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This mosaic of the southern sky was assembled from 208 TESS images. Among the many notable celestial objects visible is the glowing band (left) of the Milky Way, our home Galaxy seen edgewise, the Orion Nebula (top), a nursery for newborn stars, and the Large Magellanic Cloud (center), a nearby galaxy located about 163,000 light-years away. The prominent dark lines are gaps between the detectors in TESS’ camera system. Image credit: NASA / MIT / TESS / Ethan Kruse, USRA.

TESS Captures Breathtaking Panorama of Southern Sky

Nov 6, 2019 by News Staff

Constructed from 208 images taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during its first year of science operations, completed on July...

Hubble Sees Newborn Stars in NGC 1333

Nov 4, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of part of the reflection nebula NGC 1333. This Hubble image shows protostars in the reflection...

On October 12, 2019, Hubble observed the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov at a distance of approximately 261 million miles from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Jewitt, University of California, Los Angeles.

Water Detected in Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

Nov 2, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers have detected the signature of vaporized water in the coma of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, also known as C/2019 Q4. On October 12, 2019,...

An artist’s rendition of a giant star in orbit around a low-mass black hole. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

New Class of Low-Mass Black Holes May Exist, Astronomers Say

Nov 1, 2019 by News Staff

In a paper published in the November 1, 2019 issue of the journal Science, a team of astronomers offers a new way to search for stellar-mass black holes,...

A volume rendering of the ionized gas wind in the Makani galaxy. Two of the dimensions are spatial, and the third is velocity. The colors trace the velocity axis, shown by the arrow at center. The approximate locations of the two proposed outflow episodes are labeled. Image credit: Jim Geach, David Tree & Peter Richardson, University of Hertfordshire.

Astronomers Observe Giant Outflow of Gas Extending Far Beyond Compact Galaxy

Oct 31, 2019 by News Staff

The direct evidence of the role of galactic winds — ejections of gas from galaxies — in creating the so-called circumgalactic medium has been...

An artist’s impression of a hot-Jupiter exoplanet. Image credit: C. Carreau / ESA.

TESS Finds ‘Improbable’ Exoplanet Circling Red-Giant Star

Oct 31, 2019 by News Staff

Using asteroseismic data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers revised the parameters for two...

Super-Neptune Discovered Just 12 Light-Years Away

Oct 30, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have discovered a super-Neptune exoplanet orbiting a star in the binary system Gliese 15. An artist’s impression of two exoplanets orbiting...

ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured this image of NGC 1404 with its FORS (FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph) instrument; the bright foreground star to the lower left of the frame is named HD 22862. Image credit: ESO.

ESO Releases Stunning Image of Elliptical Galaxy NGC 1404

Oct 30, 2019 by News Staff

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released a gorgeous new image taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) of a giant elliptical galaxy called...

This Hubble image shows young globular clusters (blue) and filaments of cool gas (red) around NGC 1275 in the center of the Perseus cluster (also known as Abell 426), a group of over 1,000 galaxies located 240 million light-years from Earth. Image credit: Lim et al, doi: 10.1038/s41550-019-0909-6.

Astronomers Find Thousands of Young Globular Clusters around Perseus Cluster’s Central Galaxy

Oct 29, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Many thousands of compact and massive star clusters have formed at an approximately steady rate over the past one billion years around NGC 1275, the central...

This image, taken by the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows the main-belt asteroid Hygiea. Image credit: ESO / P. Vernazza et al / MISTRAL algorithm / ONERA / CNRS.

Astronomers Measure Size and Shape of Main-Belt Asteroid Hygiea

Oct 29, 2019 by News Staff

Hygiea is the fourth largest main belt asteroid and the only known asteroid whose surface composition appears similar to that of the dwarf planet Ceres....

This Hubble image captures two galaxies of equal size in a titanic head-on collision. This observation was made on June 19, 2019 in visible light by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams & M. Durbin, University of Washington.

Hubble Spots Stunning Ring Galaxy System

Oct 28, 2019 by News Staff

NASA has released a breathtaking image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the Arp-Madore 2026-424 system. This Hubble image captures two...

This composite image shows Abell 1758, a quadruple galaxy cluster system about 3 billion light-years away from Earth. In the northern (top) pair seen in the image, the centers of each cluster have already passed by each other once, about 300 to 400 million years ago, and will eventually swing back around. The southern pair at the bottom of the image has two clusters that are close to approaching each other for the first time. X-rays from Chandra are shown as blue and white, depicting fainter and brighter diffuse emission, respectively. This image also includes an optical image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / G. Schellenberger et al / SDSS.

Chandra Observes Mega-Merger of Galaxy Clusters: Abell 1758

Oct 28, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have created detailed maps of Abell 1758, a collision between two pairs of galaxy clusters,...

This Hubble image shows the face-on spiral galaxy NGC 1706. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Imager credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Bellini et al.

Hubble Looks at Beautiful Spiral: NGC 1706

Oct 28, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of a face-on galaxy called NGC 1706. This Hubble image shows the face-on spiral galaxy...

SOFIA Spots Debris from Catastrophic Collision between Two Rocky Exoplanets

Oct 25, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) have observed an unusually warm, dusty debris disk around BD +20 307,...

Digital art by Les Bossinas, Cortez III Service Corp., 1998.

Physicists Propose New Method to Detect Traversable Wormholes

Oct 24, 2019 by News Staff

In a new paper published this month in the journal Physical Review D, a duo of theoretical physicists from Case Western Reserve University, the University...

Freshly-Synthesized Strontium Detected in Neutron Star Merger

Oct 23, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have detected a freshly made heavy element, strontium, in the aftermath of GW170817, a merger of two...

Massive Star-Forming Galaxy Spotted in Early Universe

Oct 23, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered faint traces of a huge dust-obscured star-forming galaxy never seen before,...

This image of Tycho’s SNR from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals an intriguing pattern of bright clumps and fainter holes. To emphasize these features, two narrow ranges of X-ray energies were selected to isolate material (silicon, colored red) moving away from Earth, and moving towards us (also silicon, colored blue). The other colors in the image (yellow, green, blue-green, orange and purple) show a broad range of different energies and elements, and a mixture of directions of motion. Chandra’s X-ray data are shown alongside an optical image of the stars in the same field of view from the Digitized Sky Survey. Image credit: NASA / CXC / RIKEN / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / T. Sato et al / DSS.

Chandra Sheds New Light on Tycho’s Supernova Remnant

Oct 21, 2019 by News Staff

X-ray images of Tycho’s supernova remnant (Tycho’s SNR) show a pattern of bright clumps and fainter holes. By comparing new data from NASA’s Chandra...

This image snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy called IC 4653. This color composite was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Two 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 / D. Rosario, CEA, Durham University.

Hubble Observes Dwarf Spiral: IC 4653

Oct 21, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a beautiful picture of the dwarf spiral galaxy IC 4653. This image snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope...