ESA's Herschel Space Observatory has imaged the Orion B molecular cloud, a vast star-forming complex in the constellation Orion. Herschel's far-infrared view reveals the glow from several star-forming regions nestled in the cloud, which is pervaded by a web of filaments that are hidden at visible wavelengths. The most notable feature of this stellar nursery - the Horsehead Nebula - is highlighted in a near-infrared image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.(author unknown)

To celebrate its 23rd year in orbit, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has released a stunning new image of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies: the Horsehead Nebula. This image shows the nebula in a whole new light, capturing plumes of gas in the infrared and revealing a beautiful, delicate structure that is normally obscured by dust.(author unknown)

A new model of the debris flowing from Comet ISON suggests that the sungrazer could dust the Earth with meteoroids in early 2014. Experts discuss the possibilities today's story from Science@NASA.(author unknown)

Lurking in a cold dark void, three galaxies seem linked by a filament of dark matter – the perfect set-up for testing how all galaxies form and evolve    

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Unlike other celestial objects there is no question how the Horsehead Nebula got its name. This iconic silhouette of a horse's head and neck pokes up mysteriously from what look like whitecaps of interstellar foam. The nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery over a century ago. But Hubble's infrared vision shows the horse in a new light. The nebula, shadowy in optical light, appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. This pillar of tenuous hydrogen gas laced with dust is resisting being eroded away by the radiation from a nearby star. The nebula is a small part of a vast star-forming complex in the constellation Orion. The Horsehead will disintegrate in about 5 million years.

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The US space agency Nasa says it has discovered two of the most habitable planets yet outside our solar system.(author unknown)

Scientists say Nasa's Kepler space telescope has found distant planets that may be the most Earth-like it has yet discovered.(author unknown)

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.(author unknown)

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.(author unknown)

ESA's Herschel space observatory has discovered an extremely distant galaxy making stars more than 2000 times faster than our own Milky Way. Seen at a time when the Universe was less than a billion years old, its mere existence challenges our theories of galaxy evolution.(author unknown)

Seemingly habitable worlds may actually be too dry for life if their magnetic shielding isn't strong enough, leaving them exposed to damaging radiation    

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An outpouring of ghostly neutrinos from the core of a dying star triggers weak but noticeable bursts of light that signal the birth of a black hole    

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A team of astronomers has used the new ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) telescope to pinpoint the locations of over 100 of the most fertile star-forming galaxies in the early Universe. ALMA is so powerful that, in just a few hours, it captured as many observations of these galaxies as have been made by all similar telescopes worldwide over a span of more than a decade.(author unknown)

A dust-obscured massive maximum-starburst galaxy at a redshift of 6.34

Nature 496, 7445 (2013). doi:10.1038/nature12050

Authors: Dominik A. Riechers, C. M. Bradford, D. L. Clements, C. D. Dowell, I. Pérez-Fournon, R. J. Ivison, C. Bridge, A. Conley, Hai Fu, J. D. Vieira, J. Wardlow, J. Calanog, A. Cooray, P. Hurley, R. Neri, J. Kamenetzky, J. E. Aguirre, B. Altieri, V. Arumugam, D. J. Benford, M. Béthermin, J. Bock, D. Burgarella, A. Cabrera-Lavers, S. C. Chapman, P. Cox, J. S. Dunlop, L. Earle, D. Farrah, P. Ferrero, A. Franceschini, R. Gavazzi, J. Glenn, E. A. Gonzalez Solares, M. A. Gurwell, M. Halpern, E. Hatziminaoglou, A. Hyde, E. Ibar, A. Kovács, M. Krips, R. E. Lupu, P. R. Maloney, P. Martinez-Navajas, H. Matsuhara, E. J. Murphy, B. J. Naylor, H. T. Nguyen, S. J. Oliver, A. Omont, M. J. Page, G. Petitpas, N. Rangwala, I. G. Roseboom, D. Scott, A. J. Smith, J. G. Staguhn, A. Streblyanska, A. P. Thomson, I. Valtchanov, M. Viero, L. Wang, M. Zemcov & J. Zmuidzinas

Massive present-day early-type (elliptical and lenticular) galaxies probably gained the bulk of their stellar mass and heavy elements through intense, dust-enshrouded starbursts—that is, increased rates of star formation—in the most massive dark-matter haloes at early epochs. However, it remains unknown how soon after the Big Bang massive starburst progenitors exist. The measured redshift (z) distribution of dusty, massive starbursts has long been suspected to be biased low in z owing to selection effects, as confirmed by recent findings of systems with redshifts as high as ∼5 (refs 2–4). Here we report the identification of a massive starburst galaxy at z = 6.34 through a submillimetre colour-selection technique. We unambiguously determined the redshift from a suite of molecular and atomic fine-structure cooling lines. These measurements reveal a hundred billion solar masses of highly excited, chemically evolved interstellar medium in this galaxy, which constitutes at least 40 per cent of the baryonic mass. A ‘maximum starburst’ converts the gas into stars at a rate more than 2,000 times that of the Milky Way, a rate among the highest observed at any epoch. Despite the overall downturn in cosmic star formation towards the highest redshifts, it seems that environments mature enough to form the most massive, intense starbursts existed at least as early as 880 million years after the Big Bang.

Astronomy: A cosmic growth spurt in an infant galaxy

Nature 496, 7445 (2013). doi:10.1038/496303a

Authors: Desika Narayanan & Chris Carilli

One of the most extreme starburst galaxies in the early Universe has been identified and characterized. This system shows the rapid formation of a massive galaxy when the Universe was only 6% of its current age. See Letter p.329

The Thirty Meter Telescope – due to be the world's widest eye on space – has got the go-ahead for construction on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii    

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They are yet statistically weak, but results from an underground detector suggest dark matter is not a single entity but a whole sector of myriad particles    

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A rare celestial object called a blazar randomly flares up - flooding the sky with the Universe's highest-energy light - just after telescopes point to it.(author unknown)

Researchers using the airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) have captured the most detailed mid-infrared images yet of a massive star condensing within a dense cocoon of dust and gas.(author unknown)

Is it Alpha Centauri Bb or Rakhat? A scientific society says a private bid to name exoplanets has no official footing, but the bid's organisers are striking back    

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