Astronomy News

Astronomers Find Giant Exoplanet with Extreme Orbit

An artist’s concept of a giant exoplanet. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / S. Wiessinger.
Aug 29, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from several ground-based telescopes, astronomers found that a nearby star called HR 5183 hosts a giant planet with an orbital period of between 45 and 100 years. The planet’s orbit is highly eccentric, shuttling it from within the orbit of Jupiter to beyond the orbit of Neptune. An artist’s concept of a giant exoplanet. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / S. Wiessinger. HR 5183, also known as HD 120066, is a slightly...

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This composite image of Cassiopeia A combines data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory color coded by element, ground-based images obtained in 1996 and 1999, and images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope between 2004 and 2011. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / STScI.

Chandra Tracks Evolution of Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant

Aug 28, 2019 by News Staff

A new video released by NASA’s Chandra mission shows how Cassiopeia A has evolved over more than a dozen years in X-ray light. Cassiopeia A, which is...

GRB 160821B occurred in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy about two billion light-years away, at a projected offset of 52,185 light-years from the galaxy’s center. Image credit: Troja et al, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stz2255.

Astronomers Detect New Kilonova Explosion

Aug 28, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have re-examined data from GRB 160821B, a short duration gamma-ray burst spotted on August 21, 2016, and found evidence for a kilonova, an...

An artist’s rendering of potentially habitable exoplanets, plus Earth (top right) and Mars (top center). Image credit: PHL@UPR Arecibo, phl.upr.edu / NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Alien Life on Some Extrasolar Planets Could Be More Diverse than on Earth

Aug 26, 2019 by News Staff

In a new study, University of Chicago researcher Stephanie Olson and colleagues modeled climates and ocean habitats of different types of extrasolar planets...

It’s raining on Titan. Image credit: David A. Hardy, AstroArt / NASA.

Astronomers Detect Propadiene on Saturn’s Moon Titan

Aug 26, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) have spotted propadiene — a colorless, flammable gas, best known as a fuel for specialized...

This Hubble image shows the planetary nebula NGC 5307. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). It is based on data obtained through two filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Wade et al.

Hubble Space Telescope Observes NGC 5307

Aug 26, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacular image of a planetary nebula called NGC 5307. This Hubble image shows the planetary nebula...

Astronomers Peer Deep into Turbulent Atmosphere of Jupiter

Aug 23, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has managed to peer deep into the Jovian atmosphere using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)...

An artist’s concept of the SN 2016iet pair-instability supernova. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NSF / AURA / Joy Pollard.

New Type of Supernova Totally Annihilates Its Parent Star

Aug 22, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have announced the discovery of the most massive star ever known to be destroyed by a supernova explosion. Dubbed SN 2016iet, the explosive...

Two giant planets, Beta Pictoris b and c, orbit the nearby, young star Beta Pictoris. Image credit: P. Rubini / A.-M. Lagrange.

Second Planet Found Hiding in Beta Pictoris System

Aug 21, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from ESO’s High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument, a multinational team of astronomers has uncovered evidence for...

An artist’s conception of the Earth-sized exoplanet LHS 3844b which orbits a small star 49 light-years from Earth. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt, IPAC.

Earth-Sized Exoplanet LHS 3844b is Similar to Mercury, Astronomers Say

Aug 20, 2019 by News Staff

LHS 3844b, a 1.3-Earth-radii terrestrial world in an 11-hour orbit around the small nearby star LHS 3844, very likely has little to no atmosphere and could...

The Kohnen Station in Antarctica. Image credit: Sepp Kipfstuhl.

Scientists Find Interstellar Iron in Antarctic Snow

Aug 20, 2019 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from Germany, Austria and Australia has found traces of the radioactive isotope iron-60 — the tell-tale signature of a supernova...

This image shows the planetary nebula NGC 2371/2. The picture was snapped by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The color composite was assembled from images taken in visible and infrared light. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Wade et al.

Hubble Spots Bipolar Planetary Nebula

Aug 19, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has delivered an unrivalled snapshot of the bipolar (two-lobed) planetary nebula NGC 2371/2. This image shows the planetary...

Massive and dusty star-forming galaxies are visible to ALMA (right), but invisible to Hubble (left). Image credit: Wang et al.

Astronomers Spot Massive Star-Forming Galaxies in Early Universe

Aug 16, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from multiple space- and ground-based telescopes, an international team of astronomers has discovered 39 massive star-forming galaxies at a...

An artist’s impression of a flare erupting from the star Proxima Centauri and the glowing exoplanet Proxima b. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa, Carnegie Institution for Science / NASA / SDO / JPL / Sci-News.com.

Biofluorescence Could Expose Hidden Alien Life on Exoplanets around Red Dwarfs

Aug 14, 2019 by News Staff

Powerful flares from M-type stars (red dwarfs) — once thought to destroy life on their planets — might help uncover hidden biospheres; their...

Glitch in Vela Pulsar Provides Unique Opportunity to Study Neutron Star’s Interior

Aug 13, 2019 by News Staff

Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars observed to have pulses of radiation at very regular intervals that typically range from milliseconds to seconds....

This Spitzer image shows the edge-on lenticular galaxy NGC 5866. The colors represent three infrared wavelengths captured by Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera. Blue light corresponds to Spitzer’s observations at a wavelength of 3.6 microns, produced mainly by stars; green corresponds to 4.5 microns; and red corresponds to 8 microns. In this image, the blue haze is produced by stars that make up most of the mass of NGC 5866. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Spitzer Spots Perfect Edge-On Galaxy: NGC 5866

Aug 13, 2019 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning infrared image taken by the agency’s Spitzer Space Telescope of a lenticular galaxy called NGC 5866. This Spitzer image...

VERITAS is located at the basecamp of the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in southern Arizona. Image credit: K. Gibbs & N. Galente, Whipple Observatory.

VERITAS to Search for Nanosecond Laser Beams from Extraterrestrial Civilizations

Aug 12, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers from the Breakthrough Listen, a scientific program in search for signs of intelligent life in the Universe, and the VERITAS (Very Energetic...

This image, taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), shows the planetary nebula NGC 2022. The color composite was assembled from images taken in visible and infrared light. 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 / R. Wade.

Hubble Captures Beautiful Planetary Nebula Image

Aug 12, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a stunning image of NGC 2022, a vast orb of gas in space, cast off by an aging star. This image, taken...

This new Hubble image of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet’s Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. The colors, and their changes, provide important clues to ongoing processes in Jupiter’s atmosphere. The bands are created by differences in the thickness and height of the ammonia ice clouds. The colorful bands, which flow in opposite directions at various latitudes, result from different atmospheric pressures. Lighter bands rise higher and have thicker clouds than the darker bands. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley.

Hubble Snaps Super-Sharp Image of Jupiter

Aug 9, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained a detailed image of Jupiter on June 27, 2019, when the gas giant was approximately 400 million miles (644...

ALMA made the most precise measurements of cold gas swirling around a supermassive black hole -- the cosmic behemoth at the center of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 3258. The multi-color ellipse reflects the motion of the gas orbiting the black hole, with blue indicating motion toward us and red motion away from us. The inset box represents how the orbital velocity changes with distance from the black hole. The material was found to rotate faster the closer in the astronomers observed to the black hole, enabling them to accurately calculate its mass: a whopping 2.25 billion times the mass of our Sun. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / B. Boizelle / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello / Hubble Space Telescope / NASA / ESA / Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey.

ALMA Determines Mass of Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 3258

Aug 8, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have observed the dynamical sphere of influence of a supermassive black hole...

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