Brown dwarf stars are failed stars. Their masses are so small, less than about eighty Jupiter-masses, that they lack the ability to heat up their interiors to the roughly ten million kelvin temperatures required for normal ...
Astronomy
Jul 11, 2017
1
54
NASA's SOFIA aircraft, a 747 loaded with a 2.5-meter telescope in the back and stripped of most creature comforts in the front, took a big U-turn over the Pacific west of Mexico.
Astronomy
May 2, 2017
1
440
A remarkable new discovery using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals three stars that now hold the record as the youngest-known examples of a super-fast-flying breed. "Until these observations, only a few—but older—examples ...
Astronomy
Mar 30, 2017
1
284
As British royal families fought the War of the Roses in the 1400s for control of England's throne, a grouping of stars was waging its own contentious skirmish—a star wars far away in the Orion Nebula.
Astronomy
Mar 17, 2017
17
476
In 1936, the young star FU Orionis began gobbling material from its surrounding disk of gas and dust with a sudden voraciousness. During a three-month binge, as matter turned into energy, the star became 100 times brighter, ...
Astronomy
Jun 14, 2016
0
55
NASA engineers recently unveiled the giant golden mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope as part of the integration and testing of the infrared telescope.
Space Exploration
Apr 27, 2016
5
1132
A nebula known as "the Spider" glows fluorescent green in an infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). The Spider, officially named IC 417, lies near a much smaller object ...
Astronomy
Apr 15, 2016
0
63
Astronomers are finding dozens of the fastest stars in our galaxy with the help of images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
Astronomy
Jan 5, 2016
11
1065
Astronomers have discovered a giant gathering of galaxies in a very remote part of the universe, thanks to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The galaxy cluster, located 8.5 billion ...
Astronomy
Nov 4, 2015
4
122
Although this cluster of stars gained its name due to its five brightest stars, it is home to hundreds more. The huge number of massive young stars in the cluster is clearly captured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope ...
Astronomy
Jul 20, 2015
1
72
