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Astronomy news. New! Earth-like extrasolar planet found; double helix nebula; supermassive black holes, astronomy articles, astronomy pictures. Updated daily.
Updated: 38 min 42 sec ago

Sleeping supermassive black holes awakened briefly by shredded stars

Tue, 2024-03-26 17:01
Astronomers have concluded that an obscure class of galaxies known as Compact Symmetric Objects, or CSOs, are not young as previously thought but rather lead relatively short lives.

Tiniest 'starquake' ever detected

Tue, 2024-03-26 10:39
An orange dwarf star has yielded the tiniest 'starquakes' ever recorded, measured by an international team of scientists.

Astronomers discover 49 new galaxies in under three hours

Mon, 2024-03-25 11:41
New work aimed to study the star-forming gas in a single radio galaxy. Although the team didn't find any star-forming gas in the galaxy they were studying, they instead discovered other galaxies while inspecting the data. In total, the gas of 49 galaxies was detected.

James Webb Space Telescope captures the end of planet formation

Fri, 2024-03-22 14:55
How much time do planets have to form from a swirling disk of gas and dust around a star? A new study gives scientists a better idea of how our own solar system came to be.

Signs of life would be detectable in single ice grain emitted from extraterrestrial moons

Fri, 2024-03-22 14:54
Could life be found in frozen sea spray from moons orbiting Saturn or Jupiter? New research finds that life can be detected in a single ice grain containing one bacterial cell or portions of a cell. The results suggest that if life similar to that on Earth exists on these planetary bodies, that this life should be detectable by instruments launching in the fall.

Secrets of the Van Allen belt revealed in new study

Thu, 2024-03-21 15:54
A challenge to space scientists to better understand our hazardous near-Earth space environment has been set in a new study.

High school students contribute to exoplanet discovery

Wed, 2024-03-20 16:05
A group of high school students from Oakland, California, made contributions to the field of exoplanet research. Researchers worked with the students to use backpack-sized digital smart telescopes. These young citizen scientists played a role in observing and confirming the nature of a warm and dense sub-Saturn planet, known as TIC 139270665 b, orbiting a metal-rich G2 star.

Scientists find one of the most ancient stars that formed in another galaxy

Wed, 2024-03-20 16:03
The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new elements across the universe. The iron running in your veins and the calcium in your teeth and the sodium powering your thoughts were all born in the heart of a long-dead star.

Astrophysicist's research could provide a hint in the search for dark matter

Wed, 2024-03-20 12:25
Dark matter is one of science's greatest mysteries. Although it is believed to make up about 85 percent of the cosmos, scientists know very little about its fundamental nature. Research provides some of the most stringent constraints on the nature of dark matter yet. It also revealed a small hint of a signal that, if real, could be confirmed in the next decade or so.

Simulated microgravity effects cause marked changes in gene expression rhythms in humans, study finds

Tue, 2024-03-19 12:30
Simulated effects of microgravity, created by 60 days of constant bed rest, severely disrupts rhythmic gene expression in humans, according to a new study.

Largest-ever map of universe's active supermassive black holes released

Mon, 2024-03-18 14:23
Astronomers have charted the largest-ever volume of the universe with a new map of active supermassive black holes living at the centers of galaxies. Called quasars, the gas-gobbling black holes are, ironically, some of the universe's brightest objects. The new map logs the location of about 1.3 million quasars in space and time, the furthest of which shone bright when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old. The work could help scientists better understand the properties of dark matter.

New research suggests that our universe has no dark matter

Fri, 2024-03-15 16:09
A new study challenges the current model of the universe by showing that, in fact, it has no room for dark matter.

Cheers! NASA's Webb finds ethanol, other icy ingredients for worlds

Wed, 2024-03-13 18:50
What do margaritas, vinegar, and ant stings have in common? They contain chemical ingredients that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has identified surrounding two young protostars known as IRAS 2A and IRAS 23385. Although planets are not yet forming around those stars, these and other molecules detected there by Webb represent key ingredients for making potentially habitable worlds.

Explaining a supernova's 'string of pearls'

Wed, 2024-03-13 13:56
Physicists often turn to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability to explain why fluid structures form in plasmas, but that may not be the full story when it comes to the ring of hydrogen clumps around supernova 1987A, research suggests. It looks like the same mechanism that breaks up airplane contrails might be at play in forming the clumps of hydrogen gas that ring the remnant of supernova 1987A.

Peering into the tendrils of NGC 604 with NASA's Webb

Mon, 2024-03-11 14:59
The formation of stars and the chaotic environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied, but also mystery-shrouded, areas of cosmic investigation. The intricacies of these processes are now being unveiled like never before by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

Nasa’s Webb, Hubble telescopes affirm universe’s expansion rate, puzzle persists

Mon, 2024-03-11 14:58
When you are trying to solve one of the biggest conundrums in cosmology, you should triple check your homework. The puzzle, called the 'Hubble Tension,' is that the current rate of the expansion of the universe is faster than what astronomers expect it to be, based on the universe's initial conditions and our present understanding of the universe's evolution.

Baby quasars: Growing supermassive black holes

Thu, 2024-03-07 11:07
The James Webb Space Telescope makes one of the most unexpected findings within its first year of service: A high number of faint little red dots in the distant Universe could change the way we understand the genesis of supermassive black holes.

Finding new physics in debris from colliding neutron stars

Wed, 2024-03-06 15:06
Neutron star mergers are a treasure trove for new physics signals, with implications for determining the true nature of dark matter, according to physicists.

Astronomers spot oldest 'dead' galaxy yet observed

Wed, 2024-03-06 15:06
A galaxy that suddenly stopped forming new stars more than 13 billion years ago has been observed by astronomers. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a 'dead' galaxy when the universe was just 700 million years old, the oldest such galaxy ever observed.

Discovery tests theory on cooling of white dwarf stars

Wed, 2024-03-06 15:05
Open any astronomy textbook to the section on white dwarf stars and you'll likely learn that they are 'dead stars' that continuously cool down over time. Astronomers are challenging this theory after discovering a population of white dwarf stars that stopped cooling for more than eight billion years.

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