The result is the social-science equivalent of a particle accelerator or a space-based telescope, says Robert Willis, a University of Michigan economics professor and the survey's principal investigator.

ECONOMIST: Ageing America

Now, an international team of astronomers has trained the Fermi space-based gamma ray telescope on V407 Cygni, a "binary" system comprising a white dwarf star and a red giant companion, 9, 000 light-years away.

BBC: Gamma rays from nova explosion surprise astronomers

Follow-up observations are also being planned using other ground-based instruments, as well as several space observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope.

MSN: Newly discovered alien planet 'resets the bar for weird'