Astronomy

Something as simple as bumpy space dust generated a great deal of interest and a lot of the recent astronomy articles. Why is this important? Scientists have long known that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. But hydrogen has to bond to form the larger molecules observed in the universe. In the cold of space it takes the right medium to complete the bond. Bumpy molecules provide that medium, so now scientists have verified a theory on how hydrogen forms molecules in space. Bumpy dusty, who would have thought it.

One of Saturn’s moons is called the ?Death Star.? It looks like the Star Wars space station, with a huge crater on one side. In August 2008 it became a subject of many recent astronomy articles when the Cassini spacecraft passed near the moon, Mimas. Some stunning images and a lot of new data resulted. And, of course, many people read all about it. One hope scientists have is that this new data will reveal information about the number of crater creating objects fly through the Saturn system. This can give new insight into how busy our solar system is as far as impact capable objects, as well as reveal the true extent of how other planets, like Saturn, serve as object scrubbers in our solar system.

It’s long been known that dark matter exists in the universe. It contributes to the expansion of the universe, but scientists don’t really know how. In 2008 a number of the recent astronomy articles were dedicated to the search for and analysis of dark matter. SNAP, the SuperNova/Acceleration Probe, was planned to help solve dark matter by examining many distant supernovae. Dark matter makes up about 70% of the matter in the universe, so learning about it is important.

Before our sun was really a star it was a condensing mass of space matter called a protosun. But scientists wondered if this protosun emitted any heat or light or a solar wind enough to effect the formation of life on Earth. Recent astronomy articles answer this question with a resounding yes. Scientists have used new techniques to discover that the protosun did indeed emit ultraviolet and other particles in an early form of the solar wind. These emissions helped form life on Earth even before the sun was a sun.

For any astronomy enthusiast it’s important to keep up on recent astronomy articles.

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