Team Aims To Find ‘Earth 2.0’
Are there other Earth-like planets? Is there extraterrestrial life? In the quest to find planets that orbit stars other than the sun, “Earth 2.0” is the Holy Grail. Earth 2.0 is a planet similar enough to Earth to enable the existence of life as we know it. It would be the right temperature for liquid water, and it would orbit a star with a steady supply of light. Ideally, it would be close enough that we could imagine going there or at least sending a probe to explore it.
Ancient Dwarf Galaxy Reconstructed with MilkyWay@home Volunteer Computer
Astrophysicists for the first time have calculated the original mass and size of a dwarf galaxy that was shredded in a collision with the Milky Way billions of years ago.
Need for Larger Space Telescope Inspires Lightweight Flexible Holographic Lens
Inspired by a concept for discovering exoplanets with a giant space telescope, a team of researchers is developing holographic lenses that render visible and infrared starlight into either a focused image or a spectrum.
Evidence of Broadside Collision With Dwarf Galaxy Discovered in Milky Way
Astrophysicists announced today that announced that the merger of a dwarf galaxy and the Milky Way produced a series of telltale shell-like formations of stars in the vicinity of the Virgo constellation, the first such “shell structures” to be found in the Milky Way.
The Corrugated Galaxy—Milky Way May Be Much Larger Than Previously Estimated
The Milky Way galaxy is at least 50 percent larger than is commonly estimated, according to new findings that reveal that the galactic disk is contoured into several concentric ripples.
Rensselaer Professor Shares 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
Troy, N.Y. – As a founding member of the Supernova Cosmology Project, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Heidi Newberg will share the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics with members of two competing teams that discovered Dark Energy.
Modern Magellans: New NSF Grant at Rensselaer Uses the Power of the Masses to Map Dark Matter in the Galaxy
A simulation developed with MilkyWay@Home shows the formation of several stellar streams (Sagittarius, Orphan, and GD-1) around the Milky Way. The animation represents four billion years in the Milky Way, ending at the present day.