Astronomy News

Sep 27, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) gave astronomers an unexpected glimpse at a black hole violently ripping apart a Sun-sized star. It is one of the most detailed looks yet at a cataclysmic phenomenon called tidal disruption, and the first for TESS. When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a stream of gas. The tail of the stream escapes the system, while the rest of it swings back around, surrounding...

Sep 27, 2019 by News Staff

Using data collected by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have created the deepest ever catalog of variable sources (variable stars in our...

Sep 26, 2019 by News Staff

A new visualization created by a team of astrophysicists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center illustrates how black hole’s gravity distorts our view,...

Sep 26, 2019 by News Staff

High-speed particle jets from gamma-ray bursts may exceed the speed of light in surrounding gas clouds, but do so without violating Einstein’s theory...

Sep 25, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

New observations and analysis of the recently-discovered comet C/2019 Q4 have confirmed its hyperbolic orbit and interstellar origin. Experts from the...

Sep 23, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the galaxy Messier 86, which is found in the constellation of Virgo. This Hubble image shows...

Sep 20, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Washington proposes a new model of plasma motion that would...

Sep 18, 2019 by News Staff

A team of astrophysicists from Columbia University proposes that the strange long-term dimming of the KIC 8462852 star (also known as Tabby’s star or...

Sep 17, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NSF’s Green Bank Telescope have identified a record breaking neutron star with the highest mass yet known. The object, called MSP J0740+6620,...

Sep 16, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Using several ground-based telescopes on La Palma and Hawaii, astronomers have observed C/2019 Q4, the first-known interstellar comet and the second-known...

Sep 16, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have spotted what they believe is the second object of interstellar origin ever observed in the Solar System. Comet C/2019 Q4. Image credit:...

Sep 16, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this vivid image of Messier 110, one of the satellite galaxies of the famous Andromeda Galaxy. This Hubble...

Sep 13, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from the VISTA Magellanic Clouds (VMC) Survey, astronomers have explored the morphology of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are...

Sep 12, 2019 by News Staff

Saturn is so beautiful that astronomers cannot resist using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to take yearly snapshots of the gas giant when it is at...

Sep 12, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the MeerKAT telescope at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory have spotted a pair of enormous radio-emitting bubbles in the...

Sep 12, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected water vapor in the atmosphere of K2-18b, a planet of eight Earth masses in the habitable...

Sep 11, 2019 by News Staff

A runaway star called PG 1610+062 was probably ejected from the Milky Way’s Carina-Sagittarius spiral arm at a velocity of 341.8 mi/s (550 km/s) with...

Sep 10, 2019 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from Italy and Germany has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe five aging star clusters — all born at about...

Sep 9, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a beautiful picture of a galaxy called UGC 695. This Hubble image shows the dwarf galaxy UGC 695. The picture...

Sep 5, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) have found a remarkable source of X-rays in NGC 6946, a spiral galaxy located...