Astronomy News | Sci.News

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...

The millisecond pulsar PSR J0337+1715, left foreground, is orbited by a hot white dwarf star, center, both of which are orbited by another, more-distant and cooler white dwarf, top right. Illustration by Bill Saxton / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Triple-Star System Can Give Clues to True Nature of Gravity

Jan 6, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered a unique stellar system of the superdense pulsar PSR J0337+1715 and two white dwarfs, all packed within a space smaller than...

This is an artist's impression of the SN 1987A remnant. The image is based on real data and reveals the cold, inner regions of the remnant, in red, where tremendous amounts of dust were detected and imaged by ALMA. This inner region is contrasted with the outer shell, lacy white and blue circles, where the blast wave from the supernova is colliding with the envelope of gas ejected from the star prior to its powerful detonation. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Alexandra Angelich, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Capture Fresh Dust in Supernova 1987A Remnant

Jan 6, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have directly imaged the huge amounts of freshly formed dust in the remnant of...

This is an artist's impression of the binary system L1165-SMM1. Image credit: Bill Saxton / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Find Binary Protostars with Previously-Unseen Companions

Jan 3, 2014 by News Staff

An international team of researchers using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have discovered previously-unseen companions in the protostellar systems...

This is an artist's impression of the super-Earth exoplanet GJ 1214b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STScI / L. Kreidberg and J. Bean, University of Chicago / H. Knutson, California Institute of Technology.

GJ 1214b, GJ 436b: Astronomers Reveal Weather on Two Exoplanets

Jan 2, 2014 by News Staff

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have characterized the atmospheres of two nearby exoplanets: the super-Earth GJ 1214b and the Neptune-sized...

Galactic distribution of massive young stars and compact and ultra-compact H II regions with luminosities greater than 10^4 times that of the Sun. The map shows the positions of the complexes and individual sources as red and blue circles, respectively. The sizes of the markers give an indication of their luminosity, as depicted in the upper-right corner. The position of the Sun is shown by the small circle above the Galactic Centre. The two solid lines enclose the Galactic Center region that was excluded from survey due to problems with source confusion and distance determination. The smaller of the two dot–dashed circles represents the locus of tangent points, while the larger circle shows the radius of the solar circle. Image credit: Urquhart JS et al / Robert Hurt, the Spitzer Science Center / Robert Benjamin.

Milky Way Galaxy Has Four Spiral Arms, New Study Confirms

Dec 29, 2013 by News Staff

A 12-year study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has confirmed that our Milky Way Galaxy has four spiral arms, following...

This image shows the variable star RS Puppis. Image credit: NASA / ESA / the Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / Hubble-Europe Collaboration / H. Bond, STScI and Penn State University.

Hubble Zooms in on Variable Star RS Puppis

Dec 26, 2013 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have observed RS Puppis – a type of star known as a Cepheid variable star – over a period...