Astronomy News

Great Red Spot Isn’t Disappearing, Researchers Say

A series of false-color images capturing the repeated flaking of red clouds from the Great Red Spot in the Spring of 2019. In the earliest image, the flaking is predominant on the east side of the giant red vortex. The flake then breaks off from the Great Red Spot, but a new flake starts to detach in the fifth image. Image credit: Chris Go.
Nov 26, 2019 by News Staff

Clouds hide the true size and nature of Jupiter’s most distinctive feature, the Great Red Spot, according to a study led by University of California, Berkeley’s Professor Philip Marcus. A series of false-color images capturing the repeated flaking of red clouds from the Great Red Spot in the Spring of 2019. In the earliest image, the flaking is predominant on the east side of the giant red vortex. The flake then breaks off from the Great Red Spot,...

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An artist’s impression of planets orbiting a supermassive black hole. Image credit: Kagoshima University.

Planets May Form and Orbit around Supermassive Black Holes

Nov 25, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Protoplanetary disks around stars may not be the only site for planet formation in the Universe, according to a team of theoretical astrophysicists from...

This Hubble image shows the pair of interacting galaxies Arp 293. The image includes infrared observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / K. Larson et al.

Hubble Witnesses Dance of Galaxies: Arp 293

Nov 25, 2019 by Natali Anderson

NASA has released a beautiful photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the peculiar pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 293. This Hubble...

This image of the Phoenix Cluster combines X-ray, radio and optical data; side panels show the individual images making up the composite. Image credit: NASA / CXC / MIT / M. McDonald et al / NRAO / AUI / NSF / STScI.

Enormous Black Hole Boosts Star Formation in Phoenix Galaxy Cluster

Nov 22, 2019 by News Staff

Supermassive black holes in the center of galaxy clusters usually suppress star formation, but the one in the Phoenix Cluster, a group of about 1,000 galaxies...

NGC 6240 harbors three supermassive black holes at its core: the northern black hole (N) is active and was known before; the zoomed-in new high-spatial resolution image shows that the southern component consists of two supermassive black holes (S1 and S2); the green color indicates the distribution of gas ionized by radiation surrounding the black holes; the red lines show the contours of the starlight from the galaxy and the length of the white bar corresponds to 1,000 light years. Image credit: P. Weilbacher, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam / NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage / STScI / AURA / Hubble Collaboration / A. Evans, University of Virginia, Charlottesville / NRAO / Stony Brook University.

Astronomers Find Three Supermassive Black Holes in NGC 6240

Nov 22, 2019 by News Staff

NGC 6240, a well-studied nearby galaxy system in the process of merging, contains three supermassive black holes at its core, two of which are active and...

Astronomers Observe Host Galaxy of Extremely Bright and Long Gamma-Ray Burst

Nov 21, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have investigated the nature of a very bright and long-duration gamma-ray burst, GRB 190114C, by studying its environment. Hubble’s observations...

This image shows TYC 8332-2529-1. Image credit: Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg / SIMBAD / DECaPS.

MeerKAT Spots Huge Radio Flare from Binary System

Nov 20, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the MeerKAT telescope at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory have spotted an object which rapidly brightened by more than a...

These are the 27 newly-discovered supernova remnants. The MWA radio images trace the edges of the explosions as they continue their ongoing expansion into interstellar space. Some are huge, larger than the full Moon, and others are small and hard to spot in the complexity of the Milky Way. Image credit: Natasha Hurley-Walker, ICRAR & Curtin / GLEAM Team.

Astronomers Discover 27 New Supernova Remnants in Milky Way

Nov 20, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has detected 27 new supernova remnants using a data release of the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA survey (GLEAM)...

An artist’s rendering of two brown dwarfs. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa & Sergio Dieterich, Carnegie Institution for Science.

Two Co-Moving Brown Dwarfs Spotted 79 Light-Years Away

Nov 20, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Professional and amateur astronomers from the NASA-funded ‘Backyard Worlds: Planet 9’ project have spotted a co-moving pair of low-mass brown dwarfs...

