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This Webb/NIRCam image shows the multi-planet system HR 8799. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / W. Balmer, JHU / L. Pueyo, STScI / M. Perrin, STScI.

Webb Directly Images Multiple Giant Exoplanets around Two Young Stars

Mar 17, 2025 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have captured coronagraphic images of the HR 8799...

This Hubble image shows a small region of the Small Magellanic Cloud near the center of the open cluster NGC 346. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Murray.

Hubble Focuses on Star-Studded Region in Neighbor Galaxy

Mar 17, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a small region of the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the closest galaxies to the Milky...

This image from Webb’s NIRCam instrument shows Saturn

Saturn Now Has 274 Moons after New Discovery

Mar 13, 2025 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from Taiwan, Canada, the United States, and France has observed 128 additional moons orbiting the gas giant Saturn, bringing its...

Artist’s impression of Zeta Puppis, an O-type star approximately 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. Image credit: Tahina Ramiaramanantsoa.

Nearby Supernova Explosions May Have Caused Several Mass Extinctions on Earth

Mar 13, 2025 by News Staff

According to new research from Keele University and the Universidad de Alicante, near-Earth explosions of giant O- and B-type stars occur at a rate of...

Artistic illustration showing the radio pulses emitted by the binary star system: a white dwarf in orbit around a red dwarf. Image credit: Daniëlle Futselaar / artsource.nl.

Sporadic Radio Pulses Traced to White Dwarf-Red-Dwarf Binary System

Mar 12, 2025 by News Staff

Astrophysicists have found that a recently-discovered transient radio source, ILT J110160.52+552119.62, whose roughly minute-long pulses arrive with a...

An artist’s rendition of a giant star in orbit around a low-mass black hole. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Black Hole Singularity Could Represent New Beginning: Study

Mar 12, 2025 by News Staff

Black holes may transition into white holes, ejecting matter and even time back into the Universe, according to a new study by physicists from the University...

An artist’s illustration of exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s star. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / P. Marenfeld.

Astronomers Find Evidence for Four Sub-Earth Exoplanets around Barnard’s Star

Mar 11, 2025 by News Staff

For a century, astronomers have been studying Barnard’s star in the hope of finding planets around it. First discovered by E.E. Barnard at Yerkes Observatory...

This collage of images from the Flame Nebula shows a near-infrared light view from Hubble on the left, while the two insets at the right show the near-infrared view taken by Webb. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / M. Meyer, University of Michigan / A. Pagan, STScI.

Webb Focuses on Flame Nebula’s Brown Dwarfs

Mar 11, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have explored the lowest mass limit of brown dwarfs within the Flame Nebula, a hotbed of...

Lightning starts with a positive fast discharge, followed by an even faster and more extensive negative discharge observed in 3D; signal polarizations slant from the discharge propagation direction and rotate between the two opposite fast discharges; these features can only be due to a cosmic-ray shower that preconditioned the discharge path and guided the discharge current direction. Image credit: ELG21.

Cosmic-Ray Showers Play Pivotal Role in Triggering Lightning Flashes

Mar 11, 2025 by News Staff

How lightning is started in thunderstorms is poorly known. With a newly-developed 3D mapping and polarization system, physicists at Los Alamos National...

The elliptical galaxy NGC 3561B (upper left) and the spiral galaxy NGC 3561A (lower right) form a shimmering guitar shape in the ongoing merger known collectively as Arp 105. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M. West, Lowell Observatory / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America.

Hubble Observes Ongoing Merger of Two Massive Galaxies: Arp 105

Mar 10, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Arp 105 is characterized by a tidal tail of stars and gas more than 362,000 light-years long. The elliptical galaxy NGC 3561B (upper left) and the spiral...

This Hubble image shows NGC 4900, a spiral galaxy approximately 45 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / S.J. Smartt / C. Kilpatrick.

Hubble Space Telescope Spies NGC 4900

Mar 10, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced a spectacular image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4900. This Hubble image shows NGC 4900,...

This Webb image shows part of Lynds 483. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI.

Webb Captures Fantastic Detail of Lynds 483

Mar 7, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Two young protostars are responsible for the shimmering ejections of gas and dust that gleam in orange, blue, and purple in this color image of a portion...

Artist’s impression of a hypervelocity star ejected from the Large Magellanic Cloud (shown on right). When a binary star system ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, the intense gravitational forces tear the pair apart. One star is captured into a tight orbit around the black hole, while the other is flung outward at extreme velocities -- often exceeding thousands of kilometers per second -- becoming a hypervelocity star. The inset illustration depicts this process: the original binary’s orbital path is shown as interwoven lines, with one star being captured by the black hole (near center of inset) while the other is ejected into space (lower right). Image credit: CfA / Melissa Weiss.

Astronomers Find Strong Evidence for Supermassive Black Hole in Large Magellanic Cloud

Mar 6, 2025 by News Staff

The mass of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, is about 600,000 solar...

This artist’s impression shows an exoplanet (left) that has approached too close to a white dwarf (right) and been torn apart by tidal forces from the star. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / M. Weiss.

Enigmatic X-Ray Emission from Distant White Dwarf Points to Destroyed Exoplanet

Mar 5, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers may finally have settled the question of what is causing highly energetic X-rays from WD 2226-210, a white dwarf star located at the center...

This artist’s concept depicts one of the possible scenarios for the Altjira system in the Kuiper Belt. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Kuiper-Belt Object Altjira is Likely a Hierarchical Triple System

Mar 4, 2025 by News Staff

Altjira, also known as 2001 UQ18, is located in the outer reaches of the Solar System, 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles) away, or 44 times the distance...

An artist’s impression of SIMP 0136. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Olmsted, STScI.

Multiple Cloud Layers, Hot Spots and Changing Chemistry are Present in Extrasolar Worlds: Study

Mar 3, 2025 by News Staff

New observations from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope support the presence of three specific features — clouds, hot spots, and changing...

An artist’s illustration of the Amaterasu particle observed by a surface detector array of the Telescope Array experiment. Image credit: Osaka Metropolitan University / L-INSIGHT, Kyoto University / Ryuunosuke Takeshige.

Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays are Produced in Neutron Star Mergers, Physicist Says

Mar 3, 2025 by News Staff

Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays are the highest-energy particles in the Universe, whose energies are more than a million times what can be achieved by humans. Professor...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Water was Already Present in Primordial Universe 100-200 Million Years after Big Bang

Mar 3, 2025 by News Staff

Described in a paper that appears today in the journal Nature Astronomy, the discovery means habitable exoplanets could have started forming much earlier...

This Hubble image shows NGC 5042, an intermediate spiral galaxy some 48 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker.

Hubble Space Telescope Looks at NGC 5042

Mar 3, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced a beautiful new image of the intermediate spiral galaxy NGC 5042. This Hubble image...