Astronomy News

Astronomers Measure Rotation Rate of Uranus with Unprecedented Precision

This image of Uranus’ aurorae was taken by Hubble on October 10, 2022. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Lamy / L. Sromovsky.
Apr 10, 2025 by News Staff

The rotation period of Uranus was estimated to be 17.24 hours in 1986 from radio auroral measurements made by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft. Using the long-term tracking of Uranus’ magnetic poles between 2011 and 2022 from Hubble images of its ultraviolet aurorae, astronomers have now achieve an updated, independent, extremely precise rotation period of 17.247864 hours, or 28 seconds longer than the Voyager 2 estimate. This image of Uranus’ aurorae...

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From a great distance, our Milky Way Galaxy would look like a thin disk of stars that orbits once every few hundred million years around its central region, where hundreds of billions of stars provide the gravitational ‘glue’ to hold it all together. But this pull of gravity is much weaker in the Galaxy’s far outer disk. There, the hydrogen atoms making up most of the Milky Way’s gas disk are no longer confined to a thin plane, instead they give the disk an S-like, or warped, appearance. Image credit: Xiaodian Chen.

Do Galaxy-Free Dark Matter Halos Exist in Universe?

Apr 8, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new study by University of California, San Diego computational astrophysicist Ethan Nadler shows that star formation can occur in halos down to 10 million...

This image shows NGC 4945, a spiral galaxy over 12 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus; NGC 4945’s supermassive black hole-driven wind is shown in red in the inset. Image credit: ESO / Marconcini et al.

NGC 4945’s Central Black Hole is Blowing Out Powerful Winds of Material, Astronomers Say

Apr 8, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the MUSE instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have detected supermassive black hole-driven winds in the barred spiral galaxy...

An artist’s impression of the Gliese 414 system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

What If Astronomers Find Nothing in Future Exoplanet Habitability and Biosignature Surveys?

Apr 7, 2025 by News Staff

Using advanced statistical modeling, a team of researchers from ETH Zurich, SETI Institute, the Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’ and the University...

This Hubble image shows Kohoutek 4-55, a planetary nebula located 4,600 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / K. Noll.

Hubble Snaps Stunning Image of Little-Known Planetary Nebula

Apr 7, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Officially named Kohoutek 4-55, this little-known planetary nebula lies within our Milky Way Galaxy. This Hubble image shows Kohoutek 4-55, a planetary...

These Webb images show the near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / A. Rivkin, JHU/APL.

Webb Measures Size, Captures Images of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2024 YR4

Apr 3, 2025 by Natali Anderson

The destructive power of an impacting asteroid is primarily estimated by knowledge of its size. The near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 reached a peak 2032 impact...

This composite image, which combines data from Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instruments, shows an Einstein ring around an elliptical galaxy in the galaxy cluster SMACSJ0028.2-7537. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / G. Mahler.

Very Rare ‘Einstein Ring’ Spotted by Webb

Apr 2, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Light from an extremely distant spiral galaxy was bent and magnified by the gravity of a member of the galaxy cluster SMACSJ0028.2-7537 into a ring-like...

The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that Hubble’s STIS instrument observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, astronomers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region (left) darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region (right) brightened as it began to come into a more direct view as northern summer approaches. The top row, in visible light, shows how the color of Uranus appears to the human eye as seen through even an amateur telescope. In the second row, the false-color image of the planet is assembled from visible and near-infrared light observations. The color and brightness correspond to the amounts of methane and aerosols. Both of these quantities could not be distinguished before STIS was first aimed at Uranus in 2002. Generally, green areas indicate less methane than blue areas, and red areas show no methane. The red areas are at the limb, where the stratosphere of Uranus is almost completely devoid of methane. The two bottom rows show the latitude structure of aerosols and methane inferred from 1,000 different wavelengths (colors) from visible to near infrared. In the third row, bright areas indicate cloudier conditions, while the dark areas represent clearer conditions. In the fourth row, bright areas indicate depleted methane, while dark areas show the full amount of methane. At middle and low latitudes, aerosols and methane depletion have their own latitudinal structure that mostly did not change much over the two decades of observation. However, in the polar regions, aerosols and methane depletion behave very differently. In the third row, the aerosols near the north pole display a dramatic increase, showing up as very dark during early northern spring, turning very bright in recent years. Aerosols also seem to disappear at the left limb as the solar radiation disappeared. This is evidence that solar radiation changes the aerosol haze in the atmosphere of Uranus. On the other hand, methane depletion seems to stay quite high in both polar regions throughout the observing period. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Erich Karkoschka, LPL.

