Astronomy News

WASP-121b May Have Formed Much Closer to Its Parent Star than Previously Believed Possible

This artist’s illustration shows WASP-121b, an alien world that is losing magnesium and iron gas from its atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Olmsted, STScI.
Feb 3, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrograph (IGRINS) instrument on the Gemini South telescope have examined the atmosphere of WASP-121b, one of the most extensively studied ultrahot Jupiters. This artist’s illustration shows WASP-121b, an alien world that is losing magnesium and iron gas from its atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Olmsted, STScI. Discovered in 2016 by astronomers with the WASP-South survey, WASP-121b is...

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This Hubble image LEDA 132905, a spiral galaxy over 400 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R.J. Foley, UC Santa Cruz.

Hubble Captures Type Ia Supernova and Its Host Galaxy

Feb 3, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

A type Ia supernova event called SN 2022abvt was discovered two years ago in the spiral galaxy LEDA 132905. This Hubble image LEDA 132905, a spiral galaxy...

This image shows the habitable zone around HD 20794 (green) and the trajectory of the three planets in the system. Image credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz / SMM / IAC.

Astronomers Confirm Presence of Three Exoplanets around Nearby Solar-Type Star

Jan 28, 2025 by Natali Anderson

One of these exoplanets, HD 20794d, is likely to be a rocky planet in the habitable zone of its parent star, the G-dwarf HD 20794. This image shows the...

These images show two of the galaxy clusters in the study, the Perseus Cluster and the Centaurus Cluster. Chandra data represented in blue reveal X-rays from filaments of hot gas, and VLT data show cooler filaments in red. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / Olivares et al. / DSS / CFHT / SITELLE / ESA / STScI / ESO / VLT / MUSE / N. Wolk.

Supermassive Black Holes Can Create Their Own Meals, Astronomers Say

Jan 28, 2025 by News Staff

New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESO’s Very Large Telescope provide evidence that outbursts from supermassive black holes can help...

SN 2022aajn is visible as a blue dot at the center of this Hubble image, brightening the hazy body of WISEA J070815.11+210422.3. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R.J. Foley, UC Santa Cruz.

Hubble Zooms in on Supernova-Hosting Galaxy

Jan 27, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking photo of a little-known galaxy called WISEA J070815.11+210422.3. SN 2022aajn is visible as...

(3122) Florence will pass safely by Earth on September 1, at a distance of about 4.4 million miles. Image credit: University of Colorado.

Earth’s Recent Mini-Moon Has Lunar Origin, New Study Suggests

Jan 22, 2025 by News Staff

The near-Earth asteroid 2024 PT5 is on an Earth-like orbit that remained in the immediate vicinity of our planet for several months at the end of 2024. 2024 PT5...

Gemini image showing the host galaxy of FRB 20240209A (cyan crosshairs) and the localization ellipses. Image credit: Shah et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad9ddc.

Repeating Fast Radio Burst Traced to Outskirts of Quiescent Elliptical Galaxy

Jan 21, 2025 by News Staff

The source of the newly-detected fast radio burst, FRB 20240209A, is in the distant outskirts of an ancient elliptical galaxy, which is located 2 billion...

One debated scenario for the termination of the Messinian salinity crisis 5.33 million years ago is cataclysmic refilling of the Mediterranean Sea through the Zanclean megaflood; Micallef et al. present a clear line of onshore-to-offshore evidence for this megaflood spilling over a shallow-water marine corridor in south-east Sicily into the nearby subaqueous Noto Canyon. This aerial photo shows a ridge eroded by the megaflood located north-east of Masseria del Volpe, south-east Sicily. Image credit: Kevin Sciberras & Neil Petroni.

Megaflood Refilled Mediterranean Sea 5.3 Million Years Ago, New Study Suggests

Jan 21, 2025 by News Staff

A massive flood called the Zanclean megaflood ended the Messinian salinity crisis, which lasted between 5.97 and 5.33 million years ago, according to new...

The Andromeda galaxy is seen almost edge-on, tilted by 77 degrees relative to Earth’s view; interesting regions include: (a) clusters of bright blue stars embedded within the galaxy, background galaxies seen much farther away, and photo-bombing by a couple bright foreground stars that are actually inside our Milky Way; (b) NGC 206 is the most conspicuous star cloud in Andromeda; (c) a young cluster of blue newborn stars; (d) the satellite galaxy M32, that may be the residual core of a galaxy that once collided with the Andromeda galaxy; (e) dark dust lanes across myriad stars. Image credit: NASA / ESA / B. Williams, University of Washington.

