Astronomy News

September 9, 2016

Hundreds of Undiscovered Black Holes Revealed

Rare Fossil Relic of Early Milky Way

Reconciling Dwarf Galaxies With Dark Matter

First Gravitational Waves Form Quickly

Latest Headlines

updated 12:40am EDT

Detailed Age Map Shows How Milky Way Came Together

Sep. 6, 2016 — Using colors to identify the approximate ages of more than 130,000 stars in the Milky Way's halo, astronomers have produced the clearest picture yet of how the galaxy formed more than 13.5 billion ... read more

The Supernova That Wasn't: A Tale of Three Cosmic Eruptions

Sep. 2, 2016 — Long-term observations with the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that Eta Carinae, a very massive star system that has puzzled astronomers since it erupted in a supernova-like ... read more

NASA's SDO Witnesses a Double Eclipse

Sep. 2, 2016 — Early in the morning of Sept. 1, 2016, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, caught both Earth and the moon crossing in front of the sun. SDO keeps a constant eye on the ... read more

New Light on the Complex Nature of 'Hot Jupiter' Atmospheres

Sep. 2, 2016 — A team of international researchers used state-of-the-art modelling techniques to extensively study the atmosphere of a 'hot Jupiter' found 150 light-years from Earth. The ... read more

First Stars Formed Even Later Than Previously Thought

Sep. 2, 2016 — ESA's Planck satellite has revealed that the first stars in the Universe started forming later than previous observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background indicated. This ... read more

Jupiter's North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System

Sep. 2, 2016 — NASA's Juno spacecraft has sent back the first-ever images of Jupiter's north pole, taken during the spacecraft's first flyby of the planet with its instruments switched on. ... read more

Images from Sun's Edge Reveal Origins of Solar Wind

Sep. 1, 2016 — Ever since the 1950s discovery of the solar wind -- the constant flow of charged particles from the Sun -- there's been a stark disconnect between this outpouring and the sun ... read more

Discovery One-Ups Tatooine, Finds Twin Stars Hosting Three Giant Exoplanets

Aug. 31, 2016 — Scientists have discovered three giant planets in a binary star system composed of stellar 'twins' that are also effectively siblings of our Sun. One star hosts two planets ... read more

Anomalous Grooves on Martian Moon Phobos Explained by Impacts

Aug. 30, 2016 — Some of the mysterious grooves on the surface of Mars' moon Phobos are the result of debris ejected by impacts eventually falling back onto the surface to form linear chains ... read more

The Rise and Fall of Galaxy Formation

Aug. 30, 2016 — Astronomers have charted the rise and fall of galaxies over 90 percent of cosmic history. The FourStar Galaxy Evolution Survey has built a multicolored photo album of ... read more

The First Star-Visiting Probe Will Need Some Ambitious Engineering

Nearby Earth-Like Planet Discovered

'Earth-Like' Planet Found Just Outside Solar System

What We Know So Far About Earth's New Twin

Planet Nine Could Spell Doom for Solar System

Aug. 30, 2016 — The solar system could be thrown into disaster when the sun dies if the mysterious 'Planet Nine' exists, according to new ... read more

NASA Team Probes Peculiar Age-Defying Star

Aug. 29, 2016 — For years, astronomers have puzzled over a massive star lodged deep in the Milky Way that shows conflicting signs of being extremely old and extremely young. Researchers initially classified the star ... read more

Proxima B Is in Host Star's Habitable Zone, but Could It Really Be Habitable?

