Interplay Between Magnetic Force and Gravity in Massive Star Formation
The magnetic field is part of one of the four fundamental forces in nature. It plays a vital role in everyday life, from producing electricity…
Astronomy
Untangling the Formation of Planetary Systems With Heavy Hydrogen
An international research team using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed the distribution of heavy hydrogen, or deuterium, in planet formation sites with the…
Exploring Alien Planets: New Cereal Box-Sized Spacecraft Has Mighty Goals
A new miniature satellite designed and built at CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) is providing proof that “cute” things can take on…
Invisible Colors: Why Astronomers Use Different Radio Bands To Observe the Universe
Radio light comes in a rainbow of colors. We see these colors with radio bands, and each band has a story to tell about the…
Something Big Just Crashed Into Jupiter!
In 1994, the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) impacted Jupiter, which had captured the comet shortly before (and broken apart by its gravity). The event became…
Magnetic Structures Observed Near Supermassive Black Hole
A new view of the region closest to the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87) has shown important details…
Peering Into the Moon’s Shadows: AI Provides Sharper Images of Lunar Craters That Contain Water Ice
Permanently shadowed lunar craters contain water ice, but are difficult to image. A machine learning algorithm now provides sharper images. The Moon’s polar regions are…
First Light From Sun-Watching Sunstorm CubeSat
Around the same size as two big Harry Potter paperbacks, ESA’s Sun-watching Sunstorm CubeSat has produced its first solar X-ray spectrum, coming just over a week after its launch…
“Dead” Galaxies Mysteriously Ran Out of Fuel To Make Stars in the Early Universe
Hubble Finds Early, Massive Galaxies Running on Empty “Live fast, die young” could be the motto of six early, massive, “dead” galaxies that ran out…
Astronomers Have Discovered a Gigantic Sphere-Shaped Cavity in Space
Gigantic cavity in space sheds new light on how stars form. Astronomers analyzing 3D maps of the shapes and sizes of nearby molecular clouds have…
Moon’s Tycho Crater Revealed in Intricate Detail – Powerful New Radar Technology Will Reveal Secrets of the Solar System
The National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Observatory (GBO) and National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and Raytheon Intelligence & Space (RI&S) have released a new high-resolution…
Mysterious “Empty Sky” Gamma-Ray Puzzle Solved – May Lead Astrophysicists To Unravel Dark Matter
Star-forming galaxies are responsible for creating gamma-rays that until now had not been associated with a known origin. Star-forming galaxies are responsible for creating gamma-rays…
“Reddening” Clusters and Constellations: Hubble Captures Densely Packed Sparkling Starfield Near the Center of the Milky Way
This sparkling starfield, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, contains the globular cluster ESO 520-21…
This Is What It Looks Like When a Black Hole Snacks on an Unlucky Star
Analyzing observations of an X-ray flare and fitting the data with theoretical models, University of Arizona astronomers documented a fatal encounter between an unlucky star…
Don’t Miss the Harvest/GRAIL Moon + Other Notable Celestial Events
The Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon; the Fruit or Barley Moon; the Corn Moon; the start of the Sukkoth Holiday; the Mid-Autumn, Mooncake,…
Extensive Chemical Composition Mapping Reveals Carbon-Rich, Organic Birth Environments of Planets
Scientists connect the dots between where planets form and what they’re made of. An international collaboration of scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)…
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Congratulates Winners of Breakthrough Prize Awards
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) congratulates the four astronomers honored by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation which awarded them the 2022 New Horizons in Physics…
Astronomers Solve 900-Year-Old Cosmic Mystery Surrounding Famous Chinese Supernova of 1181AD
A 900-year-old cosmic mystery surrounding the origins of a famous supernova first spotted over China in 1181AD has finally been solved, according to an international…