Astronomy News

Astronomers Discover Three Surprisingly Dry Jupiter-Like Exoplanets

This is an illustration of a hot Jupiter orbiting a Sun-like star.
Jul 25, 2014 by News Staff

A team of astronomers headed by Dr Nikku Madhusudhan of the Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy has found that the abundance of water vapor in the atmospheres of the three newly discovered hot Jupiters – HD 189733b, HD 209458b, and WASP-12b – is between ten and a thousand times less than what standard planet formation theories predict. This is an illustration of a hot Jupiter orbiting a Sun-like star. According to the core...

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This artist's conception shows Kepler-421b. Image credit: David A. Aguilar / CfA.

Kepler-421b: Astronomers Discover Exoplanet with Longest Known Year

Jul 22, 2014 by News Staff

A year on the newly discovered Uranus-sized exoplanet Kepler-421b lasts for 704.2 days, making it the longest orbital period exoplanet yet found. Its parent...

This artist's impression shows the structure of our Milky Way Galaxy, including the location of the spiral arms and other components such as the bulge. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ESO / R. Hurt.

Scientists Discover Two Most Distant Stars Ever Detected in Milky Way Galaxy

Jul 18, 2014 by News Staff

A team of astronomers using the Red Channel spectrograph at the MMT Observatory on Mt. Hopkins in Arizona has discovered the most distant Milky Way stars...

This image shows the nearby spiral galaxy Messier 101 and the seven newly discovered dwarf galaxies. Image credit: Allison Merritt et al.

Dragonfly Telephoto Array Discovers Seven Dwarf Galaxies around Messier 101

Jul 11, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using a new telescope called the Dragonfly Telephoto Array have discovered seven new dwarf galaxies the field of a nearby spiral galaxy known...

This artist's impression shows dust forming in the environment around a supernova explosion. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Astronomers Zero in on Stardust around Supernova SN 2010jl

Jul 9, 2014 by News Staff

Scientists led by Dr Christa Gall from Aarhus University, Denmark, have discovered that supernovas – the cosmic factories of gas and dust – produce...

This image shows the nearby Seyfert galaxy IC 5063. Image credit: Sky-map.org.

Supermassive Black Hole in Seyfert Galaxy IC 5063 Surprises Astronomers

Jul 8, 2014 by News Staff

A group of astronomers headed by Prof Clive Tadhunter from the the University of Sheffield has discovered that the central supermassive black hole of the...

The upper image shows the location of six candidate exoplanets believed to orbit Gliese 581 as of 2010. Blue indicates candidate exoplanets in the habitable zone. The bottom image shows the location of the three exoplanets remaining in 2014. Image credit: NASA / Penn State University.

Astronomers: Two Goldilocks Exoplanets in Gliese 581 System Just Cosmic Illusion

Jul 5, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers led by Dr Paul Robertson of the Pennsylvania State University say that signals that were suspected to be coming from two Earth-like exoplanets...

Astronomers Discover Cold Terrestrial Exoplanet in Binary Star System

Jul 4, 2014 by News Staff

Using gravitational microlensing, a team of astronomers led by Prof Andrew Gould from Ohio State University has detected a cold terrestrial exoplanet orbiting...

This image shows the star-forming region Gum 15. Image credit: ESO.

Astronomers Zoom in on Star-Forming Region Gum 15

Jul 2, 2014 by News Staff

A team of astronomers using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile, has captured a new image of a glowing...

This combination of three wavelengths of light from NASA's SDO shows one of the multiple jets that led to a series of slow coronal puffs on January 17, 2013. The light has been colorized in red, green and blue. Image credit: Nathalia Alzate / SDO.

NASA’s Solar Observatories Capture Unusual Eruptions on Sun

Jun 30, 2014 by News Staff

A team of astronomers using NASA’s three Sun-gazing spacecraft – Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory...

Artistic representation of Gliese 832 c against a stellar nebula background. mage credit: PHL / UPR Arecibo / NASA Hubble / Stellarium.

Gliese 832c: Potentially Habitable Super-Earth Discovered 16 Light-Years Away

Jun 29, 2014 by News Staff

A team of astronomers led by Dr Robert Wittenmyer of the University of New South Wales has discovered a super-Earth orbiting near the inner edge of the...

