Tag: Astronomy
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Supernova leftovers preserve evidence of a messy blowup that wrecked two stars
This artist’s view shows a white dwarf star accumulating material from a nearby red giant star. Ultimately, the white dwarf erupts into a supernova. (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canaria Illustration / Romano Corradi) In what sounds like a cosmic episode of “CSI,” sleuthing astronomers have figured out what touched off a stellar explosion 545 million…
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Controllers troubleshoot problem with Hubble camera
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated Jan. 11 with correction regarding the field-of-view of the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis took this photo of the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. Credit: NASA The partial shutdown of the U.S. government could complicate efforts to troubleshoot a suspected hardware problem with the Hubble Space Telescope’s…
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Could Barnard’s Star harbor an icy home for life? Astronomers weigh the options
An artist’s conception shows three planets around a red dwarf star. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) Where’s the nearest exoplanet with conditions that are right for life? Over the past couple of years, astrobiologists have talked up Proxima Centauri b, which is sitting just 4.2 light-years away. But Villanova University astrophysicist Edward Guinan favors a world…
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Hubble team has bad news for aliens: Red dwarfs seem to wipe out life’s necessities
An artist’s conception shows the red dwarf star AU Microscopii with a hypothetical planet and moon in the foreground. (NASA / ESA Illustration / G. Bacon) Red dwarf stars have been seen as the biggest potential frontier for alien life, in part because they’re the most common stars in our galaxy. But observations made using…
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3-D views reveal ‘Orion’s Dragon’ in space
A color-coded image that’s based on SOFIA infrared data shows “Orion’s Dragon” in the Orion Nebula, more than 1,300 light-years from Earth. (NASA / USRA / DLR Image) Spectral readings from the Orion Nebula have charted the cosmic weather patterns for powerful stellar winds that have created a bubble of material that’s 12 light-years wide,…
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‘Oumuamua’s discovery points to plethora of interstellar objects in our galaxy
This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar object discovered in the solar system, ‘Oumuamua. (NASA / ESA / Hubble Illustration / M. Kornmesser) The cigar-shaped object known as ‘Oumuamua may be the first interstellar interloper to be discovered, but it’s not likely to be the last. Statistics suggest that there are lots more space rocks…
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Government shutdown is putting a damper on science in Seattle and elsewhere
Arata Expositions’ Jason Edwards puts down a “Welcome” sign for the American Astronomical Society’s winter meeting at the Seattle Convention Center. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) It’s been called the “Super Bowl of Astronomy,” but when the American Astronomical Society’s winter meeting plays out in Seattle this week, some of the stars won’t be taking…
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Einstein’s right again: Star obeys relativity as it whirls around Milky Way’s black hole
News Brief: A 26-year-long observational campaign provides clear evidence of the effect that general relativity has on the motion of a star known as S2 as it boomerangs around the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The redshift observations, made in infrared wavelengths using instruments on the European Southern Observatory’s…
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Antarctic IceCube observatory tracks a single neutrino to solve cosmic ray puzzle
In this artistic rendering, a blazar is accelerating protons that produce pions, which produce neutrinos and gamma rays. One neutrino’s path is represented by a blue line passing through Antarctica, while a gamma ray’s path is shown in pink. (IceCube / NASA Illustration) An array of detectors buried under a half-mile-wide stretch of Antarctic ice…
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NASA delays Webb Space Telescope’s liftoff to 2020, says it may bust $8B budget
An artist’s conception shows the James Webb Space Telescope with its five-layered, foldable sunshield. Issues with the sunshield have contributed to launch delays. (NASA Illustration) NASA is delaying the scheduled launch of its next flagship observatory, the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, by a year — which may hike its cost so high that Congress…