New Clues About Eta Carinae – The Star That Wouldn’t Die
What happens when a star behaves like it exploded, but it’s still there? About 170 years ago, astronomers witnessed a major outburst by Eta Carinae,…
What happens when a star behaves like it exploded, but it’s still there? About 170 years ago, astronomers witnessed a major outburst by Eta Carinae,…
GW170817 is the name given to a gravitational wave signal seen by the LIGO and Virgo detectors on August 17, 2017. Lasting for about 100…
When NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launches into space from the Kennedy Space Center, it will begin its journey to the Sun, our nearest star. The…
Observations from the Gemini South and other telescopes in Chile played a critical role in understanding light echoes from a stellar eruption which occurred almost…
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have made the first radio-telescope detection of a planetary-mass object beyond our…
Thin, red veins of energized gas mark the location of one of the larger supernova remnants in the Milky Way galaxy in this image from…
Astronomers have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist….
When a spacecraft built for humans ventures into deep space, it requires an array of features to keep it and the crew inside safe. Both…
Earthbound detectives rely on fingerprints to solve their cases; now astronomers can do the same, using “light-fingerprints” instead of skin grooves to uncover the mysteries…
This image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) shows a beautiful spiral galaxy called NGC 6744. At first glance,…
Our Sun’s beginnings are a mystery. It burst into being 4.6 billion years ago, about 50 million years before the Earth formed. Since the Sun…
Astronomers have made the first definitive detection of a radioactive molecule in interstellar space: a form, or isotopologue of aluminum monofluoride (26AlF). The new data – made…
This summer, humanity embarks on its first mission to touch the Sun: A spacecraft will be launched into the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Facing several-million-degree Fahrenheit…
For thousands of years, people have been puzzling over the milky strip that extends across the entire firmament. In the modern era, Galileo Galilei discovered…
Astronomers in the past decade have detected thousands of galaxies dating from epochs only a few billion years after the big bang. Many of them,…
An international collaboration operating NASA’s NuSTAR satellite has revealed that two of the biggest stars in the galaxy are capable of creating cosmic rays. Their…
Obtained for a research program on star formation in old and distant galaxies, this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image obtained with its Wide Field Camera…
In the blink of an eye, a massive star more than 2 billion light-years away lost a million-year-long fight against gravity and collapsed, triggering a…