Astronomy News

Astronomers Detect Exocomets Falling into HD 172555

This illustration shows several comets speeding across a vast protoplanetary disk of gas and dust and heading straight for the youthful, central star HD 172555. These exocomets will eventually plunge into the star and vaporize. HD 172555 represents the third extrasolar system where astronomers have detected doomed, wayward comets. All of the systems are young, under 40 million years old. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Feild & G. Bacon, STScI.
Jan 8, 2017 by News Staff

Exocomets are plunging into HD 172555, a nearby young star surrounded by a debris disk, according to a team of astronomers led by Carol Grady of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center and Eureka Scientific Inc. The comets were not seen directly around HD 172555, and the researchers inferred their presence when they used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to detect gas that is likely the vaporized remnants of their icy nuclei. This illustration shows...

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PGC 1000714 (center). Image credit: Ryan Beauchemin.

Double-Ringed Elliptical Galaxy Spotted 372 Million Light-Years Away

Jan 6, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have spotted for the first time an elliptical galaxy with two fairly round rings. PGC 1000714 (center). Image credit: Centre de Données astronomiques...

The globally distributed dishes of the European VLBI Network are linked with each other and the 305-m William E. Gordon Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Together they have localized FRB121102’s exact position within its host galaxy. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar, www.artsource.nl.

Repeating ‘Fast Radio Burst’ Found to Originate from Extremely Distant Dwarf Galaxy

Jan 5, 2017 by News Staff

A large international team of astronomers has uncovered the cosmological source of a repeating ‘fast radio burst’ known as FRB 121102. The globally...

This image of Orion A is composed of near-infrared observations from ESO’s VISTA survey telescope. Image credit: ESO / VISION Survey.

VISTA Captures Detailed Image of Orion A

Jan 4, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

This striking image, captured by ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows the Orion A molecular cloud, the nearest known...

Hubble Captures Stunning Image of LEDA 52270

Jan 2, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of LEDA 52270, a combination of two gas-rich spiral galaxies. This image, taken with the Advanced...

An artist’s rendition of 2016 WF9 as it passes Jupiter’s orbit inbound toward the Sun. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s WISE Spacecraft Spots Two New Near-Earth Objects

Dec 30, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered two celestial objects traveling through our neighborhood: 2016 WF9...

Our Sun is the most familiar example of a main-sequence star. Image credit: NASA.

Mysterious Star KIC 8462852 is Near a Continuous Phase Transition, Astronomers Say

Dec 29, 2016 by News Staff

A new study by astronomers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, links the unexplained changes...

ESO’s New Technology Telescope Views Messier 98

Dec 28, 2016 by Natali Anderson

This image snapped by ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT), a 3.58-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the edge-on spiral galaxy...

This image shows the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817, which lies in the constellation Ophiuchus, about 370 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Spots Cosmic Megamaser

Dec 26, 2016 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817. This image shows the megamaser galaxy...

This Hubble image shows NGC 248, a nebula located in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The data used in this image were taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys in September 2015. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / K. Sandstrom, University of California, San Diego / SMIDGE Team.

Hubble Space Telescope Spies NGC 248

Dec 21, 2016 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a spectacular image of NGC 248, a glowing pink nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud. This Hubble image...

Light and color would look different on a planet orbiting a tiny red star, like this artist’s impression of Proxima b. The Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone is the nearest exoplanet to our Sun. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Are Exoplanets Like Those in ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ Really Out There?

Dec 21, 2016 by NASA

In the ‘Star Wars’ universe, ice, ocean and desert planets burst from the darkness as your ship drops out of light speed. But these worlds might be...

World’s Largest Digital Survey of Visible Universe Released

Dec 20, 2016 by News Staff

The largest digital survey of the visible Universe, mapping billions of stars and galaxies, has been publicly released. Pan-STARRS sky survey. Image credit:...

This composite image of NGC 6357 contains X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ROSAT telescope (purple), infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (orange), and optical data from the SuperCosmos Sky Survey (blue) made by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. Image credit: X-ray – NASA / CXC / PSU / L.Townsley et al; optical - UKIRT; infrared – NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA Releases Spectacular Image of NGC 6357

Dec 20, 2016 by News Staff

NASA has released an amazing composite image of NGC 6357, a region where radiation from hot, young stars is energizing the surrounding gas and dust. This...

This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4707, which lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, about 22 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Space Telescope Looks at Nearby Spiral

Dec 19, 2016 by News Staff

The Hubble team has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the bright spiral galaxy NGC 4707. This image shows the...

Neptune-mass planets like the one shown in this artist’s rendering may be the most common in the icy regions of planetary systems; beyond a certain distance from a young star, water and other substances remain frozen, leading to an abundant population of icy objects that can collide and form the cores of new planets; in the foreground, an icy body left over from this period drifts past the planet. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Francis Reddy.

‘Cold Neptunes’ are Common, New Study Says

Dec 16, 2016 by News Staff

A new statistical study of exoplanets found by an innovative technique called gravitational microlensing suggests that so-called ‘cold Neptunes’ are...

This is an artist impression of the whirlwind being lifted up from the protoplanetary disk around the 100,000-year-old protostar TMC1A. Image credit: Per Bjerkeli / David Lamm / BOID.

Protostars Shoot Out Powerful Whirlwinds

Dec 15, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimetre Array (ALMA) to observe the early stages in the formation of a new star system. For the...

ALMA image of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the young star HD 163296 as seen in dust. New observations suggested that two planets are in orbit around the star. These planets, which are not yet fully formed, revealed themselves by the dual imprint they left in both the dust and the gas portions of the star’s protoplanetary disk. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / AUI / NSF / A. Isella / B. Saxton.

Evidence of Forming Giant Planets Discovered 400 Light-Years from Earth

Dec 13, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found compelling evidence that two infant planets — each about the...

This artist’s impression depicts a Kerr (rapidly spinning) black hole, surrounded by an accretion disc: this thin disc of rotating material consists of the leftovers of a Sun-like star which was ripped apart by the tidal forces of the black hole; shocks in the colliding debris as well as heat generated in accretion led to a burst of light, resembling a supernova explosion. Image credit: ESO / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Kerr Black Hole Eating Sun-like Star Explains Superluminous Explosion ASASSN-15lh

Dec 12, 2016 by News Staff

ASASSN-15lh, an extremely bright explosion in a massive galaxy 3.82 billion light-years away, was thought to be the most luminous supernova ever seen....

In this artist’s illustration, HAT-P-7b closely orbits a star that’s 1,044 light-years from Earth. A companion star (top right) and a candidate planet (foreground) lie in the distance. Image credit: NAOJ.

Scientists Find Evidence of Weather Change on Jupiter-Like Exoplanet HAT-P-7b

Dec 12, 2016 by News Staff

Signs of powerful changing winds have been detected on an extrasolar gaseous planet called HAT-P-7b, which is 40% larger than Jupiter and orbits a star...

This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy IC 5201, which lies in constellation of Grus, approximately 35.5 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Observes Barred Spiral Galaxy IC 5201

Dec 12, 2016 by Natali Anderson

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced an incredibly detailed image of IC 5201, a galaxy in the southern constellation of Grus. This Hubble image...

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