Astronomy News | Sci.News

A supermassive black hole siphons gas off of an orbiting giant star. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Chris Smith, USRA & GESTAR.

Astronomers Find Periodically Flaring Black Hole in Distant Galaxy

Jan 13, 2021 by News Staff

An active galactic nucleus in the center of ESO 253-G003, an active galaxy over 570 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Pictor, erupts...

An artist’s impression of the ID2299 galaxy. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Galaxy Mergers May Play Important Role in Quenching of Star Formation in Massive Galaxies

Jan 12, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered a massive starburst galaxy with a tail of star-forming gas in...

This composite image of Swift J1818.0-1607 contains a wide field of view in the infrared from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, taken before the magnetar’s discovery. X-rays from Chandra show the magnetar in purple. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of West Virginia / H. Blumer / JPL / Caltech / Spitzer.

Chandra Observes Young, Fast Spinning Magnetar and Its Environment

Jan 12, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have studied Swift J1818.0-1607, a new magnetar (a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful...

A long-exposure observation lasting 70 min from the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, reveals NGC 1003 in glorious detail. This spiral galaxy resides in front of a galaxy cluster and the long exposure time of this deep observation allowed usually overlooked red background cluster galaxies to be captured. Image credit: KPNO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Maria T. Patterson, New Mexico State University / Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage / Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin.

Astronomers Capture Deep Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 1003

Jan 12, 2021 by News Staff

A spectacular new image, taken with the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, shows the spiral galaxy NGC 1003 and a collection...

This image, taken with VLT’s MUSE instrument, shows the central region of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097. Image credit: VLT / ESO / TIMER Survey.

VLT Spots Star-Bursting Nuclear Ring in NGC 1097

Jan 11, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

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

An artist’s impression of the Neptune-sized planet NGTS-14Ab. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Neptune-Sized Exoplanet Discovered in Binary System NGTS-14

Jan 11, 2021 by Natali Anderson

NGTS-14Ab, an alien world slightly larger than Neptune orbiting around an orange dwarf in the binary system NGTS-14, joins a growing number of exoplanets...

This image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 613 was snapped by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The color composite was assembled from images taken in visible and near-infrared light. 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 / G. Folatelli.

Hubble Space Telescope Focuses on NGC 613

Jan 11, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured the most detailed image so far of the central part of the barred spiral galaxy NGC...

An artist's conception of the binary system WISE 1049-5319 with the Sun in the background (Janella Williams / Penn State University)

TESS Finds High-Speed Jets, Vortex-Dominated Polar Regions on Nearby Brown Dwarf

Jan 8, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

New observations from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have revealed the presence of high-speed jets, zonal circulation and polar...

Adamo et al. investigated the rate of star formation within six merging galaxy systems (from left to right, from top to bottom): NGC 3256, NGC 1614, NGC 4194, NGC 3690, NGC 6052, and NGC 34. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / A. Evans / University of Virginia, Charlottesville / NRAO / Stony Brook University / Adamo et al.

Astronomers Study Star Formation in Six Galaxy Mergers

Jan 8, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected and studied numerous young star clusters in six merging galaxy systems. Adamo et al....

Flaring, active regions of the Sun are highlighted in this image combining observations from several telescopes. High-energy X-rays from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) are shown in blue; low-energy X-rays from Japan’s Hinode spacecraft are green; and extreme ultraviolet light from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is yellow and red. All three telescopes captured their solar images around the same time on April 29, 2015. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / GSFC / JAXA.

Source of Sunquakes is Submerged beneath Solar Surface, Study Shows

Jan 5, 2021 by News Staff

Ultra-impulsive acoustic emission from a solar flare recently detected by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) indicated submersion of its source...

Astronomers Discover New Supercluster of Galaxies

Jan 5, 2021 by Sergio Prostak

Using data from the eROSITA X-ray telescope aboard the Spektrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) observatory, astronomers have detected a previously unknown supercluster...

