planet, named 55 Cancri e, is twice as big as Earth and nearly nine times more massive. It is most likely composed of rocky material, similar to Earth, supplemented with light elements such as water and hydrogen gas. Scientists estimate the planet’s surface is much hotter than ours: close to 2,700 degrees Celsius.

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Swift satellite alerts astronomers to cosmic accident in constellation Draco

Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.

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Center for Astrophysics project gets first look through new ALMA telescope

Humanity's most complex ground-based astronomy observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has officially opened for astronomers at its 16,500-foot high desert plateau in northern Chile.

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  • Space
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  • astrophysics
  • Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
  • Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

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Crab pulsar dazzles astronomers with its gamma-ray beams

The same object that dazzled skygazers in 1054 C.E. continues to dazzle astronomers today by pumping out radiation at higher energies than anyone expected.

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Smithsonian astronomers and colleagues to photograph black hole at our galaxy’s heart

Smithsonian astronomers have joined their colleagues from other observatories in a daring new venture: to photograph the giant black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.

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Astronomers witness black hole outburst in Spiral Galaxy M83

An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes.

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Close encounters between planetary systems of Kepler-36 stun astrophysicists

Imagine a gas giant planet spanning three times more sky than the Moon looming over the molten landscape of a lava world. This alien vista exists in the newly discovered two-planet system of Kepler-36.

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Astronomers release highest-resolution images ever of the Sun’s corona

Today, astronomers are releasing the highest-resolution images ever taken of the Sun's corona, or million-degree outer atmosphere, in an extreme-ultraviolet wavelength of light.

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Astronomers discover X-rays from a young supernova remnant

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have detected X-rays emitted by the debris from the explosion of supernova 1957D.

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Largest ever 3D map of the sky released by astronomers

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) has released the largest three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes ever created.

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