Astronomy News

DESI Creates Largest and Most Detailed Map of Universe Ever

A slice through the 3D map of galaxies from the first few months of the DESI survey. The Earth is at the center, with the furthest galaxies plotted at distances of 10 billion light-years. Each point represents one galaxy. This version of the DESI map shows a subset of 400,000 of the 35 million galaxies that will be in the final map. Image credit: D. Schlegel / DESI / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory / M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab.
Jan 17, 2022 by News Staff

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a multi-object survey spectrograph installed on the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, has cataloged more galaxies than all other previous 3D redshift surveys combined, measuring 7.5 million galaxies in only seven months since beginning science operations. Yet it’s only about 10% of the way through its five-year mission. Once completed, that phenomenally detailed 3D...

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WASP-103b has been deformed by the strong tidal forces between the planet and its host star. Image credit: ESA.

CHEOPS Spots Tidally Deformed Planet around WASP-103

Jan 17, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers have obtained 12 new high-precision transit observations of WASP-103b — a planet almost twice the size of Jupiter with 1.5 times its...

This image shows NGC 3318, a barred spiral galaxy some 115 million light-years away in the constellation of Vela. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and VLT’s Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument in the near-infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. 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 / ESO / R.J. Foley / R. Colombari.

NASA Releases Amazing New Photo of NGC 3318

Jan 17, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers using have produced a stunning new image of the...

An artist’s impression of the gas giant Kepler-1708b, its moon Kepler-1708b-i, and their parent star. Image credit: Helena Valenzuela Widerström.

Astronomers Find Exomoon Candidate around Jupiter-Sized Exoplanet Kepler-1708b

Jan 14, 2022 by News Staff

In their hunt for elusive exomoon candidates, astronomers have looked at 70 cool gas giants found by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. They’ve found only...

This Spitzer image shows the star-forming region NGC 2174. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Spitzer Sees Infant Stars in NGC 2174

Jan 14, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have produced an outstanding infrared image of the star-forming region NGC 2174. This Spitzer image...

This X-ray image of the Milky Way’s center merges all Swift observations from 2006 through 2013; Sagittarius A* is at the center; low-energy (300 to 1,500 electron volts) X-rays appear red; green are medium-energy (1,500 to 3,000 eV); blue are high-energy (3,000 to 10,000 eV). Image credit: NASA / Swift / N. Degenaar.

Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole Flares Irregularly and Unpredictably, Astronomers Find

Jan 13, 2022 by News Staff

Sagittarius A*, the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, is a strong source of radio, X-rays and gamma rays. It also...

This DEC image shows Centaurus A, a giant galaxy located some 13 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus. Image credit: CTIO / NOIRLab / DOE / NSF / AURA / M. Soraisam, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign & NOIRLab / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NOIRLab / M. Zamani, NOIRLab / D. de Martin, NOIRLab.

Nearby Elliptical Galaxy Hosts At Least 1,900 Globular Clusters

Jan 13, 2022 by News Staff

A research team led by University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory astronomers presents a new catalog of 40,502 globular cluster candidates in Centaurus...

An artist’s illustration of the Local Bubble with star formation occurring on the bubble’s surface. Image credit: Leah Hustak, Space Telescope Science Institute.

1,000-Light-Year-Wide Local Bubble is Responsible for Formation of All Nearby, Young Stars

Jan 12, 2022 by News Staff

Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer and data visualization expert Dr. Catherine Zucker and her colleagues have shown how a chain of events beginning...

This graphic shows X-rays that NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory detected from the dwarf galaxy Mrk 462. This X-ray emission (inset) is important because it reveals the presence of a growing supermassive black hole within this relatively small galaxy. The mass contained in this black hole -- about 200,000 times the mass of the Sun -- provides information to astronomers about how some of the earliest black holes in the Universe may have formed and grown billions of years ago. The background panel is an optical image from the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii. There are several galaxies that are part of the HCG068 galaxy group on the left-hand side of the image. The galaxy that is emitting copious amounts of X-rays, however, is the much smaller galaxy located to the lower right of the image (marked by the arrow). Image credit: NASA / CXC / Dartmouth College / J. Parker & R. Hickox / Pan-STARRS.

