ESA Science & Technology - Science Results
Science Results
Science Results
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have shown for the first time that bursts of star formation have a major impact far beyond the boundaries of their host galaxy.
Published: 25 April 2013
Herschel has yielded proof that almost all the water in Jupiter's stratosphere was delivered by comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which impacted the planet in 1994. The new Herschel map shows more water in Jupiter's southern hemisphere, where the impacts occurred, than in the north.
Published: 23 April 2013
ESA's Herschel space observatory has discovered an extremely distant galaxy making stars more than 2000 times faster than our own Milky Way. Seen at a time when the Universe was less than a billion years old, its mere existence challenges our theories of galaxy evolution.
Published: 17 April 2013
A new study has revealed that bursty bulk flows - fast streams of plasma launched towards Earth during magnetic substorms - are more important than previously thought and can carry one third of the total energy that brightens aurorae.
Published: 10 April 2013
ESA's Herschel space observatory has provided the first images of a dust belt - produced by colliding comets or asteroids - orbiting a subgiant star known to host a planetary system.
Published: 9 April 2013
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has broken the record in the quest to find the furthest supernova of the type used to measure cosmic distances. This supernova exploded more than 10 billion years ago (redshift 1.914), at a time the Universe was in its early formative years and stars were being born at a rapid rate.
Published: 4 April 2013
Cosmologists have used data from Planck to reveal the distribution of dark matter across 13 billion years of cosmic history, as seen projected on the sky. This image was created by analysing the gravitational lensing effect imprinted by cosmic structure on the Cosmic Microwave Background.
Published: 2 April 2013
Planck's first all-sky image of the Cosmic Microwave Background is the most precise picture of the early Universe so far. Whilst the data agree well with the standard model of cosmology, the great quality of this image highlights significant anomalies challenging the foundations of our current understanding of the Universe.
Published: 21 March 2013
For the first time, astronomers have detected far-infrared emission from jets in a black-hole binary system. Since this emission arises from the base of the jets, the observations are a crucial addition to the understanding of black-hole jets.
Published: 12 March 2013
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most powerful available to astronomers, but sometimes it too needs a helping hand. This comes in the form of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which makes galaxy clusters act as natural lenses, amplifying the light coming from very distant galaxies.
Published: 5 March 2013
A new study of X-ray emitting binary systems of massive stars, using data from ESA's INTEGRAL space observatory, has made it possible to reconstruct the locations of the Milky Way's spiral arms many millions of years ago.
Published: 4 March 2013
A rapidly rotating supermassive black hole has been found in the heart of a spiral galaxy by ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's NuSTAR space observatories, opening a new window into how galaxies grow.
Published: 27 February 2013
ESA's Herschel space observatory has detected a cool layer in the atmosphere of Alpha Centauri A, the first time this has been seen in a star beyond our own Sun.
Published: 20 February 2013
During an unusually strong blast of solar wind arriving at Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft detected particle acceleration to ultra-high energies, similar to what takes place around supernova explosions.
Published: 18 February 2013
The possible effects of supermassive black holes on star formation in their host galaxies pose a tricky puzzle. Galaxy surveys from Herschel are being used to try to understand this complex interaction.
Published: 13 February 2013
The Hubble Space Telescope has produced a time-lapse movie of a mysterious protostar that behaves like a flashing light.
Published: 7 February 2013
ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory has completed the most detailed study ever of the fierce wind from a giant star, showing for the first time that it is not a uniform breeze but is fragmented into hundreds of thousands of pieces.
Published: 5 February 2013
Astronomers using Herschel have found heavy molecular hydrogen in the protoplanetary disc around nearby star TW Hydrae. The observations enabled an estimate of the gaseous disc's mass, which is equivalent to 50 Jupiters.
Published: 30 January 2013
Measurements obtained with ESA's Venus Express spacecraft have shed new light on the interaction between the solar wind and the second planet from the Sun.
Published: 29 January 2013
Monitoring a pulsar with XMM-Newton, astronomers discovered X-ray variations that mimic in reverse similar changes seen in radio waves. This switching behaviour, which occurs within only a few seconds, challenges the current understanding of pulsars.
Published: 24 January 2013
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