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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...

Various groupings of Jupiter’s moons with the recently-discovered ones. Image credit: Roberto Molar-Candanosa / Carnegie Institution for Science.

Astronomers Invite Public to Help Name Jupiter’s New Moons

Feb 26, 2019 by News Staff

In 2018, Carnegie Institution for Science astronomer Scott Sheppard and colleagues discovered twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter. The discovery brought...

An artist’s impression of the planetary system around TOI-216. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

TESS Discovers Pair of Warm Giant Exoplanets

Feb 26, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered two ‘warm’ gas giants orbiting a nearby dwarf star. An...

This Hubble image shows a globular cluster called NGC 2419. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / S. Larsen et al.

Hubble Observes ‘Intergalactic Wanderer’

Feb 25, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed the massive, luminous globular cluster NGC 2419, also known as the ‘Intergalactic...

An artist’s concept of Hippocamp. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Olmsted, STScI.

Hippocamp: Seventh Inner Moon of Neptune May Have Broken from Larger Moon

Feb 21, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new study led by SETI Institute astronomers suggests that the recently-discovered moon of Neptune, Hippocamp, is probably an ancient fragment of a much...

Ringed White Dwarf Spotted 145 Light-Years Away

Feb 20, 2019 by News Staff

Professional astronomers and volunteers working with the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project have spotted the oldest and coldest known white...

The main part of this graphic is from the Millenium simulation, which uses supercomputers to formulate how the key components of the Universe, including the WHIM, would have evolved over cosmic time. If these filaments exist, they could absorb certain types of light such as X-rays that pass through them. The inset in this graphic represents some of the X-ray data collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory from a distant, rapidly-growing supermassive black hole known as a quasar. The plot is a spectrum -- the amount of X-rays over a range of wavelengths -- from a new study of the quasar H1821+643 that is located about 3.4 billion light years from Earth. Image credit: Springel et al / NASA / CXC / CfA / Kovacs et al.

Astrophysicists May Have Found Universe’s ‘Missing Mass’

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

About a third of the normal matter — meaning hydrogen, helium and other elements — created shortly after the Big Bang is not seen in the present-day...

An artist’s impression of Orion Source I, a young, massive star about 1,500 light-years away. The blue region -- about 1/3 the way out from the center of the disk -- represents the region where ALMA detected the millimeter-wavelength ‘glow’ from the salts. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Detects Salts around Young Star

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected the chemical fingerprints of sodium chloride (NaCl), potassium...

Night sky centered on the south Galactic pole in a so-called stereographic projection. In this special projection, the Milky Way curves around the entire image in an arc. The stars in the stream are displayed in red and cover almost the entire southern Galactic hemisphere, thereby crossing many well-known constellations. Image credit: Meingast et al, doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201834950 / Gaia DR2 skymap.

Astronomers Discover Large Stream of Stars in Solar Neighborhood

Feb 15, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESA’s Gaia satellite have discovered a large stellar stream that is currently traversing the immediate solar neighborhood at a distance...

Neptune and Uranus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / M. Wong & A. Hsu, University of California, Berkeley.

Hubble Spots New Dark Storm on Neptune, Giant Polar Cap on Uranus

Feb 8, 2019 by News Staff

Since its launch into orbit in 1990, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has helped astronomers to amass an album of outer planet images. Yearly monitoring...