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…
Cosmology
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…
Astrophysicists Publish a ‘Survival Guide’ for Exoplanets
Small, hardy planets packed with dense elements have the best chance of avoiding being crushed and swallowed up when their host star dies, new research…
Astronomers Reveal Suppressed Star Formation in the Early Universe
Massive clusters of galaxies, some with more mass than a hundred Milky Way galaxies, have been detected from cosmic epochs as early as about three…
Spitzer Reveals Clues to How Ancient Galaxies Lit up the Universe
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed that some of the universe’s earliest galaxies were brighter than expected. The excess light is a byproduct of the…
Blue Supergiant Stars Shimmer Because of Waves on Their Surface
Blue supergiants are rock ‘n’ roll: they live fast and die young. This makes them rare and difficult to study. Before space telescopes were invented,…
New Hubble Telescope View of the Evolving Universe
Astronomers have put together the largest and most comprehensive “history book” of galaxies into one single image, using 16 years’ worth of observations from NASA’s…
Stardust Shines New Light on the Formation of the Solar System
The study of a tiny grain of stardust — older than our solar system — is shining new light on how planetary systems are formed….
Evidence of How a Dwarf Galaxy Contributes to Growth of the Milky Way
Small stellar systems like dwarf galaxies are suggested to be the main building blocks of our Galaxy. However, it is unclear how many and what…
Important Threshold Crossed in Mystery of the Universe’s Expansion Rate
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope say they have crossed an important threshold in revealing a discrepancy between the two key techniques for measuring the…
VERITAS Collaboration Measures Smallest Star Size to Date
Scientists in the VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) Collaboration have published a paper in Nature Astronomy journal detailing the results of their…
Scientists Discover the First Type of Molecule Formed in the Universe
The first type of molecule that ever formed in the universe has been detected in space for the first time, after decades of searching. Scientists…
Astronomers Reveal First Direct Visual Evidence of a Supermassive Black Hole
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of…