Tag Archive for 'Star'

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...

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,...

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...

On August 31, 2012, a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The CME traveled at over 900 miles per second. It did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth’s magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, with a glancing blow, causing aurora to appear on the night of September 3. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Physicists Detect Solar CNO Neutrinos for First Time

Nov 26, 2020 by News Staff

For most of their existence, stars are fuelled by the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Fusion proceeds via two processes that are well understood theoretically:...

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...

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....

An artist’s impression of glycine together with dark interstellar clouds in the lab. Image credit: Harold Linnartz.

Amino Acids Can Form Long Before Stars and Planets: Study

Nov 16, 2020 by News Staff

Glycine and other amino acids form in dense interstellar clouds well before they transform into new stars and planets, suggests a new study led by researchers...

An artist’s impression of the planetary system LHS 1140. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Three Planets Orbit Nearby Red Dwarf LHS 1140

Nov 16, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations...

This composite image of the planetary nebula IC 4593 contains X-rays (Chandra) from gas that has been heated to over a million degrees. These high temperatures were likely generated by material that blew away from the shrunken core of the star and crashed into gas that had previously been ejected by the star. Visible light data from Hubble in the image show combinations of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. Image credit: NASA / CXC / UNAM / J. Toala et al. / STScI.

Chandra Finds Hot Bubble in Planetary Nebula IC 4593

Nov 13, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have spotted a bubble of ultrahot gas at the center of a planetary nebula called IC 4593. This composite...

An artist’s impression of the SGR 1935+2154 magnetar in outburst, showing complex magnetic field structure and beamed emission. Image credit: McGill University Graphic Design Team.

Fast Radio Burst Detected from Magnetar in Milky Way

Nov 9, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) and FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope) telescopes...

This image, taken with the Dark Energy Camera on the Victor M. Blanco 4-m telescope at the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory shows the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy. The image covers 0.5 by 0.25 degrees on the sky and contains over 180,000 stars, capturing a portion of our galaxy about 220 by 110 light-years across. Image credit: CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / STScI / W. Clarkson, UM-Dearborn / C. Johnson, STScI / M. Rich, UCLA.

Milky Way’s Central Bulge Stars Formed in Single Burst of Formation over 10 Billion Years Ago

Nov 5, 2020 by News Staff

Most stars in the central 1,000 light-years of the Milky Way’s hub formed when it was swollen with infalling gas more than 10 billion years ago, according...

This illustration shows radiation from flares from a red dwarf star like Barnard’s star eroding the atmosphere of an orbiting, rocky planet. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weis.

Barnard’s Star Not So Life-Friendly After All

Nov 2, 2020 by News Staff

Barnard’s star, a 10-billion-year-old red dwarf just 6 light-years from Earth, is still very active and potentially destructive for the atmospheres of...

This image, taken by the FORS 2 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the Skull Nebula, a planetary nebula 1,671 light-years away in the constellation of Cetus. Image credit: ESO.

VLT Snaps Stunning Image of Skull Nebula

Nov 2, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have captured a beautiful image of a planetary nebula called the Skull Nebula. This image, taken by...

An artist’s impression of a gravitational microlensing event by a free-floating exoplanet. Image credit: Jan Skowron / Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw.

Astronomers Discover Smallest Free-Floating Exoplanet Yet

Oct 30, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers from the OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) project have discovered a Mars- to Earth-mass free-floating, or rogue, planet through...

Supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies blast radiation and ultra-fast winds outward, as illustrated in this artist’s conception. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole is Spinning Slowly, Astronomers Say

Oct 28, 2020 by News Staff

Supermassive black holes are characterized by just two numbers: mass and spin, but have a critical influence on the formation and evolution of galaxies....

This ALMA image shows young planet-forming dust rings around IRS 63. Image credit: D. Segura-Cox, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.

Ring-Like Structures Spotted around Protostar IRS 63

Oct 27, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) have observed the emission from dust grains in the protoplanetary disk around...

An artist’s impression of Barnard’s star b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Identify Closest Stars that Could See Earth as Transiting Exoplanet

Oct 23, 2020 by News Staff

Using data gathered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and ESA’s Gaia satellite, a team of U.S. astronomers has identified 1,004...

Stars identified by Donlon II et al. have formed shell structures in the aftermath of a radial merger occurring 3 billion years ago. Image credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Astronomers Find Shell Structures in Milky Way Galaxy for First Time

Oct 20, 2020 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, Flatiron Institute, and Queen’s University has spotted two...

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