Tag: Krzysztof Stanek

  • Science & Tech

    Case of Sedna’s ‘missing moon’ solved

    In trying to solve the riddle of Sedna’s “missing moon,” scientists Scott Gaudi, Krzysztof (Kris) Stanek and colleagues at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics took measurements that have cleared up the mystery by showing that a moon wasn’t needed after all. Sedna is rotating much more rapidly than originally believed, spinning once on its axis…

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  • Science & Tech

    Astronomers link gamma-ray bursts, supernovae

    Gamma-ray bursts are incredibly bright flashes of high-energy radiation that likely signal the birth of black holes. Bursts occur at random locations scattered across the sky, and few last more than a minute, making them a challenge to study. A supernova is the explosion of a star at least eight times as massive as the…

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  • Science & Tech

    Culprit caught in gamma-ray burst mystery

    Gamma-ray bursts have long puzzled astronomers. “The hunt for the source of gamma-ray bursts has been a detective story as challenging as any faced by the famous Lieutenant Columbo. We were thrilled to be the first to catch a supernova ‘in the act,’ so to speak,” says Kris Stanek of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.…

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  • Science & Tech

    Astronomers resolve visible blast wave from gamma-ray burst

    Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are mysterious flashes of high-energy light that are detected about once a day somewhere in the sky. However, their origin remains unknown to astronomers, most of whom believe GRBs are enormous explosions that occur far across the Universe. Now for the first time, astronomers have resolved the visible blast wave produced by…

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  • Science & Tech

    Little giants create a big cosmic controversy

    A new measuring technique used to determine the distances to a class of stars called “Red Clumps” in the Large Magellanic Cloud produced a much smaller distance than that found by other popular methods of measurement. The smaller distance means that the universe may be expanding faster than previously thought — a finding which has…

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