The inside of a star turned on itself before it spectacularly exploded, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Today, this shattered star, known as the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, is one of the best-known, well-studied objects in the sky. Over three hundred years ago, however, it was a giant star on … Read more
Scientists have devised a new method for mapping the spottiness of distant stars by using observations from NASA missions of orbiting planets crossing their stars’ faces. The model builds on a technique researchers have used for decades to study star spots. By improving astronomers’ understanding of spotty stars, the new model — called StarryStarryProcess — … Read more
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image offers a new view of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 2835, which lies 35 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra (the Water Snake). The galaxy’s spiral arms are dotted with young blue stars sweeping around an oval-shaped center where older stars reside. This image differs from previously released … Read more
In 2009, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is shaped like a hand. Since then, astronomers have used Chandra and other telescopes to continue to observe this object. Now, new radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), has been combined with Chandra’s X-ray data … Read more
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image zooms in on the feathery spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 45, which lies just 22 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale). The portrait uses data drawn from two complementary observing programs. The first took a broad view of 50 nearby galaxies, leveraging Hubble’s ability to … Read more
This is an illustration of a white dwarf star merging into a red giant star. A bow shock forms as the dwarf plunges through the star’s outer atmosphere. The passage strips down the white dwarf’s outer layers, exposing an interior carbon core. Artwork: NASA, ESA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI) An international team of astronomers has … Read more
The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d intrigues astronomers looking for possibly habitable worlds beyond our solar system because it is similar in size to Earth, rocky, and resides in an area around its star where liquid water on its surface is theoretically possible. But according to a new study using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, … Read more
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be a discovery machine, thanks to its wide field of view and resulting torrent of data. Scheduled to launch no later than May 2027, with the team working toward launch as early as fall 2026, its near-infrared Wide Field Instrument will capture an area 200 times larger than … Read more
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures incredible details in the dusty clouds of a star-forming factory called the Tarantula Nebula. Most of the nebulae Hubble images are in our galaxy, but this nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa. The … Read more
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found strong evidence of a giant planet orbiting a star in the stellar system closest to our own Sun. At just 4 light-years away from Earth, the Alpha Centauri triple star system has long been a compelling target in the search for worlds beyond our solar system. … Read more