rss Last update NASA on the hunt for space poop geniuses, 1 hour ago

Astronomy news

Hubble spies spiral galaxy

Spiral galaxy NGC 3274 is a relatively faint galaxy located over 20 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion).

date11 hours ago in Astronomy
shares6 comments 0

Image: Hubble nets a subtle swarm

This Hubble image shows NGC 4789A, a dwarf irregular galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It certainly lives up to its name—the stars that call this galaxy home are smeared out across the sky in an apparently ...

dateNov 21, 2016 in Astronomy
shares5 comments 0

Forming stars in the early universe

The first stars appeared about one hundred million years after the big bang, and ever since then stars and star formation processes have lit up the cosmos. When the universe was about three billion years old, star formation ...

dateNov 21, 2016 in Astronomy
shares34 comments 32

X-ray pulsars fade as propeller effect sets in

An international team of astrophysicists including Russian scientists from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), MIPT, and Pulkovo Observatory of RAS has detected an abrupt decrease of pulsar ...

dateNov 18, 2016 in Astronomy
shares34 comments 0

Bright radio bursts probe universe's hidden matter

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are mysterious flashes of radio waves originating outside our Milky Way galaxy. A team of scientists, jointly led by Caltech postdoctoral scholar Vikram Ravi and Curtin University research fellow ...

dateNov 17, 2016 in Astronomy
shares402 comments 3

Scientists discover a nearby superearth

Ph.D. student Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL), and his thesis director, Rafael Rebolo and Jonay Isaí González Hernández, have discovered ...

dateNov 17, 2016 in Astronomy
shares1729 comments 8

Astronomers unveil 'heart' of Eta Carinae

An international team of astronomers has imaged the Eta Carinae star system in the greatest detail ever. Eta Carinae is a colossal binary system that consists of two massive stars orbiting each other. It is found almost 8,000 ...

dateNov 16, 2016 in Astronomy
shares6 comments 1

Imaging giant exoplanets around nearby stars

The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is the highest-ranked recommendation for a large space mission in the NRC 2010 decadal survey, New Worlds, New Horizons (NWNH) in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The WFIRST coronagraph ...

dateNov 15, 2016 in Astronomy
shares13 comments 0

A hydrogen-rich, passive galaxy

Cold gas in the form of neutral hydrogen atoms provides the reservoir for star formation in galaxies from the distant to the nearby Universe. Understanding how it accretes onto galaxies is of crucial importance because fresh ...

dateNov 11, 2016 in Astronomy
shares536 comments 74

Cosmic whistle packs a surprisingly energetic punch

Penn State University astronomers have discovered that the mysterious "cosmic whistles" known as fast radio bursts can pack a serious punch, in some cases releasing a billion times more energy in gamma-rays than they do in ...

Image: Hubble steals a look at NGC 1222

NGC 1222, seen in this image taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is a galaxy with a rather eventful story to tell. NGC 1222 has been described as a peculiar example of a type ...

Space telescopes pinpoint elusive brown dwarf

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, NASA's Spitzer and Swift space telescopes joined forces to observe a microlensing event, when a distant star brightens due to the gravitational field of at least one foreground cosmic ...

Impostor planet exposed by astronomers

(Phys.org)—Don't be fooled by its light curve exhibiting anomalies like those caused by planets—one microlensing event with a fancy name OGLE-2016-BLG-0733 is doing a really good job of mimicking an extrasolar world. ...

Image: NGC 6818 in the constellation of Sagittarius

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope had imaged NGC 6818 before, but it took another look at this planetary nebula, with a new mix of colour filters, to display it in all its beauty. By showing off its stunning turquoise and ...

Pulsar wind nebulae

Neutron stars are the detritus of supernova explosions, with masses between one and several suns and diameters only tens of kilometers across. A pulsar is a spinning neutron star with a strong magnetic field; charged particles ...

Your dog remembers what you did
How to protect your laptop—even when it's asleep
Genomics reveals hen harrier is two distinct species
Single enzyme controls two plant hormones

Find more news articles via sort by date page