Tag Archive for 'Star'

Merging Pair of Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies Spotted 13 Billion Light-Years Away

Dec 12, 2019 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international team of astronomers has spotted an unlensed, dusty star-forming galaxy...

Magnetic fields in the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as M77 and NGC 1086, are shown as streamlines over a visible light and X-ray composite image of the galaxy from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The magnetic fields align along the entire length of the massive spiral arms of Messier 77, implying that the gravitational forces that created the galaxy’s shape are also compressing the its magnetic field. This supports the leading theory of how the spiral arms are forced into their iconic shape known as ‘density wave theory.’ SOFIA studied the galaxy using far-infrared light (89 microns) to reveal facets of its magnetic fields that previous observations using visible and radio telescopes could not detect. Image credit: NASA / SOFIA / JPL-Caltech / Roma Tre University.

Magnetic Fields Play Important Role in Shaping Spiral Galaxies

Dec 11, 2019 by News Staff

New infrared observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) of Messier 77, a spiral galaxy located 47 million light-years...

This image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the emission nebula RCW 36. Image credit: ESO.

Very Large Telescope Takes Close Look at Emission Nebula RCW 36

Dec 9, 2019 by News Staff

Using the Focal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have obtained a remarkable...

An artist’s impression of the Saturn-sized exoplanet TOI 813b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

TOI 813b: Saturn-Sized Exoplanet Found Orbiting Subgiant Star

Dec 9, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Citizen scientists from the Planet Hunters TESS (PHT) project have discovered a Saturn-sized planet orbiting around TOI 813, a bright subgiant star located...

From a great distance, our Milky Way Galaxy would look like a thin disk of stars that orbits once every few hundred million years around its central region, where hundreds of billions of stars provide the gravitational ‘glue’ to hold it all together. But this pull of gravity is much weaker in the Galaxy’s far outer disk. There, the hydrogen atoms making up most of the Milky Way’s gas disk are no longer confined to a thin plane, instead they give the disk an S-like, or warped, appearance. Image credit: Xiaodian Chen.

Milky Way’s Thick Disk is 10 Billion Years Old, Astronomers Say

Dec 6, 2019 by News Staff

Our Milky Way Galaxy consists of two disk-like structures, known as ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ disks. The thick disk contains only about 20% of the Galaxy’s...

Illustration of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Steve Gribben.

NASA Releases First Science Results from Parker Solar Probe Mission

Dec 6, 2019 by NASA

The four instruments of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, a robotic spacecraft designed to explore the Sun’s atmosphere, have returned unprecedented science...

This composite image shows the surroundings of a supermassive black hole that is triggering star formation across the longest distance ever seen; as hot gas swirls around the black hole, it emits large amounts of X-rays that Chandra detects; the black hole is also the source of radio-wave emission from a jet of high-energy particles -- previously detected by scientists with the VLA -- that stretches about a million light-years. Image credit: NASA / CXC / INAF / R. Gilli et al / NRAO / VLA / STScI.

Supermassive Black Hole Triggers Star Formation in Multiple Galaxies

Dec 5, 2019 by News Staff

Enormous black holes usually affect their surroundings through the so-called ‘negative feedback’ — in other words, suppressing the formation...

This illustration shows a gas giant exoplanet orbiting its parent star. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / L. Calcada.

Study Finds No Clear Correlation between Compositions of Giant Exoplanets and Their Host Stars

Dec 4, 2019 by News Staff

There isn’t a strong correlation between gas giant and host star compositions when it comes to elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, according to...

SDO image of the solar corona in UV light (yellow lines represent the magnetic field on the surface of the Sun). Image credit: NASA / SDO / AIA / LMSAL.

Researchers Crack Mystery of Sun’s Magnetic Waves

Dec 3, 2019 by News Staff

For more than six decades, observations of our Sun have shown that as magnetic waves leave its interior they grow in strength, but until now there has...

Astronomers Find ‘Impossible’ Stellar Black Hole in Milky Way

Nov 29, 2019 by Natali Anderson

An international team of astronomers has discovered an exceptionally massive black hole of stellar origin with a mass 68 times that of the Sun. An artist’s...

This image shows TYC 8332-2529-1. Image credit: Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg / SIMBAD / DECaPS.

MeerKAT Spots Huge Radio Flare from Binary System

Nov 20, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the MeerKAT telescope at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory have spotted an object which rapidly brightened by more than a...

An artist’s impression of S5-HVS1’s ejection by Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Sagittarius A* and the captured binary partner to S5-HVS1 are seen far away in the left corner of the picture, while S5-HVS1 is in the foreground, speeding away from them. Image credit: James Josephides, Swinburne Astronomy Productions.

S5-HVS1: Hypervelocity Star Ejected by Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

Nov 13, 2019 by News Staff

A main-sequence hypervelocity star traveling at huge speeds after being ejected by Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky...

TESS Finds Hot Neptune-Like Exoplanet around Sun-Like Star

Nov 13, 2019 by Natali Anderson

A short-period, hot Neptune-like planet has been discovered orbiting a Sun-like star called TOI-132, thanks to data gathered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet...

The newly-discovered gas cloud formed just 850 million years after the Big Bang. Image credit: Max Planck Society.

First-Generation Stars Formed More Quickly than Previously Thought

Nov 11, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has discovered a massive cloud of gas that formed just 850 million years after the Big Bang. The chemical composition...

CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia. Image credit: Shaun Amy.

Astronomers to Search for Alien Signals from TESS Exoplanets

Nov 7, 2019 by News Staff

Extrasolar planets discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will be scanned for ‘technosignatures’ — indicators of...

This mosaic of the southern sky was assembled from 208 TESS images. Among the many notable celestial objects visible is the glowing band (left) of the Milky Way, our home Galaxy seen edgewise, the Orion Nebula (top), a nursery for newborn stars, and the Large Magellanic Cloud (center), a nearby galaxy located about 163,000 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 Breathtaking Panorama of Southern Sky

Nov 6, 2019 by News Staff

Constructed from 208 images taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during its first year of science operations, completed on July...

Hubble Sees Newborn Stars in NGC 1333

Nov 4, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of part of the reflection nebula NGC 1333. This Hubble image shows protostars in the reflection...

An artist’s rendition of a giant star in orbit around a low-mass black hole. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

New Class of Low-Mass Black Holes May Exist, Astronomers Say

Nov 1, 2019 by News Staff

In a paper published in the November 1, 2019 issue of the journal Science, a team of astronomers offers a new way to search for stellar-mass black holes,...

An artist’s impression of a hot-Jupiter exoplanet. Image credit: C. Carreau / ESA.

TESS Finds ‘Improbable’ Exoplanet Circling Red-Giant Star

Oct 31, 2019 by News Staff

Using asteroseismic data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers revised the parameters for two...

SOFIA Spots Debris from Catastrophic Collision between Two Rocky Exoplanets

Oct 25, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) have observed an unusually warm, dusty debris disk around BD +20 307,...

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