May 26, 2013

Astronomers team up with public to solve star system puzzle



An extremely precise measurement of the distance from the Earth to a star system has enabled astronomers to better understand the way exotic objects, like black holes, swallow material they rip off the surface of nearby stars.

Published in the prestigious journal Science, a team of astronomers headed by Dr James Miller-Jones from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), have measured the distance to star system SS Cygni to be 372 light years, much closer than a previous measurement made by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s.