Spitzer discovers young stars with a 'hula hoop'

(Phys.org) —Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have spotted a young stellar system that "blinks" every 93 days. Called YLW 16A, the system likely consists of three developing stars, two of which are surrounded ...

Webb's cool instrument enters payload module

(Phys.org) —Inside the cleanrooms of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the international James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is beginning to take shape.

Goodbye Herschel: Closing views of an icon

(Phys.org) —This tiny dot against the streaking star field is one of the last views that ground-based observers will see of ESA's iconic Herschel space observatory.

Cloud behavior expands habitable zone of alien planets

A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe. This finding means that in the ...

A burst of stars 13 billion years ago

(Phys.org) —The universe immediately following the big bang contained mostly hydrogen and some helium. All the other elements needed to make galaxies, planets, and life were formed in stellar interiors or related processes. ...

Sifting through the atmospheres of far-off worlds

(Phys.org) —Gone are the days of being able to count the number of known planets on your fingers. Today, there are more than 800 confirmed exoplanets—planets that orbit stars beyond our sun—and more than 2,700 other ...

Herschel finds hot gas on menu for Milky Way's black hole

(Phys.org) —ESA's Herschel space observatory has made detailed observations of surprisingly hot molecular gas that may be orbiting or falling towards the supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Herschel links Jupiter's water to comet impact

(Phys.org) —ESA's Herschel space observatory has solved a long-standing mystery as to the origin of water in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, finding conclusive evidence that it was delivered by the dramatic impact of comet ...

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