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Astronomers Discover a River of Stars Streaming Across the Northern Sky
03/15/2006

Astronomers Discover a River of Stars Streaming Across the Northern Sky

Robert Tindol
Astronomers have discovered a narrow stream of stars extending at least 45 degrees across the northern sky. The stream is about 76,000 light-years distant from Earth and forms a giant arc over the disk of the Milky Way galaxy.
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Andromeda's Stellar Halo Shows Galaxy's Origin to Be Similar to That of Milky Way
02/27/2006

Andromeda's Stellar Halo Shows Galaxy's Origin to Be Similar to That of Milky Way

Robert Tindol
For the last decade, astronomers have thought that the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest galactic neighbor, was rather different from the Milky Way. But a group of researchers have determined that the two galaxies are probably quite similar in the way they evolved, at least over their first several billion years.
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LIGO Kicks into High Gear for Gravitational-Wave Search with 18-Month Observation Run
02/21/2006

LIGO Kicks into High Gear for Gravitational-Wave Search with 18-Month Observation Run

Robert Tindol

The quest to detect and study gravitational waves with the NSF-funded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is now in the fourth month of its first sustained science run since achieving its promised design sensitivity, project personnel announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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Astrophysical Device Will Sniff Out Terrorism
01/18/2006

Astrophysical Device Will Sniff Out Terrorism

Astrophysicists spend most of their time looking for objects in the sky, but 9/11 changed Ryan McLean's orientation.
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Quasar Study Provides Insights into Composition of the Stars That Ended the "Dark Ages"
01/11/2006

Quasar Study Provides Insights into Composition of the Stars That Ended the "Dark Ages"

Robert Tindol

A team of astronomers has uncovered new evidence about the stars whose formation ended the cosmic "Dark Ages" a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

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Kuiper Belt Moons Are Starting to Seem Typical
01/10/2006

Kuiper Belt Moons Are Starting to Seem Typical

Robert Tindol

In the not-too-distant past, the planet Pluto was thought to be an odd bird in the outer reaches of the solar system because it has a moon, Charon, that was formed much like Earth's own moon was formed. But Pluto is getting a lot of company these days. Of the four largest objects in the Kuiper belt, three have one or more moons.

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Snowflake Physicist's Photographs to Be Featured on 2006 Postage Stamps
12/22/2005

Snowflake Physicist's Photographs to Be Featured on 2006 Postage Stamps

Robert Tindol
Postage rates may keep going up, but when it comes to natural beauty and scientific wonder, one particular issue of stamps is going to be hard to lick.
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Physicists Achieve Quantum Entanglement Between Remote Ensembles of Atoms
12/07/2005

Physicists Achieve Quantum Entanglement Between Remote Ensembles of Atoms

Robert Tindol
Physicists have managed to "entangle" the physical state of a group of atoms with that of another group of atoms across the room. This research represents an important advance relevant to the foundations of quantum mechanics and to quantum information science, including the possibility of scalable quantum networks (i.e., a quantum Internet) in the future.
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World Network Speed Record Shattered for Third Consecutive Year
12/06/2005

World Network Speed Record Shattered for Third Consecutive Year

Robert Tindol

Caltech, SLAC, Fermilab, CERN, Michigan, Florida, Brookhaven, Vanderbilt and Partners in the UK, Brazil, Korea and Japan Set 131.6 Gigabit Per Second Mark During the SuperComputing 2005 Bandwidth Challenge

New Study of Supernovae May Absolve Einstein of His Self-Confessed "Biggest Blunder"
11/22/2005

New Study of Supernovae May Absolve Einstein of His Self-Confessed "Biggest Blunder"

Robert Tindol
Based on an ongoing study of exploding stars in the distant universe, astrophysicists have concluded that the effect of the "dark energy" that is speeding up the expansion of the universe is within 10 percent of that of Albert Einstein's celebrated cosmological constant. Cosmologists regard this result as a major step forward in understanding the nature of this mysterious property of the universe.
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