What Was The Universe Like Before The Big Bang?
A team of scientists has proposed a powerful new test for inflation, the theory that the universe dramatically expanded in size in a fleeting fraction…
Cosmology
New Visualization Provides Ultra HD View of Our Galaxy Center
Want to take a trip to the center of the Milky Way? Check out a new immersive, ultra-high-definition visualization. This 360-movie offers an unparalleled opportunity…
Fermi Discovers ‘Cannonball’ Pulsar Speeding Through Space
Astronomers found a pulsar hurtling through space at nearly 2.5 million miles an hour — so fast it could travel the distance between Earth and…
Chandra Reveals Galactic Storm Raging in Teacup Galaxy
Fancy a cup of cosmic tea? This one isn’t as calming as the ones on Earth. In a galaxy hosting a structure nicknamed the “Teacup,”…
Scientists Discover 83 Quasars Powered by Supermassive Black Holes
Astronomers from Japan, Taiwan and Princeton University have discovered 83 quasars powered by supermassive black holes in the distant universe, from a time when the…
Astronomers Have A New Theory On Interstellar Rock ‘Oumuamua
Astronomers at Yale and Caltech say that ‘Oumuamua, the much-discussed interstellar space rock, is best viewed as a comet with odd properties — and not…
Surprising Discovery Revealed After Sifting Through Solar System Dust
Just as dust gathers in corners and along bookshelves in our homes, dust piles up in space too. But when the dust settles in the…
Astronomers Discover Closest High-Mass Stellar Objects Ever Measured
Astronomers have discovered a binary star system with the closest high-mass young stellar objects ever measured, providing a valuable “laboratory” to test theories on high…
Hubble & Gaia Reveal Weight of the Milky Way: 1.5 Trillion Solar Masses
In a striking example of multi-mission astronomy, measurements from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the ESA Gaia mission have been combined to improve the…
SOFIA Explores Supergalactic Wind, Provides Clues to Evolution of Galaxies
The Cigar Galaxy (M82) is famous for its extraordinary speed in making new stars, with stars being born 10 times faster than in the Milky…
Why So Many Planets Outside Our Solar System Have An Odd Configuration
For almost a decade, astronomers have tried to explain why so many pairs of planets outside our solar system have an odd configuration — their…
Astronomers Discover Brown Dwarf Binary Star with Microlensing
Brown dwarfs are stars less massive than the sun and unable to burn hydrogen. They comprise (at least in mass) a bridge between planets and…
New Observations Show Clumps of Gas Swirling Around Black Hole
The supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A*, is by far the closest such object to us, only…
Stellar Flyby Helped Shape Our Solar System 3 Million Years Ago
Some of the peculiar aspects of our solar system — an enveloping cloud of comets, dwarf planets in weird orbits and, if it truly exists,…
New Idea Helps Explain Why Galaxies Have The Shapes They Do
Dark matter may scatter against each other only when they hit the right energy, say researchers in Japan, Germany, and Austria in a new study….
Scientists Discover Solar Tadpole-Like Jets Coming Out Of The Sun
Scientists have discovered tadpole-shaped jets coming out of regions with intense magnetic fields on the Sun. Unlike those living on Earth, these “tadpoles” — formally…
SOFIA Reveals Clues to the Evolution of Universe
A compilation of scientific results from The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, reveal new clues to how stars form and galaxies evolve, and closer…
ESA’s Gaia Satellite Discovers Billion-Year-Old River of Stars
Astronomy & Astrophysics published the work of researchers from the University of Vienna, who have found a river of stars, a stellar stream in astronomical…