Astronomy News

Hubble Detects Start of New Saturn Ring Spoke Season

This Hubble image heralds the start of Saturn’s ‘spoke season’ with the appearance of two smudgy spokes in the B ring, on the left in the image. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.
Feb 9, 2023 by News Staff

Saturn is known for its iconic, pristine rings. However, the main B ring can have splotches and streaks of darker or lighter material, known as spokes, that may be tied to dust interactions with the planet’s magnetic field. These spokes appear periodically, lasting around 8 years, centered around Saturn spring or fall equinox. In 2021 and 2022, observations using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope revealed the start of a new ring spoke season in...

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An artist’s impression of the dwarf planet Quaoar and its ring. Quaoar’s moon Weywot is shown on the left. Image credit: ESA / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Astronomers Discover Ring around Trans-Neptunian Object Quaoar

Feb 9, 2023 by Natali Anderson

The newly-detected ring orbits at 7.4 radii from Quaoar — much further away from the object than the rings around Saturn. An artist’s impression...

Dey et al. uncovered striking new evidence for a mass migration of stars into the Andromeda galaxy. Image credit: KPNO / NOIRLab / AURA / NSF / Local Group Survey Team / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage / D. de Martin / M. Zamani.

Galactic Immigration Event Occurred in Andromeda Galaxy 1-2 Billion Years Ago

Feb 8, 2023 by News Staff

The Andromeda galaxy (Messier 31), which is located 2.5 million light-years away, is the Milky Way’s nearest large galactic neighbor. By measuring the...

An artist’s conception of the surface of the Earth-mass exoplanet Wolf 1069b. Image credit: NASA’s Ames Research Center / Daniel Rutter.

Astronomers Discover Earth-Mass Exoplanet in Habitable Zone of Wolf 1069

Feb 8, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Wolf 1069b is the sixth closest Earth-mass exoplanet situated in the conservative habitable zone of its parent star, after Proxima Centauri b, Gliese 1061d,...

An artist’s impression of an irregularly-shaped asteroid. Image credit: N. Bartmann, ESA & Webb / ESO / M. Kornmesser / S. Brunier / N. Risinger, skysurvey.org.

Webb Discovers New Asteroid in Solar System’s Main Belt

Feb 7, 2023 by News Staff

The newly-discovered asteroid is less than 230 m (755 feet) across, and orbits within the main asteroid belt, which is located between Mars and Jupiter. An...

This composite image shows Messier 61, a spiral galaxy located 52.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: ESO / ALMA / NAOJ / NRAO / PHANGS.

ESO Releases Stunning New Image of Messier 61

Feb 7, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The new image of Messier 61, a spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Virgo, combines data taken at radio and visible wavelengths and is helping...

An artist’s impression of our Milky Way Galaxy in its youth. The Sparkler galaxy provides a snap-shot of an infant Milky Way as it accretes mass over cosmic time. Image credit: James Josephides, Swinburne University.

Astornomers Spot Progenitor of Milky Way-Like Galaxy in Early Universe

Feb 6, 2023 by News Staff

We are seeing the ‘Sparkler’ galaxy from 9.1 billion years ago, some 4 billion years after the Big Bang. An artist’s impression of our Milky Way...

This Hubble image shows Donatiello II (center), an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy some 11.4 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / B. Mutlu-Pakdil / G. Donatiello.

Hubble Observes Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxy Donatiello II

Feb 6, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new image taken with NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows Donatiello II, a recently-discovered dwarf galaxy associated with the nearby spiral galaxy...

This image shows how microlensing was used to measure the mass of the white dwarf LAWD 37. The inset box plots how the dwarf passed in front of a background star in 2019. The wavy blue line traces the dwarf’s apparent motion across the sky as seen from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Peter McGill, UC Santa Cruz, IoA / Kailash Sahu, STScI / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Astronomers Directly Measure Mass of Isolated White Dwarf

Feb 2, 2023 by News Staff

In November 2019, the nearby single, isolated white dwarf LAWD 37 aligned closely with a distant background source and caused a so-called microlensing...