X-ray image of the Perseus galaxy cluster: a new study of the cluster has revealed a mysterious X-ray signal; this signal is represented in the circled data points in the inset, which is a plot of X-ray intensity as a function of X-ray energy. Image credit: Chandra / NASA / CXC / SAO / XMM / ESA / E. Bulbul et al.

Astronomers Detect Mysterious X-ray Signal in Andromeda Galaxy, 74 Galaxy Clusters

Jun 26, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatories have detected an unidentified X-ray emission line – a spike...

Radio images of the triple supermassive black holes system J1502P/SE/SW in the galaxy SDSS J150243.09+1111557.3 and its binary component. Image credit: R.P.Deane et al.

Astronomers Discover Rare Triple Supermassive Black Hole System

Jun 26, 2014 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Dr Roger Deane from the University of Cape Town in South Africa has discovered a system of three supermassive black holes –...

This image shows the position of the PSR J2222 system. Image credit: David L. Kaplan et al.

Astronomers Discover White Dwarf Star Made of Diamond

Jun 24, 2014 by Enrico de Lazaro

A newly discovered white dwarf, which is a companion to the nearby pulsar PSR J2222-0137, is so cool that its carbon has crystallized, forming a giant...

This mosaic reveals evidence of a large-scale coronal rain shower pouring relentlessly into the dark sunspot at the surface of the Sun. The coronal rain appears as the labeled giant arching water-fall-like flow. At the top left, the Earth is depicted on the same scale. Image credit: E. Scullion / SST.

Researchers Explain Physics of (Plasma) Rains on Sun

Jun 23, 2014 by News Staff

According to a team of researchers led by Dr Eamon Scullion of Trinity College Dublin, rains on the Sun are made of plasma and fall at about 200,000 km...

This image shows the archetypal Seyfert galaxy NGC 5548. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / Davide de Martin.

Astronomers Zoom in on Strange Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 5548

Jun 20, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers have detected a clumpy gas stream flowing quickly outward and blocking 90 percent of the X-rays emitted by the supermassive black hole at the...

This image shows a region of space containing distant dwarf galaxies. Image credit: NASA / ESA / GOODS Team / M. Giavalisco, STScI, University of Massachusetts / H. Atek, EPFL / J-P. Kneib, EPFL.

Hubble Observations Shed New Light on Star Formation in Early Universe

Jun 19, 2014 by News Staff

Starbursts in dwarf galaxies played a bigger role than expected in the early Universe, according to new data from the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), onboard...

This artistic concept shows Kepler-186f. Image credit: NASA Ames / SETI Institute / JPL-CalTech.

New Methane-Hunting Tool May Advance Search for Alien Life

Jun 17, 2014 by News Staff

UK and Australian astronomers have developed a powerful new tool that could help detect chemical signs of alien life on planets outside of the Solar System. The...

This image shows the Tadpole galaxy (Arp 188), a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located 420 million light-years from our planet. Material stripped from the galaxy during its collision with a smaller galaxy (seen in the upper left corner of the larger interaction partner) forms a long tidal tail. Young blue stars, star clusters and tidal dwarf galaxies are born in the tidal debris. These objects move in a common direction within a plane defined by the orientation and motion of their tidal tail. A similar galaxy interaction might have occurred in the Local Group in the past, which could explain the distribution of dwarf galaxies in co-rotating planes. Image credit: H. Ford, JHU / M. Clampin, STScI / G. Hartig, STScI / G. Illingworth, UCO, Lick / ACS Science Team / ESA / NASA.

Nearby Dwarf Galaxies Don’t Fit Standard Model of Cosmology, Study Says

Jun 11, 2014 by News Staff

According to a study led by Dr Marcel Pawlowski of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, dwarf galaxies that orbit our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda...

This image shows the giant, variable star HV 2112. Image credit: Digital Sky Survey / Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg.

First Thorne-Zytkow Object Found 200,000 Light-Years Away

Jun 5, 2014 by News Staff

HV 2112 – a giant, variable star in a nearby galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud – represents a long-sought class of stars called Thorne-Zytkow...

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