Astronomy News

Study: Sunlight Filtering through Venusian Clouds Could Support Earth-Like Photosynthesis

This infrared image from JAXA’s Akatsuki orbiter shows night on Venus. Image credit: ISAS / JAXA.
Sep 30, 2021 by News Staff

In a paper published this week in the journal Astrobiology, researchers focused on the possible existence of the Earth-like phototrophy — the process by which energy from the Sun is captured and converted into chemical energy — in the clouds of Venus. This infrared image from JAXA’s Akatsuki orbiter shows night on Venus. Image credit: ISAS / JAXA. “Our study provides tangible support for the potential for phototrophy and/or chemotrophy...

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

New Ultrahot Jupiter Contains Iron in Its Atmosphere

Sep 28, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have discovered a highly-irradiated gas giant exoplanet in close-in, highly misaligned orbit around a bright star called TOI-1518. An artist’s...

By analyzing images taken by Hubble between 2009 and 2020, Wong et al. found that the average wind speed just within the boundaries of the Great Red Spot, set off by the outer green circle, have increased by up to 8% and exceed 640 km per hour; in contrast, the winds near the storm’s innermost region, set off by a smaller green ring, are moving significantly more slowly; both move counterclockwise. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Michael H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley.

Hubble Measures Horizontal Winds in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Sep 28, 2021 by News Staff

Using data from the WFC3/UVIS instrument on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers has measured the horizontal winds in Jupiter’s...

This Hubble image shows the active barred spiral galaxy NGC 5728. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Four 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 / Riess et al. / J. Greene.

Hubble Looks at Active Spiral Galaxy: NGC 5728

Sep 27, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image so far of a barred spiral galaxy called NGC 5728. This Hubble image shows the active...

Members of the Fornax Cluster fill this image from the Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-m Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. Image credit: CTIO / NOIRLab / DOE / NSF / AURA / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NSF’s NOIRLab / J. Miller, Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab / D. de Martin, NSF’s NOIRLab.

Dark Energy Camera Focuses on Fornax Cluster

Sep 24, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on Víctor M. Blanco 4-m Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile,...

This Hubble image shows GAL-CLUS-022058-38303, the largest, nearly-complete Einstein ring known. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. 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 / Saurabh Jha, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey / L. Shatz.

Astronomers Study ‘Molten Einstein Ring’ in Detail

Sep 23, 2021 by News Staff

Located in the southern constellation of Fornax, GAL-CLUS-022058-38303 is a so-called Einstein ring — a distorted image of a gravitationally lensed...

REBELS galaxies: green and orange colors represent radiations from ionized carbon atoms and dust particles, respectively, observed with ALMA, and blue represents near-infrared radiation observed with ESO’s VISTA telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / NASA / ESA / Hubble / Fudamoto et al.

ALMA Spots Two Dust-Obscured Galaxies in Early Universe

Sep 22, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered two heavily dust-obscured star-forming galaxies — REBELS-12-2...

Partially processed view of Tycho Crater at a resolution of nearly 5 x 5 m and containing approximately 1.4 billion pixels, taken during a radar project by Green Bank Observatory, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and Raytheon Intelligence & Space using the Green Bank Telescope and antennas in the Very Long Baseline Array. Image credit: NRAO / GBO / Raytheon / NSF / AUI.

Radio Astronomers Snap High-Resolution Image of Tycho Crater

Sep 22, 2021 by News Staff

Using new radar technology on the 100-m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, astronomers have imaged a relatively young lunar crater called Tycho. Partially...

This composite image of the galaxy cluster MACSJ 0138 shows data from ALMA and Hubble. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / S. Dagnello, NRAO / STScI / Whitaker et al.

Early Universe’s Massive Galaxies Had Very Little Amounts of Star-Forming Gas, Study Says

Sep 22, 2021 by News Staff

Massive galaxies in the early Universe should have contained large amounts of cold molecular gas, the fuel required to make stars. But new observations...

The location of the newly-discovered giant cavity within the Milky Way Galaxy is depicted on the right; a zoomed in view of the cavity (left) shows the Perseus and Taurus molecular clouds in blue and red, respectively; though they appear to sit within the cavity and touch, new 3D images of the clouds show they border the cavity and are quite a distance apart. Image credit: Alyssa Goodman / Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Astronomers Find Huge Spherical Cavity in Milky Way Galaxy

Sep 22, 2021 by News Staff

The 490-light-year-wide void is located among the constellations Perseus and Taurus, and was formed by one powerful supernova or a series of such events...

