Hasta La Gadget!

The Herschel space telescope operated by the European Space Agency has captured an image of a dying star. The interesting part about the image is that the astronomers believe it offers a glimpse at what our sun will look like billions of years from now when it dies. The star is called Kappa Coronae Borealis.

The star is larger than our sun at about 1.5 solar masses. Scientists say that the star recently entered its subgiant phase. The subgiant phase is the point when a star begins to grow in size and eventually engulfs nearby planets and asteroids. Astronomers say being able to get a photograph of a dying star complete with a debris disk and one or more planets is very rare.

Astronomers also note that stars similar in size to our sun typically end their life as a red giant before either exploding into a supernova or cooling to become a white or brown dwarf star. Kappa Coronae Borealis will continue to burn for hundreds of thousands of years to come according to the astronomers. The star system is surrounded by a dusty debris field, which makes observing the star directly virtually impossible.

The astronomers were able to peer through the dense debris filled and measured the stars far-infrared wavelengths. The study allowed the astronomers to catalog the debris field and identify properties of the star. The star itself is interesting enough, but scientists say that they are also extremely interested in identifying a mysterious third body in the star system. The scientists believe that that third body could be a brown dwarf star or a gas giant exoplanet.

[via Science Recorder]

Herschel Space Observatory discovers a star offering a glimpse at our sun’s future is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The universe is billions of years old, but new research suggests that it’s a bit older than we all originally thought. According to the European Space Agency, who looked at the findings by its Planck space probe, the universe is actually around 80 million years older than previously expected, making it just over 13.8 billion years old now.

The Planck space probe’s primary purpose is to scan the “cosmic microwave background” radiation spreading throughout the sky, which is leftover heat from the earliest moments of the beginning of the universe. Looking at data from the split-second after the Big Bang happened, scientists and astronomers have concluded that the universe is just ever so slightly older by around 80 million years.

The new findings mention a key theory called inflation, which states that the universe exploded from subatomic size to the massive size that it is now in just a fraction of a second. The Big Bang theory says that the universe as we know it today started out smaller than an atom, but exploded and expanded rapidly at a pace that was much faster than the speed of light.

The space probe studied the afterglow of the Big Bang and has recalculated the age of the universe, which now stands at 13.81 billion years old. The Planck space telescope was launched in 2009 at a cost of $900 million. It has spent 15 months so far mapping the sky and studying how our universe began. The telescope will stay in operation until later this year when it eventually runs out of cooling fluid.

[via Fox News/AP]

Universe is 80 million years older than previously thought is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’re not sure how George Smiley would feel at the news, but we’re certainly pleased to see that Europe and Russia are teaming up to revive the moribund ExoMars missions. The ESA has signed a deal with Roscosmos, its Soviet counterpart, that’ll see the pair launch an orbiter to the Red Planet in 2016, followed by a rover mission two years later. Unsurprisingly, Russia will be chipping in the rockets, leaving Europe with the job of building the hardware that’ll go on it. Now all the pair need to do is argue about how best to usurp Curiosity as the mayor of the Gale Crater.

Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt

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Via: Space.com

Source: European Space Agency

NASA and the ESA have teamed up to measure how fast a black hole, that weighs 2 million times more than our sun, spins—and the result’s mind boggling. More »

If you’re a talented college student hoping to create the next Halo or Call of Duty, you could have a chance to show your chops at this year’s E3. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the group behind the annual video game conference, has just announced the E3 College Game Competition, where you and your school could be one of five finalists to have a spotlight on the show floor. Around 400 higher education institutions — primarily those that offer video game courses — can each submit one game to represent their school in the competition. Applicants can begin submitting the story and assets of a playable game starting March 15th, with a final deadline of April 19th. The finalists will be contacted on May 10th and the winner will be announced at the show itself. It’s a rare opportunity to rub shoulders with video game VIPs, so we suggest aspiring creators convince their universities to get on board and contact the ESA for all the challenge’s rules and requirements.

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Source: E3, Entertainment Software Association