Astronomy News

January 16, 2016

Second Largest Black Hole in Milky Way?

Extreme Turbulence in 'Most Luminous Galaxy'

Mysterious Matter Moments After Big Bang

Most Powerful Supernova Ever Seen

Latest Headlines

updated 8:38pm EST

'Green Pea' Galaxy Provides Insights to Early Universe Evolution

Jan. 13, 2016 — Astronomers gain a new understanding of the re-ionization of the universe by studying a nearby dwarf 'green ... read more

First Light for Future Black Hole Probe

Jan. 13, 2016 — Zooming in on black holes is the main mission for the newly installed instrument GRAVITY at ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile. During its first observations, GRAVITY ... read more

Runaway Stars Leave Infrared Waves

Jan. 12, 2016 — Astronomers have discovered roughly 100 of the fastest-moving stars in the Milky Way galaxy with the aid of images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared ... read more

NASA's Great Observatories Weigh Massive Young Galaxy Cluster

Jan. 7, 2016 — Astronomers have made the most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster using three of NASA's Great Observatories. This multiwavelength image shows ... read more

NASA's Fermi Space Telescope Sharpens Its High-Energy Vision

Jan. 8, 2016 — Major improvements to methods used to process observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have yielded an expanded, higher-quality set of data that allows ... read more

Quiet Quasar Has Apparently Eaten Its Fill

Jan. 9, 2016 — Astronomers have announced that a distant quasar ran out of gas. Their conclusions clarify why quasar SDSS J1011+5442 changed so dramatically in the handful of years ... read more

Galaxy Quakes Could Improve Hunt for Dark Matter

Jan. 7, 2016 — A trio of brightly pulsating stars at the outskirts of the Milky Way is racing away from the galaxy and may confirm a method for detecting dwarf galaxies dominated by dark ... read more

Momentum Builds for Creation of 'Moon Villages'

Jan. 6, 2016 — Villages on the moon, constructed through cooperation between astronauts and robotic systems on the lunar surface, could become a reality as early as 2030. That's the consensus of a recent ... read more

Most Distant Massive Galaxy Cluster Identified

Jan. 7, 2016 — Astronomers have detected a massive, sprawling, churning galaxy cluster that formed only 3.8 billion years after the Big Bang. Located 10 billion light years from Earth and ... read more

Lab Discovery Gives Glimpse of Conditions Found on Other Planets

Jan. 6, 2016 — Scientists have recreated an elusive form of the material that makes up much of the giant planets in our solar system, and the sun. Experiments have given a glimpse of a ... read more

A New Company — And Another Astronaut — Will Be Heading To The ISS

This Supernova Is 570 Billion Times Brighter Than The Sun

What's Up January 2016

Space to Ground: A Look Back: 12/25/15

By the Dozen: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Mirrors

Jan. 7, 2016 — One dozen flight mirrors are now installed on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, out of the eighteen mirror segments that make up the primary mirror. The assembly of the primary mirror is an ... read more

'Seeing' Black Holes With a Home-Use Telescope

Jan. 6, 2016 — All you need is a 20 cm telescope to observe a nearby, active black hole. An international research team reports that the activity of such phenomena can be observed by visible light during outbursts, ... read more

'Twins' of Superstar Eta Carinae Found in Other Galaxies

Jan. 6, 2016 — Eta Carinae, the most luminous and massive stellar system located within 10,000 light-years of Earth, is best known for an enormous eruption seen in the mid-19th century that hurled an amount of ... read more

Globular Clusters Could Host Interstellar Civilizations

Jan. 6, 2016 — Globular star clusters are extraordinary in almost every way. They're densely packed, holding a million stars in a ball only about 100 light-years across on average. They're old, dating ... read more

Black Hole Affecting Galactic Climate Identified

Jan. 5, 2016 — Researchers used NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, launched and deployed in 1999 by Space Shuttle Columbia, to identify a powerful galactic blast produced by a giant black hole about 26 million ... read more

Runaway Stars Leave Infrared Waves in Space

Jan. 5, 2016 — Astronomers are finding dozens of the fastest stars in our galaxy. When some speedy, massive stars plow through space, they can cause material to stack up in front of them in the same way that water ... read more

Andromeda Galaxy Scanned With High-Energy X-Ray Vision

Jan. 5, 2016 — NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured the best high-energy X-ray view yet of a portion of our nearest large, neighboring galaxy, Andromeda. The space mission has ... read more

Physics Professor Using 3-D Map of the Milky Way to Determine Its Star Formation Rate

Jan. 5, 2016 — Researchers have been trying to locate all massive star formation regions and to determine where they are in the galaxy, creating a three-dimensional map of where our galaxy is forming massive ... read more

Astronomers Find New Way to Measure the Pull of Gravity at the Surface of Distant Stars

Jan. 4, 2016 — Researchers have found a new way to measure the pull of gravity at the surface of a star. For distant stars with planets orbiting them, this information is key in determining whether any of those ... read more

Mysterious Radio Signals from Space Are Much Better Test of Einstein's General Relativity

Jan. 4, 2016 — A new way to test one of the basic principles underlying Einstein's theory of General Relativity using brief blasts of rare radio signals from space called Fast Radio Bursts is 10 to 100 times ... read more

Discovering a Previously Unknown Mechanism That Halts Solar Eruptions Before They Blast Into Space

Dec. 23, 2015 — ... read more

U.S. Demonstrates Production of Fuel for Missions to the Solar System and Beyond

Dec. 23, 2015 — The first U.S. production in nearly 30 years of a specialized fuel to power future deep space missions has been completed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National ... read more

NASA Suspends 2016 Launch of InSight Mission to Mars

Dec. 23, 2015 — After thorough examination, NASA managers have decided to suspend the planned March 2016 launch of the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission. ... read more

Cassini Completes Final Close Enceladus Flyby

Dec. 22, 2015 — NASA's Cassini spacecraft has begun transmitting data and images from the mission's final close flyby of Saturn's active moon Enceladus. Cassini passed Enceladus at a distance of 3,106 ... read more

Lowdown on Ceres: Images from Dawn's Closest Orbit

Dec. 22, 2015 — NASA's Dawn spacecraft, cruising in its lowest and final orbit at dwarf planet Ceres, has delivered the first images from its best-ever viewpoint. The new images showcase details of the cratered ... read more

Giant Comets Could Pose Danger to Life on Earth

Dec. 22, 2015 — The discovery of hundreds of giant comets in the outer planetary system over the last two decades means that these objects pose a much greater hazard to life than asteroids, a team of astronomers ... read more

Einstein's Cross Under the Gravitational Microlens

Dec. 21, 2015 — Spanish astrophysicists obtain precise measurements for an object orbiting a black hole five billion light-years away. This is like detecting the ridges of a one euro coin located 100,000 kilometers ... read more

Rocket Gets Brief Glimpse of a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Dec. 18, 2015 — Rocketeers have launched the most sensitive instrument they’ve ever used to explore outer space, seeking clues to how galaxies grow with the birth of new stars, and how they stop ... read more

Black Holes Could Grow as Large as 50 Billion Suns Before Their Food Crumbles Into Stars, Research Shows

Dec. 18, 2015 — Black holes at the heart of galaxies could swell to 50 billion times the mass of the sun before losing the discs of gas they rely on to sustain themselves, according to ... read more

Hubble Sees the Force Awakening in a Newborn Star

Dec. 17, 2015 — Just in time for the release of the movie "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens," NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed what looks like a cosmic, double-bladed ... read more

Thursday, January 7, 2016