Astronomy News

Oct 11, 2012 by Natali Anderson

Yale researchers have discovered that a rocky super-Earth orbiting a nearby star is a diamond planet. This illustration shows the interior of 55 Cancri e, an extremely hot planet with a surface of mostly graphite surrounding a thick layer of diamond, below which is a layer of silicon-based minerals and a molten iron core at the center (Haven Giguere) “This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth,”...

Oct 11, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers using ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory have discovered huge amounts of water vapor in a cold pre-stellar core in the constellation of Taurus...

Oct 10, 2012 by News Staff

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured a beautiful image of the Thor’s Helmet Nebula. The Thor’s Helmet Nebula, also known as NGC 2359, as...

Oct 9, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

Cambridge researchers have discovered a new population of enormous, rapidly growing supermassive black holes in the early Universe. Infrared color image...

Oct 9, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

The team of astrophysicists using NASA’s Swift satellite has discovered a rare X-ray nova in our Galaxy. According to the team, this object reveals...

Oct 8, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

A new study by scientists from the University of Southampton’s School of Mathematics explains how the spin of a pulsar slows down as the star gets older. This...

Oct 8, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers using ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory have detected magnesium-rich material in a dust belt around the young star Beta Pictoris. This composite...

Oct 5, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers have announced the discovery of a remarkable star that orbits the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy in only 11.5 years –...

Oct 4, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers using the newly upgraded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico, USA, have discovered two black holes inside an ancient...

Oct 2, 2012 by Natali Anderson

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a beautiful image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4183. NGC 4183 is a spiral galaxy little smaller than the Milky...

Sep 28, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of astrophysicists has the first time measured the black hole’s ‘point of no return’ – the closest distance that...

Sep 27, 2012 by News Staff

Astronomers at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile have captured a new image of part of the Seagull Nebula. This cloud of gas known as Sharpless 2-292...

Sep 27, 2012 by News Staff

Using a method called reconstructive speckle imaging, a team of astronomers at the Gemini Observatory has captured the sharpest ground-based image ever...

Sep 26, 2012 by News Staff

Astronomers have assembled a new portrait of the deepest-ever view of the Universe by combining 10 years of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observations. This...

Sep 25, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

New observations made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton, and Japan’s Suzaku have provided evidence that our Galaxy...

Sep 24, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of astronomers has found a possible way to map the spread and structure of the Universe, guided by the light of quasars. This artist’s...

Sep 21, 2012 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have captured a new image of an actively star-forming galaxy known as NGC 7090. This image shows the...

Sep 20, 2012 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have discovered what could be the most distant galaxy ever seen. Light from the young...

Sep 19, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

New observations from the Herschel Space Observatory have revealed that prodigious star formation in galaxies of the early Universe were often accompanied...

Sep 18, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

The Dark Energy Camera – the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created – has recorded first images in hunt for dark energy, according...