This composite image shows at least three galaxy clusters colliding in a jumbled scene. The resulting giant galaxy cluster, known as Abell 2256, resembles a grainy, pixilated, sky blue cloud topped with licks of flaming red hair. The cloud is adorned with red shapes and streaks, and set against a black background heavily dotted with colorful specks. The image combines X-ray, radio, optical, and infrared data. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Bolonga / Rajpurohit et al. / ESA / XMM-Newton / LOFAR / ASTRON / NCRA / TIFR / GMRT / NSF / NRAO / VLA / Pan-STARRS.

Astronomers Capture Ongoing Collision of Three Galaxy Clusters

Feb 1, 2023 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton and three radio telescopes (the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, the Low Frequency Array,...

This Webb image shows LEDA 2046648, a spiral galaxy one billion light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / A. Martel.

Webb Spots Large Spiral Galaxy in Hercules

Jan 31, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

LEDA 2046648 is accompanied by a profusion of smaller, more distant galaxies which range from fully-fledged spirals to mere bright smudges. This Webb image...

An artist’s impression of the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope receiving signals from space. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar / Breakthrough Listen.

Artificial Intelligence Detects New Technosignature Signals of Interest

Jan 31, 2023 by News Staff

In a new paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, astronomers with Breakthrough Listen Initiative — the largest ever scientific research...

This illustration shows what Chariklo and its rings could look like, based on our current understanding. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Webb Detects Water Ice on Chariklo, Spies Its Ring System

Jan 30, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have captured the reflectance spectrum of the double-ringed centaur 10199 Chariklo and observed...

This new Hubble image shows part of the Tarantula Nebula, which is located about 163,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Dorado: wispy, nebulous clouds extend from the lower-left of the image; at the top and right the dark background of space can be seen through the sparse nebula; along the left and in the corner are many layers of brightly-colored gas and dark, obscuring dust; a cluster of small, bright blue stars in the same corner expands out across the image. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Murray / E. Sabbi / Y.-H. Chu.

Hubble Space Telescope Focuses on Tarantula Nebula

Jan 30, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a spectacular image of a very turbulent part of the Tarantula Nebula. This new Hubble...

An artist’s impression of a magnetar eruption. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Astronomers Detect Spin-Down Glitch in Distant Magnetar

Jan 27, 2023 by News Staff

Magnetars are a special subset of the isolated neutron star family, with X-ray and radio emission mainly powered by the decay of their immense magnetic...

This is an artist's impression of a rocky and water-rich asteroid being torn apart by the strong gravity of the white dwarf star GD 61. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick, Space-art.co.uk / University of Warwick / University of Cambridge.

Small Asteroid Flew Safely Past Earth This Week

Jan 27, 2023 by News Staff

A small near-Earth asteroid designated 2023 BU made its closest approach on January 26, 2023 at 7:29 p.m. EST (4:29 p.m. PST, or January 27, 2023 at 00:29...

An orbiting star begins to eclipse its partner, a rapidly rotating, superdense stellar remnant called a pulsar, in this illustration. Image credit: NASA / Sonoma State University / Aurore Simonnet.

Fermi Detects Gamma-Ray Eclipses from Seven ‘Spider’ Binary Systems

Jan 26, 2023 by News Staff

Spider binary systems contain a pulsar — the superdense, rapidly rotating remains of a star that exploded as a supernova — that slowly erodes...

This image shows the distant galaxy GHZ2/GLASS-z12. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / T. Treu, UCLA / NAOJ / T. Bakx, Nagoya University.

ALMA Confirms Discovery of Oxygen-Rich Galaxy in Very Early Universe

Jan 25, 2023 by News Staff

GHZ2/GLASS-z12, initially identified in the JWST GLASS survey, existed when the Universe was only 367 million years old (redshift z=12.117). This image...

Digital art by Les Bossinas, Cortez III Service Corp., 1998.

Humans Will Likely Not Have Ability to Visit Nearby Exoplanets Anytime Soon, Expert Says

Jan 25, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers recently announced the discovery of TOI-700e, a habitable-zone, Earth-sized planet some 102 light-years away in the southern constellation...

This image is a small extract of the DECaPS2 survey of the Milky Way. Image credit: DECaPS2 / DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / M. Zamani & D. de Martin, NSF’s NOIRLab.

Astronomers Release Gargantuan Survey of Milky Way’s Galactic Plane

Jan 24, 2023 by News Staff

The second data release of the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey (DECaPS2), which took two years to complete and produced more than 10 terabytes of data...

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