Astronomy News

Astronomers Directly Detect Water Vapor on Europa for First Time

Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
Nov 19, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have for the first time managed to detect water vapor above the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech. Water is at the top of the list of ingredients that make life possible. It dissolves nutrients for organisms to eat, transports important chemicals within living cells, and allows those cells to get rid of waste. Planetary scientists have evidence...

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The odd orbits of Neptune’s inner moons Naiad and Thalassa enable them to avoid each other as they race around the giant planet. Image credit: Brozović et al, doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113462.

Neptune’s Moons Naiad and Thalassa Perform ‘Dance of Avoidance’

Nov 18, 2019 by News Staff

A new study, published in the journal Icarus, shows that Naiad and Thalassa, two innermost moons of Neptune, are locked in an unusual type of orbital resonance. The...

This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the spiral galaxy NGC 3749. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Two 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 / D. Rosario et al.

Hubble Snaps Stunning Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3749

Nov 18, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of a galaxy called NGC 3749. This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope...

This is a simulation showing a section of the Universe at its broadest scale; a web of cosmic filaments forms a lattice of matter, enclosing vast voids. Image credit: Greg Poole / Tiamat Simulation.

Study: Direction in Which Galaxies Spin Depends on Their Mass

Nov 15, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have measured the rotation of 1,418 galaxies and found that small ones are likely to spin on a different axis to large ones. The rotation was...

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...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Our Universe is Curved, Suggests New Study

Nov 11, 2019 by News Staff

The current model of the Universe needs to be revised, according to a new analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy data. This artist’s...

This image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a detailed view of the central part of the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 772. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. 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 / A. Seth et al.

Hubble Observes Hidden Depths of NGC 772

Nov 11, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking new photo of a spiral galaxy called NGC 772. This image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space...

This Hubble image shows a massive galaxy cluster, about 4.6 billion light years away. Along its borders 12 images within the four arcs are visible; these are copies of the same galaxy called PSZ1 G311.65-18.48, which is almost 11 billion light-years away. Three of these arcs are visible in the top right of the image, while one counterarc is visible in the lower left -- partially obscured by a bright foreground star within our Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Rivera-Thorsen et al.

Hubble Sees Twelve Images of Same Galaxy Split by Gravitational Lens

Nov 8, 2019 by News Staff

An effect called strong gravitational lensing has allowed the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to see the same remote galaxy twelve times. Called PSZ1 G311.65-18.48,...

A thermonuclear blast on a pulsar called SAX J1808.4-3658 resulted in the brightest burst of X-rays seen to date by NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NICER Detects Thermonuclear Burst from X-Ray Pulsar

Nov 8, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) has detected an extremely energetic explosion called a Type I X-ray burst from SAX J1808.4-3658,...

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...

On October 12, 2019, Hubble observed the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov at a distance of approximately 261 million miles from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Jewitt, University of California, Los Angeles.

Water Detected in Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

Nov 2, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers have detected the signature of vaporized water in the coma of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, also known as C/2019 Q4. On October 12, 2019,...

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,...

A volume rendering of the ionized gas wind in the Makani galaxy. Two of the dimensions are spatial, and the third is velocity. The colors trace the velocity axis, shown by the arrow at center. The approximate locations of the two proposed outflow episodes are labeled. Image credit: Jim Geach, David Tree & Peter Richardson, University of Hertfordshire.

Astronomers Observe Giant Outflow of Gas Extending Far Beyond Compact Galaxy

Oct 31, 2019 by News Staff

The direct evidence of the role of galactic winds — ejections of gas from galaxies — in creating the so-called circumgalactic medium has been...

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...

Super-Neptune Discovered Just 12 Light-Years Away

Oct 30, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have discovered a super-Neptune exoplanet orbiting a star in the binary system Gliese 15. An artist’s impression of two exoplanets orbiting...

ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured this image of NGC 1404 with its FORS (FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph) instrument; the bright foreground star to the lower left of the frame is named HD 22862. Image credit: ESO.

ESO Releases Stunning Image of Elliptical Galaxy NGC 1404

Oct 30, 2019 by News Staff

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released a gorgeous new image taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) of a giant elliptical galaxy called...

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