Astronomy News

May 8, 2020 by News Staff

Multiwavelength observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and Gemini Observatory combined with close-up views from NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveal that lightning strikes and huge storm systems that create them in Jupiter’s atmosphere are formed in and around large convective cells over deep clouds of water ice and liquid; the observations also confirm that dark spots in the famous Great Red Spot are actually gaps in the cloud cover and...

May 6, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have tracked water loss from 2I/Borisov, the first known interstellar comet to visit our Solar...

May 6, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Fiber-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory have found a...

May 5, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has demonstrated that single-celled microorganisms such as Escherichia coli and...

May 4, 2020 by News Staff

Giant elliptical galaxies are not as likely as previously thought to be cradles of complex life, according to a paper published in the Monthly Notices...

May 4, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have found four exoplanets — a hot super-Earth and three sub-Neptunes —...

May 4, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced an outstanding image of a barred spiral galaxy called NGC 3583. This Hubble image shows the barred spiral...

May 1, 2020 by News Staff

A team of astrobiologists from the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University has developed a spectral field guide for Earth-like exoplanets transiting...

May 1, 2020 by News Staff

Magnetic activity on the Sun leads to solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other space weather that affects Earth. Similar activity on other stars...

Apr 30, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the PIONIER (Precision Integrated-Optics Near-infrared Imaging ExpeRiment) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer...

Apr 29, 2020 by News Staff

Using the High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) instrument on the 10-m Keck I telescope at W.M. Keck Observatory, astronomers have discovered a...

Apr 29, 2020 by News Staff

The fine-structure constant is a measure of electromagnetism — one of the four fundamental forces in nature; the others are gravity, weak nuclear...

Apr 29, 2020 by News Staff

New images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the long-period comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS), taken on April 20 and 23, 2020, provide the sharpest views...

Apr 28, 2020 by News Staff

Professor Andrew King from the University of Leicester has shown that periodic X-ray eruptions from a galaxy called GSN 069 could result from the core...

Apr 28, 2020 by Natali Anderson

At least 17 high-inclination Centaurs and two trans-Neptunian objects were captured by the Solar System from the interstellar medium, according to a new...

Apr 27, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of the spiral galaxy NGC 4100. This Hubble image shows a spiral...

Apr 24, 2020 by News Staff

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers used the telescope to take a portrait of the giant...

Apr 24, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and several ground-based telescopes, astronomers have been able to watch the long-period comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)...

Apr 22, 2020 by News Staff

In a new study, an international team of astronomers led by ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) combined data...

Apr 21, 2020 by News Staff

The directly-imaged massive exoplanet Fomalhaut b is actually a dispersing cloud of dust, produced by a catastrophic collision between two large planetesimals...