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The six most common elements of life on Earth (including more than 97% of the mass of a human body) are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus. The colors in the spectra show dips, the size of which reveal the amount of these elements in the atmosphere of a star. The human body on the left uses the same color coding to evoke the important role these elements play in different parts of our bodies, from oxygen in our lungs to phosphorous in our bones (although in reality all elements are found all across the body). In the background is an artist’s impression of the Galaxy, with cyan dots to show the APOGEE measurements of the oxygen abundance in different stars; brighter dots indicate higher oxygen abundance. Image credit: Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital Inc / SDSS.

Astronomers Map ‘Elements of Life’ in Milky Way Galaxy

Jan 14, 2017 by News Staff

At the 229th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Jan. 5, 2017, astronomers from the SDSS/APOGEE (Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Apache Point Observatory...

Stellar streams around the Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt, SSC & Caltech.

Milky Way’s Most Distant Stars Might Be Ripped from Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy

Jan 12, 2017 by News Staff

Milky Way’s 11 most distant stars are located roughly 300,000 light-years away from us. According to a team of astronomers at Harvard University, five...

An artist’s rendition of interior compositions of planets around Kepler-102 and Kepler-407. The picture shows what minerals are likely to occur several different depths. An exoplanet in orbit around Kepler-102 is Earth-like, dominated by olivine minerals, whereas a planet around Kepler-407 is dominated by garnet, so less likely to have plate tectonics. Image credit: Robin Dienel / Carnegie Institution.

Garnet Exoplanets Exist, But Can They Be Habitable?

Jan 11, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers and geoscientists from the United States and Brazil have joined forces to study the mix of major rock-building elements in exoplanet-hosting...

This artist’s impression shows a Milky Way-type galaxy, surrounded by a large halo of blue, faint light, made of Lyman-alpha photons. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Photons Struggle to Escape Early Milky Way-Type Galaxies

Jan 11, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has discovered enormous halos of blue, faint light — made of so-called Lyman-alpha photons — around early...

This image shows the closest stellar system to the Sun, the bright double star Alpha Centauri AB and its distant and faint companion Proxima Centauri. Image credit: ESO / B. Tafreshi, twanight.org / Digitized Sky Survey 2 / Davide De Martin / Mahdi Zamani.

ESO Joins Breakthrough Initiatives to Search for New Exoplanets in Alpha Centauri System

Jan 10, 2017 by News Staff

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has signed an agreement with the Breakthrough Initiatives to adapt ESO’s Very Large Telescope instrumentation...

Earth-Moon System as Seen from Mars Orbit

Jan 9, 2017 by News Staff

This image composite combines the best Earth image with the best Moon image from four sets of images acquired on November 20, 2016, by the High Resolution...

This Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys image shows the spiral galaxy LEDA 1245565, which lies in the constellation Virgo, about one billion light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Space Telescope Spies Beautiful Spiral Galaxy

Jan 9, 2017 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxy LEDA 1245565. This Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys image...

This illustration shows several comets speeding across a vast protoplanetary disk of gas and dust and heading straight for the youthful, central star HD 172555. These exocomets will eventually plunge into the star and vaporize. HD 172555 represents the third extrasolar system where astronomers have detected doomed, wayward comets. All of the systems are young, under 40 million years old. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Feild & G. Bacon, STScI.

Astronomers Detect Exocomets Falling into HD 172555

Jan 8, 2017 by News Staff

Exocomets are plunging into HD 172555, a nearby young star surrounded by a debris disk, according to a team of astronomers led by Carol Grady of NASA’s...

PGC 1000714 (center). Image credit: Ryan Beauchemin.

Double-Ringed Elliptical Galaxy Spotted 372 Million Light-Years Away

Jan 6, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have spotted for the first time an elliptical galaxy with two fairly round rings. PGC 1000714 (center). Image credit: Centre de Données astronomiques...

The globally distributed dishes of the European VLBI Network are linked with each other and the 305-m William E. Gordon Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Together they have localized FRB121102’s exact position within its host galaxy. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar, www.artsource.nl.

Repeating ‘Fast Radio Burst’ Found to Originate from Extremely Distant Dwarf Galaxy

Jan 5, 2017 by News Staff

A large international team of astronomers has uncovered the cosmological source of a repeating ‘fast radio burst’ known as FRB 121102. The globally...

This image of Orion A is composed of near-infrared observations from ESO’s VISTA survey telescope. Image credit: ESO / VISION Survey.

VISTA Captures Detailed Image of Orion A

Jan 4, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

This striking image, captured by ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows the Orion A molecular cloud, the nearest known...

Hubble Captures Stunning Image of LEDA 52270

Jan 2, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of LEDA 52270, a combination of two gas-rich spiral galaxies. This image, taken with the Advanced...

An artist’s rendition of 2016 WF9 as it passes Jupiter’s orbit inbound toward the Sun. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s WISE Spacecraft Spots Two New Near-Earth Objects

Dec 30, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered two celestial objects traveling through our neighborhood: 2016 WF9...

Our Sun is the most familiar example of a main-sequence star. Image credit: NASA.

Mysterious Star KIC 8462852 is Near a Continuous Phase Transition, Astronomers Say

Dec 29, 2016 by News Staff

A new study by astronomers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, links the unexplained changes...

ESO’s New Technology Telescope Views Messier 98

Dec 28, 2016 by Natali Anderson

This image snapped by ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT), a 3.58-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the edge-on spiral galaxy...

This image shows the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817, which lies in the constellation Ophiuchus, about 370 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Spots Cosmic Megamaser

Dec 26, 2016 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817. This image shows the megamaser galaxy...

This Hubble image shows NGC 248, a nebula located in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The data used in this image were taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys in September 2015. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / K. Sandstrom, University of California, San Diego / SMIDGE Team.

Hubble Space Telescope Spies NGC 248

Dec 21, 2016 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a spectacular image of NGC 248, a glowing pink nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud. This Hubble image...

Light and color would look different on a planet orbiting a tiny red star, like this artist’s impression of Proxima b. The Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone is the nearest exoplanet to our Sun. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Are Exoplanets Like Those in ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ Really Out There?

Dec 21, 2016 by NASA

In the ‘Star Wars’ universe, ice, ocean and desert planets burst from the darkness as your ship drops out of light speed. But these worlds might be...

World’s Largest Digital Survey of Visible Universe Released

Dec 20, 2016 by News Staff

The largest digital survey of the visible Universe, mapping billions of stars and galaxies, has been publicly released. Pan-STARRS sky survey. Image credit:...