For more than a decade, astronomers have searched for planets orbiting AU Microscopii, a nearby star still surrounded by a disk of debris left over from its formation. Now scientists using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet ...
Astronomy
Jun 24, 2020
0
1859
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are finding that planets have a tough time forming in the rough-and-tumble central region of the massive, crowded star cluster Westerlund 2. Located 20,000 light-years away, ...
Astronomy
May 28, 2020
5
3700
By studying the chemical elements on Mars today—including carbon and oxygen—scientists can work backwards to piece together the history of a planet that once had the conditions necessary to support life.
Astronomy
May 19, 2020
7
1952
Astronomers have found the best evidence for the perpetrator of a cosmic homicide: a black hole of an elusive class known as "intermediate-mass," which betrayed its existence by tearing apart a wayward star that passed too ...
Astronomy
Mar 31, 2020
11
1372
Surprising new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope suggests the smooth, settled "brim" of the Sombrero galaxy's disk may be concealing a turbulent past. Hubble's sharpness and sensitivity resolves tens of thousands of ...
Astronomy
Feb 20, 2020
66
469
A feature resembling a candy cane appears at the center of this colorful composite image of our Milky Way galaxy's central zone. But this is no cosmic confection. It spans 190 light-years and is one of a set of long, thin ...
Astronomy
Dec 18, 2019
7
440
Shortly after NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu, an unexpected discovery by the mission's science team revealed that the asteroid could be active, or consistently discharging particles into space. The ...
Space Exploration
Dec 5, 2019
28
362
Using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers at the University of Maryland (UMD), in College Park, Maryland, have captured a clear start-to-finish image sequence of an explosive emission ...
Astronomy
Dec 3, 2019
5
384
NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station detected a sudden spike of X-rays at about 10:04 p.m. EDT on Aug. 20. The burst was caused by a massive thermonuclear ...
Astronomy
Nov 7, 2019
1
634
In the hunt for life on other worlds, astronomers scour over planets that are light-years away. They need ways to identify life from afar—but what counts as good evidence?
Astronomy
Aug 2, 2019
50
345
