ScienceDaily: Space & Time News

Rogue planets are elusive cosmic objects that have masses comparable to those of the planets in our Solar System but do not orbit a star, instead roaming freely on their own. Not many were known until now, but a team of astronomers, using data from several European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes and other facilities, have just discovered at least 70 new rogue planets in our galaxy. This is the largest group of rogue planets ever discovered, an important step towards understanding the origins and features of these mysterious galactic nomads.

Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth. The emission is powered by a central black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A, about 12 million light years away. When viewed from Earth, the eruption from Centaurus A now extends eight degrees across the sky -- the length of 16 full Moons laid side by side.

Meteorites are remnants of the building blocks that formed Earth and the other planets orbiting our Sun. Recent analysis of their isotopic makeup led settles a longstanding debate about the geochemical evolution of our Solar System and our home planet.

Cosmochemists now present the most comprehensive comparison to date of the isotopic composition of Earth, Mars and pristine building material from the inner and outer Solar System.

The growing interest in deep-space exploration has sparked the need for powerful long-lived rocket systems to drive spacecraft through the cosmos. Scientists have developed a tiny version of a Hall thruster propulsion system that increases the lifetime of the rocket and produces high power.

Researchers have developed a computer simulation of asteroid collisions that initially sought to replicate model asteroid strikes performed in a laboratory. After verifying the accuracy of the simulation, he believes it could be used to predict the result of future asteroid impacts or to learn more about past impacts by studying their craters. The simulation was built using the space-time conservation element and solution element method to model shock waves and other acoustic problems.