Astronomers Discover A Black Hole Disk That Shouldn’t Exist
As if black holes weren’t mysterious enough, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found an unexpected thin disk of material furiously whirling around a…
Cosmology
Chameleon Theory Could Change How Scientists Think About Gravity
Einstein’s theory of General Relativity is world famous – but it might not be the only way to explain how gravity works and how galaxies…
Astronomers Discover Supermassive Black Holes on a Collision Course
Astronomers have spotted a distant pair of titanic black holes headed for a collision. Each black hole’s mass is more than 800 million times that…
ALMA Provides First Bird’s-Eye View of Massive Star Growth
Astronomers obtained the first detailed face-on view of a gaseous disk feeding the growth of a massive baby star. They found that it shares many…
ALMA Discovers Earliest Example of Merging Galaxies
Researchers using the radio telescope ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) observed signals of oxygen, carbon, and dust from a galaxy in the early Universe 13…
Compounds Discovered in Meteorites May Hold Clues to the Origin of Life
Cyanide and carbon monoxide are both deadly poisons to humans, but compounds containing iron, cyanide, and carbon monoxide discovered in carbon-rich meteorites by a team…
Astronomers Confirm the Low Density of Kepler Exoplanets
The Kepler mission and its extension, called K2, discovered thousands of exoplanets. It detected them using the transit technique, measuring the dip in light intensity…
Astronomers Discover Cool Halo Gas Spinning Like Galactic Disks
A group of astronomers led by Crystal Martin and Stephanie Ho of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has discovered a dizzying cosmic choreography among…
Moon Contains Clues to the Ancient Mysteries of the Sun
The Sun is why we’re here. It’s also why Martians or Venusians are not. When the Sun was just a baby four billion years ago,…
New Class of ‘Cold Quasars’ Was Unknown Until Now
Astronomers have discovered a new class of “cold quasars” that could change our perception of how galaxies mature. The discovery was announced June 12 at…
Scientists Trace Co-Evolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes
The formation and growth of galaxies in the early universe is a key research topic for future giant telescopes like the Giant Magellan Telescope and…
Astronomers Discover Ring Around Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
Through decades of study, astronomers have developed a clearer picture of the chaotic and crowded neighborhood surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of…
Map of the Entire Sky in X-Rays Recorded by NASA’s NICER
In this image, numerous sweeping arcs seem to congregate at various bright regions. You may wonder: What is being shown? Air traffic routes? Information moving…
Ancient Supernovae Prompted Human Ancestors to Walk Upright
Did ancient supernovae induce proto-humans to walk on two legs, eventually resulting in homo sapiens with hands free to build cathedrals, design rockets and snap…
Unique Experiments Will Study Cosmic Clashes and Their Mysterious Aftermath
What happens when two supermassive black holes collide? Combining the observing power of two future ESA missions, Athena and LISA, would allow us to study…
Scientists Gain Better Understanding of Exotic Matter in Sun’s Atmosphere
Scientists from Ireland and France today announced a major new finding about how matter behaves in the extreme conditions of the Sun’s atmosphere. The scientists…
Comet Discovery Reopens Debate About The Origin of Earth’s Water
Where did the Earth’s water come from? Although comets, with their icy nuclei, seem like ideal candidates, analyses have so far shown that their water…
Chandra Discovers New Signal for Neutron Star Collision
A neutron star merger without an observed gamma-ray burst has been discovered using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result gives astronomers another way to track…
