http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/index.php News du Sap http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2761 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT For the first time, a 3D simulation of an explosion remnant, including the important contribution of the particles accelerated in the shock resulting from the expansion, was performed by scientists from the Service d'Astrophysique du CEA-Irfu. Up to now, these complex simulations  were including either the computation of the expansion of the ejected matter or the accelerated particles. The evolution of the remnant expansion which is followed up to 500 years after the explosion, reveals http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2761 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2717 Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT The first scientific images of the Herschel Space telescope  have just been released during a scientific conference held at Madrid (Spain) on 17 and 18 decembre 2009, only six months after launch. One the most spectacular pictures is the image of a dark cloud in the Aquila constellation revealing for the first time more than 700 condensations of dust and gas that will eventually become stars This image is part of a major Herschel scientific program "The Gould belt survey" led by Philippe http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2717 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2708 Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT For the first time, the high-energy gamma rays emitted by a microquasar have been spotted with certainty, thanks to NASA's Fermi telescope. The observation of the microquasar Cygnus X-3 by a French team (CEA-IRFU, CNRS-INSU and IN2P3, University of Paris Diderot, Joseph Fourier University) teaches us more about how these particular sources function and how a compact object orbiting a star can hurl a mass equivalent to the Moon's through the interstellar medium at almost the speed of light. http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2708 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2615 Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT A spectacular document relating to the history of astronomy is brought back to light by a recent study from a group of scholars led by Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud from the CEA Astrophysical Department [1]. The document, called the Dunhuang chart, now kept at the British Library in London, is a complete star atlas which was found among the 40 000 other manuscripts discovered  at the Buddhist Mogao cave complex, on the Chinese Silk road in 1900. Sealed in an hidden cave around the 11th century, http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2615 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2590 Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT The Fermi gamma-ray space telescope  [1] has detected the most violent gamma-ray burst ever recorded; a gigantic explosion marking the death of a massive star. Light from this explosion, captured by the Fermi observatory on September 16th 2008, had taken 12.2 billion years to reach Earth. Hence, it must have been produced at a time when the Universe was just 1.5 billion years old.  The total amount of energy released makes this the most violent explosion observed in the Universe since http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2590 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2506 Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT Jean-Luc Starck, an experienced research scientist at IRFU (the CEA Institute for Research on the Fundamental Laws of the Universe) was awarded a 2.2 million euro grant spread over five years under the 7th European research and development framework programme (FP7). The grant comes in recognition of Mr Starck's research project in statistics, signal and image processing and its applications to astrophysics. http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2506 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2507 Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT Neutron stars are the most magnetized objects in our Universe. Some of them, dubbed "Magnetars" have a record magnetic field of 1011 Tesla (T), which corresponds to one million of billions times that of the Sun during a quiescent phase. It's around this class of objects that an over-density of electrons has been discovered. These results, delivered by an international team of researchers that includes Diego Götz from the Service d'Astrophysique of CEA-Irfu, is the http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2507 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2483 Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT Sirius, the brightest star of the sky, is reported to have shown a change of colour, a possibility that has led some scientists to suspect a possible but yet undetected small companion. Now using a specific mask and the modern technique of adaptive optics which allows to suppress most of the blurring of the atmosphere, Jean-Marc Bonnet-Bidaud and Eric Pantin of the C.E.A. Astrophysical Department have obtained the first and most sensitive image of the Sirius field, in the infrared domain. It http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2483 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2437 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT The realization of MIRIM-OB, the optical bench of MIRI (Mid Infra Red Imager), one of the four instruments which will equip the forthcoming space telescope JWST has just completed an essential step with the demonstration that it fulfills the various and rigorous constraints imposed by its use in space. The exam, called the "Qualification Review", which included vibration-proof, temperature holding and survival against the various radiation hazards appropriate to the environment in http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=2437 http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=1746 Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT The first Astronomical image taken by a new generation of camera called "ArTeMiS-1" were obtained with the APEX telescope in March 2007, at Chajnantor in Chile. This bolometer camera operates in the "submillimetre" domain, between the infrared and the millimetre waves, where the cold objects of the Universe emit most of their energy. The camera is based on the technology developed at the Service d'Astrophysique of CEA/DAPNIA, and LETI/LIR at CEA/Grenoble for the http://irfu.cea.fr/Sap/en/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast.php?t=actu&id_ast=1746