Astronomy News

Jupiter and Saturn Will Form ‘Double Planet’ for First Time since Middle Ages

Jupiter and Saturn have been traveling across the sky together all year, but in December, get ready for them to really put on a show. Over the first three weeks of the month, watch each evening as the two planets get closer in the sky than they’ve appeared in two decades. Look for them low in the southwest in the hour after sunset, Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
Dec 8, 2020 by News Staff

On December 21, 2020, the Solar System’s two gas giants will appear closer together in Earth’s night sky than they have been since 1226 CE. Jupiter and Saturn have been traveling across the sky together all year, but in December, get ready for them to really put on a show. Over the first three weeks of the month, watch each evening as the two planets get closer in the sky than they’ve appeared in two decades. Look for them low in the southwest...

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The positions of 16 new supernova remnant candidates in the Large Magellanic Cloud are marked in yellow; previously classified X-ray supernova remnants -- MCSNR J0541-6659, MCSNR 0522-6740 and MCSNR J0542-7104 -- are marked in violet color. Image credit: Yew et al., doi: 10.1093/mnras/staa3382.

Astronomers Spot Ancient Supernova Remnants in Large Magellanic Cloud

Dec 8, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers have confirmed three supernova remnants and discovered 16 new supernova remnant candidates in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite...

This image of a sunspot was taken on January 28, 2020 by NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope’s Wave Front Correction context viewer. The image reveals striking details of the sunspot’s structure as seen at the Sun’s surface. The sunspot is sculpted by a convergence of intense magnetic fields and hot gas boiling up from below. This image uses a warm palette of red and orange, but the context viewer took this sunspot image at the wavelength of 530 nm -- in the greenish-yellow part of the visible spectrum. Image credit: NSO / AURA / NSF.

Inouye Solar Telescope Captures Its First Image of Sunspot

Dec 7, 2020 by News Staff

An image of a sunspot captured by NSF’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope clearly shows the potential of the telescope and its set of state-of-the-art...

This Hubble image shows NGC 1792, a spiral galaxy 36.4 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Columba. The vast swathes of tell-tale blue seen throughout NGC 1792 indicate areas that are full of young, hot stars, and it is in the shades of orange, seen nearer the center that the older, cooler stars reside. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the ultraviolet, near-infrared, and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through five filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: Hubble / ESA / NASA / J. Lee / Leo Shatz.

Hubble Images Beautiful Star-Forming Spiral Galaxy: NGC 1792

Dec 7, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacular image of the starburst spiral galaxy NGC 1792. This Hubble image shows NGC 1792, a spiral...

Part of the SMASH dataset showing an unprecedented wide-angle view of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Image credit: CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / SMASH / D. Nidever, Montana State University / Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage / Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin.

Astronomers Capture Deepest Views Ever of Magellanic Clouds

Dec 4, 2020 by News Staff

New images, taken with the 520-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-m Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory,...

These images of the Stingray Nebula were captured by Hubble in 1996 (left) and 2016 (right). Image credit: NASA / ESA / B. Balick, University of Washington / M. Guerrero, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía / G. Ramos-Larios, Universidad de Guadalajara.

Hubble Observes Rapidly Fading Stingray Nebula

Dec 3, 2020 by News Staff

A planetary nebula called the Stingray Nebula has faded precipitously over just the past 20 years, according to an analysis of the archival images from...

Data from more than 1.8 billion stars have been used to create this map of the entire sky. It shows the total brightness and color of stars observed by ESA’s Gaia satellite and released as part of Gaia’s Early Data Release 3. Brighter regions represent denser concentrations of bright stars, while darker regions correspond to patches of the sky where fewer and fainter stars are observed. The color of the image is obtained by combining the total amount of light with the amount of blue and red light recorded by Gaia in each patch of the sky. The bright horizontal structure that dominates the image is the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. It is actually a flattened disk seen edge-on that contains most of the Galaxy’s stars. In the middle of the image, the Galactic center appears bright, and thronged with stars. Darker regions across the Galactic plane correspond to foreground clouds of interstellar gas and dust, which absorb the light of more distant stars. Many of these clouds conceal stellar nurseries where new generations of stars are currently being born. Dotted across the image are also many globular and open clusters, as well as entire galaxies beyond our own. The two bright objects in the lower right of the image are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO / A. Moitinho.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Data on More Than 1.8 Billion Stars

Dec 3, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers from the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium released today the most detailed ever catalogue of Milky Way stars. The new data set,...

ASKAP conducted its first survey of the entire southern sky in record speed and detail, creating a new atlas of the Universe. Image credit: CSIRO.

