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The celestial whirligig

Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007, has been delighting those who have seen it with the unaided eye as a spectacular display in the evening sky. Pushing ESO's New Technology Telescope to its limits, a team of European astronomers have obtained the first, and possibly unique, detailed observations of this object. Their images show spectacular jets of gas from the comet spiralling several thousands of kilometres into space, while the spectra reveal the presence of sodium in its atmosphere, something seen very rarely.

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   10-05-2006 · ScienceDaily
   The death of a massive nearby star billions of years ago offers evidence the sun was born in a star cluster, say astronomers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rather than being an only child, the sun could have hundreds or thousands of celestial siblings, now dispersed across the heavens.
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2. Astronomers weigh 200-million-year-old baby galaxies
   10-25-2006 · EurekAlert!
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3. The jet stream of Titan
   01-24-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
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5. Integral expands our view of the gamma-ray sky
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10. Listening for the cosmic symphony: New SU supercomputer will help scientists listen for black holes
    02-08-2008 · EurekAlert!
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