Find out what astronomers have been learning when they look deep into the core of giant galaxies. In nearly every one, they are turning up supermassive black holes that are tearing space to shreds, blasting away at their environments, and raging against the relentless force of gravity that created them in the first place.

A Super Earth is a planet smaller than Neptune, but larger than Earth. There are no Super Earths in our solar system. But they may be the most common type of planet in our galaxy, according to data from the Kepler Space Telescope. Some have rock or ice cores wrapped in hydrogen and helium gas. Others are solid rock covered in water or ice, or flowing lava.

The planet HD189733b may become a Super Earth. This gas giant orbits its parent star at 1/30th the distance between Earth and the Sun. A flare from the star blasted its atmosphere, sending a plume of gas flying into space at a rate of 1000 tons per second.

GJ 1214b, orbiting a star 40 light years away, has a mass 6 times that of Earth. It is surrounded by an atmosphere of steam or thick haze.

HD 85512b is 3.6 times the mass of Earth. It orbits a sun-like star and lies at the edge of the habitable zone. Liquid water, and perhaps even life, could exist on its surface. Gliese 667 is a triple star system. The fainter of the three, 667C, has been found to host three Super Earths, all within the Continue reading Super Earths: 10 Major Discoveries →

Our newest Cosmic Journeys episode. Explores the challenges of interstellar flight and the technological possibilities that may one day send us on a long voyage out into the galaxy. The video asks what imperatives will define the mission when it launches and finally arrives… exploration and science, or survival.

Cosmic Journeys explores the challenges of interstellar flight and the technological possibilities that may one day send us on a long voyage out into the galaxy. What imperatives will define the mission when it launches and finally arrives: exploration and science, or a struggle for survival?

From ESO-Cast. A new image from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, reveals extraordinarily fine detail that has never been seen before in the planet-forming disc around a young star. These are the first observations that have used ALMA in its near-final configuration and the sharpest pictures ever made at submillimetre wavelengths. The new results are an enormous step forward in the observation of how protoplanetary discs develop and how planets form.

For ALMA’s first observations in its new and most powerful mode, researchers pointed the antennas at HL Tauri — a young star, about 450 light-years away, which is surrounded by a dusty disc. The resulting image exceeds all expectations and reveals unexpectedly fine detail in the disc of material left over from star birth. It shows a series of concentric bright rings, separated by gaps.

Our Sun is located 24-26,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way. It circles the galaxy every 225-250,000 years, at a speed of 220 kilometers per second. The sun is a medium size star, a Yellow Dwarf, G type main sequence. It’s about one million times the size of planet Earth.

Core temperature:15,000,000 °C. Surface temperature: 5,500 °C.

The sun emits a steady stream of charged particles, the solar wind, at 450 km per second. It increases in strength during active periods, every 11 years or so. Active periods are marked by an increase in sunspots. Sunspots are Earth-sized regions where intense magnetic fields prevent hot gas from reaching the surface, driving temperatures down to around 4,000°C. They often correspond to active regions.

Where magnetic activity drives the formation of coronal loops, or prominences. Solar flares. And Solar tsunamis, technically “fast-mode magnetohydrodynamical waves.” In February 2009, the Stereo spacecraft detected one that rose to 100,000 km high, and raced outward at 250 kilometers per second. It was associated with an eruption of gas and magnetic fields called a coronal mass ejection.

A CME can blast a billion tons of matter out at 10 to 12 million kilometers per hour. Continue reading Solar Storms: 10 Hottest Facts →

From HubbleCast. The Hubble Space Telescope has returned to one of its most famous landmarks: the Eagle Nebula, also known as the Pillars of Creation. The revolutionary space telescope has delivered a new visible-light image as well as a revealing infrared image. These two images show the Eagle Nebula in more detail than ever before.

A gem from NASA Astrophysics. Eta Carinae is a binary system containing the most luminous and massive star within 10,000 light-years. A long-term study combined data from NASA satellites, ground-based observing campaigns and theoretical modeling to produce the most comprehensive picture of Eta Carinae to date. New findings include Hubble Space Telescope images that show decade-old shells of ionized gas racing away from the largest star at a million miles an hour, and new 3-D models that reveal never-before-seen features of the stars’ interactions.

Located about 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina, Eta Carinae is actually two massive stars whose eccentric orbits bring them close every 5.5 years. Both produce powerful stellar winds, which enshroud the stars and stymy efforts to directly measure their properties. Astronomers have established that the brighter, cooler primary star has about 90 times the mass of the sun and outshines it by 5 million times. Its smaller, hotter companion weighs in at about 30 solar masses and emits a million times the sun’s light.

At closest approach, or periastron, the stars are 225 million kilometers apart, or about the average distance between Mars and the sun. Astronomers observe dramatic changes in the system during Continue reading Superstar Duet in Eta Carinae →

In landmark observations, the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile has given astronomers the best ever three-dimensional view of the deep Universe. After staring at the Hubble Deep Field South region for a total of 27 hours the new observations reveal the distances, motions and other properties of far more galaxies than ever before in this tiny piece of the sky. The new observations are allowing astronomers to go beyond the Hubble Deep Field and reveal a host of previously unseen objects.

Watch the full 50-minute program early on… http://www.vessel.com/SpaceRip… and get a FREE one-year subscription if you visit by tomorrow. The completed program “Age of Hubble” will appear in segments on Vessel over the next few days.