https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and the closest red supergiant to Earth. It has an enormous volume, spanning a radius around 700 times that of the sun. Despite only being ten million years old, which is considered young by astronomy standards, it's late in its life. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-hidden-neighbor-astronomers-companion-star.html Astronomy Mon, 21 Jul 2025 12:00:06 EDT news672299503 Interstellar objects are visitors from solar systems beyond our own, and the third ever such object, known as 3I/ATLAS, has just been discovered. Using the Gemini North telescope, astronomers have captured 3I/ATLAS as it makes its temporary passage through our cosmic neighborhood. These observations will help scientists study the characteristics of this rare object's origin, orbit, and composition. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-gemini-north-comet-3iatlas-interstellar.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 16 Jul 2025 10:30:13 EDT news671879662 It's been a long, eight-day leap week, and this weekend, I'm spending my free time working on the manuscript for my style guide for science writers, "How to Effectively Split an Infinitive." https://phys.org/news/2024-03-saturday-citations-wont-black-hole.html Other Sat, 02 Mar 2024 09:10:04 EST news628517216 Using archival data from the Gemini North telescope, a team of astronomers has measured the heaviest pair of supermassive black holes ever found. The merging of two supermassive black holes is a phenomenon that has long been predicted, though never observed. This massive pair gives clues as to why such an event seems so unlikely in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-astronomers-heaviest-black-hole-pair.html Astronomy Thu, 29 Feb 2024 15:26:03 EST news628442761 Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope, one-half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF's NOIRLab, have captured the eroding remains of more than 100 dwarf galaxies as they transition into ultra-compact dwarf galaxies, objects with masses much greater than star clusters yet much smaller than dwarf galaxies. These findings confirm that many ultra-compact dwarf galaxies are likely the fossil remains of normal dwarf galaxies that have been stripped of their outer layers. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-dwarf-galaxies-stars-link-formation.html Astronomy Wed, 08 Nov 2023 13:54:03 EST news618674041 Nothing can evoke an existential perspective-spiral quite like looking at an image of a galaxy. At first glance, these sublime structures may appear rather serene. But in fact the center of many galaxies is a turbulent environment containing an actively feeding supermassive black hole. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-outskirts-supermassive-black-hole-accretion.html Astronomy Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:01:52 EDT news612190908 The Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF's NOIRLab, has returned from a seven-month hiatus literally with a bang, as it has captured the spectacular aftermath of a supernova, a massive star that exploded in the large, face-on, spiral Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101). The supernova, named SN 2023ixf (lower left), was discovered on May 19 by amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-gemini-north-sky-dazzling-image.html Astronomy Wed, 07 Jun 2023 16:06:04 EDT news605372762 Using the Gemini North telescope, astronomers have performed spectroscopic observations of a binary system known as SDSS J222551.65+001637.7AB. Results of the observational campaign indicate that the system consists of a white dwarf and a brown dwarf companion. The finding was reported December 21 on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-sdss-j222551650016377ab-white-dwarfbrown-dwarf.html Astronomy Mon, 16 Jan 2023 09:37:00 EST news593084211 Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe. Supermassive versions of these unimaginably dense objects likely reside at the centers of all large galaxies. Stellar-mass black holes—which weigh approximately five to 100 times the mass of the sun—are much more common, with an estimated 100 million in the Milky Way alone. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-astronomers-closest-black-hole-earth.html Astronomy Fri, 04 Nov 2022 10:47:03 EDT news586777621 The very first stars likely formed when the universe was only 100 million years old, less than one percent its current age. These first stars—known as Population III—were so titanically massive that when they ended their lives as supernovae they tore themselves apart, seeding interstellar space with a distinctive blend of heavy elements. Despite decades of diligent searching by astronomers, however, there has been no direct evidence of these primordial stars, until now. