Astronomy News

Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Ganymede

Roth et al. reveal the first evidence for water vapor in the atmosphere of Ganymede, the result of the thermal escape of water vapor from the moon’s icy surface. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. daSilva.
Jul 26, 2021 by News Staff

Jupiter’s icy satellite Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System. Water ice on its surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus 185 degrees Celsius (minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit). A rain of charged particles from the Sun is enough to turn the ice into water vapor at high noon on the Ganymede. Using high-sensitivity spectra and spectral images acquired by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, planetary researchers have now...

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This Hubble image shows the triple galaxy system Arp 195. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Dalcanton.

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Interacting Galaxy Triplet

Jul 26, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking photo of the triple merging system Arp 195. This Hubble image shows the...

This ALMA image shows a close-up view on the circumplanetary disk surrounding PDS 70c. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Benisty et al.

ALMA Detects Circumplanetary Disk around Young Exoplanet PDS 70c

Jul 22, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected a circumplanetary disk — a ring-shaped area where moons and...

This Hubble image shows Messier 104. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA.

Giant Stellar Stream Spotted around Sombrero Galaxy

Jul 22, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Sombrero galaxy likely merged with a relatively massive galaxy several billions years ago. In a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal...

The new highest resolution EHT image of the Centaurus A’s jet launching region. Image credit: R. Bors / CSIRO / ATNF / Feain et al. / Morganti et al. / Junkes et al. / ESO / WFI / MPIfR / APEX / Weiß et al. / NASA / CXC / CfA / Kraft et al. / TANAMI / Müller et al. / EHT / Janssen et al.

Event Horizon Telescope Captures Image of Centaurus A’s Black Hole Jet

Jul 20, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration have imaged a jet in the heart of the nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A and identified the...

Hubble resolved roughly 25 fragments of comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) on April 23, 2020. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Jewitt, University of California, Los Angeles / Q. Ye, University of Maryland.

ESA’s Solar Orbiter Encounters Tail of Fragmented Comet ATLAS

Jul 20, 2021 by News Staff

The long-period comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) fragmented during its perihelion in April 2020. About two months later, ESA’s Solar Orbiter observed the dusty...

An artist’s impression of a neutron star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Neutron-Star Mountains May Be Only Fractions of Millimeters High, New Model Shows

Jul 19, 2021 by News Staff

Because of their compactness, neutron stars have an enormous gravitational pull around a billion times stronger than the Earth. This squashes every feature...

This Hubble image shows the galaxy cluster MACS J0138.0-2155, which is so massive that its gravity bent and magnified light streaming not only from an extremely distant background galaxy but also from a supernova event in this galaxy. The color image was made using observations from eight different filters spread across Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Newman / M. Akhshik / K. Whitaker.

Hubble Observes Multiply-Imaged, Gravitationally Lensed Supernova

Jul 19, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The multiply-imaged supernova AT2016jka appeared in the distant giant galaxy MRG-M0138, gravitationally lensed by the foreground galaxy cluster MACS J0138.0-2155. This...

This image combines observations of the nearby galaxies NGC 1300, NGC 1087, NGC 3627 (top, from left to right), NGC 4254 and NGC 4303 (bottom, from left to right) taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO / PHANGS.

Astronomers Focus on Star-Forming Regions in Nearby Galaxies

Jul 16, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers know that stars are born in clouds of gas, but what sets off star formation, and how galaxies as a whole play into it, remains a mystery. To...

This image of comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) was taken by the Las Cumbres Observatory 1-m telescope at Sutherland, South Africa, on June 22, 2021; the diffuse cloud is the comet’s coma. Image credit: LOOK project, Las Cumbres Observatory.

Astronomers Spot First Activity on Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein

Jul 16, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers with Las Cumbres Observatory have captured a new image of the recently-discovered giant comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein). This...

An artist’s impression of the potential lava world TOI-1807b. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Chris Smith, KBRwyle.

TESS Discovers Planetary Systems around Two Young Co-Moving Stars

Jul 14, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered four exoplanets orbiting TOI-2076 and TOI-1807, a pair of related...

An artist’s impression of HD 265435, a binary system located approximately 1,500 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini. Image credit: Mark Garlick / University of Warwick.

HD 265435 Will Explode as Type Ia Supernova in 70 Million Years, Astronomers Say

Jul 13, 2021 by News Staff

HD 265435 is a binary system with an orbital period of around 100 min that consists of a white dwarf and a hot subdwarf star. An artist’s impression...

Artist’s impression of a volcano erupting on Venus. Image credit: ESA / AOES Medialab.

Phosphine in Atmosphere of Venus Points to Explosive Volcanic Activity

Jul 13, 2021 by News Staff

In 2020, planetary scientists detected small amounts of the biosignature gas phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope...

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.

Theoretical Physicist Solves How Universe is Reflected near Black Hole

Jul 12, 2021 by News Staff

Black holes are famously compact objects where the paths of light are drastically bent by the curvature of space-time. While light itself cannot escape...

This Hubble image shows NGC 6380, a globular cluster some 35,500 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius. The very bright star at the top of the image is HD 159073, which is only around 4,000 light-years from Earth. 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). 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 / E. Noyola.

Hubble Space Telescope Focuses on NGC 6380

Jul 12, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a beautiful close-up shot snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the globular cluster NGC 6380. This Hubble image shows NGC...

Hubble captured this view of comet 46P/Wirtanen on December 13, 2018. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Bodewits, Auburn University / J.-Y. Li, Planetary Science Institute.

Astronomers Detect Unusual Amount of Methanol in Comet 46P/Wirtanen

Jul 9, 2021 by News Staff

Using the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC) instrument at the Keck II telescope, astronomers conducted near-infrared spectroscopic observations of the...

The red giant star SMSS J200322.54-114203.3 (center) in the south-eastern corner of the constellation of Aquila, close to the border with Capricornus and Sagittarius. Image credit: Da Costa / SkyMapper.

Ancient Magneto-Rotational Hypernova Fuelled High Levels of Metals in Unique Star

Jul 8, 2021 by News Staff

An explosion of a fast-spinning strongly magnetized star, called a magneto-rotational hypernova, is the most likely explanation for the presence of unusually...

An artist’s impression of a free-floating exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Kepler Data Reveal Four Earth-Mass Free-Floating Exoplanets

Jul 6, 2021 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Kepler/K2 mission, astronomers have detected four new microlensing events that are consistent with free-floating planets of similar...

Color-coded map of the distribution of stars emerging from the star cluster Palomar 5 (white blob); the two long tidal tails (orange) contain 1.3 times the mass of the cluster and delineate its orbit around the Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: SDSS.

Palomar 5 Contains More Than 100 Stellar-Mass Black Holes: Study

Jul 6, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Palomar 5 is one of the sparsest star clusters in the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy and is best known for its spectacular tidal tails, spanning over 20...

This illustration depicts an exoplanet partially hidden in the glare of its host star and a nearby companion star. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva.

Earth-Sized Exoplanets May Be More Common than Previously Thought

Jul 5, 2021 by News Staff

In a study to be published in the Astronomical Journal, astronomers found that many exoplanet-hosting stars identified by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet...

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