Helix Nebula’s ejected material looks like comet-shaped knots

October 13th, 2009 LONDON - An independent study has cast more doubt on a controversial theory that a comet exploded over icy North America nearly 13,000 years ago, wiping out the Clovis people and many of the continent's large animals. In 2007, a team led by Californian researchers announced a theory that a comet or asteroid had exploded over the North American ice sheet, creating widespread fire and an atmospheric soot burst followed by a cooling period known as the Younger Dryas.

October 7th, 2009 Zadunaisky's math determined Halley's Comet orbitBUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Pedro Elias Zadunaisky, an Argentine astronomer and mathematician whose calculations helped determine the orbit of Saturn's outermost moon, Phoebe, as well as Halley's Comet, died Wednesday. He was 91. Zadunaisky was a pioneer in celestial mechanics, applying mathematical models to determine how gravity and other forces alter the orbits of other objects in the solar system.

September 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In high-resolution images of comet Holmes, which erupted in 2007, astronomers have detected multiple "mini comets" bursting out at 451 kilometers an hour, which is the largest known cometary outburst in history. According to National Geographic News, the fragments were recently revealed in high-resolution images of comet Holmes, a relatively small body discovered in 1892 that mysteriously erupted in 2007.

September 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of astronomers has discovered that Jupiter had captured the comet 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu as its temporary moon in the mid-20th century, in an irregular orbit for about twelve years. There are only a handful of known comets where this phenomenon of temporary satellite capture has occurred and the capture duration in the case of Kushida-Muramatsu, which orbited Jupiter between 1949 and 1961, is the third longest.

August 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. "Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Dr.

July 31st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new University of Washington research indicates it is highly unlikely that comets have caused any of Earth's mass extinctions or have been responsible for more than one minor extinction event. The work also shows that many long-period comets that end up in Earth-crossing orbits likely originate from a region astronomers have long believed could not produce observable comets.

July 31st, 2009 LONDON - Did far-off comets housing vast oceans of water during the first million years of formation harbour some kind of primitive life? The existence of water in comets bolsters support for a possible connection between life on Earth and comets. The theory, known as Cometary Panspermia and pioneered by Chandra Wickramasinghe and the late Sir Fred Hoyle, argues that life was introduced to Earth by comets.

July 21st, 2009 NASA images show Jupiter apparently hit by objectPASADENA, Calif. — Astronomers say Jupiter has apparently been struck by an object, possibly a comet.

July 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Jupiter appears to have again been hit by a speeding celestial object that left a giant dark scar in the giant gaseous planet's atmosphere, NASA astronomers said. The US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory received a tip early Monday from Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley who had spied the spot near the planet's south pole.

July 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have found evidence in the form of a new dark "scar" which indicates that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley of Australia, that a new dark "scar" had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.

July 15th, 2009 LONDON - New simulations have revealed that turbulence created by jets of material ejected from the disks of the Universe's largest black holes is responsible for halting star formation. The simulations have been made by Evan Scannapieco, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU) and Professor Marcus Brueggen of Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany.

July 8th, 2009 MUNICH - A new image captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has reveled the Omega Nebula, a stellar nursery where infant stars illuminate and sculpt a vast pastel fantasy of dust and gas, in all its glory. The Omega Nebula, sometimes called the Swan Nebula, is a dazzling stellar nursery located about 5500 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer).

July 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new image, taken with an infrared camera on the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, has revealed a cosmic fireworks display, in the form of tens of thousands of previously unseen comet-shaped knots inside the Helix Nebula. he sheer number of knots - more than have ever been seen before - looks like a massive fireworks display in space.

June 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has confirmed that the mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere. The research connects the two events by what followed each about a day later: brilliant, night-visible clouds, or noctilucent clouds, that are made up of ice particles and only form at very high altitudes and in extremely cold temperatures.

April 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has refuted the hypothesis that 'chevrons', large U- or V-shaped formations found in some of the world's coastal areas, are evidence of megatsunamis caused by asteroids or comets slamming into the ocean. The research was done by University of Washington (UW) geologist and tsunami expert Jody Bourgeois.