Light echoes from V838 Mon

(Phys.org) —What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon's outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January ...

Milestone for European navigation system

Galileo, Europe's rival to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), passed a milestone Tuesday when it pinpointed its first-ever ground location, the European Space Agency said.

Blue bursts of hot young stars captured by Hubble

(Phys.org) —This image, speckled with blue, white and yellow light, shows part of the spiral galaxy IC 5052. Surrounded in the image by foreground stars in our own galaxy, and distant galaxies beyond, it emits a bright ...

Explainer: what is GPS?

It's a device used widely in cars, on smartphones and in fitness devices. But what exactly is GPS, and how is it able to pinpoint our exact location anywhere on Earth?

Hubble observes glowing, fiery shells of gas

(Phys.org) —It may look like something from "The Lord of the Rings," but this fiery swirl is actually a planetary nebula known as ESO 456-67. Set against a backdrop of bright stars, the rust-colored object lies in the constellation ...

Light-travel-time effect finds new astronomical applications

Sometimes the tried and true methods are still the best, even in observational astronomy. Researchers at the University of Prague demonstrated this recently in a study of the eclipsing binary system V994 Herculis (V994 Her).

Hubble sees a glowing jet from a young star

(Phys.org)—This image shows an object known as HH 151, a bright jet of glowing material trailed by an intricate, orange-hued plume of gas and dust. It is located some 460 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus ...

A cosmic snake for Chinese New Year

Gong Hey Fat Choy! Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year and what better way to celebrate the Year of the Black Snake than with a look at an enormous shadowy cosmic serpent, the Snake Nebula!

The origin and maintenance of a retrograde exoplanet

Astronomers have used the Subaru Telescope to show that the HAT-P-7 planetary system, which is about 1040 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, includes at least two giant planets and one companion star (Figure ...

Atacama Pathfinder Experiment: Setting the dark on fire

(Phys.org)—A new image from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile shows a beautiful view of clouds of cosmic dust in the region of Orion. While these dense interstellar clouds seem dark and obscured ...

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