This composite image shows the Orion A molecular cloud, the nearest known massive star factory, as seen by ESA’s Herschel and Planck space observatories. Located approximately 1,630 light-years away, Orion A is one of the two giant molecular clouds in the Orion molecular cloud complex. The other cloud is Orion B, which lies east of Orion’s Belt. Orion A is packed full of gas -- it contains so much material, in fact, that it would be capable of producing tens of thousands of Sun-mass stars. Different colors visible here indicate the light emitted by interstellar dust grains mixed within the gas, as observed by Herschel at far-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths, while the texture of faint gray bands stretching across the frame, based on Planck’s measurements of the direction of the polarized light emitted by the dust, show the orientation of the magnetic field. Image credit: ESA / Herschel / Planck / J.D. Soler, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

Magnetic Fields Play Role in Structuring Interstellar Medium in and around Star-Forming Clouds: Study

Nov 19, 2019 by News Staff

In a new study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, Dr. Juan Soler of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy used observations from ESA’s...

Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Directly Detect Water Vapor on Europa for First Time

Nov 19, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have for the first time managed to detect water vapor above the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s...

The odd orbits of Neptune’s inner moons Naiad and Thalassa enable them to avoid each other as they race around the giant planet. Image credit: Brozović et al, doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113462.

Neptune’s Moons Naiad and Thalassa Perform ‘Dance of Avoidance’

Nov 18, 2019 by News Staff

A new study, published in the journal Icarus, shows that Naiad and Thalassa, two innermost moons of Neptune, are locked in an unusual type of orbital resonance. The...

This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the spiral galaxy NGC 3749. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Rosario et al.

Hubble Snaps Stunning Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3749

Nov 18, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of a galaxy called NGC 3749. This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope...

This is a simulation showing a section of the Universe at its broadest scale; a web of cosmic filaments forms a lattice of matter, enclosing vast voids. Image credit: Greg Poole / Tiamat Simulation.

Study: Direction in Which Galaxies Spin Depends on Their Mass

Nov 15, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have measured the rotation of 1,418 galaxies and found that small ones are likely to spin on a different axis to large ones. The rotation was...

An artist’s impression of S5-HVS1’s ejection by Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Sagittarius A* and the captured binary partner to S5-HVS1 are seen far away in the left corner of the picture, while S5-HVS1 is in the foreground, speeding away from them. Image credit: James Josephides, Swinburne Astronomy Productions.

S5-HVS1: Hypervelocity Star Ejected by Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

Nov 13, 2019 by News Staff

A main-sequence hypervelocity star traveling at huge speeds after being ejected by Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky...

TESS Finds Hot Neptune-Like Exoplanet around Sun-Like Star

Nov 13, 2019 by Natali Anderson

A short-period, hot Neptune-like planet has been discovered orbiting a Sun-like star called TOI-132, thanks to data gathered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet...

The newly-discovered gas cloud formed just 850 million years after the Big Bang. Image credit: Max Planck Society.

First-Generation Stars Formed More Quickly than Previously Thought

Nov 11, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has discovered a massive cloud of gas that formed just 850 million years after the Big Bang. The chemical composition...

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.

Our Universe is Curved, Suggests New Study

Nov 11, 2019 by News Staff

The current model of the Universe needs to be revised, according to a new analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy data. This artist’s...

This image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a detailed view of the central part of the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 772. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Seth et al.

Hubble Observes Hidden Depths of NGC 772

Nov 11, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking new photo of a spiral galaxy called NGC 772. This image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space...

This Hubble image shows a massive galaxy cluster, about 4.6 billion light years away. Along its borders 12 images within the four arcs are visible; these are copies of the same galaxy called PSZ1 G311.65-18.48, which is almost 11 billion light-years away. Three of these arcs are visible in the top right of the image, while one counterarc is visible in the lower left -- partially obscured by a bright foreground star within our Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Rivera-Thorsen et al.

Hubble Sees Twelve Images of Same Galaxy Split by Gravitational Lens

Nov 8, 2019 by News Staff

An effect called strong gravitational lensing has allowed the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to see the same remote galaxy twelve times. Called PSZ1 G311.65-18.48,...

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