Thursday, May 06, 2010

Herschel Confirms Star Formation Slowing

Tim Sayell reminded me of something I read a short while ago. It would seem t hat over the last three billion years the formation of new stars in galaxies like our Milky Way have significantly slowed.

It has been well know that star formation was far greater a few billion years ago, but with the Hershel telescope's help that scientists have been able to put a time frame on the reduced activity.

The main success of the telescope comes from the fact that it can peer much further into the past than previous platforms, up to 10 billion years into the past in fact.

Hershel, launched in 2009 is the biggest ever launched and orbits at a staggering 900,000+ miles above the Earth.

To learn more check out the Yahoo news article here

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