Tag Archive for 'Milky Way'

This image shows Beta Pictoris b and c embedded in the dusty disk around Beta Pictoris. Image credit: Axel Quetz / MPIA Graphics Department.

Astronomers Directly Image Gas-Giant Exoplanet Beta Pictoris c

Oct 7, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer have captured the first direct images of the recently-discovered giant planet Beta Pictoris...

This mosaic of the northern sky incorporates 208 images taken by TESS during its second year of science operations, completed in July 2020. The mission split the northern sky into 13 sectors, each of which was imaged for nearly a month by the spacecraft’s four cameras. Among the many notable celestial objects visible: the glowing arc and obscuring dust clouds of the Milky Way (left); the Andromeda Galaxy (oval, center left), our nearest large galactic neighbor located 2.5 million light-years away; and the North America Nebula (lower left), part of a stellar factory complex 1,700 light-years away. The prominent dark lines are gaps between the detectors in TESS’ camera system. Image credit: NASA / MIT / TESS / Ethan Kruse, USRA.

TESS Captures Beautiful Panorama of Northern Sky

Oct 6, 2020 by News Staff

Assembled from 208 images captured by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during its second year of science operations, this striking...

A 5-light-year-long section of the western wall in the Carina Nebula, as observed with adaptive optics on the Gemini South telescope. This mountainous section of the nebula reveals a number of unusual structures including a long series of parallel ridges that could be produced by a magnetic field, a remarkable almost perfectly smooth wave, and fragments that appear to be in the process of being sheared off the cloud by a strong wind. There is also evidence for a jet of material ejected from a newly-formed star. The exquisite detail seen in the image is in part due to a technology known as adaptive optics, which resulted in a ten-fold improvement in the resolution of the research team’s observations. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Patrick Hartigan, Rice University / Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage / Mahdi Zamani / Davide de Martin.

Astronomers Capture Best Ever Image of Carina Nebula’s Western Wall

Oct 6, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using twin 8.1-m telescopes at Gemini Observatory in Chile have captured the most detailed near-infrared image yet of the Carina Nebula’s...

An artist’s conception of the HR 858 planetary system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Scientists Identify 24 Potentially ‘Superhabitable’ Exoplanets

Oct 5, 2020 by News Staff

A team of geobiologists and astronomers from the United States and Germany has identified 24 extrasolar planets that may have conditions more suitable...

View of the Chang’E 4 lander with the location of the LND sensor head indicated by the red arrow. LND is mounted in the Chang’E 4 payload compartment; the lid at the tip of the red arrow is closed at night to protect LND from the cold lunar night. Image credit: Chinese National Space Agency / National Astronomical Observatories of China.

Scientists Measure Radiation Dose Rates on Lunar Surface

Sep 28, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the Lunar Lander Neutrons and Dosimetry (LND) experiment aboard China’s Chang’E 4 lander, a team of researchers from Germany and China has measured...

An artist’s impression of the massive proto-binary system IRAS 16547-4247. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO.

ALMA Detects Salt, Water, Silicon Compounds and Methyl Cyanide around Two Massive Protostars

Sep 25, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected sodium chloride, silicon compounds, and water vapor in the circumstellar...

This ALMA image shows the stellar wind around R Aquilae. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Decin et al.

ALMA Sees Complex Stellar Winds around Red Giant Stars

Sep 23, 2020 by News Staff

Stars with a mass of less than 8 solar masses end their lives as planetary nebulae, structures of ionized gas thrown off by the star and heated by the...

An artist’s impression of a stellar-mass black hole surrounded by a disk of gas and plasma gravitationally pulled from a close binary star companion. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss.

Astrophysicists Suggest New Way to Detect Stellar-Mass Black Holes

Sep 22, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

An analysis of archival X-ray data from NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer has revealed a clear separation between the characteristics of stellar-mass...

An artist’s impression of a magnetar emitting a burst of radiation. Image credit: Sophia Dagnello, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Precisely Measure Distance to Magnetar

Sep 18, 2020 by News Staff

Using NSF’s Very Long Baseline Array, an international team of astronomers has made the direct geometric measurement of the distance to XTE J1810-197,...

An artist’s impression of the potential Jupiter-size planet WD 1856+534b and its much smaller host star, a dim white dwarf. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Astronomers Find Jupiter-Sized Exoplanet Orbiting White Dwarf

Sep 16, 2020 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and several ground-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting...

An artist’s impression of the warm-Jupiter exoplanet TOI-1899b and the red dwarf TOI-1899, the lowest-mass star known to host a transiting warm Jupiter. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Find Warm Jupiter Orbiting Cool Red Dwarf

Sep 15, 2020 by News Staff

A puffy gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter has been discovered orbiting the early M-type dwarf star TOI-1899, thanks to new data from NASA’s Transiting...

