Solscape

New Evidence Of Extrasolar Asteroid Belt

Providing the best evidence yet for an asteroid belt beyond the solar system, new measurements pinpoint the location of such a disk of warm dust surrounding the star Zeta Leporis. As the January 6, 2007 issue of „Science News“ reports, this dust lies about the same distance from Zeta Leporis as the solar system’s asteroid belt lies from the sun.
Article @ Science News

Mid-infrared resolution of a 3 AU-radius debris disk around Zeta Leporis

Radio Telescopes Provide Key Clue on Black Hole Growth

Astronomers have discovered the strongest evidence yet found indicating that matter is being ejected by a medium-sized black hole, providing valuable insight on a process that may have been key to the development of larger black holes in the early Universe. The scientists combined the power of all the operational telescopes of the National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) to peer deep into the heart of the galaxy NGC 4395, 14 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Canes Venatici.
https://www.nrao.edu/pr/2007/imbh/

Atlantis gains Hubble servicing swansong

Shuttle Atlantis has been handed a flagship finale, following the confirmation that she will now be the orbiter that will conduct the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, with the launch date slipping to September 11, 2008. The decision to swap STS-125 – known as HSM-04 – from Discovery to Atlantis was confirmed by the January 8 launch schedule document, which sees a widescale change to the shuttle mission manifest.
Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com

Kepler’s Supernova Remnant: A Star’s Death Comes to Life

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have created a stunning new image of one of the youngest supernova remnants in the galaxy. This new view of the debris of an exploded star helps astronomers solve a long-standing mystery, with implications for understanding how a star’s life can end catastrophically and for gauging the expansion of the universe.
https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/kepler/index.html

Astronomers Map a Hypergiant Star’s Massive Outbursts

Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, astronomers have learned that the gaseous outflow from one of the brightest super-sized stars in the sky is more complex than originally thought. The outbursts are from VY Canis Majoris, a red supergiant star that is also classified as a hypergiant because of its very high luminosity.
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2007/news-2007-03.html

Large Telescopes Team Up to Help Astronomers Discover a Trio of Quasars

Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory, astronomers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and the California Institute of Technology, USA, have discovered what appears to be the first known triplet of quasars. This close trio of supermassive black holes lies about 10,5 billion light-years away towards the Virgo constellation.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0702/

http://www.keckobservatory.org/recent/entry/first_triple_quasar_discovered_at_w._m._keck_observatory/