Chandra Reveals Valuable Insight About the Environment of Neutron Stars
Data recorded by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of a neutron star as it passed through a dense patch of stellar wind emanating from its massive…
Cosmology
Breakthrough Allows Astronomers To See What Makes Sagittarius A* Glow
A black hole four million times as massive as our Sun lurks at the center of the Milky Way. This black hole, called Sagittarius A*…
Astronomers Explain Mystery Orbits in Outermost Reaches of Solar System
The strange orbits of some objects in the farthest reaches of our solar system, hypothesised by some astronomers to be shaped by an unknown ninth…
MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey Confirms Puzzling Result
The universe is about 13.8 billion years old, and its stars are arguably its most momentous handiwork. Astronomers studying the intricacies of star formation across…
Hypernova Observations Reveal the Death of the Massive Stars
The end of a star’s life can occur in a tranquil manner in the case of low mass stars, such as the Sun. This is…
Scientists Reveal Orderly Chaos of Black Holes
An international consortium of scientists studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) as part of the POLAR (GRB polarimeter) experiment has revealed that high-energy photon emissions from black…
Astronomers Discover Double Star System That Flipped Planet-Forming Disk
New research that included astronomers Luca Matra and David J. Wilner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics has found the first confirmed example of a…
Chandra Views Never Before Seen Behavior From Giant Black Hole
Astronomers have discovered behavior by a jet from a giant black hole that has never been seen before. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory they have…
GAIA Reveals For the First Time Crystallization in White Dwarfs
Data captured by ESA’s galaxy-mapping spacecraft Gaia has revealed for the first time how white dwarfs, the dead remnants of stars like our Sun, turn…
Astronomers Discover Companion Star That Made a White Dwarf Explode
Many stars explode as luminous supernovae when, swollen with age, they run out of fuel for nuclear fusion. But some stars can go supernova simply…
Scientists Detect X-Ray Pulse Near Event Horizon
Pulse pattern suggests distant black hole must be spinning at least at 50 percent the speed of light. On Nov. 22, 2014, astronomers spotted a…
Astronomers Study Mysterious Blast with NASA Telescopes
A brief and unusual flash spotted in the night sky on June 16, 2018, puzzled astronomers and astrophysicists across the globe. The event — called…
Astronomers Discover the Brightest Quasar to Date in the Early Universe
Researchers have discovered the brightest quasar yet known, detected from the period when the universe’s star-making hydrogen gas became ionized, known as “reionization.” The international…
New Technique Reveals ‘Missing’ Galactic Mergers
Galaxy mergers—in which two galaxies join together over billions of years in sometimes-dramatic bursts of light—aren’t always easy for astronomers to spot. Now, scientists from…
Stellar Wind is Preventing More Stars From Forming in the Orion Nebula
The stellar wind from a newborn star in the Orion Nebula is preventing more new stars from forming nearby, according to new research using NASA’s…
Scientists Find Evidence That Dark Matter Can Be Heated Up and Moved
Scientists have found evidence that dark matter can be heated up and moved around, as a result of star formation in galaxies. The findings provide…
Astrophysicists Predict Milky Way is Headed For Catastrophic Collision
New research led by astrophysicists at Durham University, UK, predicts that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) could hit the Milky Way in two billion years’…
New Horizons Reaches Most Distant Target in History
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year’s Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic…