Westerlund 1 is the biggest and closest "super" star cluster to Earth. New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, in combination with other NASA telescopes, is helping astronomers delve deeper into this galactic factory ...
Astronomy
Jun 10, 2024
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61
Planets form in disks of gas and dust, orbiting young stars. The MIRI Mid-INfrared Disk Survey (MINDS), led by Thomas Henning from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany, aims to establish a ...
Astronomy
Jun 6, 2024
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360
An international team of astronomers today announced the discovery of the two earliest and most distant galaxies ever seen, dating back to only 300 million years after the Big Bang. These results, using NASA's James Webb ...
Astronomy
May 30, 2024
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374
While investigating 16 years of images of young stars from a retired astronomical camera, Leiden master's student Sam de Regt discovered that two of those stars were still enveloped in birth clouds that had not been seen ...
Astronomy
Apr 3, 2024
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384
There's a population of planets that drifts through space untethered to any stars. They're called rogue planets or free-floating planets (FFPs.) Some FFPs form as loners, never having enjoyed the company of a star. But most ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 2, 2024
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76
Every time a star forms, it represents an explosion of possibilities. Not for the star itself; its fate is governed by its mass. The possibilities it signifies are in the planets that form around it. Will some be rocky? Will ...
Astronomy
Mar 27, 2024
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29
Planets form in disks of dust and gas called protoplanetary disks that whirl around a central protostar during its final assembly. Although several dozens of such disks have been imaged, just two planets have been caught ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 27, 2024
1
546
The James Webb Space Telescope continues to surprise us with stunning pictures, but of what exactly? Astronomer Nienke van der Marel shows with three images how massive stars lead short but explosive lives.
Astronomy
Mar 25, 2024
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218
FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A, the bright star-like object near the middle of the image, and FS Tau B (Haro 6-5B), the bright object to the far right that is partially obscured by a dark, vertical lane ...
Astronomy
Mar 25, 2024
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28
When we look out to the stars, it is typically not a yearning for the distant depths of outer space that drives us. When we are looking out there, we are truly looking back at ourselves. We try to understand our place in ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 16, 2024
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