Astronomy News

Aug 17, 2018 by News Staff

A research team headed by College of Charleston astrophysicist Jon Hakkila has discovered a peculiarity in the light curves of astronomical phenomena called gamma-ray bursts that may provide a breakthrough in understanding the conditions that produce these events. An artist’s impression of a gamma-ray burst’s jet. Image credit: S. Wiessinger / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the intrinsically brightest explosions...

Aug 16, 2018 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers have detected atomic iron and titanium in the atmosphere of KELT-9b, a gas giant exoplanet orbiting a star in the constellation Cygnus, about...

Aug 15, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers have known that roughly 12 billion years ago, the gas in deep space was much more opaque than it is now in some regions, although the opacity...

Aug 15, 2018 by James Romero

Have Carl Sagan and astrobiologists been too hard on stellar flares? A new study imagines an alternative scenario where they power photosynthesis around...

Aug 14, 2018 by News Staff

A study conducted by an international consortium called the CLAS Collaboration, made up of 182 members from 42 institutions in 9 countries, has confirmed...

Aug 14, 2018 by News Staff

Close encounters between stars in Omega Centauri, the only star cluster visible to the naked eye, leave little room for habitable planets, according to...

Aug 13, 2018 by News Staff

A close flyby of a Sun-mass star several billion years ago could explain some unusual features observed in the outer Solar System. An artist’s concept...

Aug 13, 2018 by News Staff

Galaxy clusters are some of the most massive and largest structures that can be found in the Universe. A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope...

Aug 10, 2018 by News Staff

In a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Columbia University astronomer Sarah Pearson and co-authors show how gas...

Aug 10, 2018 by News Staff

Recent observations by NASA’s space telescopes of ultrahot Jupiter-like exoplanets have surprised astronomers. The spectra of these planets have suggested...

Aug 9, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) have examined a small group of five galaxies in the southern hemisphere. The results will be published...

Aug 7, 2018 by News Staff

Before NASA’s newest planet-hunter TESS started science operations on July 25, the spacecraft sent back a series of images showing the motion of C/2018...

Aug 6, 2018 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking photo of the colorful globular cluster NGC 2108. This Hubble/ACS image shows NGC 2108, a globular...

Aug 6, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array have detected a ‘rogue’ planetary-mass object with a surprisingly powerful magnetic field. Artist’s...

Aug 2, 2018 by News Staff

Scientists from the University of Cambridge and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK, have identified a group of exoplanets where the same chemical...

Aug 2, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) have made the first definitive...

Aug 1, 2018 by News Staff

A team of astronomers at Carl Sagan Institute, Cornell University, has produced a reference catalog of spectra and geometric albedos for 19 objects that...

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

By examining microscopic ice-blue crystals of mineral hibonite trapped inside a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, an international team of scientists was...

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

Conditions favorable for gravitational wave-emitting mergers of massive black holes exist in the outer gas disks of big spiral galaxies, according to a...

Jul 30, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has begun its search for planets around stars within 300 light-years of the Sun. An artist’s illustration...