Astronomy News

Astronomers Measure Change in Rotation Period of Near-Earth Asteroid Phaethon

An artist’s illustration of what the near-Earth asteroid Phaethon might look like up close. Image credit: Heather Roper.
Oct 18, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

3200 Phaethon, one of the largest potentially hazardous asteroids, rotates once every 3.6 hours, and that rotation period is decreasing by about 4 milliseconds per year. This near-Earth asteroid is just the 11th asteroid with a measured change in its rotation period, and it is the largest of them. The next-largest asteroid with a measured change in its rotation period is the near-Earth asteroid 1685 Toro. An artist’s illustration of what the near-Earth...

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An artist’s conception of Haumea, its moons Hi’iaka and Namaka, and its ring system; the moons are much more distant than depicted here. Image credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi.

New Research Sheds More Light on Formation and Evolution of Dwarf Planet Haumea

Oct 18, 2022 by News Staff

The dwarf planet Haumea resides in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of the outermost planet Neptune. An artist’s conception of Haumea, its moons Hi’iaka...

This artist’s conception shows two supermassive black holes, similar to those observed by Bansal et al, orbiting one another more than 750 million light years from Earth. Image credit: Josh Valenzuela, University of New Mexico.

Astronomers Identify Peculiar Twisting Motion in Binary Black Hole System

Oct 18, 2022 by News Staff

This is the first time such an effect, known as precession, has been seen in black holes, where the twisting is 10 billion times faster than in previous...

An artist’s impression of a gas-giant exoplanet. Image credit: Sci.News.

TESS Spots Giant Exoplanet around 11-Billion-Year-Old Star

Oct 17, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and several ground-based telescopes, astronomers have detected and characterized...

Two wispy, gaseous clouds occupy the corners of this image, HH 1 in the upper right, and HH 2 in the lower left. Both are light blue and surrounded by dimmer multi-colored clouds, while the background is dark black due to dense gas. A very bright orange star lies just to the lower left of HH 1, and beyond that star is a narrow jet, emerging from the dark center of the field. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / B. Reipurth / B. Nisini.

Hubble Observes Two Distant Herbig-Haro Objects

Oct 17, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Herbig-Haro objects HH 1 and HH 2 are located 1,250 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. Two wispy, gaseous clouds occupy the corners of this...

Astronomers think GRB 221009A represents the birth of a new black hole formed within the heart of a collapsing star. In this illustration, the black hole drives powerful jets of particles traveling near the speed of light. The jets pierce through the star, emitting X-rays and gamma rays as they stream into space. Image credit: NASA / Swift / Cruz deWilde.

Astronomers Detect Record-Breaking Gamma-Ray Burst

Oct 16, 2022 by News Staff

GRB 221009A, a gamma-ray burst detected on October 9, 2022, is one of the nearest and possibly the most-energetic gamma-ray burst ever observed. It occurred...

An artist’s impression of a jet emanating from NGC 4993. Image credit: J.A. Biretta et al / NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / Sci-News.com.

Hubble Observes Ultra-Relativistic Jet from Neutron-Star Merger

Oct 14, 2022 by News Staff

GW170817, a titanic collision between two neutron stars detected in August 2017, ejected a structured relativistic jet with a speed greater than 99.97%...

This artist’s impression shows an ultrahot exoplanet as it is about to transit in front of its host star. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Barium Detected in Atmospheres of Two Ultrahot Jupiters

Oct 13, 2022 by News Staff

Barium, a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56, is the heaviest element detected to date in any exoplanetary atmosphere. This artist’s...

This Webb/MIRI image shows the binary system WR 140; eight symmetric diffraction spikes are seen around the saturated core of WR 140 that exhibit bluer colors than the dust emission. Image credit: Lau et al., doi: 10.1038/s41550-022-01812-x.

Strange Rings around Distant Binary Star Are Not Alien Megastructure, Astronomers Say

Oct 12, 2022 by News Staff

An image of the binary system WR 140, captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope in July 2022, has baffled astronomers worldwide — even...

This Chandra image shows the LTT 1445 system: LTT 1445A is the fainter source at the center of the image with the brighter resolved binary LTT 1445 BC. Image credit: NASA / Chandra / Brown et al., arXiv: 2209.11314.

Chandra Detects X-ray Emission from Exoplanet-Hosting Triple Star System

Oct 11, 2022 by Natali Anderson

The triple star system LTT 1445, at a distance of 22.5 light-years, hosts some of the nearest rocky planets. This Chandra image shows the LTT 1445 system:...

This image, taken with Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7469. Image credit: Bohn et al., arXiv: 2209.04466.

Webb Detects Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Nuclear Regions of Seyfert Galaxies

Oct 11, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers have analyzed publicly available data from the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope for three Seyfert...

This is an artist's impression of an exoplanet. Image credit: Ron Miller.

Astrobiologists Identify Novel Biosignature Candidates: Methylated Gases

Oct 11, 2022 by News Staff

Methylated gases are made when organisms add a carbon and three hydrogen atoms to an undesirable chemical element. Called methylation, this process can...

A fireball. Image credit: Urikyo33.

Second Ever Interstellar Meteor Discovered

Oct 10, 2022 by Sergio Prostak

Both the first and second interstellar meteors, IM1 and IM2, are outliers in material strength and may have originated in supernova explosions, according...

These images shows Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa with Jupiter in the background. Image credit: ESO / King & Fletcher / NASA / ESA / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / OPAL Team.

SPHERE Helps Determine Surface Compositions of Europa and Ganymede

Oct 10, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have imaged Jupiter’s...

This Hubble image shows Terzan 1, a globular cluster located some 21,800 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Cohen.

Hubble Captures Brilliant New Image of Globular Cluster Terzan 1

Oct 10, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Terzan 1 is a globular cluster about 21,800 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius. This Hubble image shows Terzan 1, a globular cluster...

An artist’s illustration shows a white dwarf (right) circling a larger, Sun-like star (left) in an ultra-short orbit, forming a cataclysmic binary system. Image credit M. Weiss / Harvard & Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics.

Newly-Discovered Cataclysmic Variable Has Extremely Short Orbit

Oct 6, 2022 by News Staff

ZTF J1813+4251 is a 51-minute-orbital-period, fully eclipsing binary system consisting of a star with a temperature comparable to that of the Sun but...

Windhorst et al. traced light that was emitted by the bright elliptical galaxy VV 191a (left) through the spiral galaxy VV 191b (right). As a result, they were able to identify the effects of interstellar dust in the spiral galaxy. Webb’s near-infrared data also shows us the galaxy’s longer, extremely dusty spiral arms in far more detail, giving them an appearance of overlapping with the central bulge of the bright white elliptical galaxy, though the pair are not interacting. In this image, green, yellow, and red were assigned to Webb’s near-infrared data taken in 0.9, 1.5, and 3.56 microns (F090W, F150W, and F356W respectively). Blue was assigned to two Hubble filters, ultraviolet data taken in 0.34 microns (F336W) and visible light in 0.61 microns (F606W). Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Rogier Windhorst, Arizona State University / William Keel, University of Alabama / Stuart Wyithe, University of Melbourne / JWST PEARLS Team.

Astronomers Trace Interstellar Dust in Backlit-Galaxy System

Oct 5, 2022 by News Staff

Dust is a key ingredient in both observed and physical properties of galaxies. It obscures and scatters stellar light, and enables star formation by acting...

These images span a range of different types of objects, including a cluster of galaxies (SMACS J0723.3-7327), a galaxy group (Stefan’s Quintet), a star-forming nebula (Carina Nebula), and a galaxy (Cartwheel Galaxy). In each image, the X-rays from Chandra show higher-energy processes than the infrared view from Webb. Additionally, infrared data from Spitzer is included in the Stephan’s Quintet composite. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / Spitzer / JPL-Caltech / Webb / ESA / CSA / STScI.

Chandra Adds X-ray Data to Webb’s Infrared Images

Oct 5, 2022 by News Staff

The Stephan’s Quintet, the Cartwheel Galaxy, the galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327, and the Carina Nebula were among the first publicly released images...

An artist’s impression of an extrasolar submoon. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Nitrous Oxide Could Help Detect Extraterrestrial Life on Exo-Earths

Oct 5, 2022 by News Staff

Nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas) — a product of microbial nitrogen metabolism — is a compelling exoplanet biosignature gas with distinctive...

Shown here in purple, the Magellanic Corona stretches more than 100,000 light-years from the main mass of stars, gas, and dust that make up the Magellanic Clouds, intermingling with the hotter and more extensive corona that surrounds the Milky Way. Image credit: Leah Hustak, STScI.

Magellanic Corona: Astronomers Detect Protective Shield around Small and Large Magellanic Clouds

Oct 4, 2022 by News Staff

The Small and Large Magellanic Clouds — satellite galaxies of the Milky Way Galaxy — are surrounded by a diffuse halo of hot, supercharged...

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