EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary ScienceThe premier online source for science news since 1996. A service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.Lavas from Hawaiian volcano contain fingerprint of planetary formation- June 19, 2008 (University of Chicago) Hikers visiting the Kilauea Iki crater in Hawaii today walk along a mostly flat surface of sparsely vegetated basalt. It looks like parking lot asphalt, but in November and December 1959, it emitted the orange glow of newly erupted lava.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/uoc-lfh061708.php GLAST safely in orbit, getting check-ups- June 19, 2008 (NASAGoddard Space Flight Center) A week after launch, NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is safely up-and-running well in orbit approximately 350 miles (565 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/nsfc-gsi061908.php Newly-born twin stars are far from identical- June 18, 2008 (National Science Foundation) Two stars, each with the same mass and in orbit around each other, are twins that one would expect to be identical. So astronomers were surprised when they discovered that twin stars in the Orion Nebula, a well-known stellar nursery 1,500 light years away, were not identical at all. In fact, these stars exhibited significant differences in brightness, surface temperature and possibly even size.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/nsf-nbt061808.php Black holes have simple feeding habits- June 18, 2008 (Chandra X-ray Center) The biggest black holes may feed just like the smallest ones, according to data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based telescopes. This discovery supports the implication of Einstein's relativity theory that black holes of all sizes have similar properties, and will be useful for predicting the properties of a conjectured new class of black holes.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/cxc-bhh061808.php |