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This artist's impression shows an extrasolar gas giant orbiting a binary star system. Image credit: NASA / G. Bacon, STScI.

Kepler-34b Helps Explain How Circumbinary Exoplanets Form

Jan 31, 2014 by News Staff

Researchers reporting in the Astrophysical Journal Letters have found that the majority of circumbinary planets – planets that orbit two stars –...

This is an artist's impression of the brown dwarf Luhman 16B based on the first ever map of the weather on its surface. Image credit: ESO / I. Crossfield / N. Risinger.

Astronomers Create Cloud Map of Nearby Brown Dwarf Luhman 16B

Jan 29, 2014 by News Staff

European scientists using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have learned what the weather is like on the surface of one of the objects in a binary...

The Ultraviolet-Optical Telescope aboard Swift captured SN 2014J, circled, on January 22, 2014. Image credit: NASA / Swift / P. Brown, TAMU.

SN 2014J: Swift Zooms in on New Supernova in Messier 82

Jan 28, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Ultraviolet-Optical Telescope aboard NASA’s Swift spacecraft have snapped an image of a newly discovered stellar explosion...

This is a composite image of the galaxy cluster RX J1532.9+3021, located about 3.9 billion light years from Earth. The labels show the location of two enormous X-ray cavities, created by jets from a central black hole that have pushed aside hot gas. Image credit: X-ray – NASA / CXC / Stanford / J. Hlavacek-Larrondo et al.; optical – NASA / ESA / STScI / M. Postman & CLASH team.

RX J1532: Extremely Powerful Ultramassive Black Hole Discovered

Jan 25, 2014 by News Staff

An enormous black hole located in the center of the galaxy cluster RX J1532.9+3021 (RX J1532 for short) is one of the most powerful black holes in the...

This is an artist's impression of the Kepler-410A system. Image credit: Vincent Van Eylen, apadted by Sci-New.com.

Kepler-410Ab: Neptune-sized Exoplanet Discovered around Binary Star

Jan 23, 2014 by News Staff

An international group of astronomers led by Dr Vincent Van Eylen of Aarhus University, Denmark, has discovered a Neptune-sized extrasolar planet orbiting...

This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope, shows the Lagoon Nebula. Image credit: ESO / VPHAS+ team.

VST Zooms in on Lagoon Nebula

Jan 22, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile have captured a new view deep inside the Lagoon Nebula, also known as Messier 8 or NGC 6523. This...

This is an artist's impression of a T-dwarf. Image credit: R. Hurt / NASA.

HD 19467B: Astronomers Directly Image Rare Brown Dwarf

Jan 22, 2014 by News Staff

U.S. astronomers have captured a direct image of a very rare T-dwarf circling the nearby Sun-like star HD 19467. This is an artist’s impression of...

Radial metallicity gradients and age-metallicity relation of stars in the Milky Way disk. Image credit: University of Cambridge.

Milky Way Galaxy May Have Formed Inside-Out, Study

Jan 21, 2014 by News Staff

Our Milky Way Galaxy formed by expanding out from the center, suggests analysis of first data from the Gaia-ESO survey – the ground-based extension...

This image shows the nebula (cyan) extending across 2 million light-years that was discovered around the quasar UM 287 (center of the image). Image credit: S. Cantalupo / University of California, Santa Cruz.

UM 287: Distant Quasar Illuminates Intergalactic Web

Jan 20, 2014 by News Staff

Using the 10-m Keck I Telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, an international group of astronomers has discovered a distant quasar illuminating...

This image shows a dusty protoplanetary disk around HD142527. The dust and gas are shown in red and green, respectively; near-infrared image taken by the NAOJ Subaru Telescope is shown in blue. The image clearly shows that the dust is concentrated in the upper part of the disk. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Fukagawa et al.

ALMA Discovers Giant Protoplanetary Disk around HD 142527

Jan 20, 2014 by News Staff

By using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), Japanese astronomers have spotted strong evidence of a massive planet-forming disk around...

This image shows a pulsar wind nebula known as the 'Hand of God.' Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / McGill.

‘Hand of God’: NuSTAR Sees Mysterious Stellar Object in X-Rays

Jan 16, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) have captured a stunning image of a stellar structure known as the ‘Hand...

This is an artist's impression of the newly discovered exoplanet YBP1194b. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

Three New Exoplanets Discovered in Star Cluster Messier 67

Jan 15, 2014 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has discovered three new extrasolar planets in an open star cluster known as Messier 67: two planets circling dwarf...

This false-color image shows the G5 star HD 4203. Image credit: Kane SR et al.

HD 4203c: New Giant Exoplanet Discovered

Jan 13, 2014 by News Staff

A team of astronomers led by Dr Stephen Kane of San Francisco State University has discovered a new giant extrasolar planet circling the nearby G5 star...

This Hubble image shows the Tarantula Nebula in infrared light. Image credit: NASA / ESA / E. Sabbi, STScI.

NASA Releases Hubble’s Deepest-Ever View of Tarantula Nebula

Jan 13, 2014 by News Staff

NASA astronomers used both the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the Hubble Space Telescope to capture the best-ever image...

This image shows the scatterings of bright stars and thick dust that make up the barred spiral galaxy Messier 83. Image credit: NASA / ESA / the Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / William Blair, Johns Hopkins University.

Hubble Captures Detailed Image of Spiral Galaxy Messier 83

Jan 10, 2014 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has used the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to collect a detailed image of the barred...

Top and side views of the Milky Way Galaxy show the location of 4 of the new class of HVSs. The general directions from which the stars have come are shown by the colored bands. Image credit: Julie Turner, Vanderbilt University / NASA / ESO.

Astronomers Discover New Type of Hypervelocity Stars

Jan 9, 2014 by News Staff

Scientists led by Lauren Palladino and Dr Kelly Holley-Bockelmann from Vanderbilt University have identified a new class of hypervelocity stars (HVSs)...

This image, taken with the Keck telescope, shows the ROXs 42B system: ROXs 42Bb orbits at about 150 astronomical units; ROXs 42Bc is a candidate companion or an unrelated background star. Image credit: Thayne Currie et al.

ROXs 42Bb: Astronomers May Have Discovered New Class of Planets

Jan 9, 2014 by News Staff

An unusual stellar object named ROXs 42Bb may represent a new kind of planets or it may be a very rare planet-mass brown dwarf, according to a group of...

This is an artist's impression of KOI-314c, the lightest planet to have both its mass and physical size measured. Image credit: C. Pulliam / D. Aguilar / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

KOI-314c, KOI-314b: Two New Exoplanets Discovered

Jan 8, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers, led by Dr David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have discovered two new extrasolar planets circling a dim, red...

This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689 and the newly discovered galaxies, circled. Image credit: NASA / ESA / B. Siana and A. Alavi, University of California, Riverside.

Abell 1689 Helps Astronomers Discover Dozens of Early Galaxies

Jan 8, 2014 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers, reporting in the Astrophysical Journal (arXiv.org), used the magnification power of the massive cluster of galaxies...