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Astronomy news
Black holes spinning near maximum rate could split in two, calculations suggest
Two black holes can collide and merge into one. But could the opposite happen: could a single black hole split into two smaller ones? That question is explored in a new theoretical study: "When Black Holes Admit Pair-of-pants ...
Astronomy
8 minutes ago
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ALMA spots 'dragon egg' that may represent the earliest stages of massive star formation
Astronomers identified an exceptionally tiny core that may represent an early stage in the formation of a massive star. Located in an infrared-dark area called Dragon Cloud, the core is nicknamed the "dragon egg." The paper, ...
NASA's Hubble charts path for Roman with gravitational lenses
A sweeping barred spiral galaxy marks the spot in this image, but the real treasure is the gravitational lens in the lower-right corner, where a distant background galaxy is being magnified and distorted by the gravity of ...
Astronomy
3 hours ago
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Autonomous triangular modules could build tomorrow's mega-observatories
Private companies are getting better at launching more mass into space with larger rockets. But there is still a major constraint on the size of objects we can get into orbit—fairing size. This places physical constraints ...
Astronomy
17 hours ago
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Webb captures stars in the early stages of life in a nearby stellar nursery
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope continues to reveal hidden parts of the cosmos with its advanced suite of infrared instruments. In a newly released image, Webb revealed many stars previously hidden by the dust ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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Webb image reveals young stars brewing in a nebulous cauldron
In this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope, we visit a turbulent cauldron of star formation to see what is brewing inside dense clumps of gas. This is a star-forming region named LHA 120-N 159, ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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Supermassive black holes ejected from galactic centers? Quasar survey supports decade-old prediction
By analyzing data on around 100,000 quasars, or extremely luminous galactic nuclei, researchers at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) have found statistical evidence that some supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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Black hole observations uncover evidence of solar storm–like magnetic eruptions
Technion researchers have presented evidence for the existence of solar-storm-like outbursts near supermassive black holes, which can be a million times larger than the sun or more. The phenomenon was discovered in the vicinity ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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New study traces van Gogh's famed 'Starry Night' to an actual night sky from 1889
Scientists doubling as art detectives have traced Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night" to a celestial scene that suggests a new date for one of the world's most famous paintings.
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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There should be black holes in our neighborhood. Can we find them?
Scientific estimates show that there should be between about 100 million and 1 billion stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way. But they aren't easy to locate. They're not like supermassive black holes (SMBH) at the centers ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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Curtain-like plasma structures explain solar jets' apparent spinning in simulations
An international team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, led by a postdoctoral research fellow from the University of Newcastle, Australia, has discovered that solar jets ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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Hubble observations challenge supernova winds' role in cosmic reionization
An international team of researchers, including members from the University of Michigan, has revealed surprising results that could rewrite our understanding of a key transition in the early universe.
Astronomy
Oct 21, 2026
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Astronomers uncover the engine behind the most powerful stellar flares in the Kepler field
A new study led by researchers at the Konkoly Observatory of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences (HUN-REN CSFK) in Budapest has revealed what makes a distant red giant star the most explosively active ...
Astronomy
Oct 21, 2026
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A magnetar can be born when two neutron stars touch
All neutron stars have intense magnetic fields. The typical magnetic field of a neutron star is about 100,000 times stronger than the strongest magnetic fields we can create on Earth. But about 1% of neutron stars have even ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2026
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'Terror of kings': Why the 1066 appearance of Halley's Comet terrified the medieval world
A sequence on the Bayeux Tapestry shows King Harold alongside a crowd gazing at the sky, beneath the embroidered caption Isti mirant stella ("those people marvel at the star"). Above Harold sits Halley's Comet, with ghostlike ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2026
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Aurora supercomputer powers two of the largest cosmological simulations to date
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have completed two of the largest cosmological simulations ever performed. Each simulation modeled the evolution of 13.4 trillion dark matter ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2026
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A pulsar's apparent slowdown reveals a rare stellar trio
Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars, the extremely dense cores left behind when massive stars explode. Astrophysicists have recently observed a pulsar rotating over 300 times per second that appeared to be slowing ...
Hot plasma may explain how rapidly feeding black holes launch powerful jets
Some supermassive black holes rapidly consume surrounding matter while simultaneously firing powerful streams of plasma into space at nearly the speed of light. However, this creates a physical puzzle: rapid feeding is expected ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2026
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The sun may have stripped away meters of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS brought material from another planetary system within reach of our telescopes, but reading its chemistry poses a problem. Energetic particles encountered during its journey through space may ...
Webb reveals metal-rich gas around Milky Way's central black hole
The gas orbiting Sagittarius A (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is rich in metals, researchers at McGill University's Trottier Space Institute have found. The metal enrichment probably ...
Astronomy
Oct 19, 2026
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