Home
Search:
1146 feeds
357 categories
0 articles (<24 hours)
36 registered users

Use the Mobile version
Mobile

Follow our Twitter feed

View our Linkpartners
Links

Username:
Password:

Register | Retrieve

Science


RSS FeedsFree-floating stars in the Milky Way`s bulge
(PHYSorg.com Space & Earth)

 
 

30 march 2020 14:16:59

 
Free-floating stars in the Milky Way`s bulge
(PHYSorg.com Space & Earth)
 


The path of a light beam is bent by the presence of mass, as explained by General Relativity. A massive body can therefore act like a lens-a so called `gravitational lens`-to distort the image of an object seen behind it. Microlensing is a related phenomenon: a short flash of light is produced when a moving cosmic body, acting as a gravitational lens, modulates the intensity of light from a background star as it fortuitously passes in front of it. About fifty years ago scientists predicted that if it ever became possible to observe a microlensing flash from two well-separated vantage points, a parallax measurement would pin down the distance of the dark object. The Spitzer Space Telescope, orbiting the Sun at the distance of the Earth but trailing behind the Earth by about one-quarter of the orbital path, had been working with ground-based telescopes to do just that until it was shut down last month by NASA as a cost-savings measure.


 
37 viewsCategory: Science > Astronomy
 
Space opera: New original songs add to the fun for space-loving music fans
(PHYSorg.com Space & Earth)
A Martian mash up: Meteorites tell story of Mars` water history
(PHYSorg.com Space & Earth)
 
 
blog comments powered by Disqus


Copyright © 2008 - 2024 Indigonet Services B.V.. Contact: Tim Hulsen. Read here our privacy notice.
Other websites of Indigonet Services B.V.: Nieuws Vacatures Science Tweets Nachrichten