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On May 27, 2022, DART’s high-resolution camera DRACO captured this image of Vega, a young massive star located 25 light-years away in the constellation of Lyra. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

NASA’s DART Spacecraft Focuses on Vega

Jun 23, 2022 by News Staff

Since its launch on November 24, 2021, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has journeyed toward its September 26, 2022 encounter...

Map of sulfur dioxide (a) band depth and (b) band area for all four Hubble visits. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Bjorn Jonsson / Becker et al., doi: 10.3847/PSJ/ac69eb.

Hubble Explores Surface of Europa in Mid-UV

Jun 22, 2022 by News Staff

The new mid-ultraviolet (UV) maps of Europa, created using data from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble...

A schematic view of the history of the accretion disk and the flyby object: the three plots starting from the bottom left are snapshots from the numerical simulation, capturing the system right at the flyby event, 4,000 years after, and 8,000 years after, respectively; the top right image is from the ALMA observations, showing the disk with spirals and the two objects around it, corresponding to the system at 12,000 years after the flyby event. Image credit: Lu et al., doi: 10.1038/s41550-022-01681-4.

ALMA Images Spiral Protostellar Disk near Milky Way’s Center

Jun 21, 2022 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have discovered a massive accretion disk with two spiral arms around a 32-solar-mass...

An artist’s impression of the HD 33142 planetary system, which is located 397 light-years away in the constellation of Lepus. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Three Massive Planets Orbit Nearby Giant Star HD 33142

Jun 20, 2022 by Natali Anderson

An international team of astronomers, using the radial velocity (RV) method, has discovered a third planet in the planetary system HD 33142. An artist’s...

As a metallic asteroid such as Psyche cooled and solidified, iron volcanoes may have erupted onto its surface. Image credit: Elena Hartley.

ALMA Creates Detailed Maps of Main-Belt Asteroid Psyche

Jun 20, 2022 by News Staff

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array located on the Chajnantor Plateau in Chile allowed the acquisition of temperature images of (16) Psyche,...

This Hubble image shows the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1351. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / H. Ebeling / L. Shatz.

Hubble Focuses on Lensing Galaxy Cluster Abell 1351

Jun 20, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the massive and rich galaxy cluster Abell 1351. This Hubble image shows the massive...

This Hubble image shows a blue stellar system. Image credit: Michael Jones.

New Type of Stellar System Discovered

Jun 17, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers have spotted five blue stellar systems — which they say appear through a telescope as blue blobs and are about the size of dwarf galaxies...

These images of dusty disks around young massive stars were taken with the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) instrument on the Gemini South telescope, the International Gemini Observatory. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / E. Rich, Michigan University.

Gemini Planet Imager Detects Protoplanetary Disks around Young Stars

Jun 17, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Gemini Planet Imager instrument at the Gemini South telescope in Chile have imaged a sample of 44 bright Herbig Ae/Be and T-Tauri...

This composite image shows the Tarantula Nebula. The background image, taken in the infrared, is itself a composite: it was captured by the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows bright stars and light, pinkish clouds of hot gas. The bright red-yellow streaks that have been superimposed on the image come from radio observations taken by the ALMA, revealing regions of cold, dense gas which have the potential to collapse and form stars. The unique web-like structure of the gas clouds led astronomers to the nebula’s spidery nickname. Image credit: ESO / ALMA / NAOJ / NRAO / Wong et al. / M.-R. Cioni / VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey / Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

Astronomers Capture Spectacular Image of Tarantula Nebula

Jun 16, 2022 by News Staff

In a new high-resolution image, we see the Tarantula Nebula — a luminous star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of...

Top left: a giant blue star, much more massive than our Sun, has consumed, through nuclear fusion at its center, all its hydrogen, helium, and heavier elements up to iron. It now has a small iron core (red dot) at its center. Unlike the earlier stages of fusion, the fusion of iron atoms absorbs, rather than releases, energy. The fusion-released energy that has held up the star against its own weight now is gone, and the star will quickly collapse, triggering a supernova explosion. Top right: the collapse has begun, producing a superdense neutron star with a strong magnetic field at its center (inset). The neutron star, though containing about 1.5 times the mass of the Sun, is only about the size of Manhattan. Bottom left: the supernova explosion has ejected a fast-moving shell of debris outward into interstellar space. At this stage, the debris shell is dense enough to shroud from view any radio waves coming from the region of the neutron star. Bottom right: As the shell of explosion debris expands over a few decades, it becomes less dense and eventually becomes thin enough that radio waves from inside can escape. This allowed observations by the VLA Sky Survey to detect bright radio emission created as the rapidly spinning neutron star’s powerful magnetic field sweeps through the surrounding space, accelerating charged particles. This phenomenon is called a pulsar wind nebula. Image credit: Melissa Weiss, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Spot Pulsar Wind Nebula in Distant Dwarf Galaxy

Jun 15, 2022 by News Staff

A pulsar wind nebula is created when the powerful magnetic field of a rapidly spinning neutron star accelerates surrounding charged particles to nearly...