The central part of the total field of view of the VLA radio map of the Perseus cluster. NGC 1275 is the bright source in the middle of the image. The wide-angle tail radio galaxy NGC 1265 (NNW of NGC 1275) and the head-tail CR 15 (between NGC 1275 and IC 310), as well as IC 310 (WSW of NGC 1275) are clearly visible. Image credit: Gendron-Marsolais et al., doi: 10.1093/mnras/staa2003.

Astronomers Create Radio Map of Perseus Galaxy Cluster

Jan 4, 2021 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers using NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array have produced a high-resolution map of the Perseus cluster, a collection of thousands of galaxies...

This Hubble image shows the spiral arms and various stellar environments of NGC 6946. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the infrared region of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Leroy / K.S. Long.

Hubble Looks at Face-On Spiral Galaxy NGC 6946

Jan 4, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of the medium-sized, face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6946. This Hubble...

This image from the eROSITA X-ray telescope shows the energetic Universe. As eROSITA scans the sky, the energy of the collected photons is measured with an accuracy ranging from 2% - 6%. To generate this image, in which the whole sky is projected onto an ellipse (so-called Aitoff projection) with the center of the Milky Way in the middle and the body of our Galaxy running horizontally, photons have been color-coded according to their energy (red for energies 0.3-0.6 keV, green for 0.6-1 keV, blue for 1-2.3 keV). The red diffuse glow away from the galactic plane is the emission of the hot gas in the vicinity of the Solar System (the Local Bubble). Along the plane itself, dust and gas absorb the lowest energy X-ray photons, so that only high-energy emitting sources can be seen, and their color appears blue in the image. The hotter gas close to the Galactic center, shown in green and yellow, carries imprinted the history of the most energetic processes in the life of the Milky Way, such as supernova explosions, driving fountains of gas out of the plane, and, possibly, past outburst from the now dormant supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Piercing through this turbulent, hot diffuse medium, are hundreds of thousands of X-ray sources, which appear mostly white in the image, and uniformly distributed over the sky. Among them, distant active galactic nuclei are visible as point sources, while clusters of galaxies reveal themselves as extended X-ray nebulosities. In total, about one million X-ray sources have been detected in this image. Image credit: Jeremy Sanders, Hermann Brunner & the eSASS team / Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics / Eugene Churazov & Marat Gilfanov, IKI.

Astronomers Detect Large-Scale X-Ray Bubbles in Milky Way’s Halo

Dec 31, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard the Spektrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) observatory have detected X-ray-emitting bubbles that extend approximately...

The first artist’s illustration shows a key part of the process that created this new black hole, as the two neutron stars spin around each other while merging. The purple material depicts debris from the merger. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M.Weiss.

Gravitational Waves May Help Find Universe’s Missing Components

Dec 31, 2020 by News Staff

Whenever two compact objects (black holes or neutron stars) collide elsewhere in the Universe, they create gravitational waves that travel across space,...

The positions and orbits of the newly-discovered high-velocity stars. Image credit: Xiao Kong, China’s National Astronomical Observatories.

Almost Six Hundred New High-Velocity Stars Spotted in Milky Way

Dec 29, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

Using data from the Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and ESA’s star-mapping satellite Gaia, astronomers have discovered...

An artist’s impression of the hot-Jupiter exoplanet HAT-P-68b and its parent star HAT-P-68 (also known as GSC 1925-01046 and 2MASS 07535598+2356176), a K5-type dwarf star with a mass of 0.68 solar masses and a radius of 0.67 solar radii. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Short-Period Hot Jupiter Discovered Circling HAT-P-68

Dec 29, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using data from the HATNet (Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network) survey have discovered a transiting giant planet orbiting the K5-type...

‘Baby universes’ branching off of our Universe shortly after the Big Bang appear to us as black holes. Image credit: Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe.

Is All Dark Matter in Universe Made of Primordial Black Holes?

Dec 28, 2020 by News Staff

In a new paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, an international team of theoretical physicists described a scenario for the formation of primordial...

This Hubble image shows the central region of NGC 2217, a barred spiral galaxy some 83 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. This image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the optical part of the spectrum. It was colorized with data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Dalcanton / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Spots Nearly Face-On Barred Spiral Galaxy: NGC 2217

Dec 28, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has taken a beautiful image of the central part of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2217. This Hubble image shows...