Hubble’s Photomosaic of Andromeda Galaxy Unveils Hundreds of Millions of Stars

Jan 20, 2025 by News Staff

A century ago, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble first established that this so-called ‘spiral nebula’ was approximately 2.5 million light years...

This Hubble image shows the Tarantula Nebula, which lies about 163,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Dorado. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Murray.

Hubble Space Telescope Observes Outskirts of Tarantula Nebula

Jan 20, 2025 by News Staff

A new Hubble image features a dusty yet sparkling scene from the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies. This Hubble image...

An artist’s impression of the Milky Way Galaxy, based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / Stefan Payne-Wardenaar.

Gaia Unveils Most Detailed Map Yet of Milky Way, Completes Sky-Scanning Phase of Its Mission

Jan 16, 2025 by News Staff

Launched on December 19, 2013, the fuel tank of ESA’s star-mapping satellite Gaia is now approaching empty, but this is far from the end of the mission....

The WASP-132 system contains a hot Jupiter (foreground), an inner super-Earth (transiting in front of the orange host star) and the cold planet WASP-132d. Image credit: Thibaut Roger, Université de Genève.

Long-Period Giant Exoplanet Discovered in Multi-Planet System WASP-132

Jan 15, 2025 by News Staff

WASP-132 is a unique multi-planet system in that both an inner rocky planet and the newly-discovered outer giant planet are in a system with a hot-Jupiter...

This image of the carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet star WR 140 was captured by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) in September 2023. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / E. Lieb, University of Denver / R. Lau, NSF’s NOIRLab / J. Hoffman, University of Denver.

Webb Spots Shells of Carbon-Rich Dust around Wolf-Rayet 140

Jan 15, 2025 by News Staff

Wolf-Rayet 140 (also known as WR 140 or HD 193793) is a system of two massive stars located some 5,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus....

In this artist’s concept, matter is stripped from a white dwarf (sphere at lower right) orbiting within the innermost accretion disk surrounding 1ES 1927+654’s supermassive black hole. Image credit: NASA / Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State University.

XMM-Newton Detects Mysterious X-Ray Oscillations in Supermassive Black Hole

Jan 14, 2025 by News Staff

In 2018, astronomers observed that the corona of 1ES 1927+654, an actively accreting, 1.4-million-solar-mass black hole located in a galaxy around 270...

Hubble’s photo of Jupiter displays the ever-changing landscape of its turbulent atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Michael H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Jovian Clouds Consist of Ammonium Hydrosulfide, Study Suggests

Jan 13, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers have long thought that the upper clouds of Jupiter, which create the planet’s iconic pale brown belts, are made of frozen ammonia. But a...

An artist’s impression of a neutron star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

LIGO Searches for Gravitational Waves Produced by Neutron-Star Mountains

Jan 13, 2025 by News Staff

Solar System’s moons such as Europa or Enceladus have thin crusts over deep oceans while the planet Mercury has a thin crust over a large metallic core....

This Hubble image shows HOPS 150 and HOPS 153, two protostars within the famous Orion Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / T. Megeath.

Hubble Sees Two Protostars in Orion Nebula

Jan 13, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows two protostars in the Orion Nebula, a diffuse nebula located approximately 1,350 light-years...

An artist’s impression of a blazar. Image credit: DESY / Science Communication Lab.

Astronomers Discover Most Distant Known Blazar

Jan 10, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered a blazar — a quasar with a jet aligned along our line of sight — at redshift of 7. Named VLASS J041009.05-013919.88,...

GD-1 exhibits spur and gap structures that may result from a close encounter with a dense substructure. Image credit: University of California, Riverside.

Study: GD-1 Stellar Stream’s Distinctive Features Caused by Self-Interacting Dark Matter Subhalo

Jan 7, 2025 by News Staff

A core-collapsing self-interacting dark matter subhalo is responsible for the peculiar spur and gap features observed in GD-1, a stellar stream within...

In this Hubble image of Abell 370, the host galaxy where the 44 stars were discovered appears several times. Image credit: NASA.

Webb Spots Gravitationally Magnified Stars 6.5 Billion Light-Years Away

Jan 7, 2025 by News Staff

Using James Webb Space Telescope observations, astronomers have identified more than 40 microlensed stars in a single galaxy behind the galaxy cluster...

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