Clustered at the center of this image are six luminous spots of light, four of them forming a circle around a central pair. Appearances can be deceiving, however, as this formation is not composed of six individual galaxies, ...
Astronomy
Aug 27, 2021
0
1135
It's suspected that about 5,000 years ago a comet may swept within 23 million miles of the Sun, closer than the innermost planet Mercury. The comet might have been a spectacular sight to civilizations across Eurasia and North ...
Astronomy
Aug 19, 2021
1
1255
When it launches in the mid-2020s, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will revolutionize astronomy by building on the science discoveries and technological leaps of the Hubble, Spitzer, and Webb space telescopes. The ...
Astronomy
Jul 29, 2021
0
82
For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. This water vapor forms when ice from the moon's surface sublimates—that is, turns from solid to gas.
Astronomy
Jul 26, 2021
3
1398
Brown dwarfs are the cosmic equivalent of tweeners. They're too massive to be planets and too small to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores, which powers stars. Many brown dwarfs are nomadic. They do not orbit stars but ...
Astronomy
Jun 10, 2021
1
646
The myriad spiral galaxies in our universe almost all look like fried eggs. A central bulge of aging stars is like the egg yolk, surrounded by a disk of stars that are the egg white. The galaxy in this Hubble photo looks ...
Astronomy
May 27, 2021
0
463
Ever made a complete mess in your kitchen while baking? At moments it may look like flour is floating in the air, but once you've added plenty of water and formed your dough, the bread becomes more like a ball. A similar ...
Astronomy
Apr 29, 2021
0
519
Stars aren't shy about announcing their births. As they are born from the collapse of giant clouds of hydrogen gas and begin to grow, they launch hurricane-like winds and spinning, lawn-sprinkler-style jets shooting off in ...
Astronomy
Mar 18, 2021
8
1088
Orbiting a red dwarf star 41 light-years away is an Earth-sized, rocky exoplanet called GJ 1132 b. In some ways, GJ 1132 b has intriguing parallels to Earth, but in other ways it is very different. One of the differences ...
Astronomy
Mar 11, 2021
0
4564
Last year, astronomers were puzzled when Betelguese, the bright red supergiant star in the constellation Orion, dramatically faded, but then recovered. The dimming lasted for weeks. Now, astronomers have turned their sights ...
Astronomy
Mar 4, 2021
2
1988
