Tag: Astrophysics
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Space science in 2024: Moon missions, Martian milestones, astrophysics discoveries, and more
2024 was another busy year for space science, with many new missions, successes, and discoveries across the solar system and beyond. Three new missions were launched to the Moon, while one mission was canceled, and Curiosity and Perseverance continued to explore and make discoveries in their respective regions on Mars. Beyond the Earth-Moon system and…
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Astronomers use Hubble to discover rare intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauri
Using the joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope in low-Earth orbit, an international team of astronomers has discovered a rare black hole within Omega Centauri — the largest and brightest known globular cluster in the Milky Way. Globular clusters are large collections of stars and other cosmic material that can span…
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Spitzer gives scientists insights into black hole eating habits
Using data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have gained new insights into the eating habits of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies throughout the universe. These black holes often fluctuate in brightness from the massive clumps of cosmic material falling into them. However, this is not true for the black holes…
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Event Horizon Telescope reveals magnetic fields around the Milky Way’s central black hole
Astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration have found strong magnetic fields spiraling around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, named Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). In 2022, the EHT Collaboration released the first image of Sgr A*, revealing that it looked very similar to the much larger black hole at…
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ESA reveals Euclid’s first five images
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the first full-color images from Euclid, the agency’s latest space telescope designed to study the nature and distribution of dark matter and dark energy in the universe. During a video broadcast on Nov. 7, scientists, engineers, and agency officials unveiled the telescope’s first five images. The images reveal…
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Scientists, using Webb, discover water vapor within a planet-forming disk
Using the joint NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope, a team of scientists has discovered, for the first time, water vapor within a planet-forming disk. The water vapor, which was found within the inner disk of two circumstellar disks around star PDS 70, is allowing scientists to research the ways by which…
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Something in space has been lighting up every 20 minutes since 1988
On Wednesday, researchers announced the discovery of a new astronomical enigma. The new object, GPM J1839–10, behaves a bit like a pulsar, sending out regular bursts of radio energy. But the physics that drives pulsars means that they’d stop emitting if they slowed down too much, and almost every pulsar we know of blinks at…
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SpaceX launches ESA’s Euclid Telescope to explore the dark universe
SpaceX launched its 45th mission of the year, carrying the Euclid telescope from the European Space Agency (ESA). Liftoff was Saturday, July 1, at 11:12 AM EDT (15:12 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in Florida. ESA’s Euclid will observe a large portion of the sky and deep into the past of the universe…
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With Webb, scientists make first detection of carbon molecule in protoplanetary disk
With new data collected by the joint NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of scientists has — for the first time ever — detected a carbon molecule within the protoplanetary disk of a star located in the Orion Nebula. The molecule, called methyl cation (CH3+), is quite unique. The…
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Webb unveils the secrets of the early universe via deep field, peers into stellar nurseries
With help from the joint NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists are peering deep into the universe and uncovering secrets that were previously hidden from visible and X-ray telescopes. The JWST advanced deep extragalactic survey (JADES) utilized Webb’s incredible deep-field surveying abilities to create a deep field that shows over…