Aug. 29, 2016 — The world's attention is now on Proxima Centauri b, a possibly Earth-like planet orbiting the closest star, 4.22 light-years away. The planet's orbit is just right to allow liquid water on ... read more

Milky Way Had a Blowout Bash 6 Million Years Ago

Aug. 29, 2016 — The center of the Milky Way galaxy is currently a quiet place where a supermassive black hole slumbers, only occasionally slurping small sips of hydrogen gas. But it wasn't always this way. A ... read more

Hunt for Ninth Planet Reveals New Extremely Distant Solar System Objects

Aug. 29, 2016 — In the race to discover a proposed ninth planet in our Solar System, researchers have observed several never-before-seen objects at extreme distances from the Sun in our Solar ... read more

Scientists Discover a ‘dark’ Milky Way

Aug. 26, 2016 — Using the world's most powerful telescopes, an international team of astronomers has found a massive galaxy that consists almost entirely of dark ... read more

Can One Cosmic Enigma Help Solve Another?

Aug. 24, 2016 — Astrophysicists have proposed a clever new way to shed light on the mystery of dark matter, believed to make up most of the universe. The irony is they want to try to pin down the nature of this ... read more

35 Years On, Voyager's Legacy Continues at Saturn

Aug. 24, 2016 — Saturn, with its alluring rings and numerous moons, has long fascinated stargazers and scientists. After an initial flyby of Pioneer 11 in 1979, humanity got a second, much closer look at this ... read more

NASA's WISE, Fermi Missions Reveal a Surprising Blazar Connection

Aug. 24, 2016 — Astronomers using observations from NASA's WISE and Fermi missions have confirmed a connection between the infrared and gamma-ray light emitted by blazars, a class of distant galaxies powered by ... read more

Cosmic Neighbors Inhibit Star Formation, Even in the Early Universe

Aug. 24, 2016 — Researchers have discovered four of the most distant clusters of galaxies ever found, as they appeared when the universe was only 4 billion years old. This sample is now providing the best ... read more

Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star

Aug. 24, 2016 — Astronomers have found clear evidence of a planet orbiting the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri. The long-sought world, designated Proxima b, orbits its cool red parent star every 11 days and ... read more

Test for Damp Ground at Mars' Seasonal Streaks Finds None

Aug. 23, 2016 — Seasonal dark streaks on Mars that have become one of the hottest topics in interplanetary research don't hold much water, according to the latest findings from a NASA spacecraft orbiting ... read more

NASA Establishes Contact With STEREO Mission

Aug. 23, 2016 — NASA has reestablished contact with its STEREO-B spacecraft, after communications were lost on Oct. 1, 2014. Over 22 months, the STEREO team has worked to attempt contact with the spacecraft. Most ... read more

Fossilized Rivers Suggest Warm, Wet Ancient Mars

Aug. 23, 2016 — Extensive systems of fossilized riverbeds have been discovered on an ancient region of the Martian surface, supporting the idea that the now cold and dry Red Planet had a warm and wet climate about 4 ... read more

Young Heavyweight Star Discovered in the Milky Way

Aug. 21, 2016 — A young star over 30 times more massive than the sun could help us understand how the most extreme stars in the universe are ... read more

The Comet That Disappeared: What Happened to Ison?

Aug. 19, 2016 — Comet ISON, a bright ball of frozen matter from the earliest days of the universe, was inbound from the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system and expected to pierce the Sun's corona on ... read more

A New Goldilocks for Habitable Planets

Aug. 19, 2016 — The search for habitable, alien worlds needs to make room for a second 'Goldilocks,' according to a researcher. A new study suggests that simply being in the habitable zone isn't ... read more

Venus-Like Exoplanet Might Have Oxygen Atmosphere, but Not Life

Aug. 18, 2016 — The distant planet GJ 1132b intrigued astronomers when it was discovered last year. Located just 39 light-years from Earth, it might have an atmosphere despite being baked to a temperature of around ... read more

NASA Prepares to Launch First U.S. Asteroid Sample Return Mission

Aug. 17, 2016 — NASA is preparing to launch its first mission to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth. The mission will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our ... read more

NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission Completes Design Milestone

Aug. 17, 2016 — Following a key program review, NASA approved the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) to proceed to the next phase of design and development for the mission's robotic segment. ARM is a two-part ... read more

Tuesday, August 30, 2016