Astronomy News (215 articles)

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has discovered a galaxy tail studded with bright knots of new stars. The tail, which was created as the galaxy IC 3418 plunged into the neighboring Virgo cluster of galaxies, offers new insight into how stars form. "The gas in this galaxy is being blown back...

Published on 17 June 2010, 13:53

Categories: Astronomy Galaxy Tail IC 3418 Galaxies Star Formation Virgo cluster

MIAMI — The discovery of a planetary system "out of whack," where the orbits of two planets are at a steep angle to each other, was reported today (May 24) by a team of astronomers led by Barbara McArthur of The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory.This surprising finding will...

Published on 24 May 2010, 14:43

Categories: Planetary Science Astronomy Upsilon Andromedae Planetary Systems

A Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory scientist is shattering theories that asteroids are just barren chunks of space rock.In the April 29 issue of the journal Nature, Andy Rivkin of APL and Joshua Emery of the University of Tennessee report the first detection of both water ice and...

Published on 1 May 2010, 12:08

Categories: Asteroids Planetary Science 24 Themis Ice Themis Astronomy

A Neptune-sized exoplanet orbiting a small star about 33 light years away could be a key stepping stone on the path to making sense of an Earth twin.The finding is the latest advance in the quest to measure Earth-like planets that could possibly host signs of life, which researchers expect to...

Published on 22 April 2010, 04:13

Categories: Exoplanets GJ 436b Planetary Science Hot Neptune Astronomy

PASADENA, Calif. -- For the first time, scientists have detected clear signs of recent lava flows on the surface of Venus.The observations reveal that volcanoes on Venus appeared to erupt between a few hundred years to 2.5 million years ago. This suggests the planet may still be geologically...

Published on 8 April 2010, 14:16

Categories: Venus Lava Volacanoes Volcanic activity Astronomy

Ground-based CHARA Array enables unprecedented images of a double star system some 2,000 light years from Earth.For the first time, a team of astronomers has imaged the eclipse of the star Epsilon Aurigae by its mysterious, less luminous companion star. Very high-resolution images, never...

Published on 7 April 2010, 15:05

Categories: Astronomy Stars Epsilon Aurigae Eclipse CHARA Array

BERKELEY — On Earth, helium is a gas used to float balloons, as in the movie "Up."In the interior of Jupiter, however, conditions are so strange that, according to predictions by University of California, Berkeley, scientists, helium condenses into droplets and falls like rain.Helium rain was...

Published on 22 March 2010, 13:09

Categories: Astronomy Gas Helium Helium rain Jupiter Jupiter's atmosphere Planetary Science

Scientists have found a massive galaxy in the early Universe creating stars like our sun up to 100 times faster than the modern-day Milky Way.The team of international researchers, led by Durham University, described the finding as like seeing “a teenager going through a growth spurt”.Due to...

Published on 21 March 2010, 13:53

Categories: Astronomy Massive galaxy Milky Way SMM J2135-0102 Star formation Stars

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– An international team of scientists, including several who are affiliated with UC Santa Barbara, has discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The finding is published in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature.The planet, called CoRoT-9b, was discovered by...

Published on 17 March 2010, 15:23

Categories: CoRoT-9b Planets Serpens Cauda Astronomy Extrasolar planet CoRoT space telescope satellite

Giant filaments of cold dust stretching through the coldest regions of our Galaxy are revealed in new images, released today (17th March), from ESA’s (European Space Agency) Planck satellite. Analysing these structures could help to determine the forces that shape our Galaxy and trigger...

Published on 17 March 2010, 07:41

Categories: Giant filaments Filaments Cold dust Galaxy Astronomy Cosmic Microwave Background CMB Planck Dust

BERKELEY — An analysis of more than 70,000 galaxies by University of California, Berkeley, University of Zurich and Princeton University physicists demonstrates that the universe – at least up to a distance of 3.5 billion light years from Earth – plays by the rules set out 95 years ago by...

Published on 11 March 2010, 04:55

Categories: Dark Matter Universe Theory of Relativity Gravity TeVeS theory Dark energy Astronomy

An international team of astronomers, including Professor Tom Marsh and Dr Danny Steeghs from the University of Warwick, have shown that the two stars in the binary HM Cancri definitely revolve around each other in a mere 5.4 minutes. This makes HM Cancri the binary star with by far the shortest...

Published on 10 March 2010, 05:55

Categories: Astronomy Stars HM Cancri Binary star Binary system

Pasadena, CA— Astronomers have found the first clear evidence of a binary quasar within a pair of actively merging galaxies. Quasars are the extremely bright centers of galaxies surrounding super-massive black holes, and binary quasars are pairs of quasars bound together by gravity. Binary...

Published on 4 February 2010, 14:57

Categories: Binary Quasar Quasars Galaxies Astronomy SDSS J1254+0846

The discovery and characterisation of a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere is a step closer thanks to a new observation technique, developed by astronomers at NASA and UCL, using surprisingly small ground-based telescopes.Published in Nature (3 February 2010), astronomers have identified...

Published on 4 February 2010, 04:54

Categories: Astronomy Planet atmospheres Exoplanets HD 189733

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For decades, astronomers have analyzed the impact that asteroids could have on Earth. New research by MIT Professor of Planetary Science Richard Binzel examines the opposite scenario: that Earth has considerable influence on asteroids — and from a distance much larger than...

Published on 20 January 2010, 14:33

Categories: Asteroid Seismology Asteroids Astronomy Meteorites Near-Earth asteroids NEAs Planetary Science

By studying a triple planetary system that resembles a scaled-up version of our own Sun’s family of planets, astronomers have been able to obtain the first direct spectrum — the “chemical fingerprint” [1] — of a planet orbiting a distant star [2], thus bringing new insights into the...

Published on 13 January 2010, 05:30

Categories: Astronomy Exoplanets HR 8799 Planetary system Planets Spectrum

Pasadena, CA—Astronomers, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, have broken the distance limit for galaxies by uncovering a primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that have never been seen before. They are from 13 billion years ago, just 600 to 800 million years after the Big...

Published on 5 January 2010, 10:59

Categories: Astronomy Big Bang Galaxies Stars

PASADENA, Calif.—Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system—aside from our home planet, Earth—with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. According to planetary astronomer Mike Brown of the California...

Published on 18 December 2009, 06:13

Categories: Titan Astronomy Saturn Fog Planetary Science Clouds Methane

Charbonneau team realizes major advance in discovering habitable planets.Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a "super-Earth" orbiting a red dwarf star only 40 light-years from Earth. They found this nearby planet with a small fleet of ground-based telescopes no larger than those...

Published on 16 December 2009, 13:46

Categories: Astronomy Dwarf GJ1214b Habitable planets MEarth Planets Super Earth

Cambridge, MA - About 550 light-years from Earth, a star like our Sun is writhing in its death throes. Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that it would swallow every planet out to Mars in our solar system. Moreover, it has begun to pulse dramatically in and out,...

Published on 15 December 2009, 09:25

Categories: Chi Cygni Stars Red Giant Star Astronomy Sun