Carbon-Rich Stardust Grains Unlock Astrophysical Mysteries
Dust is everywhere — not just in your attic or under your bed, but also in outer space. To astronomers, dust can be a nuisance…
Dust is everywhere — not just in your attic or under your bed, but also in outer space. To astronomers, dust can be a nuisance…
When scientists searching for exoplanets — worlds located beyond our solar system — first spotted patterns in disks of dust and gas around young stars,…
For many years, astronomers had a simple view of our Milky Way’s central hub, or bulge, as a quiescent place composed of old stars, the…
Statistical analysis of supermassive black holes suggests that the spin of the black hole may play a role in the generation of powerful high-speed jets…
At a special session held during the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C., scientists on the Dark Energy Survey (DES) announced today the public…
A rapidly growing black hole — known as an active galactic nuclei — has been seen turning off and then on again. This supermassive black…
Astronomers are observing star-forming regions in our galaxy with NASA’s flying telescope, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, to understand the processes and environments…
Astronomers have looked back to a time soon after the Big Bang, and have discovered swirling gas in some of the earliest galaxies to have…
Recent observations of a mysterious and distant object that emits intermittent bursts of radio waves so bright that they’re visible across the universe provide new…
Through first-of-their-kind supercomputer simulations, researchers, including a Northwestern University professor, have gained new insight into one of the most mysterious phenomena in modern astronomy: the…
Astronomers from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, Northwestern University, and the University of Maryland were on hand at the 231st meeting of the…
In 2013, researchers announced that a pebble found in southwest Egypt was definitely not from Earth. By 2015, other research teams had announced that the…
The direct detection of gravitational waves from at least five sources during the past two years offers spectacular confirmation of Einstein’s model of gravity and…
The spots on the surface of the Sun come and go with an 11-year periodicity known as the solar cycle. The solar cycle is driven…
This visualization shows the motion of one electron in the magnetic reconnection region. As the spacecraft approaches the reconnection region, it detects first high-energy particles,…
A team of more than 200 researchers, including Penn State Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Assistant Professor Jason Wright and led by Louisiana State University’s…
At first glance, it would seem to be impossible to look inside a star. An international team of astronomers, under the leadership of Earl Bellinger…
Young galaxies blaze with bright new stars forming at a rapid rate, but star formation eventually shuts down as a galaxy evolves. A new study,…