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Astronomy news
Astronomers watched a massive star disappear. JWST might have some answers
In 2009 a giant star 25 times more massive than the sun simply vanished. OK, it wasn't quite that simple. It underwent a period of brightening, increasing in luminosity to a million suns, just as if it was ready to explode ...
Astronomy
6 hours ago
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Hubble records rare radio galaxy NGC 612
A striking orange and blue streak fills this new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble's visible and infrared capabilities captured this edge-on view of lenticular galaxy NGC 612. Lenticular galaxies have a central ...
Astronomy
8 hours ago
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V0610 Virgo is a low-mass contact binary, observations find
Astronomers from the Binary Systems of South and North (BSN) project have conducted photometric observations of a distant binary star known as V0610 Virgo. Results of the observation campaign, published Sept. 23 in a research ...
Webb's wide-angle view of the Orion Nebula is released on ESASky
New images of the Orion Nebula from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have been included in ESA's ESASky application, which has a user-friendly interface to visualize and download astronomical data.
Astronomy
Oct 3, 2023
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Hubble views NGC 4654 in the constellation Virgo
It's easy to get swept up in the swirling starry arms of this intermediate spiral galaxy, NGC 4654, in the constellation Virgo. The galaxy has a bright center and is labeled "intermediate" because it has characteristics of ...
Astronomy
Oct 3, 2023
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Study suggests large mound structures on Kuiper belt object Arrokoth may have common origin
A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Planetary Scientist and Associate Vice President Dr. Alan Stern posits that the large, approximately 5-kilometer-long mounds that dominate the appearance of the larger ...
Astronomy
Oct 3, 2023
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Study investigates the population of young low-mass stars in Trumpler 14
Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT), European astronomers have performed spectroscopic observations of an open cluster known as Trumpler 14. Results of the observational campaign, published September 25 on the pre-print ...
Bursts of star formation explain mysterious brightness at cosmic dawn
When scientists viewed the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) first images of the universe's earliest galaxies, they were shocked. The young galaxies appeared too bright, too massive and too mature to have formed so soon ...
Astronomy
Oct 3, 2023
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Hubble views a glistening red nebula Westerhout 5
Just in time for the fall foliage season, this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features a glistening scene in red. It reveals a small region of the nebula Westerhout 5, which lies about 7,000 light-years from ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2023
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Dark matter could be annihilating inside white dwarfs
As the search for dark matter particles continues to yield nothing, astronomers continue to look at ways these elusive particles might be found. One general method is to look for evidence of dark matter particle decay. Although ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2023
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The world's largest radio telescope has scanned Barnard's star for extraterrestrial signals
Barnard's Star is a small red dwarf just six light-years from Earth. Despite its proximity, it was only noticed in 1916 when E. E. Barnard found it had a particularly high proper motion. It had appeared in photographic plates ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2023
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Ascertaining distances for supernovae that struck the Earth 3 million and 7 million years ago
A study, released on the pre-print server arXiv, examines how the Earth was hit by blasts from supernovae (plural form of supernova (SN)) that occurred 3 million years ago (Mya) and 7 Mya with the goal of ascertaining the ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2023
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What's the link between gamma ray bursts and supernovae? It might be binary stars
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are some of the most violent events in the universe. Some have a power output equivalent to all of the other stars in the observable universe, at least in the spectrum of gamma rays. But we know very ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2023
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Massive low-Earth orbit communications satellites could disrupt astronomy
Observations of the BlueWalker 3 prototype satellite show it is one of the brightest objects in the night sky, outshining all but the brightest stars.
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2023
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Colliding neutron stars provide a new way to measure the expansion of the universe
In recent years, astronomy has seen itself in a bit of crisis: Although we know that the universe expands, and although we know approximately how fast, the two primary ways to measure this expansion do not agree. Now astrophysicists ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2023
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Observations explore the properties of Type Ic supernova SN 2022jli
An international team of astronomers has performed multi-wavelength photometric and spectroscopic observations of a recently discovered Type Ic supernova known as SN 2022jli. Results of the observational campaign, published ...
Growing in molasses: Cosmic large-scale structure caught growing slower than expected
The large-scale structure of the universe—the gigantic, hierarchical cosmic web of structures bound by gravity—is mostly made up of dark matter. The growth of the large-scale structure, from individual galaxies to galaxy ...
Testing, testing, testing: How researchers make sure the LSST Camera is the best it can be
Building the world's largest digital camera ever made for astronomy, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time Camera, is no simple task—that much is obvious.
Astronomy
Sep 29, 2023
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A search for links between two of the universe's most spectacular phenomena has come up empty—for now
Every so often, astronomers glimpse an intense flash of radio waves from space—a flash that lasts only instants but puts out as much energy in a millisecond as the sun does in a few years. The origin of these "fast radio ...
Astronomy
Sep 29, 2023
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DECam captures the stunning layers of shell galaxy NGC 3923 and nearby gravitational lensing
Much like humans, galaxies are shaped by the environment in which they form. While no two are exactly alike, they can be divided into three main types: spiral, elliptical and irregular. Of these types, elliptical galaxies ...
Astronomy
Sep 28, 2023
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