Astronomy News

NASA’s Hubble Sees Huge Gaseous Halo around Andromeda Galaxy

This diagram shows how scientists determined the size of the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy. Because the gas in the halo is dark, astronomers measured it by using the light from distant quasars. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Field, STScI / N. Lehner & J.C. Howk, University of Notre Dame / B. Wakker, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
May 8, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that a nearly invisible halo of hot plasma surrounding the Andromeda Galaxy is 6 times larger and 1,000 times more massive than previously measured. Hot stars burn brightly in this image from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer, showing the UV side of a familiar face. At 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda galaxy is our Milky Way’s...

read more...
AKARI view of the central regions of Cygnus. Image credit: JAXA.

AKARI Space Observatory Focuses on Cygnus

May 7, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s AKARI Space Observatory have captured a stunning image of the central regions of the Cygnus constellation. AKARI...

EGS-zs8-1: Scientists Discover Farthest Galaxy Ever

May 6, 2015 by News Staff

An international group of astronomers led by Dr Pascal Oesch of Yale University has discovered a massive galaxy more than 13 billion years in the past...

55 Cancri e is so close to its host star that it must experience extreme conditions. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

European Astronomers Find Evidence of Volcanic Activity on 55 Cancri e

May 5, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of Cambridge in the UK and the University of Liege in Belgium has detected changing temperatures on a terrestrial...

A hypothetical mini-Neptune. Image credit: DLR Institute of Planetary Research.

Astronomers Discover Brightly Illuminated mini-Neptune

May 4, 2015 by News Staff

A group of astronomers led by Benjamin Montet of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, has discovered a highly irradiated mini-Neptune exoplanet...

This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 949. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA.

Hubble Snaps Best Ever Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 949

May 4, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured the best image so far of the spiral galaxy NGC...

An image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of PSR B1509-58. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Discover Strange New Pulsar

May 4, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using the 100-meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope have discovered an exotic pulsar that has the widest orbit of any around a neutron...

A hypothetical gas giant exoplanet. Image credit: NASA.

HATS-6b: Astronomers Discover Strange Saturn-like Exoplanet

May 1, 2015 by News Staff

An international group of astronomers from the United States, Australia, Chile, Germany, and Hungary, has discovered an extrasolar gas giant orbiting very...

This visualization of the 3D structure of the Pillars of Creation is based on new observations of the object using VLT’s MUSE instrument. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

ESO’s VLT Captures Pillars of Creation in 3D

Apr 30, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have created a 3D map of the iconic Pillars of Creation. This image...

Composed of gas and dust, this molecular cloud resides in a stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble SM4 ERO Team.

Water Vapor Could Have Been Abundant in Early Universe, Scientists Say

Apr 29, 2015 by News Staff

Water vapor could have been just as abundant in cosmic molecular clouds a billion years after the Big Bang as it is today, says a group of researchers...

The planetary system HD 7924. Image credit: Karen Teramura / Benjamin Fulton / UH IfA.

Two New Super-Earth Exoplanets Discovered around Nearby Star HD 7924

Apr 29, 2015 by News Staff

A team of astronomers using three ground-based telescopes in the United States has discovered two super-Earths around a nearby star known as HD 7924. The...

A slice through the map of nearby galaxy superclusters; the map spans nearly 2 billion light years from side to side. Regions with many galaxies are shown in white or red, whereas regions with fewer galaxies are dark blue. Image credit: University of Waterloo, adapted by Sci-News.com.

Scientists Create 3D Map of Nearby Galaxy Superclusters

Apr 28, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Canada and France has produced a three-dimensional density map of galaxies that spans approximately 2 billion light-years. A...

Images of SN 2012ap and its host galaxy, NGC 1729. Image credit: D. Milisavljevic et al.

SN 2012ap: Astronomers Find ‘Missing Link’ in Supernova Family Tree

Apr 28, 2015 by News Staff

Supernova SN 2012ap is a ‘missing link’ between stellar explosions that generate gamma-ray bursts and those that don’t, says a group of astronomers...

This image shows the star-forming galaxy UGC 5797. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / Luca Limatola.

Hubble Space Telescope Captures Image of Star-Forming Galaxy UGC 5797

Apr 27, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have acquired an image of a distant galaxy called UGC 5797. This image shows the star-forming galaxy...

A radio image highlighting the shock wave - seen here as the bright arc running from bottom left to top right - in the cluster CIZA J2242.8+5310. The shock wave was generated 1 billion years ago, when the two original clusters collided, and is moving at a very high speed of 9 million km per hour. Scale bar – 1 million light-years. Image credit: Andra Stroe.

Cluster Merger-Driven Shock Fronts Can Resurrect ‘Red and Dead’ Galaxies

Apr 27, 2015 by News Staff

‘Red and dead’ galaxies that stopped forming stars in the distant past can sometimes come back to life, find two studies published in the journal Monthly...

This image shows the protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star HL Tauri. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO.

Embryonic Planets Found around Young Star HL Tauri

Apr 27, 2015 by News Staff

According to a group of astronomers led by Dr Daniel Tamayo of the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Centre for Planetary Science and the Canadian...

This image illustrates the creation of a runaway galaxy. In the first panel, an ‘intruder’ spiral galaxy approaches a galaxy cluster center, where a compact elliptical galaxy already revolves around a massive central elliptical galaxy. In the second panel, a close encounter occurs and the compact elliptical receives a gravitational kick from the intruder. In the third panel, the compact elliptical escapes the galaxy cluster while the intruder is devoured by the giant elliptical galaxy in the cluster center. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team.

Astronomers Discover 11 Runaway Galaxies

Apr 24, 2015 by News Staff

Dr Igor Chilingarian of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his colleague, Dr Ivan Zolotukhin of the L’Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique...

This image of the open star cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings has been released to celebrate Hubble’s 25th year in orbit. The image’s central region, containing the star cluster, blends visible-light data taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and near-infrared exposures taken by the Wide Field Camera 3. The surrounding region is composed of visible-light observations taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / A. Nota / Westerlund 2 Science Team.

Hubble Celebrates 25th Anniversary with Amazing Image of Westerlund 2

Apr 23, 2015 by News Staff

To commemorate the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 25 years of success, astronomers have captured a stunning new image of a distant star cluster known...

This artist’s view shows the hot Jupiter exoplanet 51 Pegasi b. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser / Nick Risinger, skysurvey.org.

Astronomers Detect Reflected Light from Hot Jupiter Exoplanet 51 Pegasi b

Apr 22, 2015 by News Staff

For the first time, astronomers have directly detected visible light reflected off an extrasolar planet. This artist’s view shows the hot Jupiter exoplanet...

This composite image shows the Thor’s Helmet Nebula, also known NGC 2359. It combines X-ray data collected by XMM-Newton (blue) with optical observations from the Star Shadows Remote Observatory (green and red). North is to the left, west is up. Image credit: J.A. Toala & M.A. Guerrero, IAA-CSIC / Y.-H. Chu, UIUC-ASIAA / R.A. Gruendl, UIUC / S. Mazlin, J. Harvey, D. Verschatse & R. Gilbert, SSRO-South / ESA.

Astronomers Capture Extraordinary View of Thor’s Helmet Nebula

Apr 21, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using the EPIC cameras on ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory and the Star Shadows Remote Observatory at New Mexico Skies and Cerro Tololo...

© 2011-2026. Sci.News. All Rights Reserved. | Back to top