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Artist’s impression of a black hole feasting on matter from its companion star in a binary system. Image credit: ESA / ATG medialab.

Astronomers Spot Flashes of Red Light from V404 Cygni

Mar 15, 2016 by News Staff

Violent red flashes have been observed during the 2015 outburst of the nearby black-hole V404 Cygni. An artist’s impression of a black hole, similar...

This composite image of the galaxy cluster MACS J0717 was made by combining data from NASA’s Chandra and Hubble space telescopes, and NRAO’s Jansky Very Large Array. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CXC / NRAO / AUI / NSF / STScI / R. van Weeren, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics / J. Lotz, STScI / HFF Team.

Three Telescopes Capture Image of Extremely Distant Galaxy Cluster

Mar 14, 2016 by Natali Anderson

NRAO’s Karl J. Jansky Very Large Array and two of NASA’s space telescopes — Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble — have captured a stunning...

VLTI Captures Best-Ever View of Old Star’s Dusty Disc

Mar 9, 2016 by News Staff

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at Paranal Observatory, Chile, has taken the sharpest image ever seen of the disc of gas and dust around...

This Hubble image shows thousands of galaxies swimming in the inky blackness of space; a few foreground stars from our Milky Way Galaxy are also visible. Image credit: NASA / ESA / HST Frontier Fields Team / STScI / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Focuses on Pandora’s Box

Mar 7, 2016 by News Staff

This parallel field observation from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reveals a diverse collection of galaxies in the direction of the constellation Sculptor. This...

GN-z11. Image credit: NASA / ESA / P. Oesch, Yale University / G. Brammer, STScI / P. van Dokkum, Yale University / G. Illingworth, University of California, Santa Cruz.

GN-z11: Astronomers Discover Farthest Galaxy Yet

Mar 3, 2016 by Sergio Prostak

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have found a surprisingly bright, infant galaxy 13.4 billion light-years from us, making it the...

Astronomers Detect Repeating Fast Radio Burst

Mar 2, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

For the first time, astronomers have detected repeating short bursts of radio waves — so-called fast radio bursts — coming from an extremely...

VLT Survey Telescope Captures Vast Nebula Illuminated by Giant Stars

Mar 2, 2016 by News Staff

RCW 106, a vast cloud of gas and dust, along with its rich and fascinating surroundings, are captured in this incredible photo from ESO’s VLT Survey...

The emission-line star Hen 2-80 (center) and surroundings. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Sees Unusual Star

Feb 29, 2016 by News Staff

The subject of this Hubble image is Hen 2-80, a star located in the constellation Crux at a distance of approximately 2,300 light-years away from Earth. The...

This slab cut from the cube generated by the Illustris simulation shows the distribution of baryonic (normal) matter, with a width and height of 350 million light-years and a thickness of 300,000 light-years. Image credit: Markus Haider / Illustris Collaboration.

Supermassive Black Holes Transport Matter into Cosmic Voids, Astronomers Say

Feb 25, 2016 by News Staff

Cosmic voids — vast underdense regions, forming an essential feature of the cosmic web and occupying most of the volume of the Universe — could...

An artist’s impression of FRB 110523 reaching Earth; the colors represent the burst arriving at different radio wavelengths, with long wavelengths (red) arriving seconds after short wavelengths (blue). Image credit: Jingchuan Yu / Beijing Planetarium.

Astronomers Detect Host Galaxy of Fast Radio Burst for the First Time

Feb 25, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of astronomers reported today that they had tracked down the location of a so-called fast radio burst (FRB), a mysterious and rarely...

This part of the image of the Milky Way has been released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy. Image credit: ESO / APEX / ATLASGAL Consortium / NASA / GLIMPSE Consortium / ESA / Planck.

APEX Captures Spectacular Image of Milky Way’s Galactic Plane

Feb 24, 2016 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), a 12-m radio telescope at 5,100 m altitude in the Chilean Atacama desert, astronomers have mapped the full...

Pseudo-color image of Messier 90 (NGC 4569); north is up, east left. Image credit: A. Boselli et al.

Astronomers Spot Galaxy with 300,000 Light-Year-Long Tail of Ionized Gas

Feb 23, 2016 by News Staff

Messier 90, the brightest galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, has a 300,000 light-year-long tail of diffuse ionized gas flowing from it, says an international...

This Hubble image shows WR 31a, a type of star known as a Wolf–Rayet star. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Space Telescope Snaps Incredible Image of Wolf-Rayet Star

Feb 22, 2016 by Sergio Prostak

WR 31a, a rare example of a massive star, is the subject of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This Hubble image shows WR 31a, a type...

Illustration of the super-Jupiter 2M1207b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STScI / Y. Zhou, University of Arizona.

Astronomers Measure Rotation of Cloudy Super-Jupiter

Feb 19, 2016 by Natali Anderson

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that a giant extrasolar planet called 2MASSWJ 1207334-393254b has patchy clouds and...

This image shows NGC 4889 (largest object) in front of hundreds of background galaxies. Image credit: NASA / ESA.

NGC 4889: Hubble Focuses on Distant Elliptical Galaxy

Feb 17, 2016 by News Staff

This incredible image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the giant elliptical galaxy...

An artist’s impression of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e. According to Tsiaras and co-authors, the atmosphere of this planet consists mainly of hydrogen and helium. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomers Analyze Atmosphere of Super-Earth Exoplanet 55 Cancri e

Feb 17, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, European astronomers have been able to examine the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet 55 Cancri e in unprecedented...

An artist impression of HD 142527 based on ALMA data. According to astronomers, HD 142527 consists of a main star a little more than twice the mass of our Sun and a smaller companion star only about a third the mass of our Sun; they are separated by approximately one billion miles. The rendition shows a distinctive arc of dust (red) embedded in the protoplanetary disk. The red arc is free of gas, suggesting the carbon monoxide has frozen out, forming a layer of frost on the dust grains in that region. Astronomers speculate this frost provides a boost to planet formation. The two dots in the center represent the two stars in the system. Image credit: B. Saxton / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

ALMA Images Shed More Light on Planet Formation around Binary Stars

Feb 17, 2016 by Natali Anderson

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in Chile, an astronomer from the United States has taken a detailed look...

This Hubble ACS image shows the irregular reflection nebula IRAS 00044+6521. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Beams Back Spectacular Image of Reflection Nebula

Feb 15, 2016 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a remarkable image of a reflection nebula known as IRAS 00044+6521. This Hubble ACS image shows the irregular...

This image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory shows the reflection nebula IC 2631. Image credit: ESO.

Astronomers Snap Stunning Nebula Photo

Feb 10, 2016 by News Staff

An infant star lights up the nebula IC 2631 in this remarkable new image from the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, Chile. This...