Most eccentric planet ever known flashes astronomers with reflected light

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A team of astronomers has spotted an extrasolar planet that boasts the most eccentric orbit ever seen. The planet moves in a flattened ellipse, traveling a long path far from its star and then making a fast slingshot around the star at its closest approach. Researchers detected a 'flash' of starlight bouncing off the planet's atmosphere as it made its closest orbital approach to its star.
via Science Daily
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How nanowires can be formed

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Researchers show how different arrangements of atoms can be combined into nanowires as they grow. Researchers learning to control the properties of materials this way can lead the way to more efficient electronic devices.
via Science Daily

New data from flyby of pluto

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Pluto's surface exhibits a wide variety of landscapes, results from five new studies. The dwarf planet has more differences than similarities with its large moon, Charon.
via Science Daily
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Astronomers found a star with a record variation period

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Astronomers who created a global network of robotelescopes MASTER detected that a bright star TYC 2505-672-1 has actually faded significantly. That finding led to new questions: so, the scientists assume that TYC 2505-672-1 is actually a double star system, though a nature of its companion remains unknown.
via Science Daily
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Shock compression research shows hexagonal diamond could serve as meteor impact marker

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In 1967, a hexagonal form of diamond, later named lonsdaleite, was identified for the first time inside fragments of the Canyon Diablo meteorite, the asteroid that created the Barringer Crater in Arizona. Since then, occurrences of lonsdaleite and nanometer-sized diamonds have been speculated to serve as a marker for meteorite impacts, having also been connected to the Tunguska explosion in Russia, the Ries crater in Germany, the Younger Dryas event in sites across Northern America and more.
via Science Daily

The W in Cassiopeia

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A familiar, zigzag, W pattern in northern constellation Cassiopeia is traced by five bright stars in this colorful and broad mosaic. Stretching about 15 degrees across rich starfields, the celestial scene includes dark clouds, bright nebulae, and star clusters along the Milky Way. In yellow-orange hues Cassiopeia's alpha star Shedar is a standout though. The yellowish giant star is cooler than the Sun, over 40 times the solar diameter, and so luminous it shines brightly in Earth's night from 230 light-years away. A massive, rapidly rotating star at the center of the W, bright Gamma Cas is about 550 light-years distant. Bluish Gamma Cas is much hotter than the Sun. Its intense, invisible ultraviolet radiation ionizes hydrogen atoms in nearby interstellar clouds to produce visible red H-alpha emission as the atoms recombine with electrons. Of course, night skygazers in the Alpha Centauri star system would also see the recognizable outline traced by Cassiopeia's bright stars. But from their perspective a mere 4.3 light-years away they would see our Sun as a sixth bright star in Cassiopeia, extending the zigzag pattern just beyond the left edge of this frame.

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