This artist’s conception illustrates the previously unknown complexity of the young galaxy A1689-zD1. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / B. Saxton, NRAO, AUI & NSF.

Early Galaxies May Have Been Bigger Than Previously Thought

Jun 14, 2022 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have observed a significant amount of cold, neutral gas in the outer regions...

The interstellar dust map made with Gaia’s data release 3. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Its Third Full Dataset

Jun 14, 2022 by News Staff

Gaia’s data release 3 (DR3) contains new and improved details for almost 2 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy as well as for a subset of solar system...

ALMA Images Highly Eccentric Debris Disk around HD 53143

Jun 14, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

HD 53143 is a one-billion-year-old solar-type star located 59.8 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. This composite image shows the HD 53143...

The star-filled sky in this Hubble photo lies in the direction of the Galactic center. The light from stars is monitored to see if any change in their apparent brightness is caused by a foreground object drifting in front of them. The warping of space by the interloper would momentarily brighten the appearance of a background star, an effect called gravitational lensing. One such event, OB110462, is shown in the four close-up frames at the bottom. The arrow points to a star that momentarily brightened, as first captured by Hubble in August 2011. This was caused by a foreground black hole drifting in front of the star, along our line of sight. The star brightened and then subsequently faded back to its normal brightness as the black hole passed by. Because a black hole doesn’t emit or reflect light, it cannot be directly observed. But its unique thumbprint on the fabric of space can be measured through these so-called microlensing events. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / K. Sahu, STScI / J. DePasquale, STScI.

Hubble Detects Free-Floating Compact Object 5,000 Light-Years Away

Jun 13, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have for the first time discovered what may be an isolated stellar-mass black hole using the astrometric microlensing technique. They estimate...

This Hubble image shows the globular cluster Terzan 9, a relic of a generation of long-lived stars that formed in the early Galaxy. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Cohen.

Hubble Spots Ancient Star Cluster near Milky Way’s Center

Jun 13, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is one of the best ever views of Terzan 9, one of the most central globular clusters in our Milky...

An UAP from a declassified video captured by a U.S. Navy aircraft. Image credit: U.S. Navy.

NASA Creates Independent Team to Study UAPs

Jun 9, 2022 by News Staff

NASA’s independent study team will examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) from a scientific perspective. It will focus on identifying available...

In this composite image of Abell 2146, Chandra X-ray data (purple) shows hot gas, and Subaru Telescope optical data shows galaxies (red and white). Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Nottingham / Russell et al. / NAOJ / Subaru Telescope.

Chandra Spots 1.6-Million-Light-Year-Long Shock Wave in Abell 2146

Jun 9, 2022 by News Staff

Abell 2146 is a pair of colliding galaxy clusters located approximately 2.8 billion light-years away in the constellation of Draco. In this composite image...

This visible-light image of Jupiter was created from data captured on January 11, 2017 using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Near the top, a long brown feature called a ‘brown barge’ extends 72,000 km (nearly 45,000 miles) in the east-west direction. The Great Red Spot stands out prominently in the lower left, while the smaller feature nicknamed Red Spot Jr. (known to Jovian scientists as Oval BA) appears to its lower right. Image credit: NASA / ESA / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Wong et al. / de Pater et al. / M. Zamani.

Jupiter’s Atmosphere is Inhomogeneous, New Study Suggests

Jun 8, 2022 by News Staff

While the massive atmosphere of Jupiter consists mainly of hydrogen and helium, the key to understanding the gas giant’s formation and evolution lies...

An artist’s conception of a neutron star with an ultra-strong magnetic field, called a magnetar, emitting radio waves (red). Image credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Detect Repeating Fast Radio Burst Associated with Persistent Radio Emission

Jun 8, 2022 by News Staff

FRB 190520 is only the second example of a repeating fast radio burst with a compact source of persistent radio emission between bursts. An artist’s...