An artist’s impression of the TOI-763 planetary system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Two Mini-Neptunes Found Orbiting Sun-Like Star

Sep 14, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the HARPS fiber-fed Echelle spectrograph mounted at the 3.6-m telescope of ESO’s La Silla...

Carbide Planets May Be Made Of Silica and Diamonds

Sep 11, 2020 by News Staff

Extrasolar planets hosted by stars with sufficiently high carbon-to-oxygen ratios could be made of diamonds and silica, according to new research by Arizona...

The Magellanic Stream in zenithal equal-area coordinates: (a) observed H I data for the Magellanic Stream, with the line-of-sight velocity indicated by the color scale and the relative gas column density indicated by the brightness; the points represent the sightlines with ultraviolet-absorption-line observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, colored by their line-of-sight velocity; these points show the extent of the ionized gas associated with the stream; (b) the results of the model including the Magellanic Corona and the Milky Way’s hot corona; gas originating in the disks of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is shown in the model, without separating neutral gas from ionized gas; this affects the morphology of the stream, causing the model to appear smoother and less fragmented than the data; however, the model reproduces the current spatial location and velocity of both clouds, and the velocity gradient of the gas along the stream; the Milky Way disk and background are extracted from real H I images. Image credit: Lucchini et al, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2663-4.

Huge Halo of Warm Gas around Magellanic Clouds is Key to Formation of Magellanic Stream

Sep 9, 2020 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from Australia and the United States has found that a halo of warm ionized gas surrounding the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds...

Wells et al estimate that there should be at least 10 -- currently undiscovered -- exoplanets which are favorably located to detect the Earth and are capable of sustaining life as we know it. Image credit: NASA.

Large-Scale SETI Survey of Vela Region Finds No Signs of Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Sep 8, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope have searched for technosignatures — indicators of advanced extraterrestrial...

This composite image shows both ALMA and SPHERE/VLT observations of the disk around GW Orionis. The ALMA image (blue) shows the disk’s ringed structure, with the innermost ring (part of which is visible as an oblong dot at the very center of the image) separated from the rest of the disk. The SPHERE observations (orange-red) allowed the astronomers to see for the first time the shadow of this innermost ring on the rest of the disk, which made it possible for them to reconstruct its warped shape. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / ESO / University of Exeter / Kraus et al.

Astronomers Find Misaligned and Warped Protoplanetary Disk around Triple-Star System

Sep 3, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research) instrument...

An optical color image of the stellar field centered on HIP 109427, an A1-type star located 89 light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus, from the Pan-STARRS survey, showing the target fields of Green Bank and Parkes receivers, circled in red and white respectively; 46 sources with geometric distances calculated from Gaia data are marked with green crosses. Image credit: Wlodarczyk-Sroka et al, arXiv: 2006.09756.

New Study Expands Breakthrough Listen Initiative’s Search for Intelligent Life

Sep 3, 2020 by News Staff

In a new study to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a research team led by University of Manchester astronomers extended...

An artist’s impression of the hot Neptune TOI-824b and its parent star TOI-824. Also known as SCR J1448-5735, TYC 8688-915-1, TIC 193641523 and 2MASS J14483982-5735175, the star is around 70% the size and mass of the Sun and is 10.9 billion years old. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Rare Hot Neptune Found Orbiting Nearby Dwarf Star

Aug 31, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and two ground-based instruments, astronomers have discovered and confirmed a transiting hot...

This image shows the location of the 43 quasars Lehner et al used to probe Andromeda’s gaseous halo. These quasars are scattered far behind the halo, allowing scientists to probe multiple regions. Looking through the immense halo at the quasars’ light, the team observed how this light is absorbed by the halo and how that absorption changes in different regions. By tracing the absorption of light coming from the background quasars, the astronomers are able to probe the halo’s material. Image credit: NASA / ESA / E. Wheatley, STScI.

Astronomers Create Map of Andromeda Galaxy’s Gaseous Halo

Aug 28, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found that a halo of diffuse plasma around the Andromeda galaxy, which is located 2.5 million...

When the bar (horizontal in yellow and white) is in its shorter phase on the left, a few spiral arms can be seen near, but not quite firmly connected to the bar. Meanwhile, when the bar is at its longest on the right, there are two stronger spiral arms passing through this time around. These are more clearly connected to either end of the bar, effectively dragging it out and slowing it down. Image credit: Hilmi et al, doi: 10.1093/mnras/staa1934.

Astronomers Offer Solution to ‘Galactic Bar Paradox’

Aug 26, 2020 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Japan may have solved the so-called ‘Galactic bar paradox,’ whereby...

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