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-potential-universe-earliest-stars.html Astronomy Wed, 28 Sep 2022 14:22:03 EDT news583593719 An evocative new image captured by the Gemini North telescope in Hawai'i reveals a pair of interacting spiral galaxies—NGC 4568 and NGC 4567—as they begin to clash and merge. These galaxies are entangled by their mutual gravitational field and will eventually combine to form a single elliptical galaxy in around 500 million years. Also visible in the image is the glowing remains of a supernova that was detected in 2020. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-colliding-galaxies-dazzle-gemini-north.html Astronomy Wed, 10 Aug 2022 15:39:03 EDT news579364741 An international team of astronomers has found that certain short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) did not originate as castaways in the vastness of intergalactic space as they initially appeared. A deeper multi-observatory study instead found that these seemingly isolated GRBs actually occurred in remarkably distant—and therefore faint—galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away. https://phys.org/news/2022-07-hawaii-telescopes-uncover-castaway-gamma-ray.html Astronomy Wed, 27 Jul 2022 07:43:22 EDT news578126595 Astronomers using a fleet of world leading telescopes on the ground and in space have captured images of a periodic rocky near-sun comet breaking apart. This is the first time such a comet has been caught in the act of disintegrating and could help explain the scarcity of such periodic near-sun comets. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-near-sun-comet-roasted-death.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Jun 2022 10:47:03 EDT news574508822 Using the Gemini North telescope, astronomers have conducted photometric and spectroscopic observations of a galaxy known as Messier 85. The observational campaign revealed more details about its complex globular cluster system. The findings are reported in a paper published January 5 on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2022-01-messier-complex-globular-cluster-explored.html Astronomy Thu, 13 Jan 2022 09:20:01 EST news561287781 Ultra-hot Jupiters—named as such because of their physical similarities to the planet Jupiter—are exoplanets that orbit stars other than the sun with temperatures so high that the molecules in their atmospheres are completely torn apart. They are among the most extreme environments in our galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2021-11-weird-weather-metal-super-high-temperatures.html Space Exploration Wed, 10 Nov 2021 09:07:20 EST news555757636 When Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) sped through the inner Solar System during the middle of 2020, astronomers and the general public watched in awe as this "dirty snowball" shed gas and dust into space, producing a striking show visible to the naked eye. Close-up observations, led by Michal Drahus and Piotr Guzik of Jagiellonian University in Krakow, used the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab, to observe the materials escaping from the comet over time. One set of observations, obtained on 1 August 2020 from the Gemini North telescope on Hawai'i's Maunakea, displays a spiraling stream of molecular gas that reveals the rotation of the comet's nucleus. The timelapse sequence, compressed to only a few seconds, represents about one fifth of the approximately 7.5-hour rotation period of the comet. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-gemini-observatory-images-reveal-comet.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:36:12 EDT news517566970 Researchers using a technique known as "lucky imaging" with the Gemini North telescope on Hawaii's Maunakea have collected some of the highest resolution images of Jupiter ever obtained from the ground. These images are part of a multi-year joint observing program with the Hubble Space Telescope in support of NASA's Juno mission. The Gemini images, when combined with the Hubble and Juno observations, reveal that lightning strikes, and some of the largest storm systems that create them, are formed in and around large convective cells over deep clouds of water ice and liquid. The new observations also confirm that dark spots in the famous Great Red Spot are actually gaps in the cloud cover and not due to cloud color variations. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-gemini-lucky-deep-jupiter-clouds.html Astronomy Fri, 08 May 2020 03:59:59 EDT news508129075 Researchers using the Gemini North telescope on Hawai'i's Maunakea have detected the most energetic wind from any quasar ever measured. This outflow, which is travelling at nearly 13% of the speed of light, carries enough energy to dramatically impact star formation across an entire galaxy. The extragalactic tempest lay hidden in plain sight for 15 years before being unveiled by innovative computer modeling and new data from the international Gemini Observatory. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-cosmic-tempest-astronomers-energetic-outflow.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Apr 2020 15:36:19 EDT news506097370 A renegade star exploding in a distant galaxy has forced astronomers to set aside decades of research and focus on a new breed of supernova that can utterly annihilate its parent star—leaving no remnant behind. The signature event, something astronomers had never witnessed before, may represent the way in which the most massive stars in the Universe, including the first stars, die. https://phys.org/news/2019-08-total-annihilation-supermassive-stars.html Astronomy Thu, 15 Aug 2019 11:39:00 EDT news485087920 If astronomers want to learn about how supermassive black holes form, they have to start small—really small, astronomically speaking. https://phys.org/news/2019-06-astronomers-mass-small-black-hole.html Astronomy Mon, 10 Jun 2019 11:00:18 EDT news479369931 Gemini Observatory cloud camera captures volcano's dramatic glow https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gemini-observatory-cloud-camera-captures.html Environment Wed, 23 May 2018 07:45:45 EDT news446280338 Hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives rotten eggs their distinctive odor, permeates the upper atmosphere of the planet Uranus - as has been long debated, but never definitively proven. Based on sensitive spectroscopic observations with the Gemini North telescope, astronomers uncovered the noxious gas swirling high in the giant planet's cloud tops. This result resolves a stubborn, long-standing mystery of one of our neighbors in space. https://phys.org/news/2018-04-uranus-cloud-tops-common-rotten.html Astronomy Mon, 23 Apr 2018 12:08:59 EDT news443704117 Astronomers have found a new eclipsing binary system by analyzing archival survey data and conducting follow-up radial velocity measurements. The newly found binary, designated SDSSJ1156-0207, is composed of two M-dwarf stars orbiting each other at a relatively close distance. The finding is presented in a paper published December 24 on the arXiv pre-print repository. https://phys.org/news/2018-01-astronomers-m-dwarf-eclipsing-binary.html Astronomy Thu, 04 Jan 2018 09:10:01 EST news434181821 The fundamental job of astrophysicists and astronauts is to explore the universe, and find what is out there. This year, the universe explored us. https://phys.org/news/2017-12-mysterious-alien-cigar-asteroid-interstellar.html Space Exploration Tue, 19 Dec 2017 08:00:02 EST news432891978 The most ancient spiral galaxy discovered to date is revealing its secrets to a team of astronomers at Swinburne University of Technology and The Australian National University (ANU), part of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3-D (ASTRO 3-D). https://phys.org/news/2017-11-ancient-spiral-galaxy.html Astronomy Fri, 03 Nov 2017 07:58:17 EDT news428914689 Astronomers have detected two new so-called "warm Jupiter" exoplanets orbiting stars located more than 1,300 light years away from the Earth. The newly found alien worlds are similar in size to Jupiter but much hotter than our solar system's gas giant. The findings were presented Aug. 23 in a paper published on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2017-08-astronomers-jupiter-exoplanets-orbiting-distant.html Astronomy Mon, 28 Aug 2017 07:00:02 EDT news423122157 Telescopes in Hawaii have obtained new images of Jupiter and its Great Red Spot, which will assist the first-ever close-up study of the Great Red Spot, planned for July 10. On that date, NASA's Juno spacecraft will fly directly over the giant planet's most famous feature at an altitude of only about 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers). https://phys.org/news/2017-07-earth-based-views-jupiter-juno-flyby.html Space Exploration Sun, 02 Jul 2017 04:22:08 EDT news418188099 Very detailed Gemini Observatory images peel back Jupiter's atmospheric layers to support the NASA/JPL Juno spacecraft in its quest to understand the giant planet's atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2017-06-gemini-images-juno-spacecraft-discovery.html Space Exploration Fri, 30 Jun 2017 18:32:12 EDT news418066311 Using the world's most powerful telescopes, an international team of astronomers has found a massive galaxy that consists almost entirely of dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2016-08-scientists-dark-milky-massive-galaxy.html Astronomy Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:54:21 EDT news391359229 Since its detection in 2014, the brown dwarf known as WISE 0855 has fascinated astronomers. Only 7.2 light-years from Earth, it is the coldest known object outside of our solar system and is just barely visible at infrared wavelengths with the largest ground-based telescopes. https://phys.org/news/2016-07-astronomers-evidence-clouds-spectrum-coldest.html Astronomy Wed, 06 Jul 2016 15:31:40 EDT news387037878