Astronomers Develop New Method to Determine Oxygen Abundance in Stars
Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have developed a new computational method to determine the abundance of oxygen in these and similar stars, and…
Astronomy News
Fermi Helps Link Cosmic Neutrino to Blazar Blast
Nearly 10 billion years ago, the black hole at the center of a galaxy known as PKS B1424-418 produced a powerful outburst. Light from this…
Galaxy Clusters Reveal Information About Dark Energy
Researchers are using a large sample of galaxy cluster to investigate dark energy, showing that dark energy has not changed over billions of years. Astronomers…
Astronomers Discover Moon Orbiting the Dwarf Planet Makemake
Using the Hubble Space Telescope a team of astronomers just discovered a moon orbiting dwarf planet Makemake — the third-largest known object past the orbit…
Astronomers Use Light Echoes to Measure Protoplanetary Disk
Using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and four ground-based telescopes, astronomers determine the distance from a star to the inner rim of its surrounding…
Astronomers Gain a Better Understanding of Spica
A newly published study details Spica, an eccentric double-lined spectroscopic binary system with a β Cep type variable primary component. The familiar star Spica (Alpha…
New Horizons Image Shows Pluto’s ‘Halo’ Craters
This newly released image from the New Horizons Spacecraft looks within Pluto’s informally named Vega Terra region, showing a field of eye-catching craters that looks…
Hubble Views the Bubble Nebula
Just in time for the 26th anniversary of Hubble’s launch on April 24, 1990, the telescope has photographed an enormous, balloon-like bubble being blown into…
Scientists Identify a Free-Floating, Planetary-Mass Object in TW Hydrae
New data from WISE and its predecessor, the Two Micron All Sky Survey, reveals the lowest-mass free-floating object in TW Hydrae family — a likely…
Fermi Observations Poised to Pin Down Gravitational Wave Sources
Fermi observations are helping researchers gain a much deeper understanding of gravitational waves. On September 14, waves of energy traveling for more than a billion…
New Images Reveal More Details on Ceres’ Craters
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has revealed marvelous sights on dwarf planet Ceres during its first year in orbit, including the mysterious bright spots in Occator Crater….
Hubble Image of the Week – Elegance Conceals an Eventful Past
This newly released Hubble image shows lenticular galaxy NGC 4111. The elegant simplicity of NGC 4111, seen here in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble…
New Horizons Shows Pluto’s Haze Varies in Brightness
New images from NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft reveal that Pluto’s haze varies in brightness. Scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission team are learning more about…
Cassini Y-Shaped Discontinuity on Enceladus
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft views a Y-shaped discontinuity on Enceladus’ south pole. A sinuous feature snakes northward from Enceladus’ south pole like a giant tentacle. This…
Zipf’s Law from Scale-free Geometry – Like Galaxies, Like Cities
Abstract: The spatial distribution of people exhibits clustering across a wide range of scales, from household (∼10−2 km) to continental (∼104 km) scales. Empirical data…
New Spitzer Image: A Space Spider Watches Over Young Stars
This new infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows IC 417, which is about 10,000 light-years away….
New Discovery Challenges Dark Matter, Stellar Acceleration Models
Astronomers have discovered a hypervelocity binary star that challenges dark matter and stellar acceleration models. A team of astronomers at the Friedrich Alexander University led…
Stars Strip Away the Atmosphere of Super-Earths
Even a super-Earth can fly too close to the sun, according to a new study from Yale University. An international team of astronomers has found…