(a) WISE false color image of the Pa 30 nebula where blue and green stand for 11 μm emission, and red for 22 μm; (b) in this false color image, where green stands for WISE 11 μm (as in the left panel) and red for WISE 22 μm (adjusted to show extended emission), the emission from the central star is highlighted in blue from the GALEX near-UV data, while the XMM-Newton contors show that the majority of the X-ray emission originates from the core of the nebula; a background point source is seen westward of the CS in the XMM-Newton contour map; (c) the 2.1 m KPNO image; the green cross in the center of the image marks the location of the CS; panels (a)-(c) are reproduced at the same angular scale and orientation; at the Gaia distance of Pa 30 of 2,300 parsecs, an angular scale of 45'' translates to about 100,000 AU. Image credit: Ritter et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac2253.

Astronomers Identify Remnant of Historical Supernova SN 1181

Sep 20, 2021 by News Staff

New research led by University of Hong Kong astronomers shows that a fast expanding nebula called Pa 30 surrounding the hot Wolf-Rayet star IRAS 00500+6713...

This Hubble image shows the globular cluster Palomar 6. The color image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC 3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Cohen.

Hubble Captures Stunning New Image of Palomar 6

Sep 20, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured the brilliance of a globular cluster called Palomar 6. This Hubble image shows the...

Photons emitted near rotating black holes encode quantum information that can be measured by actual quantum information technology. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Measure Mass and Spin of Intermediate-Mass Black Hole

Sep 17, 2021 by News Staff

The intermediate-mass black hole in question was caught in the act of swallowing a star, called a tidal disruption event. Dubbed 3XMM J215022.4-055108,...

Roth et al. present a calculation of the contribution of star-forming galaxies to the gamma-ray background. Image credit: NASA.

Star-Forming Galaxies Explain ‘Empty Sky’ Gamma-Rays: Study

Sep 16, 2021 by News Staff

Until now, it has been unclear what created gamma-rays that appear in patches of seemingly ‘empty sky.’ Roth et al. present a calculation of the contribution...

One photodetector array of the XENON1T detector seen through the other. Image credit: XENON Collaboration.

XENON1T Experiment May Have Directly Detected Dark Energy

Sep 16, 2021 by News Staff

Some unexplained results from the XENON1T dark-matter detector — a 1,300-kg vat of super-pure liquid xenon shielded from cosmic rays in a cryostat...

Clumps of molecular gas overlaid on Sagittarius A* circumnuclear disk as seen by ALMA in the CS(7-6) line. Yellow circles are thin clumps that are going to be shredded by the gravitational force of supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. Green circles are dense enough to survive the tidal shredding but are not able to form stars. Purple/pink circles have the needed density to form stars, but no star formation has been observed. Image credit: Hsieh et al. / ALMA / EOS / NAOJ / NRAO.

ALMA Spots Quiescent Molecular Clouds and Tides around Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

Sep 16, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found thousands of dense gas clumps but, surprisingly, no star formation,...

ALMA Detects Various Organic Molecules in Five Protoplanetary Disks

Sep 15, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have mapped out 18 organic and inorganic molecules in protoplanetary disks around...

This artist’s impression shows how ULAS J1120+0641, a very distant quasar powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun, may have looked. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Quasars are Standardizable Cosmic Candles, Astronomers Say

Sep 14, 2021 by News Staff

Using spectral data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Chandra Source Catalog 2.0, and the Chandra COSMOS Legacy survey, astronomers have found...

Siraj & Loeb explore the possibility that accretion flares resulting from the tidal disruption of small Oort Cloud bodies by a putative primordial black hole could power an observable optical signal that could be searched for with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Image credit: Sci-News.com / Zdeněk Bardon / ESO.

Static Black Holes Exert Pressure on Their Environment, Scientists Say

Sep 13, 2021 by News Staff

In 1974, Stephen Hawking made the seminal discovery that black holes emit thermal radiation. Previous to that, black holes were believed to be inert. In...

This Hubble image shows a giant star called AG Carinae. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible region of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). It is based on data obtained through two filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Nota / C. Britt.

Hubble Space Telescope Takes Close Look at AG Carinae

Sep 13, 2021 by News Staff

The new composite images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveal the dual nature of the giant star AG Carinae. This Hubble image shows a giant...

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