nasa telescopes – pressnews

[ad_1] NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has added one more first in its list. Astronomers using the Hubble Telescope have for the first time directly measured the mass of a single, isolated white dwarf – the surviving core of a burned-out, Sun-like star. Researchers found that the white dwarf is 56 percent the mass of the Sun. This agrees with earlier theoretical predictions of the white dwarf's mass and corroborates current theories of how white dwarfs evolve as the end product of a typical star's evolution. The unique observation yields insights into theories of the structure and composition of white dwarfs, NASA said in a report.Until now, previous white dwarf mass measurements have been gleaned from observing white dwarfs in binary star systems. By watching the motion of two co-orbiti...

[ad_1] Researchers have created a new method for fabricating the high-precision, ultrathin mirrors needed for telescopes. Researchers have created a new method for fabricating the high-precision, ultrathin mirrors needed for high-performance x-ray telescopes using femtosecond laser pulses. The method might assist advance the capabilities of space-based x-ray telescopes that are used to observe high-energy cosmic phenomena like the formation of supermassive black holes and new stars. "Detecting cosmic x-rays is a crucial piece of our exploration of the universe that unveils the high-energy events that permeate our universe but are not observable in other wavebands," said research team leader Heng Zuo, who performed the research at MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Resea...

Tag: nasa telescopes

In a first, NASA’s Hubble Telescope directly measures mass of a lone white dwarf

Developing telescope mirrors in new way could sharpen our view of black holes, new stars