Chandra Detects Mini-Supermassive Black Hole in Star-Forming Dwarf Galaxy

Jan 11, 2022 by News Staff

A supermassive black hole with 200,000 solar masses is located in the middle of the dwarf galaxy Markarian 462 (Mrk 462), according to new research led...

This image shows NGC 1300, a barred spiral galaxy some 61 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. Image credit: ESO / ALMA / NAOJ / NRAO / PHANGS.

Astronomers Spot Spiral within Spiral: NGC 1300

Jan 11, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers...

An artist’s rendition of the ultrahot Jupiter TOI-1518b and its parent star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Highly Eccentric Sub-Neptune Found Orbiting Nearby Red Dwarf

Jan 10, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and several ground-based facilities, astronomers have discovered a long-period sub-Neptune...

Webb’s mirror consists of a honeycomb-like pattern of 18 hexagonal, gold-coated mirror segments. Image credit: ESA.

Webb Successfully Deploys Its Primary Mirror

Jan 10, 2022 by News Staff

On January 7 and 8, 2021, two wings of 6.4-m (21-foot) gold-coated primary mirror of the NASA/ESA/CA James Webb Space Telescope were deployed and latched...

This Hubble image shows NGC 976, a spiral galaxy located 150 million light-years away in the constellation of Aries. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Jones / Riess et al.

Hubble Captures Detailed Image of NGC 976

Jan 10, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Hubble team has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the spiral galaxy NGC 976. This Hubble image shows NGC...

C-19 is a grouping of stars in the Milky Way halo that share a common orbital motion around the Galaxy. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / Spaceengine / M. Zamani.

Astronomers Find Primordial Stellar Stream in Milky Way’s Halo

Jan 6, 2022 by News Staff

Named C-19, the newly-discovered stellar stream is the remnant of an ancient globular cluster and contains stars with extremely low metallicity, with a...

An artist’s rendition of a giant star in orbit around a low-mass black hole. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Black Holes are Giant Fuzzballs, Theoretical Physicists Say

Jan 5, 2022 by News Staff

In 1997, cosmologists Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne and John Preskill made a famous bet as to whether information that enters a black hole ceases to exist....

The Flame Nebula is the large feature on the left half of the central, yellow rectangle. The smaller feature on the right is the reflection nebula NGC 2023. To the top right of NGC 2023, the iconic Horsehead Nebula seems to emerge heroically from the ‘flames.’ The three objects are part of the Orion cloud, a giant gas structure located between 1,300 and 1,600 light-years away. The different colors indicate the velocity of the gas. The Flame Nebula and its surroundings are moving away from us, with the red clouds in the background receding faster than the yellow ones in the foreground. Image credit: ESO / Thomas Stanke / J. Emerson / VISTA / Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

Radio Astronomers Take Close Look at Flame Nebula

Jan 5, 2022 by News Staff

Using the recently-installed SuperCam instrument on ESO’s Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) in the Atacama Desert, Chile, astronomers have produced...

An artist’s impression of the James Webb Space Telescope. Image credit: ESA.

Webb Telescope’s Sunshield Fully Deployed

Jan 5, 2022 by News Staff

The Webb team has successfully completed tensioning for the five layers of the observatory’s kite-shaped sunshield. An artist’s impression of the James...

This artist’s impression shows a binary stellar system at the start of a common envelope phase. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar, artsource.nl.

ALMA Investigates Nature of Water-Fountain Stellar Systems

Jan 4, 2022 by News Staff

One of the most poorly understood stellar evolutionary paths is that of binary stellar systems undergoing common-envelope evolution, when the enormous...

This color image from the DECam Plane Survey shows TIC 400799224. Image credit: Powell et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-3881/ac2c81.

TESS Spots Mysterious Dust-Emitting Object in Binary Stellar System

Jan 4, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered a unique object of uncertain nature — possibly a disintegrating...

This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, depicts NGC 105, a spiral galaxy 215.5 million light-years away in the constellation of Pisces, and a smaller distant galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Jones / Riess et al. / R. Colombari.

Hubble Space Telescope Observes Conjunction of Two Spiral Galaxies

Jan 3, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

While it looks like a spiral galaxy called NGC 105 is plunging edge-on into a collision with a neighboring spiral galaxy, this is just the result of the...

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