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This vivid picture of NGC 2467 was captured with the FORS2 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Observes NGC 2467

Oct 25, 2018 by News Staff

The Very Large Telescope (VLT), a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern...

An illustration of a compact, multi-planet system. Image credit: Michael S. Helfenbein / Yale University.

Compact Multi-Planet Systems are More Common around Metal-Poor Stars, Astronomers Says

Oct 25, 2018 by News Staff

A team of U.S. astronomers has discovered that small planetary systems with multiple planets are more likely to form around stars that have lower amounts...

In this composite image of Kes 75, high-energy X-rays observed by Chandra are colored blue and highlight the pulsar wind nebula surrounding the pulsar, while lower-energy X-rays appear purple and show the debris from the explosion. Image credit: X-rays – NASA / CXC / NCSU / S. Reynolds; optical – PanSTARRS.

Milky Way’s Youngest Pulsar Confirmed

Oct 23, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have confirmed that a supernova remnant called Kes 75 contains the youngest known pulsar in our Milky...

This Hubble image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5033. The image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). It is based on data obtained through two filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Snaps Beautiful Image of NGC 5033

Oct 22, 2018 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a vivid image of the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 5033. This Hubble image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5033....

An artist’s impression of a habitable exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf. Image credit: Sci-News.com / NASA.

Ultraviolet Superflares May Threaten Exoplanet Habitability near Young Red Dwarfs

Oct 19, 2018 by News Staff

Stellar superflares from young red dwarfs may make conditions uninhabitable on fledgling planets, according to the new results of the Habitable Zones and...

The Hyperion proto-supercluster is the largest and most massive structure yet found at such a remote time and distance -- about 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada & Olga Cucciati et al.

Astronomers Find Proto-Supercluster of Galaxies in Early Universe

Oct 18, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have spotted a gigantic galaxy proto-supercluster in the early Universe, just 2.3 billion years after the...

This image shows data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple in the inset boxes) in context with an optical image of GRB 150101B from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Image credit: X-rays – NASA / CXC / GSFC / UMC / E. Troja et al; optical and infrared – NASA / STScI.

Astronomers Find Object with Remarkable Similarities to Neutron-Star Merger GW170817

Oct 17, 2018 by News Staff

A distant relative to GW170817, the first source identified to emit gravitational waves and light, has been discovered. Reported in the journal Nature...

An artist’s impression of four gas giants in orbit around CI Tau. Image credit: University of Cambridge.

Astronomers Discover Young Planetary System with Four Gas Giants

Oct 16, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered a 2-million-year-old planetary system containing at least four...

Comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS). Image credit: Damian Peach, www.damianpeach.com / Jose J. Chambo, www.cometografia.es.

Astronomers Spot Rare Blue Comet: C/2016 R2

Oct 16, 2018 by Sergio Prostak

C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS), a visitor from the Solar System’s distant Oort Cloud, sports a very complex tail dominated by blue light and is unusually rich...

Gas glows brightly in this computer simulation of supermassive black holes only 40 orbits from merging. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Computer Simulation Sheds Light on Supermassive Black Hole Mergers

Oct 15, 2018 by News Staff

For the first time, a new computer simulation that incorporates the physical effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity shows that gas in supermassive...

SDSS J0952+3434’s gravity magnifies and distorts a very distant galaxy, which is approximately 11 billion light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Finds Strong-Lensing Galaxy Cluster

Oct 15, 2018 by News Staff

A stunning new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the effects of gravitational lensing caused by SDSS J0952+3434, a very massive group...

The faint supernova iPTF14gqr appeared in the outskirts of IV Zw 155, a spiral galaxy located 920 million light years away from us. Image credit: SDSS / Caltech / Keck.

Ultra-Stripped Supernova Produces Neutron Star Binary

Oct 12, 2018 by News Staff

A team of astronomers led by Caltech’s Kishalay De has discovered the first recorded ‘ultra-stripped’ supernova — a faint type of supernova...

An artist’s impression of CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope detecting a fast radio burst. Image credit: Swinburne University of Technology / OzGrav ARC Centre of Excellence.

Astronomers Discover Twenty New Fast Radio Bursts

Oct 11, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) at the Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory have nearly doubled the known...

CK Vulpeculae resides in the constellation Vulpecula. It is just below the star Albireo, the head of Cygnus, the swan. That location is inside the Summer Triangle of bright stars, which is now high in the south after nightfall. The star is approximately 2,200 light-years from Earth. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Eyres et al.

ALMA Discovers New Type of Stellar Collision

Oct 10, 2018 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers found evidence that a white dwarf and a brown dwarf collided in a ‘blaze of...

This Hubble image reveals a detailed view of part of the spiral galaxy Messier 95. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Sees Swirling Spiral: Messier 95

Oct 8, 2018 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a detailed image of a spectacular part of the spiral galaxy Messier 95. This Hubble image reveals a detailed...

SS 433 is a microquasar located in the constellation Aquila, some 15,000 light-years from Earth. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Astronomers Detect Highly Energetic Radiation from Microquasar

Oct 5, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers have detected gamma rays coming from the outermost regions of an unusual star system within our Milky Way Galaxy. The source is a microquasar...

This image of 2015 TG387 was taken by the Subaru Telescope on October 13, 2015. Image credit: Dave Tholen / Chad Trujillo / Scott Sheppard.

Astronomers Find New Extreme Dwarf Planet: 2015 TG387

Oct 5, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered a new dwarf planet in the Oort Cloud, a spherical ‘cloud’ of frozen objects surrounding the Solar System and extending...

An artist’s impression of the gas giant Kepler 1625b with its large moon, Kepler 1625b-i; the pair has a similar mass and radius ratio to the Earth-Moon system but scaled up by a factor of 11. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Kepler 1625b Has Neptune-Sized Moon, Astronomers Say

Oct 4, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope have assembled compelling evidence for the existence of a large...

The positions and reconstructed orbits of 20 high-velocity stars, represented on top of an artistic view of the Milky Way Galaxy. The seven stars shown in red are sprinting away from the Galaxy and could be traveling fast enough to eventually escape its gravity. Surprisingly, the study revealed also thirteen stars, shown in orange, that are racing towards the Milky Way: these could be stars from another galaxy, zooming right through our own. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Marchetti et al.

ESA’s Gaia Satellite Spots High-Velocity Stars Flying between Galaxies

Oct 4, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using data from ESA’s star mapping Gaia mission to look for hypervelocity stars being kicked out of our Milky Way Galaxy were surprised to...