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The Chicxulub asteroid hit Earth at an angle of about 60 degrees, which is among the worst-case scenarios for the lethality of the impact by the production of climate-changing gases. Image credit: Chase Stone.

Novel Theory Explains Possible Origin of Dinosaur-Killing Chicxulub Impactor

Feb 16, 2021 by News Staff

At the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago, a 10-km impactor crashed into Earth near the site of the small town of Chicxulub in what...

This illustration sketches out the main features of the TOI-451 system. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

TESS Discovers Three Planets in Triple-Star System TOI-451

Feb 16, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered a trio of hot planets orbiting a much younger version of our Sun...

This Hubble image shows two Herbig-Haro objects HH46 and HH47. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). It is based on data obtained through six filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / B. Nisini.

Hubble Captures Two Beautiful Herbig-Haro Objects

Feb 15, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope show HH46 and HH47, two Herbig-Haro objects — small-scale shock regions associated with...

The starburst galaxy ALESS 073.1 is seen as it was about 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. Image credit: Cardiff University.

Galaxy Evolution is Much Faster Process than Previously Thought

Feb 12, 2021 by News Staff

ALESS 073.1, a star-forming galaxy located 12.5 billion light-years away, has all of the features expected of a much more mature galaxy and has led astronomers...

Alkali Metals from Rocky Planets Found in Atmospheres of Nearby White Dwarfs

Feb 12, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers have detected lithium in the atmospheres of four cool and old white dwarfs, of which one also displayed atmospheric potassium. The relative...

An artist’s impression of a group of stellar-mass black holes in the center of NGC 6397. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / N. Bartmann.

Astronomers Find Large Group of Stellar-Mass Black Holes in NGC 6397

Feb 11, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence for dozens of stellar-mass black holes lurking in the core-collapsed, globular...

Solar system distances to scale, showing 2018 AG37 compared to other known solar system objects, including the previous record holder 2018 VG18. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa / Scott S. Sheppard, Carnegie Institution for Science / Brooks Bays, University of Hawai’i.

Solar System’s Most Distant Object Confirmed

Feb 11, 2021 by News Staff

Nicknamed ‘Farfarout’ and officially designated 2018 AG37, the newly-confirmed planetoid has a very elongated orbit that takes it out to 175 AU (astronomical...

This Hubble image shows a small part of Caldwell 99, a dark nebula located 600 light-years away in the southern constellation of Crux. Image credit: NASA / ESA / R. Sahai, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America.

Hubble Spots Beautiful Protoplanetary Nebula in Caldwell 99

Feb 11, 2021 by News Staff

NASA has released a photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of a small region on the edge of the dark nebula Caldwell 99. This Hubble image...

This artist’s conception shows a hypothetical rocky exoplanet in the Alpha Centauri system. Image credit: Michael S. Helfenbein.

Astronomers Directly Image Habitable-Zone Planet around Alpha Centauri A

Feb 11, 2021 by News Staff

Using a newly developed system for mid-infrared exoplanet imaging, astronomers from the Breakthrough Watch Initiative say they can now use ground-based...

This DECam image shows Messier 83, a stunning face-on spiral galaxy located about 15 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydra. Its spiral arms are lined with dark lanes of dust and peppered with reddish, star-forming clouds of hydrogen gas. Image credit: CTIO / NOIRLab / DOE / NSF / AURA / M. Soraisam, University of Illinois / Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage / Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin.

Dark Energy Camera Captures Messier 83 in Glorious Detail

Feb 9, 2021 by News Staff

The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory has produced a spectacularly detailed...

This composite image contains data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) and the NSF’s Very Large Array (red) of Sgr A East. This object is located very close to the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way’s center, and likely overruns the disk of material surrounding the black hole. Image credit: NASA / CXC / Nanjing University / Zhou et al. / NSF / NRAO / VLA.

Chandra Finds Rare Supernova Remnant in Milky Way’s Center

Feb 9, 2021 by News Staff

Sagittarius A East (Sgr A East), a supernova remnant located strikingly close to the central supermassive black hole of our Milky Way Galaxy, resulted...

This is an artistic impression of a red dwarf star’s magnetic interaction with its exoplanet. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar, Artsource.nl.

Terrestrial-Mass Exoplanet Found Orbiting Red Dwarf Gliese 1151

Feb 9, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Magnetic interactions between the newfound planet, designated Gliese 1151b, and its host star are the likely source of low-frequency radio emission recently...

This image, taken with the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows the spiral galaxy NGC 6902. Image credit: TIMER Survey / ESO.

MUSE Sees Star-Forming Regions in NGC 6902

Feb 9, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have captured a remarkable image of the spiral galaxy...

This Hubble image shows the bipolar planetary nebula M1-63. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Stanghellini.

Hubble Space Telescope Spots Cosmic Hourglass

Feb 8, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released an incredibly beautiful photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the planetary nebula M1-63. This Hubble image shows the...

An artist’s impression of a thin gas cloud formed by tidal disruption from a passing star. Wang et al. think this is one of the possible ways the cold clump of gas detected in the study could have been formed. Image credit: Mark Myers / OzGrav.

Radio Astronomers Detect ‘Invisible’ Filament of Cold Gas

Feb 5, 2021 by News Staff

Using CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and background radio galaxies, astronomers have spotted a long cloud of cold hydrogen...

An artist’s impression of a hot-Jupiter exoplanet. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Chromium Hydride Detected in Atmosphere of WASP-31b

Feb 4, 2021 by Natali Anderson

A team of astronomers from the University of Groningen, the University of Edinburgh, and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research has detected chromium...

An artist’s impression of PSR J2039-5617 and its companion. Image credit: B. Knispel / C.J. Clark / Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Astronomers Discover Rare ‘Redback’ Millisecond Pulsar

Feb 4, 2021 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope and the enormous computing power of the citizen science project Einstein@Home, astronomers have found that...

An artist’s impression of the KIC 8462852 binary system. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Milky Way’s ‘Most Mysterious Star’ Has a Companion

Feb 2, 2021 by Sergio Prostak

KIC 8462852, a mysteriously dimming star located about 1,480 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus, is, in fact, a binary stellar system, made...

Lab experiment using water tank simulation to demonstrate backreaction in an analogue black hole. Image credit: University of Nottingham.

Physicists Observe Backreaction in Analogue Black Hole Experiment

Feb 2, 2021 by News Staff

Physicists from the University of Nottingham and the University of Cambridge have for the first time demonstrated that the evolution of black holes resulting...