NASA Skywatching Tips for March 2021 [Video]
What’s Up for March? Mars and friends in the evening, and a brilliant pair of planets returns… In the first week or so of March,…
Astronomy
New Clues to Remains of Star That Exploded Just Outside Our Galaxy
What remains of the star that exploded just outside our galaxy in 1987? Debris has obscured scientists’ view, but two of NASA’s X-ray telescopes have…
Volcanoes Might Light Up the Night Sky of This Super-Earth Exoplanet
Until now, researchers have found no evidence of global tectonic activity on planets outside our solar system. Under the leadership of the University of Bern…
Doubling the Number of Known Gravitational Lenses Using Artificial Intelligence
Machine learning key to discovery of over 1200 gravitational lenses. Data from the DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) Legacy Imaging Surveys have revealed over 1200…
Incredible Engineering Marvel: Sixth Mirror Cast for Giant Magellan Telescope
The 8.4-meter mirror joins five of the world’s largest mirrors previously cast for the Giant Magellan Telescope, one of the world’s largest and most anticipated…
Incredible New “Cosmic Eyewear” to Deepen the View of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be able to explore even more cosmic questions, thanks to a new near-infrared filter. The upgrade will allow…
Mars, Pleiades, Jupiter, Saturn and Other Skywatching Highlights for March 2021
What’s Up for March? Mars and friends in the evening, and a brilliant pair of planets returns… In the first week or so of March,…
Alien Super-Earth Planet Discovered Just 26 Light Years Away – Probably Has an Atmosphere
During the past 25 years astronomers have discovered a wide variety of exoplanets, made of rock, ice, and gas, thanks to the construction of astronomical…
Astronomers See Whirlwind of Dust and Pebbles Around Possible Exoplanet-in-the-Making
An international team of astronomers led by researchers from the Leiden University has discovered a whirlwind of dust and pebbles in orbit around a young…
Astronomers Locate Source of Hazardous High-Energy Particles in the Sun
The source of potentially hazardous solar particles, released from the Sun at high speed during storms in its outer atmosphere, has been located for the…
Super-Earth Atmospheres Probed With Sandia National Lab’s Powerful Z Machine
A step in the search for life elsewhere in the galaxy. The huge forces generated by the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories are being…
Astrophysicist’s 2004 Theory Confirmed: Why the Sun’s Chemical Composition Varies
About 17 years ago, J. Martin Laming, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, theorized why the chemical composition of the Sun’s tenuous outermost…
New Observations of First Black Hole Ever Detected Leads to Questions About the Universe’s Most Mysterious Objects
Cygnus X-1, a binary star system first discovered in 1964, comprises one of the closest black holes to Earth. New observations of this black hole,…
Big, Beautiful and Blue: Hubble Captures Immense Galaxy That Stretches 200,000 Light-Years Across
NGC 2336 is the quintessential galaxy — big, beautiful and blue — and it is captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The barred…
Sensing Suns: Astronomers Accurately Measure the Temperature of Red Supergiant Stars
Red supergiants are a class of star that end their lives in supernova explosions. Their lifecycles are not fully understood, partly due to difficulties in…
Measuring the Expansion of the Universe: Surprising Discrepancies Hint at Inconsistency in the Composition of the Universe
Ever since the astronomer Edwin Hubble demonstrated that the further apart two galaxies are, the faster they move away from each other, researchers have measured…
Star’s Destruction by Supermassive Black Hole Linked to Origin of Universe’s Highest-Energy Particles
A team of scientists has detected the presence of a high-energy neutrino—a particularly elusive particle—in the wake of a star’s destruction as it is consumed…
Reclusive Neutron Star May Have Been Found in Famous Supernova SN 1987A
Astronomers now have evidence from two X-ray telescopes (Chandra and NuSTAR) for a key component of a famous supernova remnant. Supernova 1987A was discovered on…