Enjoy a Stellar Walk Through the Universe – Chile Chill 12 Fire in the Heavens
Before the scientific discoveries made using ESO telescopes can find themselves on your screen, they pass through the expert hands of talented visual artists and…
Space News
Astronomers Discover Companion Star That Made a White Dwarf Explode
Many stars explode as luminous supernovae when, swollen with age, they run out of fuel for nuclear fusion. But some stars can go supernova simply…
Scientists Detect X-Ray Pulse Near Event Horizon
Pulse pattern suggests distant black hole must be spinning at least at 50 percent the speed of light. On Nov. 22, 2014, astronomers spotted a…
Astronomers Study Mysterious Blast with NASA Telescopes
A brief and unusual flash spotted in the night sky on June 16, 2018, puzzled astronomers and astrophysicists across the globe. The event — called…
Astronomers Discover the Brightest Quasar to Date in the Early Universe
Researchers have discovered the brightest quasar yet known, detected from the period when the universe’s star-making hydrogen gas became ionized, known as “reionization.” The international…
ESO Image of the Week – A Portrait of a Beauty
Nuzzled in the chest of the constellation Virgo (the Virgin) lies a beautiful cosmic gem — the galaxy Messier 61. This glittering spiral galaxy is aligned face-on…
New Technique Reveals ‘Missing’ Galactic Mergers
Galaxy mergers—in which two galaxies join together over billions of years in sometimes-dramatic bursts of light—aren’t always easy for astronomers to spot. Now, scientists from…
Learn More About The New Worlds TESS Has Discovered
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has found three confirmed exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, in its first three months of observations. The…
TESS Discovers Its Third Small Planet Outside Our Solar System
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, has discovered a third small planet outside our solar system, scientists announced this week at the annual American Astronomical…
Hubble Captures Sharpest View Ever of the Triangulum Galaxy
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the most detailed image yet of a close neighbour of the Milky Way — the Triangulum Galaxy, a…
Stellar Wind is Preventing More Stars From Forming in the Orion Nebula
The stellar wind from a newborn star in the Orion Nebula is preventing more new stars from forming nearby, according to new research using NASA’s…
Hubble Image of the Week – The Heart of the Lion
It might appear featureless and unexciting at first glance, but NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations of this elliptical galaxy — known as Messier 105 —…
Scientists Find Evidence That Dark Matter Can Be Heated Up and Moved
Scientists have found evidence that dark matter can be heated up and moved around, as a result of star formation in galaxies. The findings provide…
Astrophysicists Predict Milky Way is Headed For Catastrophic Collision
New research led by astrophysicists at Durham University, UK, predicts that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) could hit the Milky Way in two billion years’…
Chandra Detects Circumnuclear Molecular Torus of AGN in NGC 5643
Most galaxies host supermassive black holes at their nuclei, each with millions or billions of solar-masses of material. There is thought to be a torus…
New Ultima Thule Discoveries from New Horizons Spacecraft
Data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which explored Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule earlier this week, is yielding scientific discoveries daily. Among the findings made…
New Horizons Reaches Most Distant Target in History
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year’s Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic…
OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Enters Close Orbit Around Bennu
At 2:43 p.m. EST on December 31, while many on Earth prepared to welcome the New Year, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, 70 million miles (110 million…