ASKAP Radio Telescope Maps Nearly Three Million Galaxies

Dec 2, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) have mapped approximately 3,000,000 galaxies in the observable Universe. ASKAP...

An artist’s impression of the Proxima Centauri system. Image credit: Lorenzo Santinelli.

Super-Earth Proxima c Has Earth-Like Stellar Environment, Study Suggests

Dec 1, 2020 by Natali Anderson

In a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomers investigated the effects the activity of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri...

As the CMB light (left image) travels through the Universe until observed on Earth (right image), the direction in which the electromagnetic wave oscillates (orange line) is rotated by the angle β; the rotation could be caused by dark matter or dark energy interacting with the CMB light, which changes the patterns of polarization (black lines inside the images); the red and blue regions in the images show hot and cold regions of the CMB, respectively. Image credit: Y. Minami / KEK.

Astrophysicists Find Hints of Beyond-Standard-Model Physics in Universe’s Oldest Light

Nov 30, 2020 by News Staff

Using the polarization data from ESA’s Planck satellite, a mission that have studied the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the oldest light in the Universe,...

This Hubble image shows a galaxy called SDSS J225506.80+005839.9 (visible in the center right portion of the image). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Zabludoff.

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Beautiful Result of Galaxy Merger

Nov 30, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking photo of the peculiar galaxy SDSS J225506.80+005839.9. This Hubble image...

This false-color image of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was taken by the Rosetta navigation camera on 15 June 2015 from a distance of 207 km from the comet center. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Solid Phosphorus and Fluorine Detected in Coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Nov 27, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser (COSIMA) instrument on board ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, researchers have detected phosphorus and fluorine...

Position and velocity map of the Milky Way Galaxy; arrows show position and velocity data for 224 objects used to model the Galaxy; the solid black lines show the positions of the Galaxy’s spiral arms; the colors indicate groups of objects belonging the same arm. Image credit: NAOJ.

Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole is Closer than Astronomers Thought

Nov 27, 2020 by News Staff

The distance between our Solar System and Sagittarius A*, the 4-million-solar-mass black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, is approximately 25,800...

This Hubble image shows the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC1052-DF4. Image credit: van Dokkum et al, doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0d92.

Tidal Stripping Explains Lack of Dark Matter in Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy NGC 1052-DF4

Nov 27, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected tidal tails in NGC 1052-DF4, a dark-matter-deficient galaxy some 65 million light-years...

This image, taken with the 8-m Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea, shows Earth’s minimoon 2020 CD3 (center, point source). The image combines three images each obtained using different filters to produce this color composite. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / G. Fedorets.

Earth’s Second Known Minimoon is Natural Object, Astronomers Say

Nov 25, 2020 by News Staff

In a new paper published in the Astronomical Journal, astronomers from the United States, Canada and Europe provide a detailed characterization of the...

This image shows thousands of newly-formed stars in the central part of Messier 83. This image is made up of observations from VLT’s MUSE instrument in the optical part of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through six filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: TIMER Survey / ESO.

MUSE Observes Hidden Depths of Messier 83

Nov 23, 2020 by News Staff

Using the MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory in Chile, astronomers have imaged...

This Hubble image of the nearby active galaxy IC 5063 reveals a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows coming from the blazing core, home of a supermassive black hole. Image credit: Credits: NASA / ESA / Hubble / STScI / W.P. Maksym, CfA.

Hubble Spots Shadow of Supermassive Black Hole’s Torus in IC 5063

Nov 23, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed spectacular large-scale dark and light rays beaming out of the bright center of IC...

Astronomers Catch Radio Jets from Distant Quasars

Nov 20, 2020 by News Staff

Using data from the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS), astronomers have detected young radio-emitting jets from supermassive black holes in distant active...

The Blue Ring Nebula is located 6,197 light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. The nebula is 13 light years wide and is composed of hydrogen gas (blue) expanding from a central star, which is the remnant core of a stellar merger; red filaments are shockwave filaments from the merging event. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / M. Seibert, Carnegie Institution for Science / K. Hoadley, Caltech / GALEX Team.

Stellar Merger Produced Blue Ring Nebula Several Thousand Years Ago

Nov 19, 2020 by News Staff

In 2004, astronomers using NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer discovered an unusual, ring-shaped ‘blue’ nebula and the star at its center, TYC 2597-735-1....

Top: neurons and glial cells. Bottom: the Millennium Simulation of the Universe. Image credit: Center for Brain Injury and Repair, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine / Springel et al.

Human Brain’s Neuronal Network Has Similarities to Cosmic Web, Study Claims

Nov 18, 2020 by News Staff

In a paper published this week in the journal Frontiers of Physics, a duo of researchers from Italy investigated the similarities between the network of...

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