Tag Archive for 'Milky Way'

Illustration depicting one interpretation of the exoplanet GJ 357d. Image credit: Chris Smith / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Three Small Planets Orbit Nearby Red Dwarf Star GJ 357

Aug 1, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and several ground-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered three small exoplanets...

A star known as S0-2 made its closest approach to Sagittarius A*, the a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, in 2018. Image credit: Nicolle Fuller / National Science Foundation.

Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity Aces Relativistic Redshift Test

Jul 26, 2019 by News Staff

In a test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity near the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, an international group of...

An artist’s rendering of a gas giant in a binary stellar system. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle.

TESS Finds Still-Forming Gas Giant in Binary Star System

Jul 25, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered an exoplanet planet larger than Neptune but smaller than Saturn...

Shaded gray contours outline the extent of the Local Void, while blue dots show major mass constituents (large galaxies, galaxy groups, and clusters). The curved blue lines show the derived motions of these massive objects, after removing the overall expansion of the Universe. The most important galaxy congregations are given special symbols, like the red ball identifying the Virgo Cluster. The dominant pattern of motions revealed by the orbits is a flow away from the Local Void. Image credit: University of Hawaii.

Astronomers Create 3D Map of Local Void

Jul 23, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has mapped the size and shape of the Local Void, a large underdense region of the Universe, on the outskirts of which...

This scanning electron microscopic (SEM) image depicts a close up of Aspergillus sp. fungal fruiting body. This reproductive structure is composed of a septate filament known as a conidiophore, which is topped by chains of conidiospores. Image credit: Janice Haney Carr & Robert Simmons, CDC.

Fungal Spores Can Withstand High Doses of Cosmic Radiation, Microbiologists Find

Jul 4, 2019 by News Staff

According to new research, spores of the fungus Aspergillus niger are able to withstand higher doses of radiation than previously thought, which can have...

This artist’s illustration shows a giant cloud of hydrogen streaming off the warm Neptune GJ 3470b. The host star’s intense radiation is heating the hydrogen in the planet’s upper atmosphere to a point where it escapes into space. GJ 3470b is losing hydrogen at a rate 100 times faster than a previously observed warm Neptune whose atmosphere is also evaporating away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Player, STScI.

Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes Probe Atmosphere of Sub-Neptune

Jul 3, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers are curious about the two recently-discovered classes of planets not found in the Solar System: the so-called super-Earths and sub-Neptunes,...

This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid -- 1I/2017 U1 (’Oumuamua). Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua Has Purely Natural Origin, Say Astronomers

Jul 2, 2019 by News Staff

A fast moving, cigar-shaped object of extrasolar origin was discovered on October 19, 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawai’i. Named 1I/2017 U1...

Astronomers have monitored the Eta Carinae binary system for more than two decades. It has been prone to violent outbursts, including an episode in the 1840s during which ejected material formed the bipolar bubbles seen here. Now, using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument to probe the nebula in ultraviolet light, they have uncovered the glow of magnesium embedded in warm gas (shown in blue) in places they had not seen it before. The luminous magnesium resides in the space between the dusty bipolar bubbles and the outer shock-heated nitrogen-rich filaments (shown in red). The streaks visible in the blue region outside the lower-left lobe are a striking feature of the image. These streaks are created when the star’s light rays poke through the dust clumps scattered along the bubble’s surface. Wherever the ultraviolet light strikes the dense dust, it leaves a long, thin shadow that extends beyond the lobe into the surrounding gas. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / N. Smith, University of Arizona / J. Morse, BoldlyGo Institute.

Hubble Captures Eta Carinae in Ultraviolet Light

Jul 2, 2019 by News Staff

Eta Carinae is a binary stellar system approximately 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina. Also known as HD 93308 and Hen 3-481, the system...

An artist’s conception of the L 98-59 planetary system. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

TESS Discovers Planetary System with Three Terrestrial-Size Exoplanets

Jul 1, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered three small planets orbiting a bright M-dwarf star called L 98-59....

An artist’s concept depicting the presence of buckyballs in space. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Find Ionized Buckyballs in Interstellar Medium

Jun 27, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of ionized (electrically-charged) buckminsterfullerene in the interstellar...

An artist’s impression of two planets orbiting Teegarden’s Star. Image credit: Institute for Astrophysics, University of Göttingen.

Two Earth-Mass Exoplanets Found in Habitable Zone around 8-Billion-Year-Old Red Dwarf

Jun 20, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the CARMENES (Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and optical Échelle Spectrographs) instrument...

Milky Way Collided with Dark-Matter Dominated Galaxy Less Than Billion Years Ago

Jun 18, 2019 by News Staff

According to new research led by Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the collision of the recently-discovered dwarf galaxy Antlia 2 with our Milky...

An artist’s impression of a disk of cool interstellar gas surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Spots Rotating Disk of Cool Hydrogen around Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Jun 7, 2019 by News Staff

There is a supermassive black hole of nearly 4 million solar masses at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. A large reservoir of hot and cooler hydrogen...

This artist’s illustration depicts a coronal mass ejection, which involves a large-scale expulsion of material, and have frequently been observed on our Sun. Image credit: NNASA / CXC / INAF / Argiroffi et al / S. Wiessinger.

Chandra Detects Huge Coronal Mass Ejection from HR 9024

Jun 6, 2019 by News Staff

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs), often associated with solar flares, are the most powerful magnetic phenomena occurring on the Sun. Now, astronomers using...

Artist’s impression of a potentially habitable exomoon orbiting a giant planet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Exomoons Could Host Alien Life, Astrophysicist Says

Jun 6, 2019 by News Staff

Exomoons — natural satellites of planets outside our Solar System — could offer another clue about the pool of alien worlds that may be home...

This Spitzer image shows the Cepheus C and Cepheus B regions. The image was compiled using data from Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) and the Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS). The colors correspond with IRAC wavelengths of 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (cyan) and 8 microns (green), and 24 microns (red) from the MIPS instrument. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Spitzer Sees Stars and Dense Clouds in Cepheus

Jun 3, 2019 by News Staff

A large celestial mosaic from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows multiple clusters of stars and clouds of gas and dust in the constellation of Cepheus. This...

Scholz’s star flew through the Oort Cloud 70,000 years ago. Image credit: José A. Peñas / SINC.

Did Nearby Supernovae Induce Hominins to Walk on Two Legs?

May 30, 2019 by News Staff

Between 8 and 2 million years ago, cosmic-ray energy from one or more nearby supernovae reached Earth and pummeled the planet’s atmosphere, initiating...

This VLT image shows the reflection nebula NGC 2023. Image credit: ESO.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Snaps Beautiful Image of Reflection Nebula

May 14, 2019 by News Staff

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released an absolutely beautiful photo taken by its Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the reflection nebula NGC...

Merging neutron stars. Image credit: Mark Garlick, University of Warwick.

Violent Collision of Two Neutron Stars Occurred near Pre-Solar Nebula 4.6 Billion Years Ago

May 5, 2019 by News Staff

According to new research, a nearby binary neutron-star merger gave birth to 0.3% of the Earth’s heaviest elements, including gold, platinum and uranium;...

Using the MUSE, an integral-field spectrograph on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, Göttgens et al discovered the remains of a nova near the center of the globular cluster Messier 22. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / F. Göttgens, Institute for Astrophysics, University of Göttingen.

Astronomers Find Ancient Nova Remnant in Messier 22

Apr 30, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A nova is a cataclysmic event on the surface of a white dwarf star in a binary stellar system that increases the overall brightness by several orders of...

«‹19 202122 23 ›»