Hubble Sheds New Light on Atmospheric Composition and Dynamics of Uranus

Apr 1, 2025 by News Staff

A 20-year Hubble study of Uranus provide valuable data for understanding the atmospheric dynamics of this distant ice giant, which can serve as a proxy...

This Hubble image shows NGC 4941, a spiral galaxy some 67 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. The color image is composed of near-infrared, optical and ultraviolet observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Six 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. Thilker.

Hubble Space Telescope Spies NGC 3274

Mar 31, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of the spiral galaxy NGC 4941. This Hubble image shows NGC 4941,...

This image shows JADES-GS-z13-1 (the red dot at center), imaged with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) as part of the JADES program. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / STScI / JADES Collaboration / Brant Robertson, UC Santa Cruz / Ben Johnson, CfA / Sandro Tacchella, Cambridge / Phill Cargile, CfA / J. Witstok, P. Jakobsen & A. Pagan, STScI / M. Zamani, ESA & Webb.

Webb Detects Lyman-Apha Emission from Galaxy in Early Universe

Mar 30, 2025 by News Staff

The Lyman-apha light from JADES-GS-z13-1 has taken nearly 13.47 billion years to reach us, as it dates back to just 330 million years after the Big Bang. This...

This composite image, made using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, shows auroral activity (cyan splotches) on Neptune. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Heidi Hammel, AURA / Henrik Melin, Northumbria University / Leigh Fletcher, University of Leicester / Stefanie Milam, NASA-GSFC.

Webb Detects Trihydrogen, Captures Aurorae on Neptune for First Time

Mar 26, 2025 by News Staff

Emissions from the upper-atmospheric trihydrogen cation (H3+) have been used to study the global-scale interactions of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus with...

Webb observed Herbig-Haro 49/50 in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light with the NIRCam and MIRI instruments. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI.

Webb Spots Tornado-Like Herbig-Haro Object

Mar 25, 2025 by News Staff

Using the NIRCam and MIRI instruments onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have produced a high-resolution image of Herbig-Haro...

This image shows the spiral galaxy 2MASX J23453268-0449256 and its giant radio jets. Image credit: Bagchi et al. / Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope.

Cosmic Anomaly: Massive Spiral Galaxy is Ejecting Colossal Pair of Relativistic Jets

Mar 24, 2025 by News Staff

2MASX J23453268-0449256 (J2345-0449 for short), an extremely massive, rapidly rotating, jet-launching spiral galaxy approximately 947 million light-years...

An artist’s conception of a violent stellar flare from Proxima Centauri. Image credit: S. Dagnello, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Proxima Centauri Exhibits Extreme Flaring Activity, New ALMA Observations Show

Mar 24, 2025 by News Staff

Proxima Centauri’s flaring activity has been well known to astronomers using visible wavelengths, but new observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter...

This Hubble image shows NGC 5530, a spiral galaxy some 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Lupus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker.

Hubble Captures Stunning Image of NGC 5530

Mar 24, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a beautiful new image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the ‘flocculent’ spiral galaxy NGC 5530. This Hubble image...

This is an artist’s impression of JADES-GS-z14-0. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

ALMA Detects Oxygen in Farthest Known Galaxy

Mar 20, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected oxygen in the most distant confirmed galaxy ever found, JADES-GS-z14-0....

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.

Dark Energy Survey Supports Theory of Evolving Dark Energy

Mar 19, 2025 by News Staff

The Lambda-CDM (ΛCDM) model has been the foundation of modern cosmology for some time now, successfully describing large-scale structures in the Universe....

Two ‘fans’ corresponding to the two main areas DESI has observed, above and below the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: DESI Collaboration / DOE / KPNO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / R. Proctor.

Dark Energy Might Be Evolving over Time in Unexpected Ways

Mar 19, 2025 by News Staff

New results from the DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) Collaboration have revealed signs of a time-varying dark energy. Two ‘fans’ corresponding...

An image of the CMB radiation from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope; orange and blue represent more or less intense radiation. Image credit: ACT Collaboration.

Atacama Cosmology Telescope Captures Clearest Images Yet of Cosmic Microwave Background

Mar 19, 2025 by News Staff

New images from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) reveal the Universe when it was about 380,000 years old. An image of the CMB radiation from the Atacama...

An artist’s impression of a neutron star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astrophysicists Determine How Massive Neutron Stars Are When They Are Born

Mar 18, 2025 by News Staff

Astrophysicists from China and Australia have found that the birth masses of neutron stars can be described by a unimodal distribution that smoothly turns...

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