New Research Reveals How Circumbinary Planets Form
New research from the University of Bristol reveals how circumbinary planets form. Like the fictional Star Wars planet, Kepler-34(AB)b is a circumbinary planet, so-called because…
Astrophysics News
Astronomers Reconstruct a Short-Lived Nova Explosion
Astronomers have reconstructed the short-lived nova explosion from white dwarf MAXI J0158−744, revealing for the first time the runaway fusion reaction that triggered the blast….
ESO’s VLT Charts First Map of Weather on the Surface of a Brown Dwarf
ESO’s Very Large Telescope has charted the first ever map of the weather on the surface of a Brown Dwarf. An international team has made…
New Research Shows Early Galaxies Grew Massive Through Collisions
A newly published study details how massive galaxies were formed by explosive star formation that was set in motion by the collision of galaxies a…
Subaru Telescope Reveals Active Supermassive Black Holes in Merging Galaxies
Astronomers used the Subaru Telescope to study active supermassive black holes in merging galaxies, revealing that local physical conditions near SMBHs rather than general properties…
NASA Preparing for Comet Siding Spring’s “Close” Flyby of Mars
Astronomers are preparing for Comet Siding Spring, which will pass Mars at a distance 10 times closer than any identified comet has ever flown past…
Evidence Supports Solution to 30-Year-Old Puzzle of Massive Star Formation
Using the Jansky Very Large Array, astronomers have discovered evidence supporting a solution to a 30-year puzzle about the birth of massive stars. An international…
GBT Views River of Hydrogen Flowing through Space
The Green Bank Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen river of hydrogen streaming into the nearby galaxy NGC 6946, helping to reveal how certain spiral galaxies…
Chandra Reveals Shock Heated Gas in Colliding Galaxies
Using images and spectra from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers discovered evidence of shock-heated gas moving at speeds of about 2200 kilometers per second in…
Swift Reveals Before and After Images of Supernova SN 2014J
Swift’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope shows before and after images of supernova SN 2014J, which occurred 12 million light-years away in galaxy M82. An exceptionally close stellar…
Chandra Reveals the Extreme Power of a Distant Black Hole
Astronomers reveal one of the most powerful black holes known. Located in the center of galaxy cluster RX J1532.9+3021, the black hole is 3.9 billion…
Simulations Shed Light on the Formation of Stars in the Earliest Galaxies
Using some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, astrophysicists ran simulations charting the forces of the universe in its first hundreds of millions of years…
T-Dwarf Provides Benchmark for Future Exoplanet Research
Researchers have directly imaged a very rare type of brown dwarf, opening the door towards a fuller understanding of exoplanets. A team of researchers led…
Radiation of Distant Quasar Reveals a Filament of the Cosmic Web
Using the Keck I Telescope, a team of astronomers viewed part of the network of filaments thought to connect galaxies in a cosmic web. Astronomers…
New Gaia-ESO Research Reveals that the Milky Way Formed “Inside-Out”
New research from the Gaia-ESO Survey shows that the inner regions of the Milky Way assembled faster than the outer regions, revealing that the Milky…
The Formation of Pluto and Its Moons
A newly published study looks at the formation of Pluto and its low-mass satellites, finding Pluto and Charon formed from particles that coalesced together in…
Astronomers Find Evidence of Planet Formation Far from the Central Star in a Protoplanetary Disk
Using ALMA, astronomers observed a young star named HD142527 and discovered the first firm evidence of planet formation far from the central star in a…
ALMA Discovers the Youngest Protoplanetary Disk to Date
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, astronomers have discovered the youngest disk around a protostar to date. Planets form in disks around their host…