Astronomy News

Helium Hydride Ion Spotted in Space for First Time

Güsten et al detected the first type of molecule that ever formed in the Universe -- HeH+. This discovery confirms a key part of our basic understanding of the early Universe and how it evolved over billions of years into the complex chemistry of today. Image credit: NASA’s Ames Research Center.
Apr 19, 2019 by News Staff

When the Universe was still very young, only a few kinds of atoms existed. Astrophysicists believe that around 100,000 years after the Big Bang, ionized hydrogen and neutral helium atoms combined to make the helium hydride ion (HeH+) for the first time. This molecule should be present in some parts of the modern Universe, but it has never been detected in space — until now. A team of researchers from the United States, Germany and France discovered...

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A fireball. Image credit: NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance / Sci-News.com.

Meteor of Interstellar Origin May Have Slammed into Earth in 2014

Apr 18, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

A meteor seen over the South Pacific, off the northern coast of Papua New Guinea, in 2014 likely came from interstellar space, according to new research...

An artist’s conception of HD 21749c, the first Earth-sized planet found by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), as well as its sibling, HD 21749b, a warm sub-Neptune-sized world. Image credit: Robin Dienel / Carnegie Institution for Science.

HD 21749c: TESS Discovers Its First Earth-Sized Exoplanet

Apr 17, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-sized planet — HD 21749c. An artist’s conception of HD 21749c,...

This image of Messier 62 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instruments. It is based on data obtained through four filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / S. Anderson et al.

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Messier 62

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope of the globular cluster Messier 62. This image of Messier 62 is a composite...

This infrared image was recorded by Subaru Telescope’s COMICS instrument. Sinclair et al used red, blue and yellow to infuse this image; regions of the atmosphere that are more yellow and red indicate the hotter areas. This highlights the auroral heating that occurs at Jupiter’s poles, where energy from the solar wind and magnetosphere are deposited. This image was captured on January 12, 2017. Image credit: NAOJ / NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Subaru Telescope Finds Evidence of Auroral Heating at Jupiter’s Poles

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

New observations with the Subaru Telescope, a Japanese 8-m telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, show that aurorae at Jupiter’s poles are heating the atmosphere...

This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of Proxima b orbiting Proxima Centauri. Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of Proxima itself. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around its star, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Our Closest Neighboring Exoplanets Could Be Habitable After All

Apr 11, 2019 by News Staff

Proxima b, TRAPPIST-1e, Ross-128b and LHS-1140b — the closest potentially habitable exoplanets — orbit a different kind of star than our Sun:...

The EHT Collaboration unveiled the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the center of the elliptical galaxy Messier 87 and its shadow. The shadow of a black hole seen here is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole’s boundary -- the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name -- is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 25 billion miles (40 billion km) across. Image credit: EHT Collaboration.

Event Horizon Telescope Captures First Image of Black Hole

Apr 10, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes (ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-m telescope,...

This Hubble image shows the globular cluster Messier 3. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Five 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 / G. Piotto et al.

Hubble Looks at Brilliant Globular Cluster

Apr 8, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of the 8-billion-year-old globular cluster Messier 3. This Hubble image shows the...

VLA image of Cygnus A’s central region. Image credit: Carilli et al / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Capture Direct Image of Active Galactic Nucleus Torus

Apr 5, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have caught the direct image of the thick torus surrounding the supermassive black hole...

A planet-like object orbits SDSS J122859.93+104032.9, leaving a tail of gas in its wake. Image credit: Mark Garlick / University of Warwick.

Planet-Like Object Found Orbiting White Dwarf

Apr 5, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Gran Telescopio Canarias have spotted a low-mass planet-like object in a disk of gas and debris around SDSS J122859.93+104032.9,...

An artist’s impression of the super-Earth K2-265b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

AI Finds Elusive Super-Earths in K2 Data

Apr 2, 2019 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from Google Brain, the University of Texas at Austin, MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for...

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a globular cluster called Messier 2. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the ultraviolet and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through three filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / G. Piotto et al.

Hubble Sees Globular Cluster Messier 2

Apr 1, 2019 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope of the globular cluster Messier 2. This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble...

An artist’s impression of a massive gas giant in orbit around its parent star. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt, SSC & Caltech.

Hot-Saturn Exoplanet Discovered by TESS, Characterized Using Asteroseismology

Mar 29, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered a massive gaseous exoplanet orbiting a subgiant star called HD...

The asteroid (6478) Gault is seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, showing two narrow, comet-like tails of debris that tell us that the asteroid is slowly undergoing self-destruction. The bright streaks surrounding the asteroid are background stars. Image credit: NASA / ESA / K. Meech & J. Kleyna, University of Hawaii / O. Hainaut, European Southern Observatory.

Hubble Spots Multi-Tailed Active Asteroid

Mar 28, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers once thought asteroids were boring, wayward space rocks that simply orbit around the Sun. But recent observations show that asteroids are anything...

This artist’s impression shows HR 8799e. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

GRAVITY Reveals Details of Storm-Wracked HR 8799e using Optical Interferometry

Mar 28, 2019 by News Staff

ESO’s GRAVITY instrument, a second generation imaging instrument installed on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer, has made the first direct observation...

An artists’ concept of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite against a background of stars and orbiting planets in the Milky Way. Image credit: ESA / M. Kornmesser, ESO / Aaron E. Lepsch, ADNET Systems Inc / Britt Griswold, Maslow Media Group / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Cornell University.

TESS Astronomers Create Catalog of Habitable Zone Stars

Mar 27, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is the first space-based, all-sky surveyor to search for alien worlds. The spacecraft was launched...

An artist’s conception of the HD 15337 planetary system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Discover Ancient System with Two Super-Earths

Mar 27, 2019 by Natali Anderson

An international team of astronomers has discovered a hot rocky and a warm puffy super-Earth exoplanets orbiting the 7.5-billion-year-old star HD 15337. An...

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope produced this composite image of the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy. Note that the center of the Galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ESA / CXC / STScI.

NASA: 360-Degree Visualization Shows Galactic Center

Mar 26, 2019 by News Staff

A new immersive, 360-degree, ultra-high-definition visualization provides more details of what NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory sees in X-rays around...

This is a composite picture showing images of storms on Neptune from Hubble (left) and Voyager 2 (right). The Hubble image shows a new dark storm (top center). In the Voyager image, a storm known as the Great Dark Spot is seen at the center. It is about 8,000 miles by 4,100 miles (13,000 km by 6,600 km) in size -- as large along its longer dimension as the Earth. The white clouds seen hovering in the vicinity of the storms are higher in altitude than the dark material. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / GSFC / JPL.

Hubble Captures Formation of Great Dark Spot on Neptune

Mar 26, 2019 by News Staff

A series of images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope documents the formation of a Great Dark Spot on Neptune for the first time. This is a composite...

This image of Messier 11 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 / P. Dobbie et al.

Hubble Focuses on Open Star Cluster Messier 11

Mar 25, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the brilliance of an open star cluster called Messier 11 (also known as M11 or NGC 6705). This image of...

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