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The ‘Teacup’ quasar is causing an ongoing storm. The ‘handle’ is a ring of X-ray (blue) and optical (red and green) light surrounding a giant bubble, shown in the Chandra and Hubble data. This handle-shaped feature, which is located about 30,000 light-years from the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, was likely formed by one or more eruptions powered by the black hole. Image credit: X-ray -- NASA / CXC / University of Cambridge / G. Lansbury et al; optical - NASA / STScI / W. Keel et al; radio - NRAO / VLA.

‘Teacup’ Quasar Causes Galactic Storms

Mar 18, 2019 by News Staff

SDSS J143029.88+133912.0, nicknamed the ‘Teacup’ because of its shape, is a quasar located about 1.1 billion light-years away. The power source of...

This Hubble image shows the elliptical galaxy Messier 49. The image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Four filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Blakenslee / P Cote et al.

Hubble Looks at Giant Elliptical Galaxy Messier 49

Mar 18, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of an elliptical galaxy called Messier 49. This Hubble image shows the elliptical...

This image, taken by the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, shows the small, moderately bright reflection nebula NGC 1788. Image credit: ESO.

VLT Captures Most Detailed Image Ever Seen of NGC 1788

Mar 15, 2019 by News Staff

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured a stunning new photo of NGC 1788, a reflection nebula located in a dark and often neglected corner of the...

Nearest Hypervelocity Star May Have Been Ejected from Milky Way’s Disk by Young Stellar Cluster

Mar 15, 2019 by News Staff

Hypervelocity stars are solitary stars moving fast enough to escape the gravitational grasp of the Milky Way Galaxy. Discovered in 2014, LAMOST-HVS1 is...

An artist’s impression of a quasar. Image credit: Yoshiki Matsuoka.

Eighty-Three Quasars Spotted in Early Universe

Mar 14, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope have discovered 83 quasars in the distant Universe, from a time when the Universe was less than 10% of its present...

In this illustration, several dust rings circle the Sun. These rings form when planets’ gravities tug dust grains into orbit around the Sun. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith.

Astronomers Detect Circumsolar Dust Ring near Mercury’s Orbit

Mar 13, 2019 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, and the University of Colorado, Boulder, has found evidence for a fine...

This artist’s impression shows ‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar object discovered in our Solar System. Recent observations show that the object is moving faster than predicted while leaving the Solar System. Astronomers assume that venting material from its surface due to solar heating is responsible for this behavior. This outgassing can be seen in this artist’s impression as a subtle cloud being ejected from the side of the object facing the Sun. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Oumuamua is Interstellar Comet with Odd Properties, Astronomers Say

Mar 13, 2019 by News Staff

‘Oumuamua, a recently discovered object of extrasolar origin, is a comet that rocks, according to a new study by astronomers at Yale University and Caltech. This...

An artist’s concept of a planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a K-type star. Image credit: NASA Ames / JPL-Caltech / Tim Pyle.

Exoplanets around K-Type Dwarf Stars are Promising Targets in Search for Alien Life: Study

Mar 11, 2019 by News Staff

K-type dwarf stars are dimmer than the Sun but brighter than the faintest stars. These stars live a very long time — 17 billion to 70 billion years,...

This Hubble image shows the globular stellar cluster Messier 28. The image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Seven filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J.E. Grindlay et al.

Hubble Sees Dazzling Globular Cluster: Messier 28

Mar 11, 2019 by News Staff

Globular clusters are densely packed, spherical collections of hundreds of thousands or even millions of stars. They are among the oldest known objects...

This artist’s impression shows a computer generated model of the Milky Way Galaxy and the accurate positions of the globular clusters used in this study surrounding it. Watkins et al used the measured velocities of these 44 globular clusters to determine the total mass of the Milky Way. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Calçada.

New Mass Estimate for Milky Way Galaxy: 1.54 Trillion Suns

Mar 7, 2019 by News Staff

The Milky Way contains an estimated 200 billion stars. But that’s just the bare tip of the iceberg — the Galaxy is surrounded by vast amounts of...

An artist’s concept of the Kepler-1658 system. Sound waves propagating through the stellar interior were used to characterize the star and the planet. Image credit: Gabriel Perez Diaz / Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias.

Astronomers Confirm Kepler’s First Exoplanet Candidate: Kepler-1658b

Mar 6, 2019 by News Staff

A decade after its launch and months after its mission ended, glimmers of data detected by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope in 2009 have been confirmed...

This composite image shows the starburst galaxy Messier 82. The magnetic field detected by SOFIA, shown as streamlines, appears to follow the bipolar outflows (red) generated by the intense nuclear starburst. The image combines visible starlight (gray) and a tracing of hydrogen gas (red) from the Kitt Peak Observatory, with near-infrared and mid-infrared starlight and dust (yellow) from SOFIA and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Image credit: NASA / SOFIA / E. Lopez-Rodriguez / Spitzer / J. Moustakas et al.

SOFIA Observes Galactic Superwind in Messier 82

Mar 6, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) have discovered that the galactic wind flowing from the center of Messier...

Over-tilting exoplanets. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sarah Millholland.

Astronomers Find Link between Tilting of Exoplanets and Their Orbit

Mar 5, 2019 by News Staff

For several years, scientists have tried to explain why so many pairs of exoplanets have an odd configuration — their orbits seem to have been pushed...

This Hubble image shows two interacting galaxies, known collectively as NGC 6052. The picture was snapped by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Five filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Adamo et al.

Spectacular Galaxy Collision Captured by Hubble: NGC 6052

Mar 4, 2019 by News Staff

A stunning new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures an ongoing cosmic collision between two disk galaxies. This Hubble image shows two...

The superbubbles in NGC 3079 are defined by X-ray, optical and radio emission. Image credit: X-rays - NASA / CXC / University of Michigan / Li et al; optical - NASA / STScI.

Chandra Detects Ultra-Energetic Particles from NGC 3079’s ‘Fermi Bubbles’

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

NGC 3079, an edge-on spiral galaxy located about 67 million light-years from Earth, contains two ‘superbubbles.’ New observations from NASA’s Chandra...

An artist’s impression of a gas cloud swirling around a black hole. Image credit: NAOJ.

ALMA Finds Wandering Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Milky Way’s Central Region

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have spotted streams of molecular gas orbiting around an invisible gravitational...

The ultra-diffuse galaxy DGSAT I. Image credit: Aaron Romanowsky / University of California Observatories / D. Martinez-Delgado / ARI.

Astronomers Find Anemic Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

Ultra-diffuse galaxies are a relatively new class of galaxies that were first discovered in 2015. They are as large as our Milky Way but have between 100...

Artist’s impression of Planet Nine. Image credit: Tom Ruen / ESO.

Astronomers Provide New Details about Suspected Nature and Location of Planet Nine

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

The presence of a new planet on the outskirts of the Solar System was proposed by Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in 2016 to explain...

This image from ESO’s SPECULOOS Observatory shows the spiral galaxy NGC 6902. Image credit: ESO.

ESO’s Ganymede Telescope Captures Its First-Light Image: NGC 6902

Feb 26, 2019 by News Staff

Ganymede, one of the four robotic telescopes at ESO’s newest planet-hunting SPECULOOS Observatory, has obtained its first engineering and calibration...