Earth's moon wandered off axis billions of years ago

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A new study reports Earth's moon wandered off its original axis roughly 3 billion years ago. Ancient lunar ice indicates the moon's axis slowly shifted by 125 miles, or 6 degrees, over 1 billion years. Earth's moon now a member of solar system's exclusive 'true polar wander' club, which includes just a handful of other planetary bodies.
via Science Daily
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Tracing star formation rates in distant galaxies

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Researchers have observed 17 bright distant galaxies with the MOSFIRE high-resolution near-infrared spectrometer at the W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes. Then, they combined the spectra with infrared images of the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Herschel Space Observatory, and optical images of the Hubble Space Telescope, to create a complete multi-wavelength picture of their galaxies: from rest-frame ultraviolet to rest-frame far-infrared.
via Science Daily
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Quasars slowed star formation, new research shows

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Research has found new persuasive evidence that could help solve a longstanding mystery in astrophysics: why did the pace of star formation in the universe slow down some 11 billion years ago?
via Science Daily
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New way to determine the age of stars?

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Researchers have developed a new conceptual framework for understanding how stars similar to our Sun evolve. Their framework helps explain how the rotation of stars, their emission of x-rays, and the intensity of their stellar winds vary with time. According to the first author, the work could also 'ultimately help to determine the age of stars more precisely than is currently possible.'
via Science Daily
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In the wilds of the Local Group, a lonely galaxy stays set apart

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This scene, captured by ESO's OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group's outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy -- or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe.
via Science Daily
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Solar storms trigger Jupiter's 'northern lights'

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Solar storms trigger Jupiter's intense 'Northern Lights' by generating a new X-ray aurora that is eight times brighter than normal and hundreds of times more energetic than Earth's aurora borealis, finds new research.
via Science Daily
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The Great Nebula in Carina

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