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This composite image of H1821+643 contains X-rays from Chandra (blue) that have been combined with radio data from NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (red) and an optical image from the PanSTARRS telescope on Hawaii (white and yellow). Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Cambridge / Sisk-Reynés et al. / NSF / NRAO / VLA / PanSTARRS.

Chandra Finds Slow-Rotating Supermassive Black Hole in Distant Quasar

Jul 1, 2022 by News Staff

A supermassive black hole in the center of H1821+643, a quasar about 3.4 billion light-years away from Earth, is rotating at about half the speed of light. This...

This Hubble image shows the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Josh Barrington.

Hubble Spots Glowing Plumes in Tarantula Nebula

Jun 30, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a beautiful photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula, which is located in the Large Magellanic...

This Hubble image shows NGC 6569, a globular cluster located in the constellation of Sagittarius. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Three 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 / R. Cohen.

Hubble Sees Sparkling Globular Cluster in Milky Way’s Bulge

Jun 27, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacularly detailed image of the Galactic bulge globular cluster NGC 6569. This Hubble image shows...

Color images of NGC 1309 both before and after SN 2012Z. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / McCully et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac3bbd.

Hubble Finds Half-Exploded Star in NGC 1309

Jun 24, 2022 by News Staff

There are different types of supernova explosions. Type Ia supernovae, also known as thermonuclear supernovae, occur in binary star systems. To trigger...

On May 27, 2022, DART’s high-resolution camera DRACO captured this image of Vega, a young massive star located 25 light-years away in the constellation of Lyra. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

NASA’s DART Spacecraft Focuses on Vega

Jun 23, 2022 by News Staff

Since its launch on November 24, 2021, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has journeyed toward its September 26, 2022 encounter...

Map of sulfur dioxide (a) band depth and (b) band area for all four Hubble visits. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Bjorn Jonsson / Becker et al., doi: 10.3847/PSJ/ac69eb.

Hubble Explores Surface of Europa in Mid-UV

Jun 22, 2022 by News Staff

The new mid-ultraviolet (UV) maps of Europa, created using data from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble...

A schematic view of the history of the accretion disk and the flyby object: the three plots starting from the bottom left are snapshots from the numerical simulation, capturing the system right at the flyby event, 4,000 years after, and 8,000 years after, respectively; the top right image is from the ALMA observations, showing the disk with spirals and the two objects around it, corresponding to the system at 12,000 years after the flyby event. Image credit: Lu et al., doi: 10.1038/s41550-022-01681-4.

ALMA Images Spiral Protostellar Disk near Milky Way’s Center

Jun 21, 2022 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have discovered a massive accretion disk with two spiral arms around a 32-solar-mass...

An artist’s impression of the HD 33142 planetary system, which is located 397 light-years away in the constellation of Lepus. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Three Massive Planets Orbit Nearby Giant Star HD 33142

Jun 20, 2022 by Natali Anderson

An international team of astronomers, using the radial velocity (RV) method, has discovered a third planet in the planetary system HD 33142. An artist’s...

As a metallic asteroid such as Psyche cooled and solidified, iron volcanoes may have erupted onto its surface. Image credit: Elena Hartley.

ALMA Creates Detailed Maps of Main-Belt Asteroid Psyche

Jun 20, 2022 by News Staff

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array located on the Chajnantor Plateau in Chile allowed the acquisition of temperature images of (16) Psyche,...

This Hubble image shows the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1351. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Several 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 / H. Ebeling / L. Shatz.

Hubble Focuses on Lensing Galaxy Cluster Abell 1351

Jun 20, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the massive and rich galaxy cluster Abell 1351. This Hubble image shows the massive...

This Hubble image shows a blue stellar system. Image credit: Michael Jones.

New Type of Stellar System Discovered

Jun 17, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers have spotted five blue stellar systems — which they say appear through a telescope as blue blobs and are about the size of dwarf galaxies...

These images of dusty disks around young massive stars were taken with the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) instrument on the Gemini South telescope, the International Gemini Observatory. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / E. Rich, Michigan University.

Gemini Planet Imager Detects Protoplanetary Disks around Young Stars

Jun 17, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Gemini Planet Imager instrument at the Gemini South telescope in Chile have imaged a sample of 44 bright Herbig Ae/Be and T-Tauri...

