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Wilkins et al. observed bright flares of X-ray emissions, produced as gas falls into a supermassive black hole in I Zwicky 1; the flares echoed off of the gas falling into the black hole, and as the flares were subsiding, short flashes of X-rays were seen -- corresponding to the reflection of the flares from the far side of the disk, bent around the black hole by its strong gravitational field. Image credit: Dan Wilkins.

Astronomers Detect Light Echoes Coming from Behind Supermassive Black Hole

Jul 30, 2021 by News Staff

Using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescopes, astronomers have observed X-ray flares emitted from around the supermassive black hole in...

An image of the Andromeda Galaxy from the Sardinia Radio Telescope after averaging over the whole bandwidth at 6.6 GHz. Image credit: Fatigoni et al., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202040011.

Sardinia Telescope Captures Most Detailed Radio Image Ever Seen of Andromeda Galaxy

Jul 30, 2021 by News Staff

Using the Sardinia Radio Telescope, a 64-m fully steerable radio telescope near San Basilio, Sardinia, Italy, an international team of astronomers has...

An artist’s impression of binary black holes about to collide. Image credit: Mark Myers, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), Australian National University.

Gravitational-Wave-Detected Black Holes Could Be Product of Much Earlier Parent Mergers

Jul 28, 2021 by News Staff

While most of the binary black-hole mergers recently detected by NSF’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States...

This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Galileo Project Will Search for ‘Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts’

Jul 28, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of astrophysicists has announced a new scientific project to search for evidence of potential astro-archeological artifacts or active...

This illustration depicts a collapsing star that is producing two short gamma-ray jets. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / M. Zamani, NOIRLab.

Shortest Supernova-Produced Gamma-Ray Burst Discovered

Jul 28, 2021 by News Staff

Most known supernova-powered gamma-ray bursts are ‘long’ (lasting more than two seconds), but a gamma-ray burst event called GRB 200826A lasted just...

Schematics of the observations of TYC 8998-760-1b using SINFONI on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The background image is captured by the SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope. The small blue box marks the field of view of SINFONI observations targeting TYC 8998-760-1b. Both the host star and TYC 8998-760-1c are outside the field of view. An example of the wavelength-collapsed image is shown in the enlarged blue box, showing negligible contribution from starlight. Image credit: ESO / Bohn et al. / Zhang et al.

Astronomers Detect Carbon-13 in Atmosphere of Young Super-Jupiter

Jul 28, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have detected the isotopically substituted carbon monoxide, 13CO, in the atmosphere of the young giant exoplanet...

Roth et al. reveal the first evidence for water vapor in the atmosphere of Ganymede, the result of the thermal escape of water vapor from the moon’s icy surface. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. daSilva.

Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Ganymede

Jul 26, 2021 by News Staff

Jupiter’s icy satellite Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System. Water ice on its surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus...

This Hubble image shows the triple galaxy system Arp 195. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Dalcanton.

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Interacting Galaxy Triplet

Jul 26, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking photo of the triple merging system Arp 195. This Hubble image shows the...

This ALMA image shows a close-up view on the circumplanetary disk surrounding PDS 70c. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Benisty et al.

ALMA Detects Circumplanetary Disk around Young Exoplanet PDS 70c

Jul 22, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected a circumplanetary disk — a ring-shaped area where moons and...

This Hubble image shows Messier 104. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA.

Giant Stellar Stream Spotted around Sombrero Galaxy

Jul 22, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Sombrero galaxy likely merged with a relatively massive galaxy several billions years ago. In a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal...

The new highest resolution EHT image of the Centaurus A’s jet launching region. Image credit: R. Bors / CSIRO / ATNF / Feain et al. / Morganti et al. / Junkes et al. / ESO / WFI / MPIfR / APEX / Weiß et al. / NASA / CXC / CfA / Kraft et al. / TANAMI / Müller et al. / EHT / Janssen et al.

Event Horizon Telescope Captures Image of Centaurus A’s Black Hole Jet

Jul 20, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration have imaged a jet in the heart of the nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A and identified the...

Hubble resolved roughly 25 fragments of comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) on April 23, 2020. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Jewitt, University of California, Los Angeles / Q. Ye, University of Maryland.

ESA’s Solar Orbiter Encounters Tail of Fragmented Comet ATLAS

Jul 20, 2021 by News Staff

The long-period comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) fragmented during its perihelion in April 2020. About two months later, ESA’s Solar Orbiter observed the dusty...

An artist’s impression of a neutron star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Neutron-Star Mountains May Be Only Fractions of Millimeters High, New Model Shows

Jul 19, 2021 by News Staff

Because of their compactness, neutron stars have an enormous gravitational pull around a billion times stronger than the Earth. This squashes every feature...

This Hubble image shows the galaxy cluster MACS J0138.0-2155, which is so massive that its gravity bent and magnified light streaming not only from an extremely distant background galaxy but also from a supernova event in this galaxy. The color image was made using observations from eight different filters spread across Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Newman / M. Akhshik / K. Whitaker.

Hubble Observes Multiply-Imaged, Gravitationally Lensed Supernova

Jul 19, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The multiply-imaged supernova AT2016jka appeared in the distant giant galaxy MRG-M0138, gravitationally lensed by the foreground galaxy cluster MACS J0138.0-2155. This...

This image combines observations of the nearby galaxies NGC 1300, NGC 1087, NGC 3627 (top, from left to right), NGC 4254 and NGC 4303 (bottom, from left to right) taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO / PHANGS.

Astronomers Focus on Star-Forming Regions in Nearby Galaxies

Jul 16, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers know that stars are born in clouds of gas, but what sets off star formation, and how galaxies as a whole play into it, remains a mystery. To...

This image of comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) was taken by the Las Cumbres Observatory 1-m telescope at Sutherland, South Africa, on June 22, 2021; the diffuse cloud is the comet’s coma. Image credit: LOOK project, Las Cumbres Observatory.

Astronomers Spot First Activity on Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein

Jul 16, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers with Las Cumbres Observatory have captured a new image of the recently-discovered giant comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein). This...

An artist’s impression of the potential lava world TOI-1807b. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Chris Smith, KBRwyle.

TESS Discovers Planetary Systems around Two Young Co-Moving Stars

Jul 14, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered four exoplanets orbiting TOI-2076 and TOI-1807, a pair of related...

An artist’s impression of HD 265435, a binary system located approximately 1,500 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini. Image credit: Mark Garlick / University of Warwick.

HD 265435 Will Explode as Type Ia Supernova in 70 Million Years, Astronomers Say

Jul 13, 2021 by News Staff

HD 265435 is a binary system with an orbital period of around 100 min that consists of a white dwarf and a hot subdwarf star. An artist’s impression...

Artist’s impression of a volcano erupting on Venus. Image credit: ESA / AOES Medialab.

Phosphine in Atmosphere of Venus Points to Explosive Volcanic Activity

Jul 13, 2021 by News Staff

In 2020, planetary scientists detected small amounts of the biosignature gas phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope...