Smithsonian
Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is the nearest giant, elliptical galaxy, at a distance of about 11 million light-years. One of the most studied objects in the southern sky, by 1847 the unique appearance of this galaxy had already caught the attention of the famous British astronomer John Herschel, who catalogued the southern skies and made a comprehensive list of nebulae.
Most countries throughout the world participate in the $40-million-per-year culinary trade of frog legs in some way, with 75 percent of frog legs consumed in France, Belgium and the United States. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution and colleagues have found that this trade is a potential carrier of pathogens deadly to amphibians.
"One of the major problems in modern astrophysics is the fact that we still do not know exactly what kinds of stellar system explode as a Type Ia supernova," says Patrick Woudt, from the University of Cape Town and lead author of the paper reporting the results.
The constellation of Orion is a hotbed of massive star formation, most prominently in the Great Nebula that sits in Orion's sword. The glowing gas of the Nebula is powered by a group of young massive stars, but behind it is a cluster of younger stars and clumps of gas. Still gathering together under gravity's pull, these gas clumps will eventually ignite into stars.
Nearly 100 years ago, scientists detected the first signs of cosmic rays - subatomic particles (mostly protons) that zip through space at nearly the speed of light.
AMES, Iowa - Iowa State University astrophysicists contributed to the recent discovery that a galaxy quickly creating new stars is also a source of high energy gamma rays.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) and the spiraling pattern in which they glide to the ground have delighted children for ages and perplexed engineers for decades.
A workshop at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama has dramatically improved the ability of conservationists and regulatory agencies to monitor the spread of chytridiomycosis -- one of the deadliest frog diseases on Earth.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- A team of researchers including a University of Florida paleontologist has used a rich cache of plant fossils discovered in Colombia to provide the first reliable evidence of how Neotropical rainforests looked 58 million years ago.
A high-speed chase across the Panama Canal in a Boston Whaler may sound like the beginning of another James Bond film -- but the protagonist of this story brandishes a butterfly net and studies the effects of climate change on insect migrations at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Aggressive African bees were accidentally released in Brazil in 1957. As "killer bees" spread northward, David Roubik, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, began a 17-year study that revealed that Africanized bees caused less damage to native bees than changes in the weather and may have increased the availability of their food plants.
Sept. 22, 2009 -- Sometimes to see something properly, you have to stand farther back. This is true of Chuck Close portraits where a patchwork of many small faces changes into one giant face as you back away.
It may also be true of the frogs of Central America, where the pattern of extinctions emerges clearly only at a certain spatial scale.
The simple picture of star formation calls for giant clouds of gas and dust to collapse inward due to gravity, growing denser and hotter until igniting nuclear fusion. In reality, forces other than gravity also influence the birth of stars. New research shows that cosmic magnetic fields play a more important role in star formation than previously thought.
A new study from two of NASA's Great Observatories provides fresh insight into how some stars are born, along with a beautiful new image of a stellar nursery in our Galaxy. The research shows that radiation from massive stars may trigger the formation of many more stars than previously thought.
NOAA will participate in a private research expedition to study marine life living on and around the wreck of the USS Monitor. The August 2-8 expedition is the first in the history of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary devoted specifically to understanding how the wreck contributes to the health of underwater creatures and plants living in sanctuary waters.