This composite image shows the Tarantula Nebula. The background image, taken in the infrared, is itself a composite: it was captured by the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows bright stars and light, pinkish clouds of hot gas. The bright red-yellow streaks that have been superimposed on the image come from radio observations taken by the ALMA, revealing regions of cold, dense gas which have the potential to collapse and form stars. The unique web-like structure of the gas clouds led astronomers to the nebula’s spidery nickname. Image credit: ESO / ALMA / NAOJ / NRAO / Wong et al. / M.-R. Cioni / VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey / Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

Astronomers Capture Spectacular Image of Tarantula Nebula

Jun 16, 2022 by News Staff

In a new high-resolution image, we see the Tarantula Nebula — a luminous star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of...

Top left: a giant blue star, much more massive than our Sun, has consumed, through nuclear fusion at its center, all its hydrogen, helium, and heavier elements up to iron. It now has a small iron core (red dot) at its center. Unlike the earlier stages of fusion, the fusion of iron atoms absorbs, rather than releases, energy. The fusion-released energy that has held up the star against its own weight now is gone, and the star will quickly collapse, triggering a supernova explosion. Top right: the collapse has begun, producing a superdense neutron star with a strong magnetic field at its center (inset). The neutron star, though containing about 1.5 times the mass of the Sun, is only about the size of Manhattan. Bottom left: the supernova explosion has ejected a fast-moving shell of debris outward into interstellar space. At this stage, the debris shell is dense enough to shroud from view any radio waves coming from the region of the neutron star. Bottom right: As the shell of explosion debris expands over a few decades, it becomes less dense and eventually becomes thin enough that radio waves from inside can escape. This allowed observations by the VLA Sky Survey to detect bright radio emission created as the rapidly spinning neutron star’s powerful magnetic field sweeps through the surrounding space, accelerating charged particles. This phenomenon is called a pulsar wind nebula. Image credit: Melissa Weiss, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Spot Pulsar Wind Nebula in Distant Dwarf Galaxy

Jun 15, 2022 by News Staff

A pulsar wind nebula is created when the powerful magnetic field of a rapidly spinning neutron star accelerates surrounding charged particles to nearly...

This artist’s conception illustrates the previously unknown complexity of the young galaxy A1689-zD1. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / B. Saxton, NRAO, AUI & NSF.

Early Galaxies May Have Been Bigger Than Previously Thought

Jun 14, 2022 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have observed a significant amount of cold, neutral gas in the outer regions...

The interstellar dust map made with Gaia’s data release 3. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Its Third Full Dataset

Jun 14, 2022 by News Staff

Gaia’s data release 3 (DR3) contains new and improved details for almost 2 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy as well as for a subset of solar system...

ALMA Images Highly Eccentric Debris Disk around HD 53143

Jun 14, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

HD 53143 is a one-billion-year-old solar-type star located 59.8 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. This composite image shows the HD 53143...

The star-filled sky in this Hubble photo lies in the direction of the Galactic center. The light from stars is monitored to see if any change in their apparent brightness is caused by a foreground object drifting in front of them. The warping of space by the interloper would momentarily brighten the appearance of a background star, an effect called gravitational lensing. One such event, OB110462, is shown in the four close-up frames at the bottom. The arrow points to a star that momentarily brightened, as first captured by Hubble in August 2011. This was caused by a foreground black hole drifting in front of the star, along our line of sight. The star brightened and then subsequently faded back to its normal brightness as the black hole passed by. Because a black hole doesn’t emit or reflect light, it cannot be directly observed. But its unique thumbprint on the fabric of space can be measured through these so-called microlensing events. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / K. Sahu, STScI / J. DePasquale, STScI.

Hubble Detects Free-Floating Compact Object 5,000 Light-Years Away

Jun 13, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have for the first time discovered what may be an isolated stellar-mass black hole using the astrometric microlensing technique. They estimate...

This Hubble image shows the globular cluster Terzan 9, a relic of a generation of long-lived stars that formed in the early Galaxy. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Three 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 / R. Cohen.

Hubble Spots Ancient Star Cluster near Milky Way’s Center

Jun 13, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is one of the best ever views of Terzan 9, one of the most central globular clusters in our Milky...